Workers, community organisations, youth and left activists came out in many lively demonstrations across the country in support of SAFTU’s call for a nation-wide stay-away on February 24 to protest the brutal austerity budget put forward by the ANC. Slogans at the demonstrations raised demands such as implementation of the 2018 public sector collective bargaining agreement, a basic income grant, housing, climate justice, and an end to mass unemployment. There were also calls for a socialist world.
Anti-poor, anti-worker budget
SAFTU National Organiser and WASP member, Lebohang Phanyeko stated that “We know [the] budget will be anti-poor, anti-development, anti-worker,” and this was confirmed on Wednesday. It contained what can only be described as insulting increases in social grants – ranging from a meagre R10 to R30 a month! Despite a persistent budget shortfall made worse by the lower tax revenue collection for 2020, Mboweni’s ANC has seemingly abandoned any serious plan to increase taxes on the rich, and instead continue their campaign of forcing the working class to pay for the crises of capitalism. Like the VAT increase in 2019, the new 26 cent increase in the fuel levy will mean more money out of the pockets of working people.
The Covid vaccination procurement and rollout is also to be funded by the national treasury, with over R10 Billion allocated. Mass vaccination is vitally important for us as workers and communities to be able to organise, protest, strike, work, and go to school in conditions that are healthy and safe. However, the ANC government is not only afraid to increase taxes on the bosses’ class in the most unequal country in the world, but has no interest in carrying out the nationalisation of health care and other industries profiting off basic human needs. And so the poor and working class will pay for this vaccine in cuts to other necessary services. This is hardly a “free” vaccine as the ANC makes out, and we must demand a pandemic tax on big business to fund the rollout. Additionally, this rollout and procurement programme must be democratically controlled by healthcare industry workers and patients to defend against parasitic tenderpreneurs and further profiteering off the pandemic.
The reliance on cuts to the public sector wage bill as the main tactic for creating a “surplus” budget for the future cements the ANC’s mission to slash socially necessary jobs and undermine wages not only in the public sector, but the private sector too. In the past year, the ANC’s wage freezes signalled to the bosses in the private sector that they too could cut and freeze workers’ wages. The announcement of 800 000 jobs being created is in complete contradiction to this approach, and indicates strongly that these jobs will be of the same exploitative nature we see in the EPWP programmes, where workers earn far below even the poverty minimum wage.
Broad layers out in protest
In spite of real fears around Covid, multiple socially-distanced, safe protests and demonstrations went ahead in most major centres. In terms of numbers of demonstrations, this was possibly the most decentralised labour strike in recent times, with several simultaneous actions in every city.
In Johannesburg alone, three separate demonstrations occurred: at the Gauteng Legislature, the CCMA, and Baragwanath Hospital. In Tshwane the march went to different government offices, starting with the Department of Infrastructure, and then continuing to the Department of Health. SAFTU had demonstrations also in KZN, North West, the Free State, and the Eastern and Western Cape. There were workplace strikes at Arcellor Mittal, Clover, and motorcades of trade union activists in Durban and Cape Town to name a few examples.
It was not only SAFTU that mobilised for the day. Campaign Against CCMA Cuts also mobilised pickets of mainly precarious workers organized in Simunye Workers Forum and Gauteng Community Health Workers, and community advice offices workers at CCMA offices in Kroonstad, Cape Town and Gqeberha (previously Port Elizabeth), Johannesburg and Benoni. The Gauteng Housing Crisis Committee, and C19 People’s Coalition, with its affiliated organisations like #PayTheGrants, Equal Education, R2K and Fighting Inequality Alliance, amongst others also turned out.
As WASP, we actively organised and participated in many of these protest actions in Johannesburg, Tshwane, Cape Town and Bloemfontein. We also mobilised for the stay-away across the country, in the days leading up to February 24th.
Protest actions in Tshwane and Johannesburg were a colourful spectacle of a united working class front with resilience, militancy and determination to fight – including the early-morning mass pickets outside Baragwanath hospital andthe highway motorcade from Soweto to Johannesburg central, where SAFTU activists joined with the pickets at CCMA. Together with the Gauteng Housing Crisis Committee and C19 People’s Coalition activists, many proceeded to the Johannesburg Central Police Station. Spirits were high, with singing, toyi-toying and socializing between trade unions and left activists from across movements of the working class.
Cape Town saw mobilisations on the 24 February and days leading to that. There was a picketing by #BudgetJusticeCampaign, Right to Protest, SASCO, amongst others. Demonstrations, however, were met with brutal suppression by the police. After SAFTU’s repeated attempts to apply with the city to march to parliament were denied, activists decided to form a motorcade of vehicles to legally drive through the city to Parliament. Police decided that this was also not permitted and ordered the assembled vehicles to disperse prior to the start.
SAFTU provincial secretary Andre Adams challenged this and was met with a violent reaction by police in their moves to arrest him. Demonstrators, including WASP members, formed a human barricade to protect Adams and defend the democratic right to protest, which resulted in the police releasing stun grenades on the crowd. In a scene reminding us of Apartheid state repression, Adams was attacked with chemical spray and arrested. Nadine Simons, DEMAWUSA Provincial Chairperson, was also detained. A second demonstration was boldly brought to the oppressor’s face at the Cape Town Central Police Station with signs and song to defiantly show support for Adams and Simons.
After finally being released in the early morning hours the next day, SAPS is seemingly delaying their day in court further by using a reportedly common delay tactic with convenient lost paperwork to keep them in disciplinary limbo. We demand that SAPS immediately drop all charges and to hold accountable those responsible for the unwarranted and unprovoked violence against Adams, Simons and the other protestors.
Poor organization by SAFTU
No official estimates have been published with regards to the impact of the stay-away. However, it is likely that production suffered only a limited impact and many workers were not aware of the call for a national stay-away due to last minute and poor mobilisation by SAFTU.
SAFTU failed to issue leaflets for mobilisation, and posters were only distributed to select regions a mere two days before the action. In Gauteng, shop steward councils in all regions were called on a day’s notice, on the 21 st of February, three days before the strike action. The situation in other regions was no better. SAFTU leadership relied almost entirely on the bourgeois media to generate the momentum for the general strike. When this did work, many provincial leaderships of SAFTU wrongly gave up and abandoned plans for protest actions in Limpopo, Mpumalanga and other provinces. SAFTU only released plans for demonstrations on 22 February, which never reached many SAFTU members, let alone unorganized workers, activists and many communities eager to join the demonstrations. At best, SAFTU leadership took a leap of faith. The support for the actions that took place reflect the hunger for action on the part of the many activists, and the mood of anger at the austerity and capitalist attacks that cut across all the sections of the working class at the present moment.
SAFTU’s attempt to reach out to other sections of the working class was even worse. Having failed to reconvene the Working Class Summit since a promising 2018 assembly at the Soweto campus of the University of Johannesburg, SAFTU reconvened the Summit only on the 18th of February. Without shop stewards present, and based on short notice to communities, only 60 activists turned up for the Summit on Zoom, with much less actively participating.
In spite of the poor leadership and preparation on the part of SAFTU, there was a notable impact in some areas. There was less traffic in Johannesburg and some major factories were shut down. In Gauteng, NUMSA managed to shutdown a Arcellor Mittal plant and in Western Cape, GIWUSA brought the Milnerton plant of Clover to a standstill to mention only a few instances.
Political impact of the stay-away
The political impact of the day, however, was significant. During the demonstrations, it was evident that many workers saw the action as an important step by SAFTU after a prolonged paralysis. The wide ranging endorsements from labour, community and political organisations on the left bolstered the morale of the working class movement. It also laid bare the possibilities of a united working class front SAFTU could have crystallised with a clear programme and adequate preparation.
Although the scathing criticism of SAFTU leadership by mainly CWAO and Khanya College was fundamentally correct, the warnings were clearly exaggerated. From a Marxist point of view, whether the strike has been a success or not, is primarily how the workers themselves view its outcome, and its impact on the strengthening of workers’ organisation and confidence to struggle. It is vital in our assessment of the strike to note that workers see this as part of the rising tide of struggles that earnestly began with the October 7th General Strike. These have been a welcome release from the paralysis that gripped the movement under the lockdown and opened the gates for an avalanche of actions in various workplaces, including the 2020 Clover strike where WASP played an important role.
SAFTU’s last minute approach compelled its leadership to revive its Campaigns Committee and shop steward councils. This represents a step forward and potential for greater coordination between affiliates, active engagement and organised shop steward participation. There is a groundswell of anger and determination to resist the capitalist class’s most savage attempts at restructuring industry to boost profits in the face of the catastrophic economic situation. Conservative tendencies of the trade union bureaucracy that are insulated from the bitter class war taking place in workplaces pose an obstacle to the workers movement that can only be overcome by building the militant rank-and-file on the shop floor.
Importantly, SAFTU has regained ground with layers of working class people inside and outside its ranks as a ‘fighting alternative’ to the complete capitulation of trade union federations in NEDLAC i.e. COSATU, FEDUSA and NACTU. The widespread support of the action and SAFTU itself for ‘at least trying its best’, positions SAFTU to build on the momentum of this action.
Next steps
The current momentum must be used by SAFTU to immediately reconvene its Shop Stewards Council, campaign for a Joint Shop Steward Councils with COSATU, NACTU, FEDUSA and AMCU amongst others, and organise another Working Class Summit. The Working Class Summit must bring in mass formations of precarious workers; working class communities in service delivery, anti-eviction and land struggles; youth movements; students facing budget cuts; migrant, gender and environmental justice movements; etc.
SAFTU should propose a clear fighting programme and put forward a timetable for the next mass actions. At least two months notice is required to mobilise for a successful strike in the current climate, and SAFTU should call on volunteers to work with its staff in doing this work. Establishing a campaign levy and fundraising appeals is crucial to fund the war chest needed for these mass actions. SAFTU must make use of its shop steward councils, campaigns coordinating committees and the Working Class Summit, to organise brigades of campaign volunteers put up posters, distribute leaflets and bulletins in industrial areas, shopping and commercial centres, in taxi ranks, train stations, in communities, campuses and everywhere they are needed. Plans of actions including logistics of the protest actions should be highly-publicised well in advance.
Sustained mass actions, such as occupations and multiple-day long general strikes, must be used as a tool to roll back the neoliberal attacks and tip the balance of forces. This can transform the current defensive struggles into working class offensive.
Along with these mobilisations, SAFTU should put forward the strategy to build a working class power and for a socialist transformation of society as the only ultimate guarantee for an end to working class poverty, and growing misery. SAFTU is already putting forward ideas like nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy under the democratic control and management of the working class. This is an essential part of such a strategy. However it is crucial that SAFTU outlines concrete tasks and steps to achieving this – the creation of a mass revolutionary workers party as mandated by its founding congress must take up a central role in the next period.
To workers, communities, and the youth it is clear that actions like October 7th and February 24th will not reverse the ANC’s determination to increase inequality in South Africa, while enriching themselves. This is why the working class requires a serious commitment to sustained rolling mass actions until our demands are met. We have witnessed a growth in consciousness and fighting spirit in spite of the debilitating pandemic and economic recession. We must seize this moment to propel the working class movement forward- defending hard won rights, but also building towards a socialist, worker controlled post-pandemic future.
