What we stand for

Work & Income

  1. Decent jobs for all – end unemployment through a massive public works programme of socially-useful jobs including the building of houses, roads, schools and hospitals; struggle for a living wage of R12 500 per month for all full-time workers; end outsoucing, labour broking and make all contract workers permanent. Organise the unorganised.
  2. For a 30 hour working week and the sharing out of work with no loss of pay to address unemployment, improve workers’ quality of life and lay the basis for workers’ control of the economy
  3. For a basic income grant of R8 000 for all those not in work – unemployed, pensioners, disabled and struggle veterans

Service delivery

  1. For free, sufficient and accessible public services for all; stop cut-offs and evictions
  2. End homelessness with a mass public works programme to build decent homes for all those in need, roads and free, accessible and sufficient electricity, water, sanitation and social services for all
  3. For publicly funded, free, accessible and high quality education for all from nursery to university; cancel student debt and end financial and academic exclusions
  4. For publicly funded and free, accessible and high quality health care for all run under the democratic control of patients, communities and health workers; nationalise the private health providers, insurers and pharmaceutical companies
  5. For an affordable, efficient and integrated public transport system; scrap e-tolls
  6. For a mass public waste recycling programme linked to creating sustainable and quality jobs

Economy

  1. Nationalise under democratic working class and community control the banks, the mines, the commercial farms, the big factories and big businesses.
  2. A publicly owned and democratically planned socialist economy to meet the needs of all and not the profits of the capitalists.

The Land

  1. Nationalise the 36,000 commercial farms that control 95% of agricultural land; support and debt cancellation for small and subsistence farmers
  2. Democratically elected community committees to determine the use of non-agricultural land – home-owner occupiers and small business premises exempt
  3. Rapid re-direction of energy generation toward renewable sources; redirection of polluting industries and agriculture with retraining and guaranteed jobs for all workers; no fracking or new nuclear or coal-fired power generation

Fighting for rights

  1. End the racist legacy of apartheid by ending the real capitalist economic foundations upon which racism rests. Transfer genuine economic and political power to the predominantly black working class majority through nationalisation under working class control. No to the ANC’s elitist capitalist Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies.
  2. Joint struggle against xenophobia and racism; trade unions must organise immigrant workers
  3. Women and men fight together against gender-based violence and rape and for gender equality in every sphere of society, including equal pay for equal work, access to jobs, housing, free pre-school for all to give women genuine freedom to end abusive relationships
  4. United struggle and solidarity to end hate crimes against LGBTI people

United struggle for socialism

  1. One country, one federation – build the principled unity of the trade union movement on the basis of class independence from the bosses, democracy and workers’ control. Campaign in every federation and union for a programme of revolutionary trade unionism – linking workers’ struggles on day-to-day issues to the struggle for socialism.
  2. Build the Socialist Youth Movement as part of the struggle to create a mass, revolutionary movement of working class youth and students
  3. Unite and coordinate the service delivery protests under one banner with a common programme of demands; build a country-wide socialist civic federation
  4. Forge the fighting unity of the working class in a party of mass struggle. Build a socialist mass workers party to unite the struggles of the workplaces, the communities and the youth as a vital step toward the creation of a mass revolutionary party
  5. Build the Workers and Socialist Party as the nucleus of a mass revolutionary party
  6. For workers’ democracy and a socialist government based on democratic working class and community committees
  7. For a socialist SA, a socialist Africa and a socialist world

For further explanation and expansion please read our manifesto.