Umsebenzi+Online,+Vol+5,+No.+62,+16+August+2006

Umsebenzi Online, Volume 5, No. 62, 16 August 2006

 * In this Issue:**

=Red Alert: The Clarion Call of 1946: Defend and Deepen the Proletarian Character of the progressive trade union movement=


 * By: Blade Nzimande, General Secretary**

Our Central Committee (CC) held a highly successful meeting over the last weekend. This CC was also addressed by the General Secretary of COSATU, Cde Zwelinzima Vavi, who posed, inter alia, the challenges facing COSATU, especially in the light of its forthcoming congress in September, as well as what he sees as the role of the SACP as a vanguard Party of the working class. Some of the members of the Central Committee (CC) also had an opportunity to participate in the activity organised by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the heroic 1946 black mineworkers strike in the then Witwatersrand.

In its statement the CC correctly said:

"The CC, on the occasssion of the 60th anniversary of the 1946 mineworkers strike, the 12th of August, also saluted the heroic struggles and sacrifices made by the mineworkers who pariticipated in that strike. In particular we noted the role played by communist leaders like JB Marks, Thabo Mofutsanyana and Moses Kotane in organising mineworkers and their role in that strike." In our message to the NUM rally on 12th August 2006, we, amongst other things, saluted the role the NUM continues to play in taking forward the legacy and spirit of 1946. In particular we noted the long association between the South African Communist Party and the struggles of black mineworkers in our country. In its own commemoration plaque, the NUM acknowledges this reality; hence our message was also about the imperative of strengthening the relationship between NUM in particular, and the progressive trade union movement in general, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the South African Communist Party.

We agree with COSATU that given the significance of the 1946 mineworkers' strike and its historical contribution to the national liberation struggle, it is a shame, if not scandalous, that none of the media covered this commemorative event. One of the observations made in our Central Committee is that there is an emerging elite consensus around the maintenance and reproduction of the current capitalist path underway in our country. The media, with very few exceptions, has become a key weapon and propagator of this elite consensus, and therefore its coverage of working class struggles is from the standpoint of strengthening the hegemony of this consensus in society. In short South African media is increasingly becoming an instrument and ideological weapon of the elite (new and established) - the primary economic beneficiaries from the policies of the 1996 class project.

As we celebrate and remember the sacrifices made by the black mineworkers in 1946, we need to learn appropriate lessons of the meaning of that strike for today's progressive trade union movement. According to Vic Allen, who has written three volumes on the history of black mineworkers in South Africa, a total of 76 000 workers participated during the five days of that strike, representing a quarter of the black mineworkers at the time and spread amongst 21 of the 47 gold mines.

The 1946 strike was brutally suppressed by the police, with the actual figures of the injured and the dead never really finally established. Allen estimates that more than 1 300 mineworkers were seriously injured. In its 40th anniversary commemorative pamphlet of the 1946 strike, "A Distant Clap of Thunder", the SACP described the brutality of the regime in suppressing that strike thus, "The atmosphere was not that of a labour dispute, as the term is understood elsewhere in the civilised world. It was rather that of a civil war; it was fought by police equipped like an army, with rifles and fixed bayonets; its operations conducted like military offensives against an enemy, ending in 'surrender' signified by raising of weaponless hands; the surrenders followed up by the 'rounding up' of stragglers in hiding".

One of the immediate aftermaths of the brutal suppression of this strike was the systematic destruction of the union through a collaborative effort between the Chamber of Mines and the police, seriously weakening and virtually destroying the union. Government attacked the communists as instigators of the strike, thus forcing many of them who were union officials out of the union, a precursor to the banning of our Party in 1950. In fact on 16 November 1946 the police arrested the entire Central Committee of our Party on charges of sedition related to our Party's participation in, and principled support for, the strike.

The 1946 strike is one of the most significant events that set the tone for the radicalisation of the ANC Youth League in the late 1940s, as well as inspired the ANC-led Defiance Campaign of the 1950s, which changed the course of our struggle forever. We owe our liberation and freedom to the 1946 strike heroes, who set the trend for working class and popular activism as the bedrock of the national liberation struggle.

We are honouring the 60th anniversary of the 1946 strike on the eve of the COSATU Congress to be held on 18-21 September 2006 in Midrand. The best way to honour the memory of these combatants is by ensuring that we continue to build a strong and united COSATU. We can do this if we properly understand some of the immediate challenges facing the progressive trade union movement, especially COSATU, in the current period.

One of the immediate challenges is that of defending and deepening the proletarian character of COSATU and its affiliates. Our definition of the 'proletarian character' of the progressive trade union movement must be distinguished from the insinuations that have sometimes been directed at COSATU, especially from what the SACP discussion document calls the 1996 class project, sniping at public sector workers as not truly 'proletarian'. Nor do we imply that organised workers constitute the proletariat as a whole.

By 'proletarian character' we mean preserving and safeguarding the independent but militant traditions of COSATU. Such a character also includes continued commitment to the vision and desirability of socialism in our country, and a trade union federation that continuously strive to unite workers around a commitment to the transformation of the South African workplace, seeking to confront the racial and gender division of labour in South African companies.

Why has this become such an important task in the short-to-medium term? One of the major impacts of the pursuit of capitalist profitability as the main platform of South Africa's economic policies has been the elevation of capital (and capitalist) accumulation to new heights, the intensified exploitation of the working class, and emergence of new elites who, whilst genuflecting to the interests of the workers and the poor, are pursuing wealth at all costs. This has had the effect of widening the class cleavages and inequalities in broader society as well as within our broader movement, to such an extent that naked pursuit of wealth, if not checked, may threaten the unity and values of our alliance.

The impact of these class cleavages and pursuit of wealth is reaching into all our organisations, not least the trade union movement itself. As we have consistently pointed out before, whilst workers regard their unions as fighters for, and defenders of, their rights in the workplace, from the point of view of the capitalist class, unions are big business. They procure services and materials in billions of rand every year, they 'deliver' workers' debit orders for provident funds, insurance and funeral policies, they need and use the banks, and are 'fair game' of the parasitic micro-lending sector in our country. In short, and ironically, workers' resources oil the wheels of the very capitalist system that daily exploits them! It is these resources, for instance like those in the hands of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) that have already enriched some new black entrants into the big capitalist stakes. Because of this they are a source of capital and wealth, and are therefore one of the prime targets for capitalist predatory behaviour.

Significant sections of the capitalist class - black and white - especially in the financial and services sector, have dedicated enormous resources to secure trade union 'business'. In the process, some of the worker leaders, from shop-stewards through to some of national office-bearers, receive kick-backs, if not shares, to deliver union procurement and financial services. In order for the capitalist class and its agents within the trade union movement to control the resources in the hands of the union, they are also simultaneously waging a struggle to blunt the militancy of the workers and seek to create pliable, sweetheart unions. Capturing unions in the interests of business and blunting the militancy of the trade unions are two sides of the same coin. Naturally worker leaders who are seen as militant and not co-optible become particular targets, especially to be removed at congresses.

The increasing pattern of character assassination and smear campaigns just before major congresses of the unions is a manifestation of these attempts, class contestations over the soul of the progressive trade union movement. Sections of the media are actively colluding with this agenda, as part of maintaining and reproduction of the elite consensus we referred to earlier. Part of the strategy to consolidate this elite consensus is to capture the trade union movement, destroy its militancy and ensure that it remains a pliant site for intensified capital accumulation. This has led to the emergence of a phenomenon inside the trade union movement that can be referred to as business 'unionism', 'trade union leaders by day, and capitalists by night'!

It is against this background that the opportunistic smear campaign directed at the General Secretary of COSATU, Cde Zwelinzima Vavi, must be understood. It is an act that must be condemned by the working class in the strongest possible terms. We therefore welcome the statement of the COSATU National Office Bearers, and a number of COSATU provinces and affiliates, committing to get to the bottom of this matter. Business unionism must be defeated at all costs, as it constitutes one of the most serious threats to the unity of COSATU and to the working class struggles as a whole. To defeat business unionism, we must strengthen the character of the proletarian character of progressive trade unions, and actively seek to expose all tendencies that are colluding with such a project.

Elements engaged in this business unionism are also trying cover their tracks by attempting to co-opt a completely different matter, that of the situation of the Deputy President of the ANC, Cde Jacob Zuma, by projecting themselves as victims of the so-called 'pro-Zuma lobby' inside the unions. We are convinced that workers and the people of our country are not going to be fooled by these cheap and opportunistic tactics. The unity of COSATU should never be sacrificed on the altar of petty accumulation interests and political opportunism. Nor should the alliance-driven, principled support for Cde Zuma be opportunistically exploited as a convenient cover for closet capitalists inside the trade union movement.

The forthcoming COSATU Congress must be used as an important platform to defend and advance COSATU's 2015 plan. We are confident that COSATU and its affiliates will rise to this challenge.

This is the clarion call of the 1946 mineworkers' strike!


 * From: http://www.sacp.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1564&Itemid=77**

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