Roll+Back+Offensive+v+Workers+and+Poor,+Umsebenzi+Online

Umsebenzi Online, Vol 5 No 40, August 2nd, 2005

 * In this issue:**
 * **Red Alert: The uses and abuses of ‘populism’** – see separate file****
 * **Roll Back the Offensive Against the Workers and the Poor!**

=Roll Back the Offensive Against the Workers and the Poor!=

SACP 84th anniversary message
As we celebrate the 84th anniversary of the Communist Party in South Africa it is clear that the working people of our country are once more stirring. They are re-affirming their legitimate, central role within our new democracy. The needs and aspirations of workers and the urban and rural poor must be at the centre of everything – if not, there will be no sustainable growth, no sustainable development, no sustainable democracy in our country.

This is what millions of workers said on June 27th in the COSATU-led national stayaway for jobs and against mass retrenchments.

This is what SAA workers and staff have been saying in their strike action that has caught an arrogant management by surprise.

This is what Pick n Pay workers have been saying to their bosses – you cannot expect to make unprecedented profits out of the hard work of your employees, and then award yourselves all kinds of perks, incentives and bonuses, while workers passively agree.

This is what municipal workers are saying. This is what teachers and health-workers have been saying.

This is what ANC branch delegates to the July ANC national general council were affirming when they sang: “Asifuni iagenda yama-capitalist”.

And this, interestingly, is what an increasing spectrum of broad public opinion is also beginning to understand. More and more there is the recognition that economic stabilisation and modest growth over the last decade has brought untold wealth to a privileged few, while the wage-gap increases, and hundreds of thousands of workers are rendered unemployed or casualised.

Increasingly broad public anger is directed, not at striking workers, but at management. Perhaps for the first time in our country, during the teachers and health-workers strike, there was broad public support for the demands of these public sector workers. In the past week, even the Business Day and Business Report are pointing fingers at SAA management and not workers.

The public groundswell is growing against gross senior management bonuses and so-called incentives and the thousand other ways in which the bosses in the private and public sector appropriate the collective wealth of our country for personal gain. There is growing awareness that an arrogant bourgeoisie – white and black – is incapable of offering a strategic way forward to address the challenges of our society. There is a growing public awareness that the bosses can only think as far as their own pockets. This public groundswell is not mistaken.

In 1994 workers share of our country’s wealth was more than 50% while profits for bosses were some 27%.

By 2002, workers’ share had dropped to 44%, while operating surplus for the capitalists had INCREASED to 33%.

In the new South Africa, capitalists, black and white, have been doing what they always do – they have waged a bitter class struggle against working people.

This is why the SACP says: **LET US DEFEAT THE OFFENSIVE OF THE BOSSES AGAINST THE WORKERS AND THE POOR!**


 * BUILD WORKERS’ POWER NOW!**

In celebrating our 84th SACP anniversary, as part of our contribution to the struggle of working people and the poor, this year we are highlighting the plight of more than two million South Africans black-listed by the Credit Bureaux. The great majority of us who are black-listed are workers and poor.
 * An amnesty for workers and poor black-listed by the credit bureaux**

We are the victims of high-interest rates, of loans sharks, of retrenchments, of a widening wage gap, of unscrupulous credit practices by retailers – we must be given a once-off amnesty. We must be given a chance to get back on our feet.

Credit bureaux and their industry associations seem to think it is no problem that more than two million borrowers are blacklisted and cannot access credit. This blacklisting affects not just those of us directly blacklisted, but our families and dependents as well. It is possible that some 10 million South Africans, a quarter of our population, are affected.

This is a national crisis. We call on government to intervene on the side of the poor. In the past decade, government's well-intentioned schemes to extend credit, especially micro-loans, to the poor have not achieved the results hoped for. This has led to the emergence of an extensive and unscrupulous micro-lending industry, with mashonisas charging exorbitant interest.

Practices of this kind have left millions of poor borrowers caught in debt traps and blacklisted by credit bureaux. We fully support government's commitment to adopting a new credit policy and to implementing laws that will remedy these shortcomings.

Government's research shows that in our country over R360bn is provided in credit every year. But the poor pay far more interest for the little credit that they get – in fact the lowest income earners pay an average interest rate that is SEVEN times more than that paid by the rich. High income earners pay an interest rate of around 26% on average for their credit. The lowest income earners pay an incredible 175% average interest rate!

No wonder millions of our people are caught in debt spirals and end up blacklisted. It is time to wipe the slate clean and close this chapter of massive exploitation of the poor.

In calling for an amnesty for the blacklisted we are not calling for a sentimental or charitable gesture. It is a necessary step to ensure the success of the new National Credit legislation currently tabled in parliament as a bill. The new credit bill requires credit bureaux to provide consumers with their own personal credit profiles free of charge and to verify all information they sell. We welcome these measures, but they are just the beginning of transforming this sector.

In addition to an amnesty for the black-listed, we are also calling on government and the banks to develop a different model for the financing of loans for low-cost housing.
 * We demand a new financing model for low-cost housing**

As a result of our collective financial sector struggles, the banks have now committed to providing R42 billion to finance low-cost housing in our country. This is the first time ever that South African mainstream banks have committed themselves on this scale to funding low-cost housing. But the banks will want the interest on this funding to be paid by working class households on a compound interest basis. This is much more burdensome and costly for families than interest that is calculated as simple interest. There is absolutely no reason (apart from profit-maximisation) that low-cost housing loans should be based on the most expensive model. If the R42-billion commitment is to have a real impact, and if it is to be sustainable for working class families, then a different model must be developed.

But some will say these are unrealistic demands. To these sceptics we have two answers. The first is: why should there be amnesties, debt relief and special financial vehicles for some, but not for the millions of poor of our country?
 * Unrealistic?**

· Through the TRC process we have given an amnesty to some of the worst apartheid-era killers and torturers. · have given an amnesty to the wealthy who illegally took their money out of the country. · now, there is talk of baling out President Mugabe with a huge South African loan to make sure that he is not black-listed by the IMF. Private sector economists assure us that there are billions of rand available for this bale-out and that it should not affect our economy.

As an SACP we have not in principle opposed any of these interventions. But if these things can be done, then there is absolutely no moral or financial reason why the black-listed poor of our country should not also enjoy an amnesty and debt relief.

Our second response to the sceptics comes from our own experience with the financial sector campaign. When we first began this campaign we were told by our opponents – and even by some of our friends – that our immediate demands were “unrealistic”. But through mobilisation, through collective activism, through engagement with our colleagues in government, through participation in NEDLAC, through hundreds of local-level pickets, marches and demonstrations, together we have begun to win some of our demands.
 * Victories are possible**

Over the last 12 months our financial sector campaign has notched some important victories.

In October 2004, exactly four years since the launch of our Red October campaign for the transformation of the financial sector, the major capitalist banks announced the launch of a new affordable bank account for workers and the poor – the Mzansi account. This was in direct response to our struggle for universal access to affordable banking and other financial services for millions of us excluded from these services in the past. The Mzansi account now stands at more than 1 million new customers, 56% of whom are women.

In addition, the Financial Sector Charter Council, made up of community representatives, labour, government and business was formally constituted towards the end of last year. This Council is an important platform through which to continue to wage our struggles, to supplement ongoing mobilisation, and to hold the capitalist financial institutions to account on how they are responding to the challenge of provision of finance for development.

We have already mentioned the Bill in Parliament to regulate the Credit Bureaux and to force greater transparency upon them.

We have also already mentioned the capitalist financial sector’s commitment to provide R42 billion to finance low-cost housing - the first time ever that South African mainstream banks have committed themselves to funding low-cost housing on this scale.

Let us be very clear. These are all partial victories that we have wrung out of a reluctant profit-maximising, capitalist financial sector. Every victory requires ongoing vigilance and mobilization. The banks will do everything to slow-down, half implement, or even “forget” their commitments.

The lesson we draw from our partial victories is not that capitalist banks are well-meaning and generous benefactors. The lesson we draw is that with popular mobilization and constructive pressure on government we CAN roll back the capitalist financial sector, and force it to meet the needs of workers and the poor. But this is an ongoing class struggle.


 * WE DEMAND: An amnesty for blacklisted!

WE DEMAND: A new model for financing low-cost housing!

ROLL BACK THE OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE WORKERS AND POOR! BUILD WORKING CLASS POWER NOW!

From: http://www.sacp.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=264&Itemid=1**