(First published in Sinhala and dated 20 June 2007)
South Africa
has been rocked by one of the biggest post-apartheid general strikes.
More
than 500 000 thousand public sector workers were called out on June 04 by the
country’s largest trade union centre, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU),
which is also a partner in the present African National Congress (ANC) dominated
government.
Health,
education and municipal workers have not reported to work, causing major
disruption, including closure of schools, hospitals, public transport,
interruption of power supply, non-collection of rubbish and the like. Tens of
thousands have demonstrated on the streets of Johannesburg,
Pretoria and Cape Town.
The
government has reacted aggressively by sacking more than 600 health service
workers and deploying the armed forces in hospitals and outside schools.
The
strike was triggered by the government’s refusal to negotiate with unions for a
fair wage increase: COSATU demanded 12 percent later lowered to 9 percent, while
the government has improved its initial offer of 6 percent to 7.5 percent,
which unions point out is well below the cost of inflation.
However
there are deeper and bitter underlying causes that pushed the 1.8 million
strong COSATU and its affiliates to publicly demonstrate against the ANC
government it brought to power.
There
is widespread anger that post-apartheid South Africa has not addressed the
socio-economic inequalities of the majority black population.
As
COSATU general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, noted: “for too many of our people, apartheid remains
in the form of mass unemployment and poverty plus poor services from the
government”.
The South African economy has only
created 500 000 jobs each year for the past three years despite its growth rate
and inward investment when 40 percent of the labour force is unemployed.
The
socialist rhetoric of the ANC has now been replaced by the language of business
as it focuses on building a back capitalist class largely composed of its own leaders.
Increasingly,
COSATU and the Communist Party (SACP) have complained of exclusion by the ANC
from macro-economic policy and there has been public discussion in their ranks
of remaining partners in the triple alliance that formally governs South Africa.
This
strike is also an attempt by some within COSATU and the SACP who remain
committed to the alliance to pressure the ANC to focus on poverty instead of its
‘black empowerment’ strategy that favours the elite, and to build support for a
left challenge to the ANC leadership when its current leader and South African
president, Thabo Mbeki, steps down next year.
Such
a strategy is of limited value when the ANC is a firm supporter of
neo-liberalism and taking the same path of accommodation to capitalism and
imperialism as post-colonial regimes historically.
It
is only through independent organisation in a workers party that the popular
majority will find a political vehicle for the ‘New South Africa’ whose birth
is long-delayed.
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