At the recent Cosatu CEC the leaders condemned workers who
were ‘trashing’ the cities. The leaders have turned their back on the strikers.
Who have been trashing the cities and the working class for hundreds of years? The capitalist class! Millions of
workers live in squalor in squatter camps for many years while the capitalist
class live in huge mansions. Every year the capitalist class takes hundreds of
billions of
The Cosatu leaders also condemned strikers for damaging
capitalist property during the metal and chemical strikes. Property, ie the
riches of the capitalist class, gained by trashing workers, must be respected
they said. The ANC government organised police escorts of petrol tankers that
contributed to breaking the back of the chemical strike. In the end the
chemical sector workers had to accept a measly 7%. The ANC government trashed the strikers but now the Cosatu
leaders want workers to celebrate 100 years of the ANC! This is an insult to
the working class.
Food prices go up every week, electricity increases by 25-31%
every year, the petrol price has doubled but Cosatu leaders leave the Samwu
strikers isolated when they demand 18%,
leaves the contract cleaners isolated when they demand a double-digit increase. The same US and UK banks control the food,
construction, mining, ‘local’ banks and really every sector of the economy, but
the Cosatu leaders refused to call a general strike to unite the working class
against the high cost of living imposed by these international banks. The
Cosatu leaders leave the workers to fight on their own, sector by sector, thus
dividing the resistance of the working class. Only in the metal and mining were
workers strong enough to win temporary concessions. The public sector union
leaders have betrayed their base by settling for 6.8%, without a fight. The Satawu and Imatu leaders chased Samwu
strikers away from their marches- the bosses are full of praise for their
sweetheart Cosatu and Imatu leaders.
We do not agree with those Samwu Gauteng workers who did not
come out on strike because they had disagreements with the Cosatu leaders. This
has further weakened the municipal strike. The contract cleaners are all
working for labour brokers- there should have been a solidarity general strike
in support of them and the municipal strikers. We need to deal politically with
the Cosatu leaders who betray the working class. The alliance of Cosatu with the ANC and SACP means that the Cosatu
leaders are the chief shopstewards of the big bosses within the ranks of the
workers movement. It is time to
break this alliance that trashes the working class. Let us start mobilising to
break this alliance with big capital and to kick out the current leaders who
are in the pockets of the bosses. We need a revolutionary working class party
that unites activists in the communities with those in the unions, that unites
the employed and unemployed, that immediately strives to be part of an
international fraction of the working class that fights to end the world
capitalist system.
The bosses are preparing to continue with increasing prices
even further and with a new round of mass retrenchments. The current Cosatu
leaders have shown that they will act to block, weaken and divide workers
resistance. These leaders must go. We
need a workers summit that unites
delegates from the employed and unemployed, irrespective if unionised or not,
permanent or casual, local or immigrant, the worker and rank and file soldier,
to prepare the way for a general strike in defence of workers demands to take real control of the commanding heights of
the economy. Not merely a 1 day symbolic action on 5th October
2011 against labour brokers to strike a deal with big capital and the ANC to
have casualization continue. Forward to
the refounding of the Fourth International! Forward to Socialism!
29.8.2011. Workers International Vanguard League, 1st
Floor, Community House, 41 Salt River rd,