Scrap the upfront payment! Away with the 11% fee increase! Scrap the
interdict against the students!
Only 40% of
people of working age in South Africa
have some form of work- this is the lowest in Africa.
More than 2 million work as slaves for labour brokers. Many workers, including
the staff at CPUT, have been forced to accept 6% wage ‘increase’. Predictions
are, even from capitalist economists, that ‘inflation’ will rise
to 14% this year. The world is in a grip of a serious economic crisis. Yet the
CPUT management sees fit to increase fees by 11% and to increase the upfront
payment of fees by more than R1000 to R3500. The time has come to deepen the
student-worker alliance!
The
University claims that it needs to hike the deposit because the subsidy only
comes through in a few months time. But CPUT could easily take from their hundreds
of millions of reserves and put the funds back once the subsidy has been paid.
So the argument to hike the deposit, or even have a deposit, must be rejected. Why must the parents and students bear the
burden of bad planning by the University?
Every year,
Anglo American and other giant capitalist companies take over R1000 Bn out
of the country, through profits and through other grand-theft mechanisms, such
as transfer-pricing. In 2007 alone, Anglo American and other capitalists lied about the value of the raw goods
they export from South Africa- they under-stated it by R600 bn. They did not even pay tax on this. What is worse is that the
government, the SACP and Cosatu leaders know about this massive stealing from
the working class- even SACP Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, knows about this- they do not say- ‘here is the
money for free education, let’s take it from the capitalists!’ NO, they
keep silent about it- they give an insufficient amount for subsidy- they say to
the Universities- you get the rest of the money from the students. The
government and the University tops squeeze the last pennies from the working
class for education, while the capitalists carry off billions in stolen wealth.
Thousands
of students at CPUT cannot even be placed at companies for training. Thousands
who qualify are still unemployed. Anglo American and others refuse to open
beneficiation industries because they want to keep Africa
as an exporter of raw materials and a cheap assembly slave camp. Jeremy Cronin
says it is pie in the sky- workers in South Africa will never learn how
to cut and polish diamonds- only Israelis can do a good job. 100 years of the
ANC has delivered only high fees,
exclusions and cheap labour.
How can Nehawu members, such as those elected onto the University
Council, be responsible for evicting students from residences? Why do they sit
with folded arms while students are beaten and interdicted? The time has come
for the unions to break from the alliance with the government, to break with
the alliance with the University Council. We
call for all students and workers, not only at CPUT, or in the education
sector, but all sectors, as well as the unemployed, to join the protests. The
time has come to rise like the working class youth in Chile and raise
the slogan:
To open the doors of learning- for free
education- Expropriate Anglo American and all the mines, without compensation,
place them under workers control!
24.1.2012
issued by Workers International Vanguard
League, 1st Floor, Community House, 41 Salt River rd, Salt River, 7925, ph 0822020617 email:
workersinternational@gmail.com
Website www.workersinternational.org.za