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This is a call to all VW workers to stand together irrespective of union affiliation. Whether or not you belong to any union, you all have a common interest in helping the 1386 workers get their jobs back. Whether you are Numsa or Ocgawu, your rate of pay is the same. You are still working under the same conditions, being exploited by the same capitalist! The extra 3% deduction on your wages for the provident fund is the same. This 3% is not paid to rebuild the provident fund after the agreed partial withdrawal of 1997, but goes into a separate account. In the meantime the monies paid in 1997 was changed to a loan instead of a withdrawal. This loan is now increasing at massive rates, much faster than what the extra 3% rebuilds. All workers who participated in the ‘withdrawal’ of 1997 will have very little, if anything at all when retirement comes. The time to act is now! Each day that goes by means that your retirement money becomes less and less. Many workers stood up to demand the problems around the provident fund monies be resolved and now many are outside! When the bosses profits are falling, or even just slightly below their huge target, they turn on the workers. The bosses have a campaign to reduce the workforce to 3000 or even less by 2002. They try to divide the workers. It is in their interest to have workers clash with each other instead of facing their common enemy. Last year the profits of VW globally, doubled. But did wages double? Certainly not! The Rand devalued by a huge amount over the past few years. This means that the company makes huge amounts of money from exports. Did the wages increase by anywhere close to this huge jump in Rand income of the company? NO. The bosses are not satisfied. They are dumping more and more workers onto the unemployment heap. Poverty, hunger and crime in working class areas will increase. The bosses sit safely behind security fences and in their mansions. Their children go to school while the children of the unemployed are starving and fainting, many are forced to abandon schooling. Already 9 workers have died! If the VW bosses are allowed to get away with the mass dismissal of workers who were merely standing up for their rights, then all workers can never be safe again. Since the mass dismissal last year, the company has taken away many rights, many more workers were dismissed. Already the workers inside have played an important role in supporting the case of the workers outside in many different ways. This help should continue and be extended. The government is changing the law to reduce pay on Sundays and already the leather sector workers are being forced to work 7 days a week. Very soon these same conditions may be forced onto VW workers. The time has come for all VW workers to stand together. We need to pressurize the company until they give in. The power is in the hands of the united working class. Let us use it by all the means at our disposal!
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