Why the working class should support the Satawu-Utatu strike

Firstly, we condemn the decision by the Prasa bosses to unilaterally cancel the selling of monthly tickets and to cancel all trains from the 10th May (at least in the Western Cape ; the sale of weekly tickets (at a higher rate) places a burden on the working class over and above the huge increase in rail fees, recently implemented). To force the working class to seek their own means of transport on the 10th and during the entire strike, is holding the working class hostage to the capitalist model of the government to commercialise transport, instead of it being a service to the masses. This imperialist-measure is typical of wanting to put worker against worker, wanting the working class to attack strikers. This rather amateurish attempt to divide the working class has backfired- workers are furious at being ripped off yet again by Prasa and the government and this will help build support for the strike.

High transport and fuel costs, high food prices, high electricity prices at artificially high levels, are all mechanisms of monopoly capitalism (imperialism) shifting their crisis of falling profits onto the backs of the working class. The bailout of the main US and EU banks with state funds, based on production that does not even exist, has now opened up a period of bankrupcy of the states. Greece has been bankrupted by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, who has charged exhorbitant rates for loans to them. With the Greek government unable to repay the loans, the US monopolies have seized the control of all their imports and exports as well as control of the ports. Income goes directly to the US banks and does not even go viathe Greek government. The minor imperialist government of Greece has been forced to either go bankrupt or attack the gains of the working class. They have chosen to attack the working class, resulting in some of the biggest strikes in their history. Imperialism has been able, for the moment, to maintain control of the working class through the Greek Communist party and all the left parties (including the so-called anti-capitalist party Syriza and fake trotskyists), which refuse to mobilise for the overthrow of the government. When workers were ready to take over, the leaders of the workers movement called for a general stayaway and opened the militant workers to attack by the state and fascist bands. It is important for the working class, here and across the world to draw the lessons  from the struggles in Greece.

The Gautrain scam started as a R5 billion project, but upon completion cost R35 billion. Upon examining who benefitted, all lines lead directly and indirectly to JP Morgan Chase (the main culprit which has collapsed Greece). [JP Morgan Chase and other Wall street bandits have controlling shares in Murray & Roberts, the leader of the contstruction consortium that built the Gautrain].  Prasa (the Rail agency of the government, headed by SACP leader Lucky Montana) threatened, over national television, to dismiss Satawu members in a recent strike, refusing to pay staff who had been working for the railways, some for almost 10 years, an annual bonus last year. The same Prasa now claims they need R50 billion to upgrade the rail network. Instead of using the funds (that went to the gautrain) for upgrading the national network, the government built the most expensive short rail line in the world- a thinly disguised bailout of JP Morgan Chase, for building a white elephant, designed to serve a relative few.

The recent World Bank loan of just less than R30 billion is another slush fund for imperialism under the guise of an electricity 'build programme'. There is no justification for doubling the electricity capacity in 10 years. The interest rate (about R3 bllion per annum - 10%) is higher than what the World bank can normally fetch in Europe, namely 3%.  While Satawu leaders were praising Ramos for her time at the helm of Transnet, they provided a cover for part of the process of reduction of workers from 200 000 to 50 000 today.

What's at stake in the Satawu-Utatu strike?
The SACP has long argued that the ANC is the leader of the struggle for democratic demands but here, the ANC (and SACP) at the head of Transnet cannot even concede on basic democratic demands such as making 5000 casuals permanent; they maintain unequal maternity benefits for management and workers; they cannot even grant 2 days paternity leave; they cannot even assure workers of a 15% wage increase (they offer only 8% while workers inflation is more than 30%).

The central theme of the dispute is that the ANC and SACP are the chief obstacle to workers achieving their democratic demands. Workers need to realise this. The SACP actions (such as calling for discussions over the electricity scam rather than a general strike; their failure to support the recent Samwu strike, etc) show that they have an informal policy of 'labour peace' during the period of the World cup; even more, the SACP and ANC ensures that the JP Morgan Chase and other Wall street gangsters are paid (and overpaid), while the workers must not only wait, but take wage cuts and have their rights trampled upon. Workers need to realise that in this strike, it is not only a battle against the politics of the ANC and SACP but also a battle against monopoly capital- ie imperialism. The rapid militarisation of the police together with the slush fund poltics of government shows that the hand of imperialism is directly involved in preparing to crackdown on the working class.

Workers should know that within Satawu there is a SACP faction that will do its best to demobilise workers, such as calling for stayaways during the strike, of refusing to set up mass strike committees of workers, and refusing to call regular general meetings of workers to give mandates.

On the other hand, the recent Samwu strike shows that if the masses want to achieve even the most basic democratic demands, they can only depend on working class action and leadership, not on the amabhulu omnyama of the ANC and SACP. The essence of the alliance with the ANC and SACP is in reality to tie the working class to the leadership of imperialism. In other words, the reality is that imperialism leads the alliance.

The best way to win the strike is for the entire working class to be mobilised:
1. The central task must be to ensure that the strike is in the form of an occupation of the worksites rather than a passive stayaway (ala sacp and the Greek CP);
2. this means that there should be strike committees and self-defence committees set up at each site (based on the right of instant recall of all worker leaders up to the highest level);
3. The core of the strike has to be general meetings every day to guide and give mandates
4. Committees in negotiation should be broadened to include delegates from the base, from around the country;
5. Committees should be set up in industrial areas and in working class areas to include the other employed workers and unemployed workers  and rank and file soliders in strike support; all other sectors should be called upon to give notice for solidarity strikes
6. A Workers summit should be called to centralise the fight against high prices and the failure of the government to meet the democratic demands of the masses; the central theme of break with the bourgeoisie means not only a decisive break with the politics of the ANC and SACP but the setting up of independent factory committees and councils of workers delegates, irrespective of union affiliation and with representatives from casual workers and from immigrant worker committees. Delegates from workers and rank and file soldiers from Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and the rest of Southern Africa should also be invited to the summit, to break the isolation of the heroic masses in Madagascar, Zimbabwe and the DRC.
7. A call of solidarity should be made to the working class in the US and UK especially to tackle their own imperialist regimes that are parasitic not only over the working class in Africa but also of most of humanity. We call on the dockers and transport workers in the US and UK to also engage in solidarity strikes against their own imperialist plunder of Africa.
8. The date of a general strike against the imperialist attacks should be set before the World cup final; why should the working class have to wait while imperialism is guaranteed the first draw on all state resources?
  Long live the spirit of the working class in Kyrgyzstan, Greece, Tongua, Linzhou, Coimbratoare, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, etc. Workers of the world unite; we have nothing to lose but our chains, and a world to win!