WASP and SYM Public Meeting 27 August 14H00-16H00
Register for online attendance here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMuduqrpz4uGtCMjoyFlASouidmV5B2RSge
The Marikana massacre on 16 August 2012 was a watershed moment. The murder of 34 mineworkers drew a line in the sand dividing the post-apartheid era into two. Marikana illuminated with blinding clarity all the accumulated political and social contradictions in the country. The massacre led millions to the realisation that the ANC and their Tripartite Alliance partners – the National Union of Mineworkers leadership, the pro-capitalist Cosatu leaders and the South African Communist Party (SACP) – govern in the interests of the mine bosses and the capitalist class. For them, profits are more important than the lives of workers.
Without the collusion of the ANC government, the mine bosses and the leadership of NUM, Marikana could not have happened. The mineworkers’ rejection of NUM and the organisation of independent rank-and-file strike committees to lead the 2012 strikes that eventually stretched even beyond the gold and platinum sectors was simultaneously the greatest threat to the mine bosses and the greatest achievement of the mineworkers. The post-1994 capitalist order was under serious threat. Mineworkers emerged from the NUM’s prison of class collaboration and reasserted their class and political independence. Thus Marikana was an attempt to drown in blood the struggles of the mineworkers, clip the wings of their new found class independence and teach the entire working class a brutal lesson not to challenge the existing order.
The processes that led to the explosion of workers’ struggle in the mining industry in 2012 were so deep-seated, that instead of silencing the workers movement, the massacre served to accelerate its reorganisation along class lines and galvanise support for the mineworkers on a global scale. It led to NUMSA’s expulsion from COSATU for refusing to support the murderous ANC, followed by many other affiliates voluntarily disaffiliating from COSATU. SAFTU was launched in 2017, as a direct result of the historic resolutions that came out of NUMSA’s 2013 Special National Congress, aiming to rebuild the trade union movement with worker’s control and the fight to replace this murderous capitalist system with socialism at its centre. At the same time, the ANC has been losing support on a monumental scale. The record low turnout for the 2021 local elections meant that the ANC effectively only held onto the support of 20% of eligible voters.
In the 1990s our organisation predicted the intensification of clashes between workers and the ANC government. Now, ten years after the most vivid example of this, the world has entered a new historical era. The new Cold War of intensifying tension between the imperialist powers, above all the USA and China, the Covid-pandemic, the fundamental instability and recurring crises of the world economy, and the climate crisis ultimately threatening life itself – Marikana was a warning of the brutality that is all this system has left to offer the working class. As inequality gets worse, the class divisions become much clearer.
However the class struggle has not developed in a linear manner. Along with victories like the launch of SAFTU and the Working Class Summit, we have seen setbacks like the passing of the 2018 Labour Relations Act amendments that have blunted the strike weapon and a paralysis of the trade union movement. The highest court in South Africa has given a green light to the ANC government to renege on the public sector wage agreement, signalling to the bosses in the private sector they can also claim “austerity” to deny hard-won labour victories. A battle for the soul of NUMSA and indeed SAFTU is raging as we write this, and AMCU, the union that stepped into the void left by the NUM’s betrayal in 2012, has not lived up to the hopes of democratic worker control – on the contrary its struggles are held back by an authoritarian leadership.
But there are clear signs that the workers’ movement is awakening once again, as we see stirs in the labour movement internationally in addition to serious uprisings in countries like Sri Lanka, Colombia and eSwatini. Like the mine workers in Marikana, protesters in Sri Lanka also suffered at the hands of police, yet they managed to bring the state to its knees, which serves as a reminder of the importance of solidarity with workers across the world and learning from their experiences. In South Africa the mighty Clover strike undoubtedly pushed workers in Sibanye-Stillwater Gold Mines into a four month long strike action. While mining bosses boasted 127% increases in earnings in 2021 globally, they refused to share these profits with mineworkers. The unity shown between the AMCU and NUM membership in their joint action as “NUMCU” – striking together and occupying the Union Buildings for weeks – was a clear message to the bosses that workers are uniting across union affiliations. It cannot be understated that this unity in action led to the quick settlement of wage and benefit increases for workers organised by AMCU and NUM in the platinum mining sector, as bosses feared the real possibility of the recurrence of the mining sector wide strikes of ten years ago.
The contradictions of the capitalist system, and the inability of the ruling parties to overcome them, is clearer than ever. SAFTU’s call for a National Shutdown on 24 August is gaining support from the entire labour movement, as well as community organisations, civics, youth organisations and many left formations. This taps into the mood for a real fightback against the tremendous onslaught of austerity, escalation of skyrocketing unemployment, the cost of living crisis, and arrogance of the bosses’ class. But this day should mark merely the beginning of a programme of rolling mass action and building momentum towards the Working Class Summit, which must deal with the issue that was raised sharply by the mineworkers a decade ago: the urgent need for a mass workers party organised on a socialist programme.
Join WASP and SYM on Saturday, 27 August, where we will discuss the role played by our fore-runner, the Democratic Socialist Movement, in building towards the sector-wide strike action in the mines in the lead up to the Marikana massacre, as well as the burning tasks for the working class movement in the current period to move decisively away from the capitalist system and fight for a socialist world free from oppression and exploitation.
Further reading: https://workerssocialistparty.org.za/campaigns/after-marikana/
For more information contact WASP: 083 566 5253 or info@workerssocialistparty.org.za
