Showing posts with label action committees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label action committees. Show all posts

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Zimbabwe: Mugabe, ZANU-PF Hands 0ff Street Vendors!


 
Hands 0ff the Street Vendors!

The Mugabe ZANU-PF regime has threatened so-called illegal street vendors in Harare and Bulawayo with police and perhaps also army repression beginning Monday, June 8th, 2015. The Mugabe regime is under pressure from local and foreign capitalists to deal with the vendors, hence the crackdown. The Mugabe “revolution” has not secured national independence and has taken and survives due to its role of imposing the will of foreign capital on the masses with total disregard for their needs. This is the popular front trapping the masses in misery. Around 5 million people are involved in street vending and their unions have vowed to resist the action.

The RWG calls for strike actions across the country to foil this attack on masses of the urban poor! In Zimbabwe, anyone is liable to become a small vendor who is not part of the labor aristocracy.

The ZANU-PF liberators of 1980 become the quasi-colonial regime of today just as the Chinese degenerate workers state of those days who backed them has become Chinese imperialism, the main prop of the Zimbabwe regime today. This regime has failed to bring about national liberation on every imaginable score, with a real unemployment rate of 90% or thereabouts among the urban and even the rural working class. Thus an attack on the street vendors amounts to an attack on the national domestic economy itself. It is not a question of finding a proper “place” for our “mothers” to sell their “goodies” (ZANU-PF Political Commissar Kasukuwere.)

The mere fact that the Joint Operations Command (JOC) spokesperson local Government Minister Chombo could suggest that the army could be employed in tandem with the police to herd the vendors off the streets suggests the real dimensions of the crisis both of the economy and the regime. It is interesting to note that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the opposition grouping favored by Anglo-American imperialism, points to the failure of the ZANU-PF to deliver the 2.3 million jobs it promised when it stood in the last elections. Of course the MDC has no program for generating these jobs, nor even a desire to do so, because full employment of the Zimbabwe working class would immediately change the relationship of class forces to the disadvantage of their Western imperialist sponsors.
 
Fighting Action Program
  • Jobs for all! For a 30 hour workweek at 40 hours Pay! We demand a sliding scale of wages and prices and employment for all who can work; working conditions should improve for all workers! For guaranteed employment for all who are able, a guaranteed income for all!
  • We demand the introduction of state projects to employ all the unemployed! Workers! Force the government to stop the attack on the vendors!
  • Land must be distributed to all poor peasants together with a state bank to provide cheap credit to all small farmers!
  • Workers form action committees to lead the resistance to the growing attacks on the wages and working conditions of the poor and the livelihood of the majority poor! 
  • We call on the workers and the oppressed groups to convene a congress of delegates from the working people, peasants, urban poor, youth and soldiers to come up with a constitution that guarantees a good life for all!
  • Workers break with the MDC and ZANU-PF and form a workers’ party that truly champions the interests of the workers and the poor masses, form rank and file unions to lead action in all unions and break with the reformist trade union leadership!
  • No to US and Chinese imperialism!
  • No to reformism and fake Trotskyism, build a fighting socialist party!
  • For workers councils and for a workers state based upon them that defends workers and peasants against the local and foreign capitalists! For a workers and peasants’ government on the basis of the armed people to implement decisions that benefit the workers and the poor.
  • For an African socialist revolution as part of the international revolution that alone can guarantee a better life for all!
  • For a new world party of socialist revolution based on the Transitional Program of 1938 to lead the revolution to end capitalism and open the road to socialism!

Revolutionary Workers Group of Zimbabwe (RWG-ZIM)

Email: rwg.zimbabwe@gmail.com

Website: www.rwgzimbabwe.wordpress.com

Subscribe to Revolutionary Worker (Paper of RWG-Zimbabwe)


Wednesday, September 16, 2009

SOUTH AFRICA: FORWARD TO THE GENERAL STRIKE!


FORWARD TO A GENERAL STRIKE FOR REAL WAGE INCREASES, JOBS, FOOD, HOUSES FOR ALL!
WE NEED AN EMERGENCY WORKERS’ PLAN!

Today the clothing workers and their unions stand on the point of being destroyed by the capitalists. These attacks are becoming generalised across all sectors, employed and unemployed. In 1994, millions of workers and unemployed had hopes of a better life, of permanent jobs, of decent wages, of adequate health care for all, of a better education.

Now, 15 years later, only 9 million have some sort of work out of a labour force of 28 million; many are casualised; workers are locked into multi-year agreements which reduce real wages; millions, mainly youth, face permanent unemployment; the health system has been collapsed and privatised; thousands of teachers were retrenched and the education system, inadequate as it was, has fallen apart, producing many who cannot even spell or count, millions are still without adequate housing and sanitation, many of the houses that have been built before and after 1994 are falling apart. While world prices of food and oil have fallen by over 40%, the food retailers and food monopolies deliberately starve us through high prices; the government maintains a high petrol price, although the real cost of a barrel of oil is 3-4US$. In 1994 the ANC-SACP-Cosatu leaders said the working class must reconcile with the exploiters.

Before and after 1994, the same group of monopolies control the economy (Anglo American, Liberty Life, Old Mutual, Rembrant, Sanlam). The bank of New York controls most of the gold mines, while JP Morgan Chase controls the Reserve bank; American banks control much of the mining, food production, construction, engineering as well as much of the food distribution. The international banks that control our economy are in crisis and are shifting their crisis onto the shoulders of the working class, through mass retrenchments, low wages, high prices, mass starvation and homelessness. Workers are expected to sit with folded arms, conciliate, while the monopolies have not ‘conciliated’ but accelerated attacks on the working class.

Every year, for decades, these international corporations send more than R200 billion out of the country. Since 1996 they have made much more profits than they even made under the repressive NP regime. Under the disguise of ‘broad black economic empowerment’ a small elite of the amabhulu omnyama have become overnight billionaires, while the masses are dying of hunger, freezing in shacks or concrete matchboxes. Some alliance leaders are themselves owners of labour brokers that are brutalising the workers. Workers money is invested in privatizing health care, in fishing companies (while the small fishermen starve), in Sasol (despite having workers resolutions to nationalise it); many trade union leaders promote multi-year agreements that cut real wages and work hard to deactivate the current wave of strikes and protests by the working class. They hand over billions of workers’ money to ‘bail’ out the capitalists. Many of the trade union leaders are themselves conveyor belts of the world capitalist crisis onto the shoulders of the working class. The main conveyor belt of the crisis onto the shoulders of the working class has been the economic policy of the ANC, be it the mild RDP, or the more-openly pro-capitalist GEAR and current ‘Zumanomics’ (neo-GEAR). In 1994 Cosatu and SACP leaders helped water down working class demands to draft the RDP. Recently, the Cosatu and SACP justify the current pro-imperialist economic policy though dispatching their own leaders into Cabinet.

In June this year, through a military base in Honduras, the Obama regime launched a coup to overthrow the government there. This shows that the crisis of imperialism-capitalism is so deep that they cannot depend any longer purely on ‘democratic’ measures of control of the working class.

Recently, there have been increasing number of unprovoked attacks by the police on community protests, workers’ strikes (such as the transport, municipal, postal workers), and now the protest of unarmed soldiers. The police are the direct paid thugs of the monopolies. How long must the working class conciliate with the murderous monopolies? These imperialists launch coups in Honduras, and for us, they are starting with increased attacks by the police, they want to target organisers of protests, they want to ban unions in the army, and who knows where this will all lead to? If they smash the soldiers unions and bring back the tens of thousands of SA mercenaries currently fighting in Iraq, what attacks will then be launched on the working class?

The ANC plan, HR2010, is precisely to dismiss all progressive forces in the army, including most veterans from the ex-liberation armies (lower ranks will have an age limit of 28; if you are not constantly promoted, you will be dismissed; upper ranks will be 4-15 year contracts and special skills will be head-hunted, eg from the CIA and mercenaries). What is more is that the Cosatu and SACP leaders who have been deployed to parliament support the mass dismissal of over 1300 soldiers. These leaders help bail out the capitalists, while companies, where workers have the so-called majority stake, such as Frame, are closed down. These leaders are implementing the attacks of imperialism, against the progressive forces in the army, against the working class. All worker leaders in government should be recalled immediately. Cosatu must break with the capitalists!


We need an emergency workers’ plan.

We call on all working class communities, the unemployed and all workplaces to send delegates to the Cosatu Congress, 21 -24 September at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, to work out a joint programme of action.

We need an immediate general strike for real wage increases, jobs, food and houses for all!

Down with the fatcat CEO’s Ministers and Generals!

Reduce food prices by 50%. Reduce the working day without loss of pay and share all work among all those who can work. Increase wages whenever prices rise!

For a general wage increase of a minimum of 30%!

Stop all retrenchments and mass dismissals. What is needed is direct occupation of workplaces (not stayaways)!

If we want work, if we want to eat, to have decent houses, then our rallying call must be to expropriate all imperialist assets, the mines, commercial farms, factories, banks, retailers, without compensation, under workers’ control (they belong to the working class in any case)!

To prepare for attacks by the police we need armed workers’ defence committees, uniting workers and soldiers (in every industrial area and working class community)!

For any union leader that stands in the way of a general strike in defence of the lives of the working class, let us exercise our right to remove them immediately!

Even if they agree to a general strike, the current leaders cannot be depended on to really organise this struggle; we need extended workers’ control committees of every structure that co-ordinates the strike!

The imperialists are terrorising and super-exploiting the working class across Africa. Down with the MDC-Zanu-PF regime in Zimbabwe!

Down with the monarchy in Swaziland!

Down with the puppet regime in Lesotho!

Down with the imperialist plunder of the DRC!

Down with the ANC government that reconciles with imperialism that is massacring the working class with unemployment, low wages, high prices and homelessness!

We need a workers’ government!

We need an internationalist revolutionary working class party, drawing the lessons from international working class struggles to begin the defence in the face of the world capitalist offensive.

The International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction (based South Africa, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Chile, New Zealand, USA) stands ready to support this very necessary task.


15.09.09

Issued by Workers International Vanguard League, 1st Floor, Community House, 41 Salt River rd, Salt River, 7925, ph 021 4476777; ph 0822020617; workersinternational@gmail.com web:www.workersinternational.org.za

Friday, August 28, 2009

South Africa: Solidarity with soldiers of SANDU



Yesterday, 26 August, around 2000 rank and file soldiers of the South African National Defence Force, who were members of SANDU, which is their trade union, marched on the Government offices in Pretoria to demand a 30% wage increase. They were met by police who used teargas and rubber bullets against them. Several were arrested and all face suspensions and possible dismissal. (See updates below on the clampdown on the military union.) We reprint the message of solidarity sent by the WIVL to SANDU. Solidarity statements from HRS (US) and CWG (Aotearoa) follow.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Workers International Vanguard League condemns in the strongest possible terms the brutal suppression of the soldiers march yesterday to the Union buildings. Soldiers should have the full right to protest as well as the right to strike. It is a disgrace that rank and file soldiers earn such low wages while the officer corp and generals earn huge pay packets, sitting in their comfy armchairs while sending soldiers into life-threatening situations. We fully support the right of soldiers to elect their leaders in the army and that their leaders should be subject to instant recall.

We fully support the demand for a 30% salary increase, a demand which is fully justified and fair. The current Governor of the Reserve Bank recently received a 28% salary increase but he decrees that workers must be 'reasonable' and limit their demands to the 3-6% so called inflation band. In other words, the official inflation is used as a tool to force workers to lower their demands, while actual inflation for workers is much higher than the CPIX. We can see from this that the problems that the soldiers face are the same as the rest of the working class.

We condemn the lukewarm response of the Cosatu leaders to the brutalization of the soldiers yesterday; they only noted 'with concern' the actions of the police, merely describing them as 'excessive'. A true workers leadership would have immediately have called for broader solidarity action from the rest of the working class in support of their demands and have demanded the immediate release of the 2 soldiers who were arrested, and the lifting of the suspension of the protesters. However they are silent. The Cosatu leaders rush to meet the Minister of Defence (Sisulu) instead of meeting with the soldiers and those who have been smashed by the state repressive forces.

On the 28th June there was a military coup in Honduras; well you may ask, what has that to do with the soldiers demands and your protests? The fact is that there is a US military base in Honduras, which means that the Obama regime is involved in the coup. The lesson to be learnt is that imperialism is so desperate to solve its crisis of falling profits that they have to suppress the working class even more; this means that their usual methods of controlling us, through parliament and flowery constitutions, are not enough; they have started a period of greater offensive against the working class, using military coups, police brutality, gangs of hired thugs, etc.

The shooting of protesters in communities, of the municipal strikers for merely tipping over the garbage, here in South Africa is part of the world imperialist attack. The gold mines are owned by the Bank of New York; our Reserve Bank is controlled by JP Morgan Chase. Our economy is mainly controlled by US imperialism. The government is in reality the agent of imperialism here. This is why they guarantee that every year over R200 Bn leaves SA just in declared profits, while the masses live in starvation. This poses immediate challenges for us all. When we meet or organise, can we still operate as before? We need to defend our right to meet, to march, to protest. We need to defend ourselves from the armed attacks of the brutal police and other fascistic agencies.

There is a second major lesson that we need to learn and that is that under these times of crisis of the capitalists, the trade union leaders, such as those of Cosatu, Nactu and Fedusa, close ranks with the capitalist class and act against the interest of workers. At a time that the entire working class should have been on strike for 30% or more increases, the Cosatu leaders persuade workers to lower their demands; they persuade workers not to go on strike, they sign low wage agreements and bind their members, like the municipal unions to 3 year agreements which mean that in the next 2 years their members cannot strike when they receive what is in effect a wage cut.

Even worse, when workers are mobilising to strike, the Cosatu leaders divide the working class by not mobilising any concrete solidarity, and even break ranks to sign for peanuts and weaken the strike, such as when the railway workers went on strike recently (Satawu signed for 8% and abandoned the rest of the workers to strike on their own). The only reason why Cosatu leaders want unions of the soldiers to join them is not to increase working class solidarity, but on the contrary, to use their skills to betray the workers demands and struggles.

The third major lesson to learn is that when SA soldiers are sent to other parts of Africa (Lesotho, DRC, etc), they are being used by the imperialist forces to not only guard their mining and other assets, but to act against the local working class in these respective countries. The war in the DRC has led to over 4 million people being killed; all the imperialists were interested in was not 'peace' for the people, but to rape and plunder as much of the countries resources as possible. Imperialism and their local agent, the SA government, uses you when they need to safeguard the profits of the bosses, but once you have done this, they dump you aside.

To counter the divisive tactics of the SACP-ANC-Cosatu leaders, we need to be better organised, we need to unite with the base of Cosatu and other unions, in action on the ground.

We need to draw the lesson from Madagascar, where the soldiers united en masse with the working class, disobeying their generals order to shoot on worker protests; they took control of the military bases and said loudly and clearly that they are with the people.

What we need are workers and soldiers action committees to defend this current struggle of the soldiers for a living wage and other demands; we need to unite to defend communities for their struggles for jobs for all, for bread, for decent housing for all, for free adequate health care for all; for increasing wages when prices increase. This is the same fight. it is the same fight as the workers in Bolivia and Peru against the imperialist grab of their resources. It is the same fight as the Chinese and Zimbabwean workers against exploitation.

We demand:

1. the immediate unconditional release of the 2 arrested soldiers;

2. the immediate lifting of the suspension of all soldier protesters;

3. 30% increase in wage for soldiers and the entire working class; increase the soldiers wage to a minimum of R5000; wages must increase when prices increase;

4. Recognise the soldiers defence unions and the right to strike and protest;

5. Adequate houses for all;

6. Reduce the working week without loss of pay and share all jobs among all those who can work.

7. Down with all military operations by the SANDF in Africa; unite with the working class to defend the masses against the plunder of Anglo American and other gangster monopolies.
Workers of the world unite; we have nothing to lose but our chains!

Send messages of solidarity to The National Executive of the SANDU, c/o Jeff Dubazana sandu@mweb.co.za ; please cc messages to workersinternational@gmail.com
--
Shaheed Mahomed
Secretary
workersinternational@gmail.com
web www.workersinternational.org.za


UPDATE: 28 August

Workers International Vanguard League condemns the decision by the government to dismiss the soldiers who took part in yesterday's protest. The refusal of the courts to even grant the soldiers the right to march to the Union buildings show that the courts are the agents of the capitalists. The Obama coup in Honduras on 28 June 2009 shows that world imperialism is moving over to greater control by force and trampling on the few democratic gains the working class has made. US imperialism controls the bulk of the SA economy through Anglo American and other global gangsters. The shooting of unarmed community members dying of the cold in shacks, the shooting of municipal workers for throwing over trash cans, and now the shooting of unarmed soldiers are all part of a global capitalist attack on the working class.
The army generals received 10,5% salary increases as well as improved benefits in January this year, backdated to about October last year, while each time the defence workers unions have been stonewalled by the government, claiming time and again that they have 'no mandate'. Soldiers are expected to suffer and starve in silence while the MP's argue about which model of Mercedes Benz to buy. If the soldiers had the right to strike, this matter would have been resolved long time ago. The government is so busy bailing out capitalists who have stolen hundreds of billions of Rands of wealth from SA over the decades, that they have no time for the demands of the working class.
Even though the protest on Wed was called by Sandu, we understand that Sandu, Sasfu as well as non-unionised soldiers took part in the protest. Even the pro-boss ILO regulations support soldiers right to protest and state that where the right to strike is limited there should be alternative mechanisms in place; and even if there are illegal strikes (which this was not), there should be protection from arbitrary dismissal. The government is a signatory of the ILO but throws away even a pretence of fairness when the profits of big capital are deemed under threat.The lukewarm response from the Cosatu leaders has opened the door for the government to mass dismiss soldiers. We call on members of Sasfu, Sandu and non-unionised soldiers to unite against the mass dismissal; we call on the entire working class to rally to the defence of the soldiers cause. They have been the only ones who have been brave enough to demand a wage increase that was really required, namely 30%. We call for joint soldier- worker committees to be built in every community, to unite the struggle of the soldiers with the struggle for adequate housing, for an end to retrenchments, for jobs for all and a shortening of the working week without loss of pay (so that all who can work, can share the work), with the rest of the working class struggle for a living wage increase. We call for wages to increase each time prices increase! Let us stop the retail and food gangsters in their tracks!
We call for an urgent national meeting of delegates from all workplaces (unionised or not), working class communities (including the unemployed) and of delegates of soldiers to plan a programme of action to defend the soldiers and all sectors under attack by imperialism!
We reject the notion that SA soldiers are the last line of the defence of the country; the SA soldiers have been dispatched to the DRC and other countries, where they protect imperialist assets even if millions are killed around them- this is imperialism abusing the soldiers while the fatcats of Anglo American sit in their comfy mansions in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, etc, out of harms way.
Workers and soldiers unite to help throw off the yoke of imperialism on the African continent. workers of the world unite, we have nothing to lose but our chains!

UPDATE 30 August

Workers International Vanguard League has received evidence that the military unions have been attempting since at least May LAST YEAR, to negotiate wage increases fo the soldiers. Each time they were met with governmentnegotiators that had 'no mandate'. The fact that the fat generals received their increases in January this year means that the government was not serious about any negotiations with the rank and file soldiers and that they have been looking for an excuse to bash the unions. Te demand of 30% for the lower ranks and 15% for the upper ranks by the soldiers, goes against the divisions between the upper elite and the foot soldiers, so characteristic of capitalist society.
The current crisis of imperialism needs greater supression of the working class and the creation of a more openly oppressive professional army of mercenaries. Imperialism and their lackeys in the state were looking for an excuse to purge the army of any elements who might side with the working class. This trend to a professional army is one which came after imperialism drew the lesson of the war in Vietnam and the weakness (for them) of a conscipted or civilian based army. The war in Iraq, with its 300 000 mercenaries, is evidence of this world trend to more fascistic methods.

This explains why the police and the courts were so brutal in suppressing any protest. The ground is being laid for integration of more fascistic types into the army and makes us believe that the petrol bombing of the military vehicle last week could have been the work of an agent provocateur. If the state appoints Dramat as head of the Hawks- whose only claim to fame is being part of a intelligence crackdown on Pagad (where infiltration and framing of activists were of the order of the day)- this explanation seems not only likely but probable and could even become a more widespread tactic by the state to crackdown on the rsing tide of resistance. It also shows the methods of the FBI and CIA are alive and well in SA.

Down with the upper layer of officers of the Praetorian (like the elite in Roman times) army of the Afrikaner bourgeoisie, the Angloamerican and the bourgeoisie of the ANC!
Down with the assassin layer of officers that oppresses and massacres the nations of Southern Africa for the interests of American and British imperialism!
For the election and removal of the chiefs of the army by committees of the rank and file soldiers!
For committees of soldiers, armed workers and peasants!
For the Socialist United States of Southern Africa!

August 30, 2009

From: Humanists for Revolutionary Socialism (HRS).

To: To 
Our oppressed soldier brothers, workers in uniform under state attack in South Africa in care of the Worker’s International Vanguard League (WIVL).


We denounce the South African state for its unconscionable behavior towards you and its illegal actions against you and your brothers.
 It is important for soldiers to know that there is worker opposition here in the “belly of the beast” to their ultimate bosses, our own main enemy, the U.S. capitalist class. We demand all U.S. imperialist forces (overt and covert) out of Africa now! Their only purpose on your continent is to further the exploitation of your people and the appropriation of your resources.

We stand opposed to them and all their plans to put you in harm's way and keep you hungry. We stand opposed to the obscene fat Boer and English generals who live off your sweat and to all the sadist and martinet junior officers that make your life hell.
 We denounce all the bourgeois authorities and the way their police 
"support the troops" with tear gas and gunfire. We denounce them and phony union leaders who stand with them when they deny your basic democratic rights to protest and to struggle for living wages and conditions. We know "leaders" like these. We call them class traitors.


The soldier's fate, as rank-and-file soldiers, is tied up to ours
 as workers in ways that cannot be dissolved, as the history of all 
modern revolutions shows. The political forces of the yes men for American and British imperialism, together with the Stalinists of the
 South African Communist party, have stalled out and sold out your proletarian revolution, and with it your national liberation. They
 move you around the African map in support of every imperialist scheme to rob one locality after another. These political forces of yes men 
are the ones who want to prosecute you now. It is they who are denying 
you the pay you need to feed and clothe your families!

Brothers! You are living under conditions of the slave-owner's tyranny.
 The South African bourgeoisie wants you to do their imperialist masters' dirty work on YOUR continent. They want you to do this for the kind of chicken feed pay they paid the non-white colonial levies (draftees)
 they led to slaughter in the past! They want you to do all the dying 
defending their class and the rule of the laws of their class' dictatorship. They want you to die for them like a Gunga Din, fighting his own oppressed people when they rise up in righteous revolt. 


You have organized! You are our Union Brothers now, no matter what 
our top COSATU and AFL-CIO misleaders say! You declare you will never surrender. That is a tremendous source of strength for us! We in the HRS and your champions, the WIVL, will go every mile of the way with you! For you will come to find that for you, as for us, the Socialist Revolution will be the only road out of the crisis of human survival and development!


We stand behind all your demands in the Proposed Agreement and demand the dropping of all charges against the jailed Brothers! For
30% raises NOW covering all 12 months of 2009! For immediate new Collective Bargaining talks to begin as soon as this Trade Agreement 
is in effect! For an across-the-board 5% raise increment on April 1,
2010! For a 1% check off for all those in uniform payable to THE UNION, etc. We support your demands in detail! And we demand the reinstatement without prejudice of any kind to their records for all the Brothers who were discharged/dismissed!


We stand behind all the demands raise by the WIVL on your behalf.
 Your situation is part of and not something different than a generalized South African crisis within a world crisis of capitalism/imperialism. Understood this way we know an injury to one of you is an injury to us all. To advance the struggle the following additional demands are endorsed and recommended for adoption by the soldiers and their supporters


1. Down with the Praetorian layer of officers of the army of DeBeers, Anglo-American and the bourgeoisie of the ANC.



2. Down with the assassin layer of officers that oppresses and massacres the nations of Southern Africa at the command of American and British imperialism.



3. For the election and for the right of recall and substitution of the chiefs of the armed forces by Committees of the Rank-And-File Servicemen to assure the military acts only in the interests of the working class, the oppressed and poor peasants.



4. For Committees of Soldiers, Armed Workers and Peasants.



5. For the Socialist United States of Southern Africa!



28-8-09
To the National Executive of SANDU.

Dear comrades of the SA National Defence Union,

The Communist Workers Group of Aotearoa/NZ sends its revolutionary greetings and proletarian solidarity to your members who are being arrested and suspended for protesting your poverty wages.

We strongly support your right to fight for a living wage, and for the right to protest and demand this and other necessities of life. We salute your militancy and your slogan "we will never surrender". This is a slogan that the whole working class should take up internationally.

We can see that you are not alone in South Africa, nor around the world, where there are many mass struggles against the global economic crisis, and the attempts by the capitalist parasites to make us bailout their system with the food out of our childrens' mouths. It is obvious that for us to live capitalism must die!

The capitalist system is in crisis, and the only thing stopping its downfall is the capitalist ruling class which uses the treacherous union leaders to hold the masses down, and weaken and divide them, while the state forces and paramilitaries prepare to smash them.

The way to end the system is for the workers in uniform to refuse to obey orders to shoot the workers out of uniform, and to join with them to occupy the workplaces, take control of transport and communications, and form armed defence committees to defeat the officers, the mercenaries, paramilitaries etc., and to fight for a Black Socialist Republic of South Africa.

In Solidarity

Dave Brown (for CWG - member of the International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction).
Aotearoa/New Zealand