[Onthebarricades] SOUTH AFRICA: Anarchist solidarity statement on public sector strikes

[Andy]

> To all educators and students who have for so long been controlled and
abused by a sytem that has time and again failed us, I voice my support
for the workers strike. This can be seen as more than an opportunity for a
living wage, which we have been screaming for many years but also to
strenghten the voice of the workers in this country against the unequal
and pathetic conditions under which we work. We should not take the usual
moral attacks on the tecahers and the nurses to heart when we know that in
all the attacks on our very way of life, our individuality, our right to
control and have a say in what we do, as teachers and public sector
workers and all else who contribute to this society even though they are
still given the bottam end of the prospects.We should take the
opportunity, whatever gain it may bring us in the future, to show a strong
workers solidarity against a capitalist and class based sytem and
governmnent. So stike ahead, and stand strong and lets fight for total
freedom!
PHAMBILI NGOMZABALAZO!
PHANSI 7.25%! PHANSI 10%!
SIFUNA ZONKE!
Lara

ZACF STATEMENT OF SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC SECTOR STRIKE
>
> The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (southern Africa) supports
the public sector strikers, not just in their demand for a wage increase
of 12%, which has now been reduced to 10%, but also in their struggle to
improve the standard of all public sector services. We call on all
workers and community members to show their support for this strike, as
it is not just about wages but an attempt to raise the quality of public
services provided to us all.
>
> We strongly condemn the government's attempt to intimidate workers into
ending the strike by issuing dismissal notices to striking workers, and
by using apartheid-era police brutality against picketers - even though
the police are headed by SACP national chairperson Charles Nqakula. We
support the workers' demands that any agreement reached must be
> accompanied by the unconditional reinstatement of any and all workers
dismissed during the strike.
>
> We strongly condemn the government's duplicity in its negotiators, led
by Kenny Govender, having pretended for four whole months to be
> negotiating in good faith when Govender's team turned out not to have
the mandate of the four ANC Cabinet ministers tasked with managing the
strike: Nquakula, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, Finance Minister
Trevor Manuel and ex-communist Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.
>
> We strongly condemn the attempts by certain reactionary sections of the
media to portray the strikers en masse as violent when the few incidents
of violence have been caused by a handful of shady characters and
ill-disciplined strikers. It is remarkable that the economic abuse
perpetrated on workers by being paid starvation wages is not considered
to be violent.
>
> We commend the great display of solidarity to be shown by the municipal
workers today and, with great respect, wish them strength and courage in
their actions. We also commend the remarkable solidarity shown between
the union federations and the independents on this strike as the
> foundation for an undivided working class-based mass movement.
>
> We are confident, however, that even if government concedes to the
demands of the public sector workers, it will not be long before the
workers have to strike again, to keep up with inflation and the rising
cost of living. That is why we say that this strike should not just be
for higher wages and better public services, but that it should be part
of a larger struggle against the system whereby the rich and powerful
profit of the suffering and labour of the poor.
>
> As long as we live under an economic system where public services are
operated as profit generating enterprises we will have to fight just to
have our most basic needs catered for. This is why we
> anarchist-communists say that a struggle between the rich minority and
the poor majority, between the bosses and the workers, in this case
between government and public sector employees, must go on until the
boss class has been overthrown and all the enterprises necessary to meet
the needs of the people have been taken under the control of those who
work them.
>
> This strike illustrates very clearly, as anarchists have always
> maintained, that the government, any government - be it black, white,
socialist or capitalist - does not serve the interests of the working
and poor people, but those of the rich, comfortable and privileged
classes. The government is an employer and, as such, acts as a boss,
willing to fire on it's own employees in order to defend its profit
margins.
>
> That is why we are adamant that, regardless of the outcome of this
strike - although we hope it will be in favour of the workers - there
will not be adequate service delivery, and access for all to the
> necessities of life, until such time as the workers have properly
organised themselves to take back all the industries of the land, to
operate them not for profit but to meet the needs of all.
>
> When the factories and land are controlled by those that work them,
education by the educators and students, and the communities by those
that inhabit them, then we can say we are free. When goods are produced
and distributed not according to ability to pay and the profit motive,
but according to need, and everybody has access to the necessities of
life, then we can say we are free. When all the public services are
controlled both by those that they cater to and by those that they are
operated by, then we can say we are truly free.
>
> Until such time we must organise and unite all the workers of the land,
in both the factories and fields, together with the students, unemployed
and all the communities of the poor and working poor, for one last
liberation struggle. The struggle not for democratic control of a
> government - black or white, socialist or capitalist - that controls
our lives, but for the very control of our lives, ourselves, and all
that that entails. For popular control of the resources and industries
of the land. This is the new liberation struggle, the struggle for total
liberation.
>
> PHAMBILI NGOMZABALAZO!
> PHANSI 7.25%! PHANSI 10%!
> SIFUNA ZONKE!
>
> Jonathan Payn
> Federation Secretary
> ZACF (South Africa & Swaziland)
> Cell: 078-577-4394
> http://www.zabalaza.net/
>

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International Secretary, Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation

ZACF
Postnet Suite 153
Private Bag X42
Braamfontein
2017
South Africa

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