Victory to
the South African Striking Miners!
Enough of the bogus “protecting frontline services”, and “cuts too far too fast”!
TU leaders must fight for needs budgets!TUC: Call an indefinite General Strike!
Enough of the bogus “protecting frontline services”, and “cuts too far too fast”!
TU leaders must fight for needs budgets!TUC: Call an indefinite General Strike!
The
striking miners of South Africa are the vanguard of the international proletariat.
The brutal and pre-planned massacre of the 34 miners on 16th August is a sharp
manifestation of the International crisis of capitalism. Every class conscious
workers on the planet has a duty to support and work for the victory of these
strikes because they are fighting not just for the future of the South African
working class but for all our futures.
The world
crisis of capitalism continue to deepen; the Greek and European sovereign debt
crisis continues to worsen, several countries in the euro area cannot repay or
re-finance their government debt without the assistance of the dreaded troika,
the IMF, EU and ECB.
The debts
of speculators and banks from property bub-bles were transferred to the
national bank balance and so the crisis became a sovereign debt crisis which is
now threatening the solvency of whole nations and the survival of the Euro and
the European Union itself. This has global consequences, threatening
inter-Imperialist rivalries the like of which we saw before WWI and WWII.
This has
had dire consequences for the Greek working class and poor, food kitchens have
sprung everywhere and real poverty and hunger has begun to reappeared in Europe
for the first time since the end of WWII. Greece shows us all our futures under
this rotten and crisis-ridden capitalist system.
It is
already apparent that a severe housing crisis is developing in Britain, the NHS
is being totally privatised and local councils are about to be reduced to being
the paymasters of privatised and decimated local services. Tory Barnet council
is pioneering US-style total privatisation of services. Chancellor Ed Balls
told the Guardian, “The public want to know that we are going to be ruthless
and disciplined in how we go about public spending”. And at the Labour
Conference, “we cannot make any commitments now that the next Labour government
will be able to reverse particular tax rises or spending cuts.”
Following the terrible Marikana Massacre on 16 August on Monday 15 October the crisis in South Africa’s mining sector worsened when talks between the Chamber of Mines and trade unions failed and the strike wave spread. “The situation is grave,” Willie Jacobsz, head of investor relations at Gold Fields told the Financial Times. “All of Gold Fields’ South African mines, with the excep-tion of the developing South Deep, are now engaged in illegal strike action, putting thousands of jobs at risk and increasing the likelihood of major restructuring.”
South
Africa's schools are just as miserable as the health care system, and youth
unemployment exceeds fifty percent. A large share of the black majority still
lives in corrugated metal huts, the gap between rich and poor is now even wider
than in the days of white rule, and among the world’s worst.
A great
many of the ANC and NUM leaders have become multi-millionaires themselves by
serving the interests of Imperialist finance capital. Former NUM leaders like
Cyril Ramaphosa, Kgalema Motlanthe, Gwede Mantashe, and James Motlatsi have
used their union positions to become capitalists themselves and betray the
miners.
They
personify the ANC’s shift from a radical petty-bourgeois nationalist liberation
movement to a bourgeois nationalist ruling party that protects the interests of
the black bourgeoisie, the white monopoly capitalists in South Africa and
British-based and other foreign companies such as Lonmin, like Ireland’s Gerry
Adams.
The
official leadership of the working class internationally are bureaucratised
functionaries, career politicians who are dependent on the capitalist system
itself for their privileged lifestyles. So their greatest fear is the mass
movement of the working class which will threaten that lifestyle. We need a new
revolutionary leadership.
Their
strangle-hold on the rank and file of the movement is stronger now than ever.
They actively foster the two tier workforce to split and divide us. We saw this
in Ellesmere Port, in the London buses and in countless other workplaces; new
starters are second class TU members, with lower pay rates and far worse
conditions. Almost all left groups do not fight this in any serious way, thus
they do not prepare for this impending catastrophe.
The
National Shop Stewards Network, Unite the Resistance and the Coalition of
Resistance cosy up to bureaucrats, left and right, with Len McCluskey’s
treachery alibied and excused by all. We desperately need a genuine rank and
file movement which fights for the class independence of the working class not
only in Britain but internationally. We need to reforge the only truly
internationalist revolutionary current, the Fourth International.
To defend
the working class locally we need to develop local campaigns like the Counihan
Homelessness campaign in Brent to become national campaigns demanding needs
budgets to provide decent social housing for all.
We need to
defend the civil rights and demand the release of Irish Republican,
Palestinian, Naxalite POWs in India and all other anti-Imperialist political
prisoners internationally.
The TUC are
to investigate the "practicalities" of holding a general strike. A
one day would be only a protest to let off steam, as in Greece and Spain. We
must fight for an indefinite General strike to pose the question of power to make
any progress for the working class in this crisis.
Slogans for
the International Fight
> Raise an International fund to support all the Striking South
African Miners!
> Forward to nationalisation of the mines in South Africa under the
control of workers and working class communities!
> Democratise the unions!
> Elections of all union officials!
> Officials to be paid no more than the average skilled worker’s
wage!
> Defeat the anti-union laws!
> For a steeply progressive wealth tax!
> Public works at TU rates of pay to give work to the unemployed!
> No to British Jobs for British Workers!
> Forward to the International Solidarity of all the working class
and oppressed!
> Build a National Housing Campaign to fight for decent social housing for all!
> Release all Irish, Palestinian, Naxalite and all other
anti-Imperialist POWs!
> For an indefinite General Strike to bring down the Con-Dem
government!
> Rebuild the Revolutionary International, reforge the Trotskyist
Fourth International!
Socialist
Fight