On 2014-02-16, at 1:38 PM, Charles Brown wrote:
> And on top of having Work-for-Less law imposed on it in its home state
> of Michigan. Industrial proletarian low counter-point to winning the
> union in the late 30's early 40's. Will the rightwing within the
> union get militant or remain self-destructive ?
>
> On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 12:56 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgand2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The Chattanooga plant vote is a grim illustration of the old labour movement maxim: "The workers don't need a union to go backwards; they can do that by themselves" - the typical outcome in conditions of labour surplus rather than labour shortage. But the VW setback was extraordinary in that, even with the open support of management, the union was unable to overcome the fear of job loss gripping the working class in the US and other developed capitalist economies - MG
>>
>> UAW's failure to sway VW workers clouds future
>> By Robert Wright in New York
>> Financial Times
>> February 16 2014
It will take a much different leadership to restore some semblance of militancy to the UAW. There would obviously have to be some pedagogical adaptation to the much lower of class consciousness of American workers, but the following speech by the militant leader of South Africa's largest trade union indicates the kind of commitment to the working class, willingness to mobilize it in the workplace and in the community, and economic and political demands which could begin to revive US trade unionism, even in today's adverse conditions. The union's militancy has placed it on a collision course with the neoliberal ANC government and its allies.
Presentation by Irvin Jim, National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) at the Cape Town Press Club Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal February 11, 2014
I speak to you today with a powerful and united mandate from 341,150 metalworkers. They made their views extremely clear in our workers’ parliament in December 2013 – the parliament we called the NUMSA Special National Congress. In that parliament there was vigorous debate. Every delegate knew that they would have to account to their constituency. We are justifiably proud of our democratic heritage. We know that what we decided has the backing of our members. We don’t have to change decisions after the congress has spoken, as some do, even though there are those who would urge us to “come to our senses” and take NUMSA in another direction from the decisions of that Congress.
We are also justifiably proud of our militant heritage. Our union, right back from its beginning, has taken the side of the working class and the poor. We have always been a union that champions shop-floor struggles as well as the struggles of working-class communities. We have always understood that workers come from communities and live in communities. Community struggles are workers’ struggles. So, as metalworkers we fight for policies and strategies that will create jobs. We want more working people from our communities to have jobs. We fight for water. We fight for houses. We fight for the safety of our communities. We fight against a police force that kills our people when they protest because they don’t have water and because they don’t have houses.
We are also a union that has been in the trenches with revolutionary forces within the liberation alliance led by the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP.) Yet when we speak out clearly in defence of the working class and the poor, our allies attack us. They call us oppositionists because we reject the policies of the ANC and SACP that attack the interests of our members. They call us ultra-leftists suffering from infantile disorders because we refuse to betray the interests of the working class and support an ANC and SACP whose leadership has consistently attacked the working class.
We are not just talking about labour brokers [labour-hire firms]. We are not just talking about e-tolls [road tolls]. We are talking about an ANC and SACP leadership that has clearly and unequivocally taken the side of international capital against us. There is no other way to look at it. The examples stare us in the face. At Marikana, the armed forces of the state mowed down workers who were demanding a living wage from an international mining company, Lonmin. The same happened during the farmworkers strike in the Western Cape.
The same is happening now in Mothuthlung and Sebokeng and other communities across the country too numerous to count.
Our people are protesting because they have no water – that most basic of necessities. And the state -- that very same state which failed to supply them with water -- kills them for their protest.
No fundamental change
Underneath all of this is a harsh material fact. The South African economy has not fundamentally changed. The structure remains the same as it was under apartheid -- the same dependence on exporting raw minerals, the same enslavement to the "Minerals Energy Finance complex".
Far from an increase in the manufacturing sector – the sector which can really produce jobs – we have a rapid process of de-industrialisation. We are not gaining jobs, we are losing them. In 2004 there were 3.7 million unemployed people in our country. Last year that had risen to 4.1 million -- more unemployed, not less.
This will not stop until we fundamentally change direction. We, as a union, have understood that the ANC and SACP will not lead that change. It is the ANC and SACP which gave us the neoliberal "Growth, Employment and Redistribution" (GEAR) economic policy. It is the ANC and SACP which has given us the neoliberal National Development Plan (NDP). It is the ANC and SACP which is investing in improving the rail lines to Richards Bay so that more of our minerals can be exported. We know that the current leadership, the very same leadership that calls itself anti-imperialist, is in a lucrative alliance with international capital. It has accepted its shares in the mining industry, but those shares were not given for nothing. They had a price, and the price is being paid by the working class and the poor of our country. The price is a macroeconomic strategy that focuses on maintaining profit, not jobs. This fact cannot be changed by a fig leaf called the Employment Tax Incentive Act. A fig leaf which claims to be about creating jobs while actually it is yet another attack on the working class.
I want to say this very clearly and very straightforwardly. There is only one way to create the number of jobs that are needed in South Africa – the number the NDP dreams about. That is to harness the profits of the mining and financial sectors and use them to build manufacturing industry. That is why we call for the nationalisation of the mines and the financial sector. It is not some dogma from the past. It is an immediate and urgent requirement to save our nation. […]
It was against this background that NUMSA’s Special National Congress debated and passed its ground-breaking resolutions.
• The congress demanded accountability for the Marikana massacre right from the minister and the national commissioner of police downwards, including all politicians who were involved. Those who were party to this massacre of workers must go.
• The congress decided that NUMSA will not spend workers’ money on the ANC campaign and we will not, as a union, campaign for the ANC. I have already today given you enough explanation for that decision.
• The congress resolved that NUMSA will play a central role, as a catalyst, in the building of a united front. That United Front will take up the bread and butter issues of the working class. It will link our struggles on the shop floor with our struggles in our communities. It will build an irresistible force for fundamental change.
• The congress agreed to open the scope of our union to organise across value chains. This has been necessitated by the global restructuring of capitalism.
• The congress mandated the NUMSA leadership to study, research and investigate various forms of independent working-class parties and to serve as a catalyst to form a party. Such a party would contest elections at an appropriate time. This resolution came from the understanding that unless the working class organises itself as a class for itself it will remain unrepresented and forever toil behind the bourgeoisie.
• The congress also called on the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) leadership to convene a COSATU Special Congress in line with the COSATU constitution, with immediate effect. And it called on COSATU to break out of the ANC-SACP-COSATU alliance, which has failed to use the political power it secured in 1994 to take ownership and control of the national wealth of our country and replace the white racist colonial economy.
• Finally the congress threw its weight behind the campaign of rolling mass action initiated by the NUMSA structures to demand fundamental change in the direction of the South African economy and society.
So, on February 26, NUMSA has called for a national strike and community action to demand an end to the Employment Tax Incentive Act because:
• It will not encourage real employment creation.
• It discourages decent work.
• It will lead to the displacement of unsubsidised workers.
Instead we demand the fundamental restructuring of the economy to create jobs through building manufacturing industry. When it comes to the young people of South Africa, we demand that the government:
• provide us with free tertiary education;
• build stronger links between Further Education and Training institutions (FETs) and industry;
• give career guidance at schools to match youth to skills needed in the economy;
• use infrastructure projects to train local youth.
And we demand from employers:
• Invest in your workforce through training and development;
• Increase your intake of interns and apprentices;
• Support the FETs and disadvantaged schools in your area;
• Use the infrastructure project tenders that you win to train local youth.
[…]
Full: http://links.org.au/node/3707