The massacre of 34 striking workers at Lonmin’s Marikana mine in South Africa has cast into sharp relief the role of the official trade unions, in South Africa and internationally, amid a global upsurge of the class struggle.
A river of blood now separates the miners from the National Union of Mineworkers—the central component of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which is closely aligned with the African National Congress (ANC) government. The NUM has revealed itself as a tool of state repression and murder.
The eruption of working class anger against the giant mine owners has put workers in direct conflict with the organizations that supposedly represent them. After the massacre, NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni demanded that “all workers to go back to work and for the law enforcement agencies to crack down on the culprits of the violence and murders”—which, according to the NUM, are the workers themselves.
The conflict between the working class and the NUM does not stop at Marikana. The mining industry site mineweb.com wrote recently, “What is particularly worrying here is that the miners are bypassing the NUM, suggesting a total lack of trust in the traditional mining union setup. The NUM appears to be being seen as a vassal of the ruling African National Congress political party—i.e., part of the new South African establishment.”
This alignment of forces—in which the unions fall in behind the corporations and the government—is international in scope. So too is the growing rebellion of workers against these right-wing, pro-corporate institutions, as the ruling class carries out an international program of social counter-revolution.
In Europe, wherever struggles have escaped from the confines of actions officially sanctioned by the unions, the unions have collaborated with the government in repressing them. During the strike of Spanish air traffic controllers in 2010, the government called out the military to break the strike, with the support of the unions and their political allies.
In the United States, a series of significant struggles have erupted over the past two years in opposition to the AFL-CIO, as workers have sought to fight the corporate attack on jobs and benefits now spearheaded by the Obama administration.
In 2010, workers in Indianapolis, Indiana overwhelmingly rejected a 50 percent wage cut backed by the United Auto Workers, driving out union executives from a local meeting. A section of workers formed an independent rank-and-file committee to organize a fight to defend jobs and wages. A few months before, auto workers erupted in a near-riot against UAW officials supporting the closure of the NUMMI plant in Fremont, California.
Just last week, workers at the Chrysler Dundee Engine plant in Michigan, angered by forced overtime and two-tier wages, voted overwhelmingly against a local contract, to the surprise and anger of management and the UAW. Where struggles have broken out under union control—as in the strike of Caterpillar workers in Joliet, Illinois—workers quickly came up against the fact that the union works for their isolation and defeat.
These events powerfully confirm the analysis made by the International Committee of the Fourth International of the nature of the trade unions. In 1993, the Workers League, the predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party, explained that the degeneration of the trade unions was rooted in their nationalist and pro-capitalist perspective, which was undermined by the globalization of production and the breakdown of the post-war social order: “The role of these bureaucratic apparatuses in every country has been transformed from pressuring the employers and the state for concessions to the workers, to pressuring the workers for concessions to the employers so as to attract capital.”
At Marikana, the unions have moved from pressuring workers to open, violent repression. When circumstances require it, they will act the same way in Europe, the United States and beyond.
Workers’ efforts to break free of these institutions provoke the outrage not only of the corporate elite, but also of middle class organizations that posture as “left” or even socialist.
Typical is an article on the South Africa massacre published on August 21—after four days of silence—by the International Socialist Organization in the US. After cynically feigning sympathy with the workers and criticizing the NUM, the ISO makes clear that it is adamantly opposed to any attempt to break the stranglehold of this institution. The ISO even criticizes the NUM’s rival union, the more militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU).
“Without a doubt, the mining bosses are overjoyed at the sharpening discord between different wings of South Africa's labor movement,” the ISO writes. “And at times, AMCU leaders have been drawn into maneuvers that exacerbate the divisiveness that the mine bosses have hoped to foment.”
In fact, the mine companies are not “overjoyed” by “sharpening discord” between the unions, but desperately afraid that their NUM allies will lose control over the workers. The ISO makes clear that it too is determined to prevent “divisiveness”—i.e., working class opposition to the NUM.
A companion article, reprinted by the ISO from the South African journal Amandla!, denounces the AMCU for advancing “unrealistic demands” and “failing to condemn the violence of its members.” That is, the workers are themselves to blame for their deaths because they have the temerity to desire a decent wage.
Amandla!, closely aligned with the Democratic Left Front of South Africa, writes elsewhere that the “union’s role, once wage negotiations are complete, is to transmit the decision to the rest of the workforce.” And workers are supposed to accept this “transmission” without complaint.
The ISO and its international co-thinkers speak for privileged, complacent and reactionary sections of the upper middle class. For them, the unions are both a source of potentially lucrative careers and a mechanism to maintain organizational and political control over the working class—and thereby prevent any struggle against capitalism.
Whatever the hopes of the trade union executives and their allies, however, the objective crisis is driving millions of people along a different path—towards the formation of new organizations of struggle and towards socialist politics. The bloody events in South Africa have exposed the class lines, and they must become a strategic experience for the entire international working class.
Joseph Kishore
Source: World Socialist Web Site
Showing posts with label Frans Baleni. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frans Baleni. Show all posts
Friday, August 24, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
French Communist Party backs killing of South African miners
The World Socialist Web Site notes with contempt the French Communist Party’s defense of the massacre of 34 striking South African platinum miners by police at Marikana.
After sympathetically quoting South African President Jacob Zuma and cynically expressing its “indignation and horror” at the violence, the brief communiqué published August 17 by the Communist Party (PCF) states: “The PCF reaffirms its solidarity with all the political and trade union forces in South Africa in their struggle to reduce inequality, for progress and for social justice under the true rule of law.”
It is public knowledge that the “political and trade union forces” defended by the PCF ordered and defended the massacre. The African National Congress (ANC) government’s national police commissioner, Riah Phiyega, declared after the massacre that she “gave police the responsibility to execute the task they needed to do.” She opposed any prosecution of those responsible for the miners’ deaths, saying, “This is no time for finger-pointing.”
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), whose former president Cyril Ramaphosa has gone on to amass a fortune of $275 million, has opposed the miners’ strike. NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni defended the police, stating, “The police were patient, but these people were armed with dangerous weapons.”
The PCF’s fellow Stalinists in the South African Communist Party (SACP), who historically have supported the ANC, dismissed the police killing of strikers as “worker-to-worker violence.”
The massacre of South African miners is an event of international significance, testifying to the murderous hostility of bourgeois “left” parties and the trade union apparatus towards any militant movement of the working class that threatens to escape the suffocating grip of the official unions. It is also a sharp warning to the working class internationally.
By praising police toadies in South Africa as fighters for justice and the rule of law, the PCF is signaling that it and PCF-affiliated unions like the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) will not object to similar acts of police violence to crush strikes in Europe.
The rest of France’s petty-bourgeois “left,” which operates within the CGT and with the PCF on the periphery of France’s social democratic government, is maintaining a telling silence on this outrage. As of this writing, five days after the killings, the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) has still not commented on the Marikana massacre on its web site.
As for the Workers Struggle (LO) group, the CGT’s most dogged promoter, it has published only one brief, eight-line news dispatch on the massacre. LO is totally silent on the role of the ANC and NUM, but concludes: “Whatever some kind souls may claim, the class struggle is still present, sometimes ferocious. This is proof.”
LO’s platitudes are calculated to allow the French petty-bourgeois pseudo-left to maintain its political support for the organizers of the Marikana massacre.
Source: World Socialist Web Site
After sympathetically quoting South African President Jacob Zuma and cynically expressing its “indignation and horror” at the violence, the brief communiqué published August 17 by the Communist Party (PCF) states: “The PCF reaffirms its solidarity with all the political and trade union forces in South Africa in their struggle to reduce inequality, for progress and for social justice under the true rule of law.”
It is public knowledge that the “political and trade union forces” defended by the PCF ordered and defended the massacre. The African National Congress (ANC) government’s national police commissioner, Riah Phiyega, declared after the massacre that she “gave police the responsibility to execute the task they needed to do.” She opposed any prosecution of those responsible for the miners’ deaths, saying, “This is no time for finger-pointing.”
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), whose former president Cyril Ramaphosa has gone on to amass a fortune of $275 million, has opposed the miners’ strike. NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni defended the police, stating, “The police were patient, but these people were armed with dangerous weapons.”
The PCF’s fellow Stalinists in the South African Communist Party (SACP), who historically have supported the ANC, dismissed the police killing of strikers as “worker-to-worker violence.”
The massacre of South African miners is an event of international significance, testifying to the murderous hostility of bourgeois “left” parties and the trade union apparatus towards any militant movement of the working class that threatens to escape the suffocating grip of the official unions. It is also a sharp warning to the working class internationally.
By praising police toadies in South Africa as fighters for justice and the rule of law, the PCF is signaling that it and PCF-affiliated unions like the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) will not object to similar acts of police violence to crush strikes in Europe.
The rest of France’s petty-bourgeois “left,” which operates within the CGT and with the PCF on the periphery of France’s social democratic government, is maintaining a telling silence on this outrage. As of this writing, five days after the killings, the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) has still not commented on the Marikana massacre on its web site.
As for the Workers Struggle (LO) group, the CGT’s most dogged promoter, it has published only one brief, eight-line news dispatch on the massacre. LO is totally silent on the role of the ANC and NUM, but concludes: “Whatever some kind souls may claim, the class struggle is still present, sometimes ferocious. This is proof.”
LO’s platitudes are calculated to allow the French petty-bourgeois pseudo-left to maintain its political support for the organizers of the Marikana massacre.
Source: World Socialist Web Site
Friday, February 19, 2010
Zuma and Cosatu: The end of the affair
The Zuma government has not delivered on its promises to trade unions and Cosatu should have refrained from supporting “individuals” in the ANC’s 2007 national conference in Polokwane, union leaders said this week. National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) general secretary Frans Baleni told the Mail & Guardian on Thursday that the State of the Nation address by President Jacob Zuma and the budget speech by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan showed that the union federation is not harvesting the fruits of its support for Zuma.
He said Cosatu should have focused on policies rather than personalities, implying that the trade union federation should not have so publicly thrown its weight behind Zuma in the run-up to Polokwane. “We should have focused on policy rather than individuals. If we were more focused on policy we would have had better results.”
Baleni said there is “anger from our structures” about the way the ANC treats Cosatu once elections are over. “Before the elections we are taken seriously, but after the elections we are not taken seriously any more. “If the budget signals no real change from the past, it deepens the perception that we are [being] taken for a ride.” He said Cosatu will take the ANC to task about its concerns regarding the budget, but admitted that mere talking has limited success. “Real change was promised post-Polokwane. We can’t just get promises all the time; we want to see it. Now there is a lot more engagement with the ANC, but you can’t just talk. At some point something must be done.”
Cosatu will take a franker stance against the ANC in future, Baleni said. “We will tell them there is a blind spot and that we want to see results.” Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini told the M&G the federation was unhappy about the proposals in the budget that moot a move towards a two-tier labour market, calling it a “recipe for disaster”.
The Black Management Forum president and director general in government’s labour department, Jimmy Manyi, was in the dark about how the youth employment scheme would work. “We heard this for the first time when the finance minister delivered his budget speech this week. I don’t know what he meant. The big drive for the department of labour is to focus on decent work. Anything short of that [will not work]. The creativity that he [Gordhan] spoke about needs to be interrogated, in line with the concept of decent work,” said Manyi.
In 2005 then-deputy finance minister Jabu Moleketi proposed a dual labour market system for young people, small businesses and certain labour-intensive industries to address the high unemployment rate, but this was rejected by the ANC during the party’s national general council that year. The idea was also given the thumbs-down during the ANC’s Polokwane conference in 2007.
Dlamini said although Cosatu would welcome the absorption of more youth into the labour market, it was wrong to subject them to lower labour standards. “For the minister to say workers should not enjoy the same labour standards, it means workers would be subjected to different labour rights. “We all agreed on decent jobs. This does not go to that. It actually addresses the plight of the youth, but the aim is to destroy them. “They will hate employment because the entry salary will be the same as those who are permanently employed, but there won’t be any room for them to negotiate salary increases. They [the government] say more than 800 000 youth would be employed, but this will mean less permanent and formal employees.” He accused the ANC government of failing to consult Cosatu on the matter. “We only learned about it today [Wednesday]. We were shocked like everyone else. “We understand there was not supposed to be official consultation with us. We do not expect ministers to consult Cosatu. But in the alliance we have [an] understanding of what is supposed to happen.”
South African Communist Party deputy general secretary and Deputy Transport Minister Jeremy Cronin confirmed that the new budget proposals were also not discussed with the SACP, but said the SACP would “give the proposals [on job creation] a chance”. “We shouldn’t be protecting a small pocket of workers at the cost of a much larger group.” He said the labour market is multitiered anyway because of the massive number of casualised workers and the small pocket of workers with decent jobs. “We have to be bold about getting people into work.”
The SACP is increasingly critical of the expanded public works programme, however, because it was designed as a way for people to “leapfrog” into the first economy -- but the first economy was dysfunctional. “Therefore the debate about decent work versus work opportunities is also necessary,” Cronin said.
Source: Mail & Guardian
He said Cosatu should have focused on policies rather than personalities, implying that the trade union federation should not have so publicly thrown its weight behind Zuma in the run-up to Polokwane. “We should have focused on policy rather than individuals. If we were more focused on policy we would have had better results.”
Baleni said there is “anger from our structures” about the way the ANC treats Cosatu once elections are over. “Before the elections we are taken seriously, but after the elections we are not taken seriously any more. “If the budget signals no real change from the past, it deepens the perception that we are [being] taken for a ride.” He said Cosatu will take the ANC to task about its concerns regarding the budget, but admitted that mere talking has limited success. “Real change was promised post-Polokwane. We can’t just get promises all the time; we want to see it. Now there is a lot more engagement with the ANC, but you can’t just talk. At some point something must be done.”
Cosatu will take a franker stance against the ANC in future, Baleni said. “We will tell them there is a blind spot and that we want to see results.” Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini told the M&G the federation was unhappy about the proposals in the budget that moot a move towards a two-tier labour market, calling it a “recipe for disaster”.
The Black Management Forum president and director general in government’s labour department, Jimmy Manyi, was in the dark about how the youth employment scheme would work. “We heard this for the first time when the finance minister delivered his budget speech this week. I don’t know what he meant. The big drive for the department of labour is to focus on decent work. Anything short of that [will not work]. The creativity that he [Gordhan] spoke about needs to be interrogated, in line with the concept of decent work,” said Manyi.
In 2005 then-deputy finance minister Jabu Moleketi proposed a dual labour market system for young people, small businesses and certain labour-intensive industries to address the high unemployment rate, but this was rejected by the ANC during the party’s national general council that year. The idea was also given the thumbs-down during the ANC’s Polokwane conference in 2007.
Dlamini said although Cosatu would welcome the absorption of more youth into the labour market, it was wrong to subject them to lower labour standards. “For the minister to say workers should not enjoy the same labour standards, it means workers would be subjected to different labour rights. “We all agreed on decent jobs. This does not go to that. It actually addresses the plight of the youth, but the aim is to destroy them. “They will hate employment because the entry salary will be the same as those who are permanently employed, but there won’t be any room for them to negotiate salary increases. They [the government] say more than 800 000 youth would be employed, but this will mean less permanent and formal employees.” He accused the ANC government of failing to consult Cosatu on the matter. “We only learned about it today [Wednesday]. We were shocked like everyone else. “We understand there was not supposed to be official consultation with us. We do not expect ministers to consult Cosatu. But in the alliance we have [an] understanding of what is supposed to happen.”
South African Communist Party deputy general secretary and Deputy Transport Minister Jeremy Cronin confirmed that the new budget proposals were also not discussed with the SACP, but said the SACP would “give the proposals [on job creation] a chance”. “We shouldn’t be protecting a small pocket of workers at the cost of a much larger group.” He said the labour market is multitiered anyway because of the massive number of casualised workers and the small pocket of workers with decent jobs. “We have to be bold about getting people into work.”
The SACP is increasingly critical of the expanded public works programme, however, because it was designed as a way for people to “leapfrog” into the first economy -- but the first economy was dysfunctional. “Therefore the debate about decent work versus work opportunities is also necessary,” Cronin said.
Source: Mail & Guardian
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