Programme Director,
Leadership of the Party and the Federation, all protocol observed,
Good morning comrades,
It is a great pleasure to be here. This school is something that all of us have eagerly awaited. It is long overdue. But whilst we will enjoy the rich and robust debates over these few days, we must do justice to the crises facing the working class and ensure that we emerge with a concrete programme of action.
We must not gather simply to nurse our wounds and lament our grievances, but to set a path to address them and ensure workers and their families will be better for it.
This has been a difficult year with the most devastating results since 1994. But none of us must claim shock. We barely scraped through nationally with 40% and were lucky to survive in the Northern Cape, Mpumalanga and the Free State. We were hammered in Gauteng and annihilated in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
We all know the reasons, from state capture and corruption, to failed neo-liberal economic policies and reckless austerity budget cuts, to morally compromised leaders to a weakened liberation movement in all its formations.
The point as Lenin said, is what is to be done?
If we do not act decisively, then we must prepare ourselves to occupy the opposition benches in Parliament, Provincial Legislatures and Councils. We must prepare ourselves for real neo-liberal policies, austerity budgets and the rolling back of workers' hard-won rights and the transformation agenda.
Whilst we may not have sought a GNU and had preferred an ANC minority government, it is here and we must ensure it is the ANC that leads it, that its policies remain anchored in the ANC manifesto and government is biased towards the poor.
We do not have the luxury of walking away nor to abandoning the state to the forces of the bourgeoisie. That would be to abandon our leadership role to defend workers and advance working-class struggles.
Local government elections will take place in just over a year. This will make or break the liberation movement. Either we regain the confidence of the masses, or we cement our status as a minority party.
This necessitates a coherent plan from the Alliance to ensure we shift the state to win back the confidence of the working class. Business as usual will not suffice.
The campaign to win these elections must start now. This must include us here, reflecting on our own contribution to the ANC's electoral setbacks. Yes, the ANC makes mistakes and these must be dealt with and comrades held accountable.
But equally we must heed the wise words of the Presidents of POPCRU and SADTU, who reminded us of our own contributions to the election results, our own continuous decampaigning of the ANC, our own failures to visit every workplace, to engage every worker, and to service and mobilise our own members.
We must raise serious concern that us as the Left Axis are absent during the by-elections that take place each and every month. Yet in an era of coalitions and hung councils, a single by-election can mean the ouster of the ANC from a Mayoral Office.
We cannot lambast the ANC for neglecting the Alliance, if we ourselves are fair weather allies. You see us a month before national and provincial elections, and then we blue tick you for five years.
If we are to win in 2026 and 2029, then we must find the path to regain the confidence of workers in KZN, Mpumalanga and Gauteng. What is our plan in those three provinces? Not lamentations, plans comrades. Where are they?
The General Secretary of the Party, cde. Mapaila, correctly flags the ideological contestation of the role of the state. This school must provide clarity on how we will defend the developmental role of the state.
What are the functions of the state that must be defended and prioritised in an era of a GNU? Which parts of the economy must the state play a role in and how? How do we ensure the private sector's investment sector is overcome? What is our path to rebuilding our embattled SOEs? What is the roadmap to fixing local government?
We must engage on the role of public representatives who come from the ranks of the party and the federation. Yes, they wear an ANC cap, but they were deployed by us, they come from us, and they have served as leaders of the Left Axis.
It cannot be correct that SALGA can seek to suppress the hard won constitutional and political rights of municipal workers through the Municipal Systems Amendment Act that is now before the Constitutional Court and yet its President sits on the Central Committee of the Party and the Alliance has a clear stance on this matter.
Government will soon table the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement at Parliament. Let us emerge from this school with a clear set of strategic priorities that must feature in that MTBPS and the 2025 Budget.
Again comrades, not abstract demands, but coherent proposals on capacitating the state, tackling crime and corruption, enforcing tax compliance and a progressive tax regime, stimulating the economy, creating decent jobs and slashing unemployment, reducing poverty and inequality. We need to hear practical proposals from our Affiliates and Provinces. Not lamentations.
Whilst it is easy to be demotivated by the difficult natures of class struggle, we must claim our historic victories.
Under this leadership the President has signed the Companies Amendment, Public Procurement, National Health Insurance and Basic Education Laws Acts. Parliament has passed the Expropriation Bill.
The Two Pot Pension Reforms against massive resistance from big capital, has come into effect and already nearly R10 billion has been released into workers' bank accounts with more to come.
Do we use these hard-won victories to build the party branches and affiliate locals? Do we have a recruitment campaign for nurses that says it is the efforts of the party that has seen an NHI Act become reality? Do we have workshops to train retail and mineworkers on how the new two pot reforms can be used to benefit them?
As the 7th Parliament has begun its work, are there new ideas for the next battles we want to drive?
We have begun engaging Treasury and Parliament on the next round of reforms for the two pot pensions, to allow workers greater access to existing savings and to lower the tax burden on low-income workers.
Are we ready to work with the Department of Health to begin rolling out the NHI? Do we have campaigns to shine a spotlight on our overstretched public hospitals. Are we on the streets in support of SADTU's defence of teachers whose jobs are at risk?
Can we work with SAMWU on a plan to ensure all municipalities pay their workers? Can we have a campaign with SATAWU to ensure all employers pay their pension and other third-party payments?
Let us continue to set the policy agenda for the nation comrades.
We must spend time analysing the structural shifts taking place in the economy from automation to outsourcing. How do we protect and equip workers?
Silence is not a plan. Postal workers are bearing the brunt of structural shifts and the consequences of management failing to plan. Mineworkers are paying the price of a failure to fix a broken mining rights application system. Coal workers are in danger unless we force a Just Transition that is biased and rooted in working class realities.
Money is allocated to SETAs, yet few can explain how those funds are being used to empower workers and grow the economy. But we see the looting.
Workers' pension funds are invested across the economy. Are we engaging the pension funds on how these can be used to uplift members' lives, to fund education, to support local industries and create jobs? Why have we been discussing the plight of workers who cannot afford homes, yet the PIC sits on R2.3 trillion?
When are we going to discuss utilising our pension funds to build socialism, to buy the means of production and allow workers to own capital and reap its rewards?
We can only achieve these goals, if our machinery is not only intact but well-oiled. Are we happy with the state of our Affiliates and locals? Does the Party have branches in every municipality and are they driving our campaigns? Is the ANC leading government at all levels and ensuring it delivers to working class communities?
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Where are our recruitment and education campaigns? Have we abandoned our Red Friday campaigns? When leaders divide our structures, why are we quiet?
We speak about the reconfiguration of the Alliance? What does that mean and how are we ensuring that it happens? There is no alternative but to fix it, but I doubt many of us are clear on how.
We speak of a left popular front, so who and what does that mean? Does that mean elevating one-person NGOs? Or does it mean engaging real and progressive civics, churches, sports clubs, neighbourhood watches and think tanks?
What are the priorities for the campaigns that can mold such a popular left front? It need not be sectarian but rather be inclusive to reach the critical mass we desire.
Internationally we must commend ourselves from raising the flag of international solidarity, from the sterling work done at the ICJ in defence of Palestine to the expansion of BRICS and our leadership at the ILO, ITUC, WFTU and SATUCC.
We are seeing the fruits of our collective efforts in defence of workers' jobs at AGOA to the potential of unlocking our industrial through the ACFTA.
Let us come with concrete steps to ramp up our solidarity campaigns with eSwatini and Western Sahara and practical measures to boost trade, investment and tourism with Cuba, Russia and Venezuela. Workers need jobs not just ideas, comrades.
Leadership, allow me to conclude here. As Mao Tse Tung said, let a thousand ideas blossom but let these be translated into action.
I am confident that the Party of JB Marks and Ruth First, the Federation of Elijay Barayi and Dora Tamana, the ANC of Dulcie September and Chris Hani, remain the only viable and progressive vehicles to defend and advance working class struggles.
Ours is to lead and win these battles. We dare not fail. We will not fail.
Matla! Thank you.
Amandla!
