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Rebuilding the workers’ movement for counter-power, justice and self-m... May 28 19 [South Africa] Stop the repression of casualised/contract workers in E... Sep 29 18 South Africa: Minimum wages can’t end suffering when the rich abuse th... May 12 18 Swazi Police Fire Over Workers southern africa |
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 Tuesday December 22, 2009 20:50 by Richard Rooney - Swazi Media Commentary
 Swaziland police fired over the heads of textile workers protesting that they had not been paid by their employer. Reports in Swaziland say that as many as 4,000 workers at the Taiwanese-owned Zheng Yong Garment Factory protested against the company bosses because they had not been paid salary and bonuses they were due. The workers were also angry because they were not told on what day the factory would close for the Christmas holidays. The Swazi Police were called and according to a report in the Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, two officers became confused and fired ‘several times’ above the heads of the workers. This triggered the anger of the workers ‘as they replied by hurling a rain of stones directed at the two officers’. The Observer reported, ‘The police bakkie that had been at the gate was stoned and vandalised with all its windows shattered.. It was then that reinforcement was necessitated and within a blink of an eye, there arrived close to 30 heavily armed police officers who started ‘cleaning’ the area by chucking out everyone.’ Police attacks on workers are common in Swaziland. (December 2009) one guard was shot in the head with a rubber bullet by police and five people in total were injured when police opened fire on striking security guards in Swaziland’s capital Mbabane. Police also used teargas to ‘calm’ the strikers. |
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Beginning on Sunday 28 August, Wits students have been littering parts of campus in solidarity with the cleaners’ strike. Cleaners throughout South Africa are demanding a living wage of R4 200 per month: this compares with less than R2 000 paid to cleaners at Wits, who are employed by outsourcing companies such as Supercare. The strike has been undermined, at Wits and elsewhere, by the presence of scab labour; Wits management and the outsourcing companies are striving for “business as usual”. This undermines the entire purpose of the strike, which is to compel exploiter-managers to meet workers’ demands by withdrawing their labour, by preventing the job from getting done – by making sure the campus is not clean.
A Melbourne Anarchist Commounist Group Statement in support of South African public sector strike
The Federation of Anarchists of Greece (OAE) is calling for a further action in terms of unity and organisation.
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.
The APF will be hosting a May Day Workers Rally in the community of Residensia (Sebokeng – Vaal Triangle) at Tshepo Themba School at 10h00 tomorrow in support of all the working class struggles in the country.
t is common amongst bosses to prefer workers coming from countries that are torn by civil wars or famine. This is because they do away with any responsibilities to cover for workers' health if exposed to health risk scenarios while working. Because these people are not citizens, the country's labour laws do not count for them. That way the bosses don't have to worry about precautionary equipment and measures expected by governmental labour standards
Don't abandon the unions, or take sides in inter-union rivalries. Build a serious, organised, non-sectarian project of democratic reform and political discussion that spans the unions, including a rank-and-file movement that fosters debate, and opens the treasure-chest of union and left history and theory. Recover the politics of disconnecting from the state as raised by, for example, Occupy and the Rojava Revolution. Replace reliance on the state and parties with struggle, and destructive inter-union rivalry with a serious project of working class counter-power.
There has been a lot of talk about the promise of a National Minimum Wage (NMW) in South Africa. This means wages cannot go below a certain level. But capitalists and politicians continue to eat the food of the workers, the poor and unfortunate. Why? In some cases, the NMW is an improvement – but generally, the NMW is not a “living wage,” meaning a wage on which you can live a decent life. Prices keep going up. This society is based on the maximization of profit, this is its logic, and this means wages are not linked to what the workers and poor need, but to what bosses and politicians need. Wages are a system of exploitation. We live a capitalist society of stress and fear and jealousy, rooted in a system of cheap black labour, and power and profits for the bosses and politicians. We need to fight for something more, take back our unions, and lay the groundwork for an anarchists society, with equality based on workers and community councils.
On 17 November 2017, the Minister of Labour announced the state intends to carry out a new round of attacks on workers and their rights. The attacks come in the form of three Labour Bills currently being considered by parliament: the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill, the National Minimum Wage Bill and the Labour Relations Amendment Bill. If passed, the changes to the labour laws these bills propose will be a major attack on workers’ rights, won through decades of struggle, and will further deepen and entrench inequality and roll back important democratic gains.
In these grim times, both globally and locally, it is important to reaffirm the centrality of workers’ education, and the need for a strong working-class movement. Ordinary people have immense potential to change the world, and steer it in a more progressive direction than that promised by capitalists, populists and the political establishment, writes Lucien van der Walt.
In what will no doubt become known as a historic strike, women workers at Robertson Winery have played a key role, both because they form the majority of the striking workers but also as leaders of the strike. more >>
Beginning on Sunday 28 August, Wits students have been littering parts of campus in solidarity with the cleaners’ strike. Cleaners throughout South Africa are demanding a living wage of R4 200 per month: this compares with less than R2 000 paid to cleaners at Wits, who are employed by outsourcing companies such as Supercare. The strike has been undermined, at Wits and elsewhere, by the presence of scab labour; Wits management and the outsourcing companies are striving for “business as usual”. This undermines the entire purpose of the strike, which is to compel exploiter-managers to meet workers’ demands by withdrawing their labour, by preventing the job from getting done – by making sure the campus is not clean.
A Melbourne Anarchist Commounist Group Statement in support of South African public sector strike
The Federation of Anarchists of Greece (OAE) is calling for a further action in terms of unity and organisation.
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.
The APF will be hosting a May Day Workers Rally in the community of Residensia (Sebokeng – Vaal Triangle) at Tshepo Themba School at 10h00 tomorrow in support of all the working class struggles in the country. more >> |
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Spring zu Komment: 1This message has been translated in french language on the blog of the Emma Goldman Collective (Saguenay, Québec, Canada). Use the translation freely if you wish to.
In Solidarity,
http://ucl-saguenay.blogspot.com/2009/12/au-swaziland-e....html