Johannesburg May Day Rally

southern africa | the left | anarchist communist event Friday April 30, 2010 16:45 by APF-GIWUSA-Khanya College

The Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) and the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa (GIWUSA) in conjunction with Khanya College are hosting a May Day Rally and are calling all communities, students, the unemployed and workers to join us.

The Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) and the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa (GIWUSA) in conjunction with Khanya College are hosting a May Day Rally and are calling all communities, students, the unemployed and workers to join us.

2010 May Day is taking place at a time when South Africa has achieved a deplorable distinction of being the world champion of inequality. South Africa has the highest rate of inequality in the world today. This state of affairs is a direct result of 16 years of neo-liberal policies pursued under successive ANC governments. Consequently the working class and the poor have been at the receiving end of these neo-liberal policies and found themselves stuck in endless poverty and unemployment. But the black elite have accumulated untold wealth through BEE schemes, political patronage and corruption.

Since the installation of the Zuma Administration we have seen more of the same old macro-economic prescriptions as that of Thabo Mbeki. And more than a million people have lost their jobs in the space of one year. Also the ANC government is now breaking an electoral promise that labour brokering as a form of employment will be banned. Now they are talking about regulating labour brokering.

2010 May Day will thus be an occasion to reflect on this state of affairs and to discuss appropriate ways of challenging these anti-working class and poor policies. Over the past years, and especially this year, communities and workers have not sat back and folded their arms but have engaged in thousands of community protests to register their opposition and demanded service delivery and a decent living. Strikes have also punctuated the workplaces where workers defended their hard-won material gains against employers’ attempts to erode them.

2010 May Day will be an occasion for us to bring together struggling communities and employed workers to strategize as to how to bring a lasting unity of the various sites of resistance as to build the necessary mass power that can push for fundamental change in government policies and to push back the greed of the capitalists. For too long now communities and workers struggled separately and in isolation of another. The root cause of lack of service delivery, unemployment, low wages, casualisation and retrenchments is the policies of the ANC government and the profit-greed of the capitalists. We are therefore calling on all communities, the unemployed and employed workers to join us in our May Day Rally.

For more information contact:
Mashao Chauke – 082 2126518
John Appolis – 073 4082674