Class struggle erupts in South Africa

[Hannah Bell]

The strike by 1.3 million public service workers in South Africa represents a significant escalation of the international class struggle in response to the global recession and the austerity measures that governments have adopted worldwide...No government has enjoyed such an extended period of good will as the ANC since it came to office in 1994 under the presidency of Nelson Mandela, ending the apartheid system and promising to create a “Rainbow Nation” in which the entire population shared the economic benefits of the mineral-rich country. Instead, the division between rich and poor has widened, while a tiny layer of businessmen associated with the ANC have become millionaires. “Black Economic Empowerment” has left the majority of the government’s supporters living in townships and rural areas that lack even the most essential amenities.

Class tensions have been developing for several years, while the ANC pursued free market policies that resulted in mounting unemployment and failed to meet the needs of the mass of the population. President Jacob Zuma ousted Mandela’s successor, Thabo Mbeki, promising to provide jobs, housing and services. But he has continued the same pro-business policies, resulting in growing disillusionment and the anger that has broken out in the present strike action.

What began as a dispute that formed part of the regular annual pay round, with civil servants, teachers and hospital workers demanding a pay rise and allowances in line with those won by other sections of workers, now threatens to bring the South African economy to a standstill. Miners and other industrial workers are taking solidarity action. The strike is already said to be costing 1 billion rand, or $135.5 million a day. The strike has brought the working class into direct conflict with the ANC government and the South African state, with police using rubber bullets and water cannon against strikers, the courts banning sections of workers from joining the strike, and the army deployed in hospitals. The government and a supportive media have launched a campaign of vilification against the strikers. Government ministers have accused hospital workers of “murder.”

What the ruling elite fear is that the majority of the population, who are not organised in unions, may begin to mobilise and that a mass insurgency like that which brought about the end of apartheid may erupt. Some 50 percent of young people are unemployed. The official unemployment level is 30 percent and the real rate is probably more like 40 percent. The conditions exist for a social explosion and a prolonged public sector strike may ignite it.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/pers-a27.shtml

[Hannah Bell]

1. k