Workers and communities must occupy and take over factories and farms run by labour brokers

07 March 2012

The Democratic Left Front (DLF) salutes the thousands of workers who came out in today’s general strike against labour brokering and the Gauteng e-tolls. To take forward today’s marches, the DLF calls on workers employed by labour brokers and affected working class communities to occupy, take over, run and produce from operations run by labour brokers as well as other places of employment.

The DLF calls for these to be run as worker-owned and worker-controlled cooperative enterprises that produce, create jobs, pay a living wage and provide decent working conditions. Such worker takeovers are the logical and most effective conclusion of today’s mass marches, and the most effective answer to guarantee the right to work, decent employment conditions and a living wage. It is not enough to call for the banning of labour brokers as if that will reverse the capitalist exploitation of workers in the workplace. Workers and communities must turn the tables and sustained the offensive launched by today’s successful marches. This is not a pipe-dream as the former workers of the Mineline factory (to the west of Johannesburg) have attempted such a takeover from August last year. We call on COSATU to turn the struggle against labour brokers to worker takeovers of production.

Beyond the delivery of the memoranda of demands to the neo-liberal government led by the ANC as today’s marches did, the DLF also calls for serious attention to be paid to the sustained mobilisation and organisation of precarious workers employed by labour brokers. For its part, working with one of its affiliates, the Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers’ Union (CSAAWU), the DLF is contributing to important and nascent work to organise precarious workers in farms and agri-processing factories in Robertson, Rawsonville, Ashton and other commercial farming districts of the Western Cape. In these districts, labour brokers have now become a central feature in the exploitation of thousands of farm workers, many of whom are essentially treated as cheap migrant labour in conditions akin to human trafficking. The CSAAWU campaign has reached out to a few thousand farm workers and dwellers, and has only just begun to build the confidence of forgotten and marginalised farm workers and dwellers to Speak Out! and develop the will to force government to Listen to the People! The lessons and experience from the CSAAWU campaign underline the need for sustained organisation of precarious workers.

Today’s action underlines the importance of sustained mass action against anti-worker and anti-poor government policies. The working class energies and aspirations that poured out onto South Africa’s streets are one loud clear statement: government must listen to the people as its neo-liberal policies continue to make the rich richer and to impoverish the majority. As Comrade Vavi said at the march in Johannesburg: “We are defending the living standards of South Africans ... we are fighting shoulder to shoulder with you, comrades, to remind those who forgot the power of the working class”. For our part, DLF activists and affiliates actively joined the marches following our earlier efforts to mobilise unemployed communities to be part of these marches as part of broader working class solidarity and against the consistent media and DA lies that organised workers benefit at the expense of unemployed workers.

Today’s mass action must not be the end of the struggle and allow a retreat to NEDLAC or Tripartite Alliance boardrooms. As workers know, these engagements have proved useless and tie workers to meaningless lip-service agreements which the bosses, the ANC and government are not committed to. These fora ultimately limit independent and sustained social mobilisation of the working class. These do not lead the working class to build its power, voice and impact so that it can challenge and defeat pro-capitalist policies and the power of capital. Worker takeovers of places of employment provide a more effective tool out of capitalist exploitation of workers.

For comments, contact:

Vishwas Satgar – 082 775 3420
Brian Ashley – 082 085 7088
Ayanda Kota – 078 625 6462
Mazibuko K. Jara – 083 651 0271

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