Trade Union

Ensure the Working Class Summit is a GENUINE Parliament of the Working Class!

30 March, 2021

Unite all Struggles Around A Launch Date for Workers Party

On 10 and 11 May (provisionally), nearly three since it first met, the Working Class Summit (WCS) will reconvene. This has the potential to be an enormous step-forward for the working class, one for which the MWP has campaigned for more than two years.

Saftu convened the original WCS in July 2018. 1,000 delegates attended representing 147 working class organisations drawn from trade unions, other worker campaigns, community groups and youth structures. At the time we described this gathering as “an historic step forward”. [click to read more]

FEB 24 STRIKE | Let the Working Class Counter-Offensive Begin!

20 February, 2021

The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) will embark on a Section 77 ‘general’ strike on Wednesday 24 February, the day that the budget is tabled in parliament. Because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic the strike will overwhelmingly take the form of a ‘stay away’, with workers asked to remain at home. The Marxist Workers Party fully supports the strike. [click to read more]

SSA | Zuma’s Parallel State & ‘Dirty Tricks’ Campaign Against the Workers’ Movement

5 February, 2021

Of all the new revelations at the Zondo Commission, it is crucial for the working class to register and digest the exposure of the ‘dirty tricks’ being used against the workers’ movement and other protest movements.

Testimony at the Zondo Commission has again confirmed that the SSA was responsible for the creation of the Workers Association Union on the platinum belt in 2014, following the Marikana Massacre. [click to read more]

REVIEW: OCTOBER 7 GENERAL STRIKE | An Opportunity Missed for Saftu

16 October, 2020

The 7 October general strike called by Cosatu came against the background of an all-out assault on the working class by the ANC government and the bosses over the six months of the lockdown.Cosatu leaders promised that the economy would be brought to a standstill on 7 October. The strike was supported by all four trade union federations whom together claim to represent 2.8 million workers – nearly 25% of the workforce. But what was the outcome? [click to read more]

STRIKE | Forward in Unity Against Capitalism!

7 October, 2020

Workers’ deepening anger and determination to fight back has compelled the Cosatu leadership to act despite its political entrapment in the Tripartite Alliance and their ANC loyalties. The MWP applauds Saftu’s support of a united front with Cosatu. It offers unity in struggle with the Cosatu rank-and-file, will sharpen the contradictions between Cosatu’s membership and leadership and offer them a way out of the Tripartite Alliance trap. [click to read more]

OPEN LETTER TO SAFTU | PART 3: The Crisis of Programme

24 August, 2020

Leon Trotsky explained that, “In the epoch of imperialist decay the trade unions can be really independent only to the extent that they are conscious of being, in action, the organs of proletarian revolution.” (Our emphasis.) Saftu members will not be able to fully purge the policies of class collaboration and complete the journey to reclaiming their organisational, political and ideological until they have consciously rejected the NDR, Keynesianism and all other varieties of reformism, embraced genuine Marxism and made revolutionary trade unionism the official policy of Saftu. [click to read more]

OPEN LETTER | To Saftu Members

18 August, 2020

On 25 August the National Executive Committee of Saftu will sit. Every member of the federation must take a huge interest in this meeting. The outcome will answer whether or not Saftu is prepared to give leadership to the working class in a world that has changed completely in just a few short months. [click to read more]

MARIKANA ANNIVERSARY | Honour the Martyrs – Build a Mass Workers Party

17 August, 2020

To honour the memory of the martyrs of Marikana…. Build a mass workers party on a socialist programme by Weizmann [click to read more]

ANNIVERSARY | A Tribute to the Marikana Martyrs from the New Generation

16 August, 2020

The tragic events of the Marikana massacre could have been avoided by acknowledging the Marikana mineworkers’ demand for a R12,500 p/m basic salary. This would have prevented the loss of many lives. [click to read more]

WORKING CLASS DAY OF ACTION | The ANC’s PPE-tender Corruption is the last straw!

31 July, 2020

The symbolic protests by left activists taking place on 1 August have been called because of a growing feeling that something must be done. If the ANC government is left in charge of managing the pandemic, if capitalism and the profit motive continue to determine what is, and what is not, ‘possible’, the working class is heading for disaster. The working class needs to take charge. But how can the mass of the working class be mobilised to do this? Because that is what it will take to switch tracks and avoid the oncoming train-smash. [click to read more]