NEHAWU CEC STATEMENT 2024
Monday December 09, 2024
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] convened its fourth Central Executive Committee [CEC] of the 12th National Congress on the 06th – 08th December 2024.
The CEC considered the international context, national political and socio-economic situations and organisational matters affecting our members and the working class in general. The CEC also assessed progress in the implementation of the 2024 programme of action and adopted a 2025 programme of action.
The CEC took place a few days before the conclusion of the annual campaign of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence which is geared towards preventing and eliminating violence against women and children. The union reiterated its pledge to deepen our level of consciousness and activism in the struggle for gender and women's emancipation and intensify the fight against gender based violence, femicide, rape and violence directed at women and children. The union called on everyone in society to take a firm stand against GBV.
The CEC congratulated our KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Secretary, Comrade Ayanda Zulu for being elected in the World Working Youth Committee of the World Federations of Trade Unions [WFTU] and committed to assist him in contributing to the important task of building a militant class-oriented working youth movement of WFTU.
The CEC took a decision to convene a national bargaining and organising conference next year as a platform to review our national bargaining strategy across sectors. We are also looking forward to making immense contributions at the COSATU Central Committee also scheduled for next year.
International
The CEC meeting discussed the unfolding international developments taking place amidst the continuous surge in the ultra right-wing forces in the west and in a number of countries of Latina America and Asia be it in the form of ruling parties, parliamentary opposition parties or paramilitary movements.
The CEC agreed that this is the manifestation of the protracted socioeconomic stagnation since the eruption of the global capitalist crisis in 2007/08, which unleashed an extended wave of austerity measures that eroded the socioeconomic protections of the working class and middle-strata.
The CEC strongly condemned the unfolding genocide against the Palestinian people by the Israeli Apartheid regime and pledged its unwavering solidarity support to the people of Palestine especially women and children in the face of the unrelenting carpet-bombing by the Zionist Regime. Furthermore, the CEC agreed to step up its active involvement in the BDS campaign directed at targeting the Israeli economic interests in South Africa.
The CEC reiterated its commitment to its solidarity support and campaign against the blockade against Cuba, solidarity with Venezuela, Western Sahara and the peoples of Swaziland.
The CEC agreed to deepen our analysis on the unfolding situation in the African continent which include the anti-colonial military regimes of the Sahel Alliance in terms of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso and the changing electoral landscape in relation to the status of the historical national liberation movements and the emerging progressive and radical forces in Africa in the light of the recent national elections.
National Political Situation
The CEC meeting took place on the eve of the 5th Special Congress of the South African Communist Party [SACP] which is scheduled to take place from the 11th to the 14th December 2024.
As NEHAWU, we look forward to the Special National Congress of the SACP from which we hope for a unanimously adopted strategic way-forward and clarity in terms of the concrete implementation of the resolutions of the 15th National Congress, especially with regard to responding to the conjunctural political challenges, the 2026 local government elections, the broader tasks facing the working class and the monumental work of building the Popular Left Front and a powerful socialist movement of the workers and the poor as key strategic organisational and ideological tasks.
The CEC noted that there are some within the party who are hell-bent on frustrating the implementation of the resolution on the SACP contesting elections and that are also stocking divisions within our federation. This is part of the class rupture that emerged within the coalition of the motive forces pursuing the national democratic revolution that has persisted since the emergence of the 1996 Class Project.
The CEC rejects the claim that the implementation of this SACP resolution is going to cause divisions in the name of dual membership. We believe that there can be no genuine communist cadre who is committed to socialism, who adheres to the Communist Manifesto, who thoroughly understands the historical vanguard role and strategy of the party in influencing mass organisations such as the ANC - who could then be conflicted in their allegiances between a nationalist programme of the ANC and a socialist programme of the SACP.
However, we believe that this is a matter that the task of building a powerful socialist movement of the workers and the poor seeks to address. In the event of the actualization of such divisions, we would echo Lenin’s motto under such circumstances that says “better fewer, but better!”
Our position of supporting the call for the SACP to contest elections by no means equate to a mechanical logic of ending the Alliance. Given the inherent diversity of political allegiances amongst our rank-and-file membership, the majority of whom support both the ANC and SACP, we believe that our principled stance that the SACP is our choice and the ANC is an option, would become ever more relevant in a scenario of the SACP directly and independently contesting elections.
The CEC called on the SACP to ensure its electoral platform and the campaign distinguishes itself from those of all other parties, be they bourgeois or otherwise. The thrust of the party’s message must explain the root causes of the prevailing socioeconomic crises and the impossibility of the capitalist system to address its inherent fundamental contradictions without a revolution, whilst expressing the key demands of the working class and the poor and the necessity and possibility of an alternative organisation of society.
The CEC condemned the manner in which the government handled the parole and release of Janusz Walus, the unrepentant racist murderer of the General Secretary of the SACP, Cde Chris Hani on the 10th April 1993. The CEC supports the call for an inquest and demand for full disclosure of the truth about Hani’s assassination.
The CEC took time to analyse the current state of our Revolution, and our analysis reveal that the ANC’s loss of a decisive majority in the 2024 elections is part of the decline in the popularity of the national liberation movements in our region, on the back of decades of failure to change the structures of their political economies as marked by the lack of industrialisation and fulfillment of the basic socioeconomic needs of the masses.
The advent of the Government of National Unity solidifies the capitalist character of the South African state that is dominated by bourgeois interests and Neoliberal hegemony.
With everything considered in the overall, the CEC concluded that our posture towards the GNU would be fundamentally contradictory and confrontational.
This is more so in the light of the sustained implementation of neoliberal macroeconomic policies and the space provided for the active role that is now played by capital in directly influencing policy-making and partaking in implementation processes through the Government Business Partnership, especially in the infrastructure network industries in which the role of the publicly owned companies is intentionally diminished.
Equally underlined by the suspension placed on the implementation of progressive legislations such as the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act and National Health Insurance Act to offer additional and privileged consultation processes to capital and other racially organised and elite interest groups that are committed to maintain the inherited and unjust status quo.
The CEC agreed to work with other progressive and radical forces within our scope of organisation in sites of struggle such as education, healthcare, social security, macroeconomic policy and others to mount militant campaigns to confront the GNU as part of the broader project of building the Popular Left Front to resist the consolidation of the neoliberal trajectory.
Socio-Economic Context
The South African economy continues to remain stagnant. The country is facing a catastrophic rate of unemployment which is only comparable with those of countries that are caught up in wars. Real unemployment now stands at 12.2 million or 41.9% of the workforce, yet we are under six years from the horizon of the National Development Plan (NDP) which more than a decade ago was imposed with a promise of halving unemployment rate by 2030 (reducing official unemployment to 6%). Indeed, this dire economic situation has resulted to the current crisis of deepening unemployment, inequality and poverty that confronts millions of our people.
The CEC agreed that the failure to make strides in building a capable, ethical and developmental state was the narrow-minded focus on neoliberal macroeconomic policies that undermine the developmental role of the state and the obsession with public service wage bill which has eroded the capabilities of the public service. Since 1994 the evolution of the public service has not been based on rationally defined national priorities in building capacity for service delivery and the needs of the population.
The austerity budget envelop was the starting point that determined how the public service was shaped. It was the public service workers and the broader working class who exclusively borne the burden of austerity, which has been necessitated by extremely poor macroeconomic management by Treasury, corruption, state capture and the mismanagement of the SOEs
The CEC condemned the delay in the promulgation of the NHI Act, which is a deliberate ploy to create a window for further engagement with the private sector – which would create a risk of the dilution of the NHI. The CEC agreed that President Ramaphosa indecisiveness has emboldened those who seek to litigate against the NHI Act. The CEC agreed to work with the Friends of the NHI to ensure that President Ramaphosa does not strike a secret deal with the private sector companies that would lead to the amendment of the NHI Act and compromise the goal of the UHC.
Furthermore, the CEC also agreed that the national union must step up its campaign on the transformation of the healthcare system and the implementation of the NHI Act as signed by the President on the 15th May 2024. The CEC agreed to campaign for the PIC and the GEPF to play a central role in contributing financially in the building of public health infrastructure for the implementation of NHI.
The CEC condemns the state on its failure to implement the laws that impose obligations on the mining companies to rehabilitate the land that they used to extract mineral resources, which has now resulted in the emergence of the criminal gangs that are exploiting the poor in profiting from underworld informal mining. The CEC called for a comprehensive and increased funding of the artisanal mining programme of the Department of Mineral Resources to integrate such mining activities to the formal value-chains of the mining industry with the necessary implementation of regulations to ensure health and safety.
The CEC condemns the gross neglect in the implementation of the licensing requirements of the Spaza shops, the local government by-laws and the monitoring of the health and safety regulations in terms of the supply chains of food products retailed in such small businesses. The CEC supports the formalization of all the Spaza shops and call for the sustained monitoring to ensure health and safety, which must include dedicated resources to support small scale economic activities in the townships and other peri-urban areas.
Lastly, the CEC supports NERSA’s rejection of ESKOM’s request for a 36% hike in the electricity tariffs and maintain our call on government to allow ESKOM and municipalities to enter the space of the relatively cheap renewable electricity sources as part of the country’s energy mix.
END
Issued by Secretariat
Zola Saphetha (General Secretary) at 082 558 5968;
December Mavuso (Deputy General Secretary) at 082 558 5969;
Lwazi Nkolonzi (NEHAWU National Spokesperson) at 081 558 2335 or
email: lwazin@nehawu.org.za Visit https://www.nehawu.org.za
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