The South Africa’s affiliated unions to the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), under the political realm of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), namely National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU), Police, Prisons and Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) and Chemical Energy Paper Printing Wood and Allied Workers Union (CEPPWAWU) will be hosting the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) Presidential Council (PC) as from Wednesday 8 February –until- 12 February 2012, Parktonian Hotel, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, Gauteng province, Republic of South Africa.
This Presidential Council will be addressed by WFTU General Secretary GEORGE MAVRIKOS, ANC President JACOB ZUMA, SACP General Secretary Dr BLADE NZIMANDE and COSATU President S’DUMO DLAMINI.
The Presidential Council will be held under the theme of action “Capitalist Barbarism, Crisis and Imperialist Wars or Socialism”, and will be attended by trade union leaders from North Korea, China, Greece, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Belarus, Nepal, Spain, Basque Country, Portugal, France, Bulgaria, Australia, Guyana, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, Peru, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Guatemala, Nigeria, Tunisia, Sudan, Gabon and Swaziland. The Presidential Council will be taking place in Africa for the first time since the formation of the WFTU on the 25th September-8 October 1945 in Paris, France.
According to the statement released in the Press Conference:
“The WFTU enjoys a special relationship and honour amongst the trade union movement in South Africa developed over many years of our struggle for national liberation, freedom and struggle for a Socialist South Africa. It was WFTU owing to its close relations with the then South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) that the liberation movement led by the African National Congress (ANC) was able to establish contacts or received material support from the left-leaning countries of the world, such as the Soviet Union, Vietnam, China, Cuba and other countries.
Some of the unsung heroes of our liberation struggle, such as Moses Kotane, Moses Mabhida, Michael Harmel, John Nkadimeng and Eric ‘Stalin’ Mtshali, just to mention a few, participated in the formative years of the WFTU, and the only remaining prominent figures and stalwarts of the Trade Union movement, and outstanding Communists, Comrades Nkadimeng and Mtshali worked full-time for WFTU when its Headquarters were still in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
The other prominent figure, theoretician and writer par excellence Michael Harmel, the Editor of the Communist Party journal lies buried in Prague, Czechoslovakia. We are proud that the WFTU Presidential Council is coming to Africa and our country, South Africa, in particular, when we are celebrating the centenary of our reliable and trusted leader of the progressive forces, the African National Congress (ANC). This coincidence is not a sheer accident of history, but informed by organic role played by the trade union movement in South Africa and the world in radicalizing the ANC and to be rooted amongst masses!
GLOBAL CRISIS OF CAPITALISM!
The Presidential Council (PC) will be taking place amidst the deepening crisis of Capitalism in the World, as evidenced by popular struggles waged by the working class in Greece, Britain and United State of America (USA) itself. The Capitalist system is inherently a crisis-ridden system. It is blatantly obvious for millions of workers around the world that it is not faults in the system but the system itself that is defective.
There is an urgent need today to strengthen the struggles against the multinational cartels and the global capitalist restructuring that has resulted in the intensification of an anti-people offensive eroding both social and labour rights. Around the world we are witnessing the obliteration of productive forces, plundering of resources, mass dismissals, factory closures, and the comprehensive attack on workers and trade union rights. There has been a significant increase in unemployment and poverty. The erosion of civil liberties and the attack on country’s sovereignty is increasing in an alarming speed globally.
Our four unions {NUMSA, NEHAWU, POPCRU and CEPPWAWU} informed by our ideological posture and a shared vision of a Socialist South Africa and World order see no end to the crisis of capitalism and the global misery it unleashes to the poor. We are convinced that the solution is the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.
Our immediate priority is to unite the international working class regardless of colour, religion or sex. The WFTU Presidential Council is very significant because it will also be accompanied by the launch of a WFTU office in Africa, therefore formally introducing this class orientated global federation of workers in Africa. As we advance to this watershed Presidential Council (PC), we firmly hope and believe that it will make honest theoretical reflections and put in place concrete alternative proposals in order to stop the deepening of the crisis.
We are convinced that the US is a heavily indebted country running an impossible deficit and majority of European governments are heavily indebted and they are on a brink of collapse due to the misuse of the tax payers’ money in bailing out the rich. The resurgence of popular and radical activism or mass rooted movements, such as OccupyWallStreet movements, strike actions in Athens, London and around the world by working class conscious youth are a direct affirmation of the crisis of Capitalism.
All these uprisings by a different range of class forces compelled the imperialist ruling class to explore aggressive ways of maintaining control like waging imperialist wars to secure resources, and demand definite trade relations. The imperialist sponsored war in Libya and dastardly execution of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and the threats by Israel and US to attack Iran are clear indications of the preparedness of imperialist powers to use military power to rescue capitalism.
UNITY OF THE WORKING CLASS AND BROADER TRADE UNION MOVEMENT IN AFRICA AND THE WORLD!
The current global barbarity and decay as permeated by the global crises of Capitalism presents a mammoth task or opportunity for the working class and the poor of Africa and the world to deepen working class internationalism and solidarity. Never before has working class internationalism, universalism, been more important than now. This is in fact made possible by the very expansion of capitalism all over the globe! The class orientated and revolutionary formations of Africa and the world need to rally and join WFTU, as the only reliable and trusted global federation of workers to reverse the barbarity and decay of the Capitalist system.
As the four (4) affiliated unions to the WFTU, we fully agree with the resolve by the revolutionary genius and greatest thinker of the working class Karl Marx, when he made this clarion call more than 150 years ago as encapsulated in the Communist Manifesto, “workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains”. It would be within this context and informed by current struggles waged by the working class and the poor of the world, that we will be putting on the 11th National Congress of COSATU agenda’s for all its affiliates and the federation to affiliate to the WFTU for the sole purpose of forging unity and close links with other like-minded, class orientated and revolutionary trade unions led by WFTU.”
For more info contact:
Castro Ngobese, NUMSA National Spokesperson – 083 627 5197
Sizwe Pamla, NEHAWU Media & Liaison Officer – 082 558 5962
Nkosinathi Ndwandwe, POPCRU (Acting National Spokesperson –073 394 6480