*NUMSA STATEMENT ON HUMAN RIGHTS DAY* *Saturday, 20 March 2011*
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (*Numsa*) joins the people of South Africa in celebrating and commemorating Sharpeville Day, which is now known as Human Rights Day. We celebrate this year’s Human Rights Day guided by our programmatic theme *“Exploitation Divides! Decent Jobs Unites! Smash Capitalism”*. We salute both the departed and the living generation that participated during the historic Sharpeville Day events. We dedicate our Sharpeville or Human Rights Day message to the 1, 1 million workers of South Africa, who lost their jobs as a result of the recession as perpetuated by the inherent failures of Capitalism to meets people’s demands and needs, as opposed to greed and profit for the rich. These failures by the crisis-ridden Capitalist system should be a hard lesson to the workers and the poor of our country that Capitalism, as a system undermines their right to work, right to live, right to a shelter, a right to quality health-care and education, and a right to decent basic services! Already in our country, we have witnessed serious levels of inequalities, escalating rates of unemployment, legitimate service delivery protests, xenophobic attacks, deteriorating quality of health and education system, and rising numbers of casualisation of labour. All these socio-economic pitfalls are not class neutral, they are being fostered by a Capitalist system, which represents a particular dominant class in society, which is mainly interested in profit making for its own conspicuous lifestyle and consumption, and thus leaving the majority of the working class into constant poverty and misery. The working class should declare war against Capitalism as a system, and alter an alternative and egalitarian system that puts the lives and needs of our people first. For the working class to achieve this noble goal, they should see a need to join and re-build their working class formations, such as COSATU, our vanguard Party – the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the African National Congress (ANC), with a view of implementing a radical National Democratic Revolution (NDR) as encapsulated in the Freedom Charter. The failure by the working class to head this call, our formations will be sold to the highest bidders in the market for self-centred accumulation interests. Already, there is a serious ideological offensive by our class opponents, who have captured and co-opted some of our leaders, to advance and entrench a neo-liberal economic agenda in the State geared to undermine the 2009 electoral commitments, and the struggle for a new economic path for our country. The working class should celebrate this year’s Human Rights Day in protest, they should refused to be bus-ed into Stadiums like an Ayoba –Kwaito crowd, instead they should put immediate demands to the State, as encapsulated in the Freedom Charter, the Charter that is suppose to be the over-arching policy document of the ANC government. The Freedom Charter states the following demands; · All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose; · The state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to draw full unemployment benefits; · Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished. · All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security; · A preventive health scheme shall be run by the state; · Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, creches and social centres; These demands and rights are fundamentally important in our efforts of building a better and humane South Africa. As Numsa we are convinced that these immediate demands are not a deviation from our calls for the radical and immediate introduction of the National Health Insurance (NHI), the banning or abolishment of labour brokers, the equitable and redistribution of land, and provision of decent houses and infrastructure in poor communities. For the workers and the poor to achieve the above demands, it would not be a COCA-COLA Pop Stars contest, but it will require a serious commitment and dedication from the working class to smash the hegemony of the ruling class. Lastly we want to declare that we are losing patience by the lack of decisiveness by the Ministry of Labour to ban labour brokers as evidenced by popular calls during the 2010 public hearings. For us Human Rights are workers rights, labour brokers should be banned. Contact: *Castro Ngobese, National Spokesperson – 073 299 1595* -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. 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