The current strike season reveals a serious shortcoming within the trade union movement, be it the unions aligned to the ANC or the independent trade union movement. This is the absence of political demands within wage negotiations of all trade unions at present. The demands that are being made show a reliance on an economistic solution to the current crisis that the South African population experiences. All demands are directed at financial benefits (increase in basic wages, provident fund, shift allowance, etc.) for all unionised members who actually constitute the minority of those in permanent or semi-permanent employment. This can be attributed to the capitulation of the petit bourgeois leadership of the unions who abdicated their task of representing their members in all spheres of society.
It appears that the reason for this is the absence of political training, the separation of economic struggle from socio-political struggle. Further, the leadership has avoided the responsibilities of providing direction in the struggle of their members against local, provincial and national government. Indeed, some members of the leadership have been co-opted into government via the tripartite alliance.
Most members of trade unions are parents, rate-payers who experience the impact of neo-liberalism on housing, education and service delivery that is political in nature. In the recent May elections we witnessed paid organisers of the unions being used to canvass for a party that introduced anti-worker legislation and shop-stewards were used as volunteers to perpetuate their oppression by the pro-capitalist ANC government.
For as long as workers are used as bargaining tools without being provided with the tools to enable them to make a proper analysis of their situation, for so long will they battle to understand that their plight can only be addressed through the battle for dominance of the working class and landless peasants over the capitalist class that is being represented by the ANC leadership. It is only through the interaction of workers in all spheres of struggle that we will be able to advance to throw off the shackles of exploitation. This does not mean that workers must not strike for higher economic benefits but these struggles must always be interconnected with all struggles such as those for housing, against poor service delivery and education and against unemployment. It is against this backdrop that the need for progressive trade unions within a united front of all social forces of the oppressed plus progressive political organisations becomes imperative. This must be the rallying call in order to prepare us for the onslaught on capitalism.