The South African Communist Party wants to unite white workers into a broad labour front and, as a first step, has held a ground-breaking meeting with Solidarity, the politically conservative workers’ federation.
While Solidarity is seeking to clarify perceptions about the union, the SACP appears to be trying to influence its support base. The mainly white Solidarity has 130 000 members and is the second-largest labour federation.
The SACP, which calls itself the vanguard of the working class, is the political force behind the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
Officially, the SACP said in its input that the dialogue between the two organisations was ”about how white workers can make the leap of liberating themselves from their past in a manner which builds their confidence about the present and the future”.
The SACP was hoping to locate ”the white workers as an active and willing agent, in a broader, diverse, progressive and non-racial working-class movement, for post-apartheid working class-led transformation”.
Questions it raised include: What is the best route for addressing the increasing isolation and anxieties of the white section of the working class? What is the principal enemy of the white section of the working class? Where does its future lie?
Solidarity clarified its policies on globalisation, restructuring of the economy, privatisation, the role of trade unions, affirmative action and black economic empowerment.
Significantly there is a meeting of the minds between the two: Solidarity, too, believes the ”current system of the capital-driven economy leads to growing unemployment and social decay”.
However, it believes the ”state’s role is not to run the economy”, and so its assets ”may be privatised if the consequences are taken into consideration”.
Solidarity spokesperson Dirk Herman said his organisation was not seeking an ideological pact with the SACP, but a ”functional” workers’ pact, as trade unions were under tremendous pressure. He pointed out that workers represented buying power of R140-billion a year. ”We need to come together to ensure the capital is used for our benefit,” Herman said.
Solidarity also debated affirmative action, which is affecting the fortunes of its white, working-class grassroots.