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It is a privilege for me to celebrate Worker’s Day with you in the DA’s new frontier province of the Northern Cape.

My time as a union organiser and leader in the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s makes me truly appreciate the fight for the dignity of workers.

The struggle against apartheid was not just a struggle for political equality.

It was also a struggle for worker’s rights. It was a struggle to open up economic opportunities for people of all race groups.

Helen Suzman, one of the founding members of the Progressive Party – a forerunner of the DA – fought for the legalisation of trade unions so that workers’ rights would be protected.

She also fought against job reservation that kept the best jobs for whites only.

Her values of an open, opportunity society for all are the values that the DA carries forward today.

I will never forget the lessons I learnt about life and struggle from the days of earning R9 a week on a clothing factory floor to support my family and fund my sister’s education.

I learned that if you want something in life, you need to take responsibility for getting it. Nobody is going to do it for you.

I also learned that, to get on in life, you need a government that gives you opportunities.

During my time as Mayor of Cape Town I have sought to create opportunities for unemployed and working people to improve their lives:

• A world class public transport system that we are progressively rolling out to working class communities to reduce the cost of travel and increase the freedom to seek economic opportunity;
• A total debt write-off on outstanding interest on property tax for all low-income households, with no further interest until certain basic service delivery installations are met;
• Court action by the City to stop SANRAL from tolling Western Cape highways in a way that would restrict movement and opportunity for the working class;
• The recent census confirmed that the Western Cape has the highest number of people with access to sanitation services - 97.2%
• An unprecedented R150 million commitment to job creation through the Expanded Public Works programme this year

The ANC likes to tell people that it is the party of the unemployed and the working class.

But the reality is very different.

Because every time that the DA proposes a policy to help the poor and unemployed, it is opposed by the ANC.

This is clear in the City of Cape Town as well as COSATU’s opposition to the Youth Wage Subsidy.  

On each of these progressive programmes we were opposed in the City by an ANC caucus that unanimously voted against them.

Tony Ehrenreich, the Provincial Secretary of COSATU and ANC leader in the City led his caucus to oppose these programmes.

He, like many other supposed leaders of workers, is subject to business and political interests that are in direct conflict with the interests of the working class.

HCI holdings, which owns the Golden Arrow Bus Service, the historical bus-operator in Cape Town, has the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU) as a majority shareholder.

That is why the ANC opposed the City’s public transport roll-out- it threatened the business interests of union leaders.

In addition, COSATU’s alignment with the ANC in national government led them to vote against the City going to court against SANRAL on tolling.

And they opposed the tax write-off for the poor because they can’t stand to see the DA delivering so effectively for poor communities.

Where the DA governs we work hard to deliver opportunities for the working class to improve their lives.

And we can do it right here in the Northern Cape.

Where is the opposition from Union Leaders in this province to rampant corruption in provincial government from the likes of John Block and his top leadership in the ANC?

Imagine the world-class hospitals and schools that could have been built in working class communities here, like the ones the DA is building in Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain, if millions were not lost to corruption every year?
 
Why do these same supposed leaders rally support for an ANC local government in Kimberley that can’t keep the taps running in working class homes?
 
Water outages due to poor infrastructure maintenance in this province’s capital severely affect the quality of life, especially of the poor.

How many workers have lost their jobs because businesses can’t make a profit under these conditions?

This would never happen under a DA government in Kimberley.

During my time in the cells of the PAC we passed around photo-copied extracts of the book Organize or Starve.

As life becomes more expensive for poor communities due to the rising cost of basic services and the slow pace of government delivery, it is becoming increasingly important for working class communities to organize or starve.

Now is the time for a working class uprising against poor delivery in the Karoo, the Kalahari, Namakwa and the Diamond Fields of the Northern Cape.

In 2014 we are putting our delivery record where we govern on the table for the people of the Northern Cape. We will no longer allow our opponents to spread false information about who we are and what we stand for.

Economic desperation, where unemployment levels in certain communities can be as much as 80% in this province and elsewhere, is not what we fought for in the struggle.

We need to build an environment that stimulates job creation so that all our people can benefit from the rights that we fought for and achieved for workers.

In the end, we must reject the empty promises of those who have forgotten what the struggle for worker’s rights was about in the first place.