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The South African Communist Party (SACP) fully supports the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) National Day of Action on Thursday, 9 July, in Tshwane, against systemic austerity measures and hardships faced by workers in municipalities.

The SACP has made several public statements about the crisis at local government and the reactionary role of the treasury in exacerbating this crisis. The actions of the national treasury, including withholding critical funding from local government institutions, are intended to force municipalities to implement austerity programmes and to remove constitutionally protected administrative powers. These actions are aimed at institutionalising austerity and liberalising the local state. These policies are part and parcel of implementation of the Vulindlela programme of government rooted in austerity and thoroughgoing neoliberal agenda.

It is encouraging for the SACP when workers in the local government sector take up these struggles so as to defend the local state from a hostile takeover by the private sector and bourgeois economic interests. This push back by local government employees is not only workers defending their jobs but, much more than that, is the working class reclaiming their position as drivers of public policy and public services.

The solidarity of the SACP with SAMWU emanates from the understanding that when the working class acts consciously, collectively and deliberately, it can change the world.

As the SACP, we stand with SAMWU in the fight against victimisation and unfair dismissals of members and shop-stewards. We also support the union in standing against the national treasury’s interference in municipal governance. This interference violates the Constitution and the laws governing municipal affairs.

We also stand with SAMWU in opposing the tenderisation and outsourcing of municipal services. The crisis of nonpayment of salaries in local government threatens to collapse our municipalities and an appropriate response is not the asphyxiation of municipalities as the national treasury intends. We support SAMWU in their fight against corruption in the local government sphere. It is corruption that has caused the legitimacy crisis in local government and thereby weakened the local state.

In supporting this important National Day of Action, the SACP will join the march. We also call upon all our activists to join the march and pledge solidarity in different ways. 

Issued By: The South African Communist Party Founded In 1921 As The Communist Party Of South Africa.