The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) salutes millions of workers who observed the call to participate in the General Strike it and its allies in the working class. The general strike was a resounding success. Today workers sent an unequivocal statement that this will not normalise the completely abnormal situation of worsening unemployment, poverty and inequalities. 

Millions of workers stayed away, and in many sections, the economy was grounded to a halt. This is precisely the statement we want to make that the global crisis of capitalism should not be resolved at the backs of the working class and the poorest of the poor. 
We salute hundreds of our activists who, within the challenging conditions of the level 3 regulations, staged protests in Cape Town, Bisho, Nelson Mandela Metro, Bloemfontein, Welkom, Mahikeng, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban/Pietermaritzburg. 

As we have said, this is the first step in a protracted process to mobilise the working class against the failures of the capitalist system, which is by design never meant to address any of the challenges facing the working class and the poorest of the poor. 

Given, the strike under the prevailing conditions did not fully demonstrate the mightiness of SAFTU and allies. We did not ask workers to occupy the cities as we have initially planned. But still, the statement made by workers is loud and clear. 

SAFTU warns workers not to delude themselves that it will take a single strike to convince the government to abandon its disastrous economic policies. We call on workers to maintain this momentum by:

• We call on workers to link up with the countless service delivery protests taking place daily in our working-class residential areas for access to water, electricity, crime and drugs, etc. 
• We call on workers to form street committees and area committees to get more members of the working class to participate in a new revolution to guarantee economic transformation in our lifetime. 
• We all on workers to strengthen SAFTU structures in every locality and province to ensure that we provide service and protection to workers across all sectors of the economy. 
• We call on workers to strengthen their unions in every workplace so that the mobilisation against job losses, abuse of power by management, outsourcing, low wages, etc., can continue every day.
• We call on workers, in general, to join independent, democratic and fighting unions under SAFTU as part of strengthening the voice of workers in the economy. 

SAFTU is convening a campaigns committee to assess the general strike's impact on the 03 February and chat a proposed way forward to be considered by our constitutional structures. We are also convening the working class formations in the next two weeks to assess and chat the way forward. Further programmes of mass mobilisation will be announced after that. 

Issued by SAFTU