COSATU's response to F W de Klerk

The Congress of South African Trade Unions rejects totally the absurd assertion by former President FW de Klerk that "the main inequality divide in South Africa is no longer between blacks and whites, but between unionised and employed workers on the one hand, and unemployed on the other".

This assertion flies in the face of the vast and still growing inequality between, on the one hand, all the working class - employed and unemployed - and on the other hand, the capitalist companies which control the economy.

In 2008 the top 20 paid directors of the JSE listed companies earned an average of R59 million a year each, 1735 times as much as the R34 000 that the average employee was earning in 2009.

One the other hand differences within the working class, between the vast majority of employed workers and the unemployed is negligible, despite De Klerk's claim that the mineworkers' earnings are 20 times higher than their unemployed neighbours in Marikana.

He does not explain how he arrives at that figure but even if it is true, a differential of 20 times is nothing remotely comparable to the 1735 times differential between workers and chief executives? All it shows is not how well paid the workers are but how desperately poor the unemployed are, which is well known.

But what de Klerk scandalously overlooks is that most employed workers support as many as 12 family members from their meagre wages. 70% of the unemployed people's meagre income is in the form of remittances from employed family members. This means that if wages of the unemployed were even lower, all their jobless dependents would lose out as well.

These are a few examples of some of the wages which ‘privileged' employers take home to share with their unemployed family members:

• Domestic workers who keep fires burning, cleaning, cooking, helping kids with homework and even enforcing discipline whilst their bosses and the middle strata spend many hours away their homes, earn a meagre R1639, 82 a month in Metro areas and R1366, 84 elsewhere. 
• Farm workers who toil under all conditions of weather and seasons for long hours, in most cases facing emotional and physical abuse earn R1503, 90 a month.
• Hospitality workers who clean our hotel rooms and wear a smile after many hours so that they may receive a tip in the hotels and restaurants earn R2240, 60 a month.
• Security guards who stand in cold wintry nights for 12 hours in front of factory gates and shopping malls to make us feel safer earn R1828, 00 on grade D.
• The rock-drill operatives (RDOs) at the centre of the Lonmin dispute earn just R5 600 a month, despite the dangerous, unhealthy and difficult job they perform, facing death every time they go down the shafts. Just compare that to the earnings of Lonmin's Financial Officer, Alan Ferguson - R10 254 972 a year or R854 581 a month, 152 times higher than an RDO! 

Cutting the wages of the ‘privileged' employees would have another dire consequence for the unemployed. If workers have less money to spend it cuts even further the effective demand for goods and services and this leads to even more retrenchments and higher unemployment.

Such a ‘race to the bottom' will make life even worse for both the employed and the unemployed. That is why they have a common interest in both raising wages and restructuring the economy to create new jobs, particularly in manufacturing industry.

The other error in De Klerk's argument is the insinuation that inequalities between blacks and whites have declined. On the contrary, all the economic inequalities referred to already are heavily racialised.

Africans who constitute 79, 4% of the population, account for 41, 2% of the household income from work and social grants, whereas whites, who account only for 9, 2% of the population, receive 45, 3% of national income.

56% of whites earn more than R6 000 per month whereas 81% of Africans earn less than R6 000 per month.  An average African man earns in the region of R2 400 per month, whilst an average white man earns around R19 000. Black women are yet to be liberated from the triple oppression based on class, race and gender. While most white women earn an average of R9 600 per month, African women earn R1 200. 

And those top 20 paid directors of the JSE listed companies are still overwhelmingly white males,

So the main inequalities remain between a still mainly white and male capitalist class, who form a small, rich minority, on the one hand, and an large overwhelming black working class majority, in which the employed and unemployed share poverty and share a common interest in transforming society.

Statement issued by Patrick Craven, COSATU national spokesperson, September 7 2012

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