South African students protest against the racist 'bantu' education system during June 1976. This year represents the 32nd anniversary of the uprising., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
South African Youth Day
16 June 2013
COSATU Statement
On this momentous 37th anniversary of the unforgettable carnage levelled against black working class youth, the Congress of South African Trade Unions salutes all the young people of South Africa, whose heroism and self-sacrifice over three decades ago helped to pave the way for the liberation of our country.
This was the most crucial turning point in our struggle, as thousands of our young people decided that they had put up with racism and repression for long enough. It was time for change. The youth uprising of 1976 was without doubt linked to the powerful strike wave that erupted in Durban in 1973 and which was still ringing around the workplaces and communities. This inspired the children of those workers to take forward the struggle. They set in action a stream of resistance that enlarged over the following decades into a mighty river of revolution.
South African workers will never forget the huge debt they owe to the generation of 1976. They risked death, curtailed their education and defied the might of the apartheid state so that future generations could enjoy liberation, democracy and human rights.
The youth of today are comparatively growing up in a very different and far better world. Thanks to their parents’ battles, they no longer suffer the degradation of institutionalized racist discrimination and abuse, unreasonable arrest and persecution by the state. They are no longer deprived of the right to vote and all the other democratic rights we enjoy today. They can vote, join a trade union and have the right to develop their lives on the basis of ability rather than race.
However, today, young people face a different struggle, which requires a similar movement; a struggle against the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. Our education system continues to fail young people who are trapped in a system in which 70% of matric passes are accounted for by only 11% of former model C schools; 70% of our schools do not have libraries; 60% do not have laboratories; 60% of children are pressed out of the education system before they reach grade 12. Millions of young people are still excluded from accessing education further than secondary school.
The basic education system funnels 400 000 young people every year into the labour market. What is required is a national effort to drastically expand the education and training opportunities of these young people.
Government must expand the FET sector to accept 1 million learners per annum by 2014, compared to the current 400 000 per annum. This will in turn reduce the youth labour force, by extending their stay in the education and training system, so that they acquire basic and high-level cognitive skills.
In this way we can be able to curtail the rising number of young people wanting to join the labour force as the Quarterly Labour Force Survey of the first quarter has revealed that between the fourth quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013 young people (as young as 15 years old) accounted for 70, 7% of the unemployed persons. These young people should be in school, not looking for employment!
COSATU believes that the crisis of unemployment is structural, and it does not only hit the youth. It is rooted in the economic fault lines we inherited from our colonial and apartheid past - weak infrastructure, monopolies and cartels, an economy over-dependent on the export of raw materials, and dysfunctional education that sidelines millions and denies them the necessary skills. Many of the unemployed youth should indeed not be in the job market at all but still at school, acquiring skills and increasing their employability potential.
On the one hand, we cannot, as social partners, simply fold our arms and wait for the government to address these social ills alone. That is why the Youth Employment Accord, which government, business, organised labour and civil society signed in April, is so crucial. As its preamble says, “additional urgency needs to be injected in job-creation efforts and a national consensus on ways to grow youth and total employment is necessary”.
The measures must however provide genuine solutions, with proper, sustainable jobs, with decent wages, safe and health working conditions and education and training. That is why this accord is so welcome, calling, as it does, for “sustainable, decent work opportunities” and insists on avoiding “youth employment schemes that simply displace older workers”.
This is a clear rejection of the dangerous notion that “any job is better than none”, even if it delivers no training, pays poverty wages, displaces an existing job and disappears after a few months.
From the many excellent proposals in the Accord, these are a few which stand out:
Youth brigades, to give young people a chance to serve their communities, provide some work experience and training, integrate youth into a social movement, build social cohesion and earn a stipend;
A solar water heater installation programme to become a youth-focussed sector, employing only young people in installing the heaters, and supporting youth cooperatives and youth-owned enterprises as providers of installation services and maintenance for the programme;
A green brigade, focused on the Working for Water, Working for Energy, Working on Fire and other environmental programmes, and increasing the intake of young participants in other environment protection and promotion activities;
Health brigades, to expand home-based care and health and wellness education to communities as part of the NHI and auxiliary health services;
Literacy brigades to utilize young people to expand adult literacy training;
To aim for the Expanded Public Works Programme and the Community Works Programme to absorb at least 80% of new entrants from young people;
All state departments to introduce a focused internship programme, aiming at employing interns over a period of time equal to 5% of the total employment of the departments;
Second-chance matric programmes for those who have not passed or have poor results, and expanding the intake of FET colleges as part of building a stronger vocational and technical skills base among young people to complement the current focus on academic training.
In addition it will be vital to synchronise all these programmes with the other social accords which were signed in 2011 and 2012 which overlap this Youth Employment Accord, namely:
1. The Basic Education Accord which is especially important in for youth employment, as a well-functioning basic education system equips young people with the basic learning for subsequent training and employment;
2. The National Skills Accord which sets targets and joint action to give school-leavers apprenticeships and work placement opportunities and commit parties to spend more on skills development.
3. The Local Procurement Accord, to support efforts to reindustrialise South Africa and thus provide jobs in manufacturing to young people (as entrepreneurs, employees or co-operators).
4. The Green Economy Accord which aims for a greener economy, with new ‘green’ jobs that can be a starting point for getting first-time employees into the mainstream economy.
But on the other hand, the long-term solution lies in policies to restructure the basis of our economy, to create an economy based on manufacturing industry. The Industrial Policy Action Plan, the infrastructure development programme and at least part of the new growth path plan, if fully implemented, will put us on the road to the second phase of our transition, as the ANC has dubbed it.
This radical economic shift requires that institutionally, the Treasury, which constitutes the biggest obstacle to the government’s economic programme, needs to be urgently realigned; a new mandate needs to be given to the Reserve Bank, which must be nationalised; and the National Planning Commission must be given a renewed mandate, to realign the national plan, in line with the proposed radical economic shift. Aspects of the New Growth Path also need to be realigned in line with the proposed new macro-economic framework. All state owned enterprises and state development finance institutions need to be given a new mandate.
The task of fundamental transformation of our economy, the creation of decent work and the provision of basic services to the majority of our people cannot be left to the market forces.
COSATU has consistently called for decisive state intervention in strategic sectors of the economy, including through strategic nationalisation and state ownership, and the use of a variety of macro-economic and other levers at the states disposal, which can be deployed to regulate and channel investment, production, consumption and trade to deliberately drive industrialisation, sustainable development, decent employment creation, and regional development, and to break historical patterns of colonial exploitation and dependence.
In conclusion, the best possible way to commemorate the struggles of the youth of 1976 is to mobilise the youth of today in a crusade to create jobs, open up educational opportunities and create healthy and prosperous communities, so that tomorrow’s youth can be free from the evils which still blight the lives of so many young people today.
Let the youth of today rededicate themselves to service to the community, so that the youth of tomorrow can inherit the better life for all our people, for which the youth of yesterday fought and died. We must never let those martyrs of our struggle be forgotten!
Patrick Craven (National Spokesperson)
Congress of South African Trade Unions
110 Jorissen Cnr Simmonds Street
Braamfontein
2017
Tel: +27 11 339-4911 or Direct: +27 10 219-1339
Mobile: +27 82 821 7456
E-Mail: patrick@cosatu.org.za
Today`s generation of young people must discover their mission and fulfill it
14 June 2013
NEHAWU Statement
NEHAWU salutes the gallant heroes and heroines of the 1976 Student Uprisings during this year`s "Youth Month" for the role they played in exposing and displacing the apartheid regime`s brutal machinery. The month of June is a very significant month in the history of this country because it reminds us of the heroic role played by the youth of our country to dismantle the evil and exploitative apartheid regime in South Africa.
June was declared a Youth Month in this country to honour and commemorate the contribution of those fearless young heroes and heroines in the fight for freedom,equality and justice. On the historic and fateful day of 16 June 1976, thousands of black students protested against the apartheid regime`s decision to use Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools across the nation. These students were brutally mowed down by the apartheid police despite having ensured that theirs was a disciplined and peaceful march. Hundreds of students died as a result and Hector Pietersen and Hastings Ndlovu were the first casualties of this heinous crime that shook the world.
The Class of 76 responded to the challenges of their time with discipline, fearlessness and courage. Today`s youth have the enormous task of waging a fearless struggle against unemployment, poverty and the growing levels of inequality in the country. The capitalist economic crisis has shattered the dreams of young people and has shown that the system offers no future for young people beyond poverty and slave wages.
Young people should organise and mobilise for a democratic developmental state and step up mass offensive against the capitalist exploitation. They have to wage militant and disciplined struggles to defend their right to education, jobs and equality. Unity and solidarity combined with a scientific view of history will enable today`s young people to achieve their historic mission of overthrowing capitalism.
NEHAWU calls on young people to support the efforts to rebuild the ANC Youth League as a mass based formation to fight young people`s struggles. Free education should be a priority and young people should ensure that those tasked with the responsibility to deliver on the promises do not take their eyes off the ball. The struggle for the opening of the doors of learning in the Western Cape should be waged relentlessly following the closure of several schools by the DA led provincial administration. We call on the national government to ensure that all schools have textbooks and all other required tools of learning for both teachers and students.
Our union calls on all young people to fight against self-defeating behaviour like drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancies,violence,neglect of education, sexual promiscuity and sexual abuse.
We salute the ongoing struggles of Chilean students against privatisation and high fees. We encourage our young people to be internationalist in their world outlook and also to participate in the global solidarity actions and campaigns. The future of the world belongs to the young, as the revolutionary theorist Cde Lenin once said`" Give me just one generation of youth, and I`ll transform the whole world."
Issued by:
NEHAWU Secretariat Office
For further information, please contact: Sizwe Pamla (NEHAWU Media Liaison Officer) at 011 833 2902 - 082 558 5962 or email: sizwep@nehawu.org.za
COSATU Western Cape Youth Day Press Conference
12 June 2013
The COSATU focus on the Youth Employment Accord will practically be given expression through the promotion of cooperatives, as a central feature of the small-scale fishing policy. This Youth Employment Accord as well as the small-scale fishing policy will be presented by government and will demonstrate in a practical way how young people and communities will benefit. The benefit will come from the reallocation of fishing rights to communities, away from the historical beneficiaries, who often stole the rights under apartheid and the early days of democracy.
The benefits of this for young people will be outlined in a conference between COSATU, Youth Organisations and Community fishing groups held in conjunction with Government.
The conference will be held in Langebaan Town Hall:
Date: 17th June 2013
From: 10h00 to 12h30 - [Press Conference at 12h30]
The position of the DA has been that we must implement a youth wage subsidy, without any safeguards to avoid displacement, so that businesses could effectively have their profits subsidised by state funding. The feature of the new employment accord is that we will not just be subsidising big business but will actually be promoting the removal of the privileges from big white businesses and giving them to small black and white businesses, the majority of which should be Cooperatives.
This will threaten the support base of the DA who historically had these fishing rights, people like Donald Grant, who was a key figure in the West Coast Rock lobster associations. This is what the DA had wanted to avoid, where young people see the problems of the economy being the apartheid generational advantage and the greed and extravagance of most whites. The Western Cape remains the Province where the most deliberate steps are taken to defend the Apartheid generational advantage, with the help and collusion of DA leaders.
The DA was trying to present a picture of the economic problems being caused by the workers who have rights as opposed to workers who do not have jobs. The recently signed Youth Employment Accord acknowledges that part of the structural problems of the economy cannot be addressed by young and old workers fighting for jobs, but through radical transformation of the economy. This entails moving opportunity and prospects from whites to blacks and sharing it in the community on a more equitable basis. So we will, through the small-scale fishing policy, be moving the rights to harvest fish resources from the few individual white and blacks to the Community interest as a whole. So the fishing resource will sustain the whole community as opposed to a few really rich fishing beneficiaries. The manner in which rights are moved to the community will also mainly be through cooperatives, and young people will be accommodated in the cooperatives, as reflected in the youth accord.
This is the change that this country needs, in respect of extending opportunity and prosperity to all who want to work hard. This starts in the fishing sector, but the principle will soon be taken into all other areas of the economy where white interest and control still dominate the mineral resources. This is the economic transformation that is possible within the structure and laws of the economy, and we will be speeding up its implementation, but on this Youth day we will have a special focus on the youth of South Africa, and how they will benefit from actual change in the Western Cape.
For further comments please contact Tony Ehrenreich, COSATU W Cape Provincial Secretary @ 0827733194
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