TRUE empowerment lies beyond the limits of capitalism, says SAFTU, the South African Federation of Trade Unions.
A statement issued on Tuesday on behalf of SAFTU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said: ‘The South African Federation of Trade Unions strongly opposes the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Economic Inclusion for All Bill.
‘The DA’s proposed bill is a thinly veiled attempt to retain and indeed entrench the Apartheid racial legacy in which the black working class will remain at the bottom rung of the social pecking order.
‘Under the veil of free markets and efficiency, the DA’s bill seeks to sustain and reproduce by stealth the very racially based hierarchical patterns that continue to characterise South African society 31 years into democracy.
‘Three decades into democracy, South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world.
‘Despite the promises of freedom and equality, the South African economy continues to entrench division and despair, thereby undermining the realisation of constitutionally guaranteed rights for the majority of the black working class.
‘The expanded unemployment rate stands at over forty-three percent, youth unemployment has reached sixty-two per cent, and more than sixty per cent of black households live below the upper-bound poverty line. These figures expose a system that has failed to deliver genuine transformation.
‘Hence, to the proposed R1 billion Transformation Fund, undergirded by the ANC’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE), and to the Democratic Alliance’s so-called Economic Inclusion for All Bill, SAFTU’s counterposes its own vision of a class-based, worker-controlled, socialist transformation of the economy.
‘SAFTU rejects as a farce any form of empowerment that leaves the working class landless, jobless, and powerless. Our position is informed by the catastrophic failure of the government’s empowerment programmes, however well-intentioned they may have been.
‘Moreover, our position is informed by our firm conviction and clear understanding any transformation project that rests on a capitalist basis, a system that thrives on and reproduces inequality, is bound to make the working class the sacrificial lamb.
‘SAFTU is not opposed to reforms. We recognise that within a capitalist system, there are measures that can offer temporary relief and help workers achieve incremental improvements in their lives.
‘Yet we also know that such measures cannot eliminate the exploitation that defines capitalism.
‘We therefore uphold the principle that training and skills development must be expanded and protected, for every worker deserves access to education that enhances productivity, dignity, and social mobility. Employment equity, too, remains both a constitutional and moral obligation.
‘Workplaces must reflect the demographics of the nation at all levels, ensuring that transformation is not confined to slogans but becomes a lived reality.
‘We further affirm that employee share ownership programmes, when genuinely structured, can serve as a progressive tool for economic democracy.
‘However, these programmes must not be allowed to become corporate pacifiers or public relations gimmicks.
‘Real empowerment requires that workers gain meaningful dividends, representation on boards, and collective influence over the strategic direction of enterprises. Without worker democracy and transparency, empowerment becomes a façade.
‘While B-BBEE was conceived under the guise of a corrective to apartheid exclusion, it has served to concentrate wealth in the hands of a small, politically connected elite while doing little to uplift the working class.
‘Instead of fostering broad-based development, B-BBEE has too often encouraged fronting, rent-seeking, and superficial ownership transfers that leave the working class in the same prior the fall of Apartheid.
‘Today, black South Africans directly own less than five per cent of the shares listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
‘The proposed R1 billion Transformation Fund, financed by a three per cent corporate levy, threatens to replicate the same pattern by channelling resources toward “black industrialists” rather than toward workers, cooperatives, and communities.
‘SAFTU calls for these funds to be redirected toward worker and community cooperatives, localised industrial projects, and public sector job creation that builds real productive capacity and restores dignity to working people.
‘Equally concerning is the Democratic Alliance’s Economic Inclusion for All Bill, which seeks to eliminate B-BBEE and remove all racial references from law.
‘The DA presents this as a “race-neutral” and “needs-based” alternative grounded in free-market efficiency.
‘While it correctly identifies the corruption and cronyism that have infected B-BBEE, its proposed solution would entrench white monopoly capital by pretending that centuries of colonial theft and apartheid exclusion never happened.
‘In a racially structured society, a so-called “colour-blind” system is not neutral, it is a lie that protects privilege. By ignoring class power and historical injustice, the DA’s approach would preserve the very inequalities it claims to oppose.
‘SAFTU offers an alternative rooted in class empowerment, worker control, and social ownership.
‘Our vision builds upon the demands of the Freedom Charter which declared that true liberation requires transferring the mineral wealth, banks, and monopoly industries into the ownership of the people as a whole.
‘We propose an economic overhaul that bans raw mineral exports without benefication, taxes financial speculation, and redirects idle corporate surpluses, now estimated at over R2 trillion – into productive investments that create decent jobs.
‘A job guarantee and large-scale public investment in infrastructure, housing, renewable energy, and agro-processing must form the backbone of a new developmental path.
‘At the same time, a universal social wage must ensure that every South African has access to free education, healthcare, sanitation, affordable transport, and housing.
‘This requires reversing the neoliberal austerity policies that have strangled public services and deepened inequality.
‘Ownership and control of the economy must be democratised through the creation of worker and community cooperatives and through genuine employee share ownership programmes that empower workers collectively rather than as isolated shareholders.
‘To achieve this transformation, South Africa must rebuild a capable, developmental state, one that ends outsourcing and tender corruption, restores public sector capacity, and reclaims control over energy, water, logistics, and other strategic sectors.
‘SAFTU is often accused of being utopian. What is Utopian, however, is the misguided belief that society can continue exist as “normal” under such extreme levels of poverty and inequality without retribution from the working class.
‘However, we are also realistic about the limits of capitalism. A system built on private ownership and profit cannot resolve the crises of unemployment, hunger, ecological destruction, and inequality.
‘Our task, therefore, is two-fold: To win immediate reforms that improve the lives of workers today, fair wages, training, equity, and representation, while simultaneously building the consciousness and organisation needed for a socialist democracy where the economy serves the people, not private interests.
‘Transformation must always carry class content. SAFTU supports genuine reforms that advance workers’ rights, skills, and participation in ownership, but we reject elite enrichment schemes that recycle B-BBEE into patronage networks.
‘We oppose neoliberal colour-blindness that denies our history and obscures the realities of class domination. And we reaffirm our commitment to a socialist future in which ownership and control rest in the hands of workers and communities.
‘As SAFTU has often said, we must not throw away the baby with the bathwater, but we must also never mistake the bathwater for liberation.
‘True empowerment lies in confronting both racial and class oppression and, ultimately, in overcoming the capitalist system that reproduces them.’
Meanwhile, the South African Teachers’ Union (SAOU) has called for a sustained, year-long celebration and recognition of teachers, warning that the emotional strain, professional isolation, and looming teacher shortages threaten the stability of the country’s education system.
SAOU executive officer, Paul Sauer, said: ‘In the current circumstances, where teachers are experiencing emotional exhaustion and where the wellness of teachers can be measured by the number of good teachers leaving the education system, the time has come to provide more focused acknowledgement to our teachers.’
The SAOU’s call for greater recognition comes against the backdrop of a worldwide crisis in teacher supply.
The union warned that unless South Africa takes proactive steps to retain its teaching workforce, the country could face severe teacher shortages within the next 15 years.
Sauer expressed concern about the Basic Education department’s proposed Early Retirement Programme, which would allow teachers aged 55 to 59 to exit the system voluntarily.
While intended to rejuvenate the teaching workforce, Sauer said the policy could ‘escalate the problem’ by accelerating the loss of experienced educators at a time when replacements are already scarce.
The union appealed to communities to show tangible support for educators, not only during October but throughout the year, including public recognition, encouragement and collaboration between schools and communities to improve teachers’ working conditions.
