 Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today is International Workers' Day and we are joined by Fagameele Lubey Majola, who is the spokesperson of National Union of Metal Workers from South Africa, who is going to speak to us on the occasion of May Day and about the sort of struggles that NUMSA is leading in South Africa. Thank you, Fags, for joining us today, and thank you for joining us on this occasion of International Workers' Day. So firstly, can you tell us about the sort of events that are being organized over there to celebrate this occasion? Yes, indeed. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to address millions of viewers in India. We really appreciate this as NUMSA. Today, Workers' Day is a big day for us. It's a big day not just for us, but of course for workers all over the world. This is the day when we take stock, first of all, of how far we've come as members of the working class, but also in terms of what are the challenges facing us. The celebrations which are taking place today in South Africa is as NUMSA, we are celebrating Workers' Day under the banner of SAFTAW. SAFTAW is our trade union federation, which is the only independent trade union federation in South Africa which is fighting for workers. Under the banner of SAFTAW, we've got massive May Day rallies which we've organized in three different provinces, in the province of Limpopo, in KZN and also in the Eastern Cape. In KZN actually in particular, there is a massive march which has also been organized, which will be taking place at some point during the day. So a whole lot of activities taking place around this important day. Recently, NUMSA workers at Arsalaar Mittal, this giant company owned by an Indian billionaire, these workers demonstrated in front of the Indian High Commission protesting against the company's practice of paying unequal wages for equal work. So can you tell us how widespread such racist practices still are in South Africa so long after the end of the apartheid regime and how this affects the workers' struggle as a whole? Well, you know, South Africa has never really dealt with the racist structure of its economy. So even though technically, apartheid has been written out of the statute books, many companies continue to practice apartheid in the workplace. According to Stetsestay's income household survey, the average African household earns five times less than the average white household. When you look at representation of black managers, for example, on companies, the representation of black managers, representation of black females, there's still a very, very little transformation that's taken place in the South African corporate space in the South African economy. And that's because even though apartheid has officially been defeated, the fact of the matter is that the South African economy remains very racist. The South African economy, from the moment that the colonizers arrived to colonize this country, has always been a country which has exploited African labor. And that has not changed. And this is why, as Noomsa, most of our work is actually focused particularly on that area. The majority of people who are exploited in this country are African workers, but in particular, female workers are the most exploited in South Africa. They remain the lowest paid, they remain the most abused, they remain the ones really at the bottom of the food chain. So the struggles of our salemital workers is a struggle of the majority of workers in our country. It's not just our salemital where these instances are taking place. Last week, for example, we have members from a company called Metis. Metis is a hardware manufacturing company in South Africa. It provides hardware products to many hardware companies in South Africa. And we've got workers there who've been on strike for more than for almost two months. And the issue is purely because of racism. There is a manager there who in the view of our members has been applying a type of divide and rule according to racial lines. Ironically, this manager happens to be of Indian nationality, but they have grouped workers in terms of, if you are white, you are very privileged. If you're Indian, you are sort of at the same level. And then if you're black, you are treated worse than anybody. So it's issues like that that have caused our members to embark on these strikes. And it's because of the fact that we are very aware of the fact that as a union, the only way that you can actually force a company to radically change is at the point of production. You can have discussions, you can have meetings, you can beg, you can plead, but those things will not get you anywhere. And our members are using their power and their labor as a means to try and force these companies to do the right thing and to treat all workers equally. And you talked about how women are the worst treated amongst even when there is racist discrimination, women are the worst treated. So can you talk? Tell us more about how Namsa is approaching this gender discrimination and fighting more along those lines? The point from which we always fight or we always analyze is from the perspective of socialism. We know that capitalism is a system that exploits groups of people, that needs to exploit women, needs to exploit black people so that it can justify the massive accumulation of the elite. So for us, our ultimate goal has always been to promote socialism as an agenda for the freedom of all members of the working class. But in particular for women, women in South Africa are hugely affected by the conditions of the capitalist system. In our society, we've got extremely high levels of violence against women and children. It is a deeply entrenched problem in South African society where thousands of women a day are killed or kidnapped or abused in our society. The last statistics, if I'm not mistaken, was something like one in every four men has raped a woman in our country. It's a very alarming statistic. So it tells you the extent of the violence which exists in our communities in our society. And this of course is also represented in the workplace. As Nutsa, it is our duty to ensure that all workers are treated equally. We have embarked on campaigns to defend women workers in the workplace. We have pushed for policies in particular to promote women and gender equality. But to be frank, these are things that in our view, we don't feel like we're doing enough we're not able to do as much as we want to do to transform this very unequal society because at the end of the day, we're actually dealing with a very evil capitalist system which is so pervasive in our society and in the workplace that it's almost, I don't wanna say it's impossible but it's very difficult to deal with. It is a challenge whenever we have to take on women's struggles. We have, for example, workers, and not last year but the year before in Richards Bay at a state owned entity called PRASA, the passenger rail agency of South Africa. There are workers there who embarked on a strike for something like two to three months if I'm not mistaken. One of the demands there was because women were being exploited. We had women workers who were forced into sexual relations with bosses in order to find employment. The problem of unemployment in South Africa is so terrible. We've got unemployment levels of 37%. So you can imagine that for a lot of women, very desperate to obtain employment, you come across a boss who says to you, I can hire you, but you need to give me some sexual favors. And these are things that we are dealing with on a daily basis as a trade union. We fight them in terms of obviously arbitrations. We also fight them in terms of strikes, as I mentioned to you at PRASA, but we have to do much more. And this is why Numsa has taken the decision to push the agenda of a worker's party. And Numsa has also spoken about the need to move away from organizing along industrial or sectoral lines to organizing along value chains. So can you tell us more about this? Well, yes, indeed. Because one of the things that we realized was that by limiting ourselves to the sectors before Numsa was known as a trade union, which was focusing on metal workers and mostly within that particular value chain, within that particular sector rather. But what we realized is that by limiting our scope, it actually undermined our power to negotiate and to bargain and even to strike. So for example, when our members would go on strike in the automobile sector, other workers around the value chain would continue working. Now, that actually undermines the strike. So we felt that in order to strengthen the power of the working class as a whole, let's organize workers across the value chain. That way, when there's a strike in the auto sector, then we can get workers, for example, in the tire sector, in the battery sector, and other related or along the value chain to also assist in perhaps secondary strikes or go-slows or other types of actions which will assist in strengthening that strike. So that was actually the purpose of doing it that way. And also because of the fact that Numsa really is one of the truly most militant trade unions in South Africa. It is the largest trade union in South Africa representing over 370,000 workers. There were many workers from different sectors who were calling out for that type of cover and membership from us. And we felt that by limiting ourselves, we were actually denying the service to many, many other members of the working class. And that's actually what prompted the decision to then organize along the value chain. And finally, can you tell us about the sort of struggles Numsa is planning to take up in the coming months? Well, absolutely. One of our biggest struggles at the moment is around the issue of ESCOM. ESCOM is a state-owned entity which provides electricity to the country in South Africa. Our government is embarking on a program to privatize ESCOM. In fact, they've already made the decision that they're going to quote unquote unbundle ESCOM which for us is just a nice sort of cover word for privatization so that they can bring in private sector into the state-owned entity. They have already begun through by bringing private player companies to provide renewable energy to ESCOM. ESCOM is now forced to procure electricity from renewable energy companies who are owned by private players. And that electricity is astronomical in its cost. So ESCOM in the past has provided electricity to the country through coal. And it's been at a cost of something like 35 cents per kilowatt hour. But the cost of electricity through independent power producers or these renewable energy companies comes at a price of something like two ran 20 cents per kilowatt hour. It has resulted in the price of electricity skyrocketing for ordinary consumers because now we are paying for this cost of these private sector players. But what is more damaging is that the introduction of these independent power producers means that ESCOM has to close five coal-fired power stations in Boma Lama. And this will result in the closure or in the loss of 100,000 jobs. These are, Boma Lama is a province that is not as industrialized as Hauden, for example. So most of the industries and the companies and the businesses that exist in Boma Lama exist as a result of ESCOM and the coal-fired power stations that are there. So the fact that this government has made a decision to prioritize renewable energy means that the closure of these coal-fired power stations will be disastrous for the entire community of Boma Lama. Our government has made no social plan for what will happen when those coal-fired power stations close. They've made no, there's no macroeconomic plan, for example, to replace those jobs with other jobs or to create new industries in Boma Lama. So the power stations will just close and 100,000 people will be jobless. So for us, this is a real crisis. But there is always that argument that it's important to transition from coal-based power to renewable power. So how should that be addressed? Well, absolutely. And we agree with that, as you know what I'm saying. In fact, we are one of the few trade unions that have policies on what we call a just transition. We've been saying that we must transition from coal to renewable energy. But it can't be something that you just wake up and do. Other countries have done this. They've embarked on a proper program. It's taken them maybe five to 10 years where they've transitioned because they have recognized the fact that you don't just bring renewable energy in without actually coming up with a process and a system to replace those jobs or retrain workers or create new industries. Our problem is the fact that our government hasn't done that. They've simply brought in the private sector and they've not made provision for how we can transition in a just way so that the majority of the working class doesn't suffer. Also, as a socialist trade union, we believe very strongly in the fact that the renewable energy sector should not be privatized. You cannot solve the problem of climate change by allowing the same capitalist who destroyed the environment in the first place to then be the ones to take ownership of dealing with climate change. The reason we have a problem with climate change is because of the profit motive. It's because corporates have destroyed our environment in order to enrich themselves. So if you want to deal with climate change, you must have a renewable energy sector, which is state-owned, so that the state can, number one, guarantee jobs. Number two, the state can measure and put proper measures and controls to actually show and to ensure that whatever changes that have taken place will result in an improvement in the environment, will result in genuine change, which will allow the environment to recover and also allow communities which have been destroyed by environmental destruction to recover. You and I both know that corporations cannot be trusted with that type of responsibility. Nowhere in history is there an example of a corporation that has acted in the interest of the majority of people. Only a state can do that. Unfortunately, the South African state is a capitalist state. It is a state which has done everything in the last 25 years to benefit capital, the banks, the banking sector at the expense of the working class majority. And this is part of the reason why NUMSA, since 2013, has been pushing an agenda that workers in South Africa should pursue an agenda for themselves. And we should have a workers' party which should do just that. OK. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. That's all the time we have. And thank you for watching People's Dispatch.