Click the link here to read about a meeting of mine workers addressed by Stephen in Rustenburg, South Africa.
By Councillor Stephen Jolly, currently in South Africa
South Africa is like a friendly version of a police state at the moment. There are police and security everywhere and it has no doubt helped dampen down crime during this World Cup period. Another reason for the largely incident-free World Cup has been the social pressure from the masses who are absorbed with football at the moment.
More than 41,000 police have been mobilised to deal with World Cup security. Now another 11,000 police have been drafted in to replace striking security workers at four World Cup stadiums (see previous article).
On top of this a separate, parallel judicial system has been established to deal with World Cup crime. 56 special courts are dotted around the country - open until 11pm, seven days a week. This costs the South African taxpayer R45 million (A$6.8 million). The money pays for 100 magistrates, 260 prosecutors and 110 translators who have enjoyed quite a leisurely time so far. From May 28 to June 21 they heard only 80 cases of which only 3% were for assault, common robbery or malicious damage to property.
Sentences for white tourists from the advanced capitalist world have been largely made up of fines. For blacks it is something else. One Nigerian caught in possession of 30 World Cup game tickets received three years in jail!
No doubt this massive display of benign state power gives a taste of what protest movements could face after the World Cup. Behind the party atmosphere, an economic crisis is brewing. Latest figures show that between April and May 2010 employment fell by 6.2% on an annualised basis.
In the quarter to March 2010, manufacturing lost 51,000 jobs (4.1%), construction 50,000 jobs (10.9%) and the electricity, gas and water supply industries lost 6.7% of its workforce. Gross earnings paid to workers dropped 4.6% in the same quarter.
A slowing economy and massive debts in the aftermath of the World Cup will force the government and employers to step up their attacks on wages, conditions and social spending. Heightened class divisions and struggle can be expected in the coming months. For the ruling class the World Cup security mobilisation is in a sense a trial run for these impending battles.
Regular column of Socialist Party Councillor in Yarra, Stephen Jolly
Originally published in the June edition of 'The Socialist'
Last month the draft Yarra Council budget was released. It was supported by the ALP, Greens and two right-wing Independents on Council. The Socialist Party will oppose this budget as we have done against all the Green/ALP-supported budgets over the past years.
The budget increases rates by an average of 4.5% with even higher increases later this year when the bi-annual rate revaluation kicks in. Inflation is currently about 3% and therefore the rate rises eat into the income of ordinary residents.
In fact if the Greens had there way rate rises would be even higher than 4.5% - but that was too much for the ALP and Independents to swallow in a State election year.
Charges for services, fines and fees were also increased by more than the rate of inflation – with the worst rises being in child care where fees rose by about 7%. The Melbourne Leader reported: “the annual cost of putting a child in childcare for five days a week will rise by $1040 to $19,370”.
There was greater spending on some one-off projects, which the Socialist Party supports, such as money for the children’s services hub at the Abbotsford Convent and $3.25 million being put aside for initial investment into a much needed Indoor Sports Centre.
However, there is a sting in the tail. The children’s services hub will come at the expense of the closure of the Council-run, and much needed, Keele Street childcare centre in Collingwood. The Socialist Party will work with local families to campaign against this closure.
The Greens have made noises to the local media in opposition to investment in a new Indoor Sports Centre, saying more money should be spent on bike paths and ‘Local Area Traffic Management Schemes’. The Socialist Party supports more bike paths and indeed a free and expanded public transport system – but the Indoor Sports Centre should be the last place to be taking finances from.
What about high executive salaries, expensive consultants, contracts to private and second-rate contractors and departments that seem to have little value for the community such as ‘business support’?
Instead of a fight against the bureaucrats, the Greens find it easier to steal from the Indoor Sports Centre, despite supporting the concept in theory last year when they had the Mayoralty.
The Socialist Party does not support this budget because it is not in the interests of ordinary residents. We support a budget that would move to bring back services like street cleaning into Council-control and defend and extend services such as childcare.
A socialist budget would direct community support to resident’s groups on the public housing estates instead of to bureaucrats in offices. We would aim to keep rate rises at the level of inflation and cut costs by reducing high executive salaries and the use of expensive contractors and consultants.
Instead of slugging ordinary rate payers, a socialist Council would wage a community campaign against the cost-cutting of the State and Federal governments, demanding well funded services for all residents.
The Australian supporters weren't the only people disappointed during Sunday's game against Germany in Durban. Hundreds of black security guards had been promised R1500 (A$227) for their long day checking bags and tickets and keeping the peace. For this one day job, many had undertaken a week of unpaid training.
In the end they received only R190 (A$28) and many didn't even receive that. Workers were abandoned at the stadium after the game and some had to walk four hours to get home.
The security guards took to streets in a spontaneous rally. They were surrounded by 100 police and soon 30 riot police charged into the crowd using rubber bullets in the process.
FIFA's local organising committee communications chief, Rich Mkhondo, told the media that the stewards had the right to protest but "at the moment there is no concern. We have dealt with it and the stewards' demands are being looked at, but that does not mean that their demands will be met".
One worker told media: "we left our homes at one in the morning (to reach the stadium in time to steward the German/Australia game) and now it is nearly 1am." Another said: "We waited until after the game was over to ask about our wages and the response we got from the policeman in charge at the stadium was shocking. He told us that we were being barbaric just like our president and, to make it worse, our employers did not want to give us an answer, so some of the workers started to toyi-toyi as we were waiting".
The following night in Cape Town, stewards also struck for the same reasons and FIFA used police as scabs to collect tickets and steward the game between Italy and Paraguay.
The largely black-led ANC government and their new FIFA mates are using the same state machine as did the apartheid government to keep down genuine grievances from workers. It's has shades of Animal Farm.
There is plenty of money being made during the World Cup, but little for ordinary workers. Dr Dale McKinley, an independent researcher and activist, gave an address last week to the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust Open Dialogue in Cape Town. He outlined has private construction companies have made billions of Rands from the World Cup. For example, construction company WHBO increased its profit before tax by 142%, Murray and Roberts by 99% and Group Five by 79%. Most construction workers received no more than R3000 a month (A$455).
FIFA's and the local football organising committee expect the profit from the month-long event to be about R25 billion (A$3.7 billion). The event was supposed to generate 500,000 new jobs, yet South Africa has lost over one million jobs in the past two years. Dr McKinley described the World Cup as a "hugely costly and ultimately ephemeral exercise in myth-making."
Notwithstanding this, the vast bulk of South Africans, of all races, are very positive at the moment about hosting the World Cup. There is a tremendous sense of national pride. However, this experience would be enjoyed by even more South Africans if FIFA ensured its contractors paid their staff the agreed rates and paid them on time.
By Stephen Jolly in South Africa
For soccer tourists the South African World Cup feels safe and one big party. It's a case of the tournament taking over the country, more than the country hosting a sporting event. All day yesterday and deep into the night, the Cape Town CBD was car free and in carnival mode.
The predictions, steeped in racism, from sections of the European media have been proven incorrect. The UK Daily Star claimed a race war would break out after the murder of Eugene Terre Blanche and are now saying the English team's training camp is infested by deadly snakes.
However, while civil war and snake bites might be exaggerations, all is not fine in the Rainbow Nation. Residents of the massive Du Noon and Joe Slovo squatter camps (or informal settlements as they are called here) that greet visitors as they leave Cape Town Airport have no electricity and so can't watch the games. The Cape Town Council has spent R30 million ($4.6 million) on four public viewing areas but they are all in the southern and eastern parts of the city.
When asked why the poorest residents missed out, Ms Heather Brenner, Chairwoman of the Council covering Du Noon and Joe Slovo offered a Kafkaesque answer: "Regrettable the particular application (for a public screen in the informal settlements) was approved too late for the applicant to take advantage of sponsorships he had obtained". However she promised that a new train station might open soon near the camps and pointed out "you can't win them all".
The national pride generated by the World Cup is pushing aside these basic political dilemmas for a while - but they will not go away. South Africa is spending US$4 billion on the tournament and is expected to recoup only US$2.7 billion. FIFA have been guaranteed US$2 billion in profit and the public will foot the bill long after the euphoria fades away.
By Stephen Jolly in South Africa
Cape Town is having its biggest moment ever, or at least since the afternoon Nelson Mandela spoke to the masses from the balcony of City Hall hours after being released from 27 years in jail.
Locals were high on the excitement of the South Africa vs Mexico game, broadcast on giant screens in every square in Cape Town to tens of thousands of people. Yet the local papers report on another less glamorous story from the townships on the other side of the Table Mountain that is the city's natural barrier between the mainly white rich and the black and coloured poor.
A toilet war has broken out in the massive black Khayelitsha suburb, home to probably a half a million people. The Social Justice Coalition, a popular NGO in the area, believes that concern over access to toilets is the "primary challenge to safety" for residents. The death rate from diarrhoea in children under five is 111 per 100,000 population - by far the highest in Cape Town. One section of Kyayelitsha (RR Section) has 3,000 households and only 58 communal taps and 129 toilets, many not functional.
The City administration is run by the Democratic Alliance, which is slightly to the Right of the ANC. Under pressure for the masses, they built 1315 toilets in 2007, enclosing 1265 of them with corrugated iron to provide a modicum of privacy. The ANC Youth League believing the there should be 1 toilet for every 5 homes, rather than 1 for 1, and therefore feeling shown up by the DA, destroyed some toilets and soon after the City authorities dismantled another 65 more.
The masses have nothing now and when asked for a quote from The Cape Times, the office of the Mayor, Dan Plato, said "we are too busy with the World Cup".
Today's meeting for Collingwood public housing tenants at Harmsworth Church Hall heard report back on cockroach situation. Minister Wynne has pledged a root and branch clean-up of the estate and in the short term, special fumigation of particularly bad units. Great to see action so soon. Community activism works!
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