ANC is enemy of working class - APF

May 01 2007 at 11:34AM

The African National Congress government was as much an enemy of the working class as big capitalists and racist bosses, the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) charged on Tuesday, Workers' Day.

The ANC government had \"again and again failed to listen to the workers and the poor,\" the APF said.

Instead, it had adopted policies favouring capitalists and profiteers.

It had also consistently refused \"even the modest demands of workers for a living wage\".

The APF hosted a Workers' Day rally in Sebokeng, in the Vaal Triangle, on Tuesday in support of \"all the working class struggles in the country\".

It lent its backing in particular to that area's residents, many of whom it claimed had been retrenched after it was discovered they had been poisoned with manganese gas.

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Despite the country's transition from apartheid to democracy, it remained one of the most unequal societies in the world, the APF said.

Social misery was deepening, with broad unemployment of almost 40 percent, a lack of delivery of social services and the prevalence of HIV and Aids.

\"For democracy to work, the poor and the marginalised need to have an equal voice in the delivery of social services, budgets and the general allocation of resources.\"

The APF said the government and its labour department had shown time and again that they were more interested in competitiveness and profits than the lives and welfare of vulnerable and abused workers.

It was only through combined worker and community struggles that the poor could force bosses and the government to change their attitudes and policies, it said. - Sapa


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