“Let us mobilize for massive campaigns against continued impoverishment of the masses of the people. Let us demand food and not guns.”
SACTU New Year Message
Comrades, fellow workers. The criminality of the apartheid regime is no more evident than in its effect on the young. The youths are the pride and hope of any self-respecting people and country. The younger generation represents the nation’s future and are the embodiment of its dreams. Yet in our country the policies of racial oppression stunt the growth of young minds with the poison of BANTU education. When the youth demand a better life, the racist regime massacres. Equally scandalous is the employment of thousands of children as cheap labor on the farms. There are numerous half-starved children aged before their time stooped over tilling the soil. In the dockyards, one will find the so-called bilge rats, infants small enough to crawl amongst the rotors and motors of ships to clean out used oil and grease. On the streets of every city, the sight of boy newspaper vendors is so common as to go unnoticed. Thousands of teenage girls entered the employment of white homes when they should still be schooling. Driven by the extremes of poverty, thousands of parents are forced to sell their offspring into slavery in order to make ends meet.
During 1984 once more our youth made a historic contribution to the intensification of the struggle. Among other things, their activities helped to make South Africa increasingly ungovernable. Therefore, the youth is better prepared to fight the intense battles ahead of us. By deciding to observe 1985 as the International Year of the Youth, the Pretoria regime has thrown down a challenge to all those who are genuinely pursuing the interests of the youth. The trade union movement should take up this challenge and place it before the entire nation, its own program for the youth. Such a program must necessarily include the demand to have child labor illegalized. Free, compulsory, and comprehensive education based on the envisaged Education Charter and employment for the unemployed youth, particularly the school leavers. The trade union movement must wage a vigorous struggle to end conscription and recruitment into the racist army of oppression and aggression. We must demand an end to the banishment of the youth to the barren and desolate, Bantustan the nature of these campaigns requires that we make further advances in consolidating the unity of the struggles waged by the youth organizations.
The trade unions and the rest of the democratic movement pay tribute to the contribution the youth made to the strengthening of the bonds of unity among these forces. Working and student youth must make new ways of executing joint actions and coordinating their activities. We charged democratic trade union movement to launch a massive campaign against the Alliance Act. The general sales tax, the banning of trade unions in the Bantustans, the recruitment of the mercenaries from Europe to take our jobs whilst we are denied training opportunities in our own country. The workers must demand the right to work and to form trade unions of their choice. In 1986, we shall be observing the centenary of Mayday. On Mayday 1984 we put forward the demand that this day must be a paid public holiday. We must aim to ensure that through our united action. This demand is met as from 1986. Therefore, our activities in 1985 must aim to build up the forces which will compel the apartheid regime to bow down to our wishes.
During this 30th anniversary of SACTU. Let us all move forward in rising waves of intensity or struggle to the centenary of Mayday. Let us mobilize for massive campaigns against continued impoverishment of the masses of the people. Let us demand food and not guns. A just wage and not super profits. Expenditure for the benefit of the people and not for the maintenance of the apartheid structures. Let us use this anniversary to increase our Union membership. Let this year be the year of intensified struggle for political and economic emancipation. Let us unite in mass actions and confront the enemy in its own territory. Let us form committees throughout the length and breadth. Of our country. To ensure the success of the 30th-anniversary celebrations of SACTU. Long live the South African Congress of trade unions. Long live the Congress alliance. Long live proletarian internationalism.
December 1985
SACTU was founded in 1955 by those who were critical of the decision taken by the Trade Union Congress of South Africa (TUCSA) that only registered non-African unions could join the congress. It was closely associated with the ANC and joined the Congress Alliance as its trade union wing. The topic of the New Year Message in 1985 revolved around the BANTU education and its effects on the youth. The criminality of the apartheid regime is no more evident in its effect on them. The policies of racial oppression stunt the growth of young minds with the suppression of BANTU education. It served the interests of white supremacy and denied black people access to the same educational opportunities and resources.
Bantu education treated blacks as perpetual children in need of parental supervision by whites. African people and communities were portrayed as traditional, rural, and unchanging. By deciding to observe 1985 as the International Year of the Youth, the Pretoria regime has thrown down a challenge to all those who are genuinely pursuing the interests of the youth. The trade union movement should take up this challenge and place it before the entire nation, its own program for the youth. Such a program must necessarily include the demand to have child labor illegalized.