SA youth have little to celebrate – Saftu

The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) says the youth of SA today still face multiple hardships, despite the struggles of their heroes in 1976.

The new federation, the second-biggest in the country, said young people have little to celebrate today, considering they still have many of the same problems as the youth in 1976.

Saftu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi pointed out that the political freedom achieved in 1994 had not led to economic freedom.

“The youth are still left with an economic crisis, high levels of unemployment and poverty, a dysfunctional education system and communities that are terrorised by criminal gangs and druglords,” he said.

Saftu was formed after Vavi was expelled from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). The latter’s biggest affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), was also ousted from the federation for its open opposition to the ANC’s neoliberal policies. Some former Cosatu unions, such as Numsa and the Food and Allied Workers Union, are now Saftu affiliates.

The 1976 Soweto Uprising was sparked by pupils’ rejection of the National Party-led apartheid government’s imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction at black schools. At least 200 protesting pupils were killed and scores injured when police opened fire on them. A 12-year old, Hector Pieterson, was one of the first pupils to be hit by police bullets, and is the symbol of the state-sponsored massacre.

Vavi went on to paint a dire picture of high unemployment for the youth of today, quoting the latest figures from Statistics SA indicating an unemployment rate of 38.2% in the first quarter of this year among young people aged 15 to 34. This means more than one in every three young people in the labour market is jobless.

“Worse still, the report shows that some of these young people are discouraged with the labour market and they are also not building on their skills base through education and training.

“As a result, of the 10.3 million people aged 15 to 24, 32,4% (approximately 3.3 million) were not in employment, education or training and were thus disengaged from the labour market and not playing a part in the economy.

“Saftu welcomes that government was forced to announce standards [for education] following years of campaigning by the Equal Education Campaign. The challenge is to transform these victories into reality,” Vavi said.

He acknowledged that the government provided free education in 85% of public schools as well as free meals, which made a big difference to pupils from poor communities.

But the federation was concerned that of the 1 185 198 pupils who enrolled for Grade 1 in 2006, only 651 707 wrote matric in 2017. This meant 533 491 pupils, or 41%, did not even reach matric.

“This means more than half a million young South Africans, in just this one year’s intake, have no academic qualifications at all.

“In the current labour market, these young people, plus those who failed matric, have virtually no chance of getting anything except the most insecure, casual and underpaid employment, but are more likely not to find a job at all,” Vavi said.

Saftu said that even the 651 707 who passed matric last year faced a bleak future as thousands would battle to get jobs, despite skills shortages in many sectors. Most matriculants did not have the skills required in the areas of shortage.

“One of the main reasons is that government spending on basic education per pupil over the past seven years declined by 8% in real terms.

“Despite increasing total expenditure in money terms by the rate of inflation, about 7% a year, there was a big increase in the number of new pupils due to a sharp rise in the birth rate between 2003 and 2005, which only came down slightly in 2008.

“The quality of schools in poor communities is still scandalous. The department of basic education has confirmed that, after 24 years of democracy, there are still 3 532 pit toilets at schools across the country putting children’s lives at risk.”

The department estimated it would cost R7.8 billion to address the sanitation backlog in all schools, yet the budget for school infrastructure had been cut by R3.6 billion, which could have been used to solve half of the problem.

“While Saftu fully backs the campaign for free, decolonised tertiary education for all, it will still exclude all the poor pupils who have already been failed by the basic education system and do not have matric passes, or have passes that are not good enough.”

Saftu has invited all working class formations, civil society organisations, youth and unemployed workers to a Working Class Summit on July 21 and 22 to discuss these issues and others related to the fight for a truly free, democratic and equal society.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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