International Workers' Day statement

1 May 2026

On this International Workers' Day, the South African Communist Party (SACP) salutes the working class in struggle, the producers of all wealth, the creators of all value, and the overwhelming majority of humanity, whose labour sustains society, yet who remain expropriated of the fruits of their work.

The SACP honours the historic uprising of workers in Chicago, the US, in 1886, when the demand for an eight-hour working day became a symbol of defiance against capitalist exploitation of workers. That struggle, and the bloodshed in its defence, remains a living reminder that rights are never gifted by those who profit from oppression and exploitation; the capitalist class and their repressive state machinery.

Rights and improvements are won through organisation, unity and militant collective action. In the same way, ending capitalist exploitation and consequent forms of oppression requires organisation, unity and militant collective action by the working class.

On the international situation

• At the global level, the exploitative capitalist system expresses itself in intensifying inequality, imperialist rivalry, militarisation, sanctions, blockades and wars of aggression that cause destruction in targeted nations, all in the interests of economic domination and geopolitical control. The increasing diversion of social resources into military spending by the imperialist regimes, such as the US, reflects a system that prioritises destruction over human development. This system prioritises war. It is anti-peace.
• The SACP stands in firm and uncompromising solidarity with the people of Cuba in their enduring struggle against the illegal economic, financial, trade, investment and political blockade imposed by the imperialist US regime. This blockade is a coercive instrument of imperialist pressure by the US, aimed at undermining Cuba's sovereign right to determine its own path of development and social organisation. We reaffirm that the Cuban people, through their own historical struggle and collective organisation, have the inalienable right to shape their society free from external interference, sanctions and attempts at economic strangulation.
• The SACP also strongly condemns the escalating aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, where repeated interferences, illegal sanctions and destabilisation efforts by the US seek to undermine national sovereignty and reverse the gains of popular struggle. The resources of Venezuela, including its oil wealth, belong exclusively to the people of Venezuela, not to foreign corporations or imperialist powers such as the US. We reject all forms of external coercion, regime change operations and economic warfare.
• The SACP further calls for the immediate and unconditional lifting of all sanctions and coercive measures against Cuba and Venezuela, which constitute collective punishment against the workers and poor. We demand full respect for the sovereignty, independence and democratic self-determination of Cuba and Venezuela, and we reject any attempt to subordinate their futures to external domination.
• The SACP also calls for the release of all political leaders and detainees subjected to unlawful detention in the context of imperialist interference and destabilisation campaigns, including President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, whose situation reflects the broader assault on Venezuela's democratic sovereignty. The struggles of Cuba, Venezuela and all nations oppressed under imperialism are inseparable from the global struggle of the working class against exploitation and domination. Their defence is part of the broader fight for a world based on equality, sovereignty and the primacy of human need over private profit.

On the South African economic situation

• Unemployment remains massive and structural. Unemployment affects 8.5 million workers by the official definition, which excludes discouraged work seekers. When discouraged workers are included, the figure rises to more than 12 million people who are affected by unemployment. This is not a temporary imbalance. It is a persistent feature of an economy that does not generate sufficient employment because production is subordinated to profit and global inequalities rather than social need.
• Women workers are disproportionately affected. They are concentrated in low-paid, insecure and informal work, while carrying the burden of unpaid social reproduction in the home. Gender domination is thus not separate from class exploitation, but embedded within it, intensifying the extraction of labour from women workers in multiple forms.
• The racialised character of unemployment and poverty remains evident. Black African workers bear the overwhelming burden of unemployment and deprivation, followed by Coloured workers. This reflects the historical foundations of accumulation in South Africa, where racial domination structured access to land, skills, employment and income, and where these inequalities continue to be reproduced within the present economic system.
• Inequality is extreme. A small minority appropriates the majority of income and wealth, while the majority survives on the margins. The bottom half of society receives a negligible share of total income, while wealth at the top continues to expand through ownership, rent extraction and financial accumulation. The richest 10 per cent of the population control around 65 per cent or more of total income. The top 1 per cent alone takes a massive share, close to 20 per cent. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 per cent of the population receives less than 10 per cent of total income. This is a society structurally divided between those who own and those who labour.

On neoliberalism and corruption

• Through privatisation, outsourcing and restructuring programmes, public assets, services and spheres of operation are transferred into private hands. Whether privatisation is pursued openly or through incremental liberalisation in favour of competition by private wealth accumulation interests in network industries and operations such as in rail, electricity generation and transmission, water, the high radio frequency spectrum, SAA, and others, the outcome remains the same.
• Public wealth is appropriated for private accumulation, while workers face retrenchment and communities face higher costs and reduced access.
• This is not class-neutral reform. It is a reorganisation of class power in favour of capital. Workers must also confront corruption, which drains public resources and weakens institutions meant to serve the people. Corruption is not separate from the logic of accumulation. It is part of it. Corruption is one of the ways in which wealth is diverted from public purpose into private enrichment. However, the solution to corruption is not privatisation. In fact, more often than not, privatisation involves corrupt practices and is a result of state capture by private interests. The solution is strengthened democratic control, accountability and public ownership under the leadership of the working class.
• Faced with these capitalist conditions, capitalist-orientated, neoliberal reforms will just maintain the same paradigm or make matters worse for the affected workers. Improvements in wages, services and working conditions are necessary and must be fought for. But within a system driven by profit, such gains remain vulnerable to reversal. Every concession won is subject to rollback through crisis, restructuring or policies such as austerity.

On the National Democratic Revolution

• The National Democratic Revolution (NDR) is the political programme that the SACP remains committed to. The NDR is a direct route to socialism for the SACP, and our conception of struggle for socialism has not changed in that it remains rooted in the NDR. The SACP views the allegiance and loyalty to the programme of the NDR and the important principles contained therein as a key in determining whether or not the forces we have historically worked with remain relevant to our objectives as the SACP.
• The SACP recognises that the NDR is contested and that the working class must claim for itself a dominant position in the organisation and implementation of the NDR. However, the substance of the NDR, while contested, is not a programme with no shape or character. All who are its motive forces, as a radical and transformative agenda, must defend the character of the NDR.
• The NDR in recent times has been characterised, by the left forces, as an agenda that is facing an imminent threat of strategic defeat. Additionally, the NDR has been characterised as stagnant, moribund and in a condition of regression. Looked at collectively, this theorisation of the state of the NDR does not reflect positive prospects for our revolution.

The emboldened opposition to the NDR forces stands as a menace at the gates, threatening to annihilate the future of our revolution. The opposition forces to our revolution have some representatives from among the ranks of the progressives. The infiltration of the revolutionary forces by tendencies and personnel unaligned to the revolutionary agenda is an urgent concern for those of us committed to the uninterrupted pursuit of revolutionary goals.

• The working class stands to lose the most at what appears to be a looming reversal and possible demise of the revolutionary programme as we know it.
• The SACP, however, will not allow itself and the working class to be driven into political submission and political obscurity without pursuing a path for the rejuvenation of the struggle, the revitalisation of the revolutionary forces and the carrying out of an effective rescue mission for our revolution.
• The SACP is embarking on a deliberate programme to reconnect with the working class from below through its campaigns, including the People's Red Caravan and the Know and Act in Your Neighbourhood Campaign, among others. We join this Worker's Day inspired by these initiatives of our Party and with the intention to work with the organised workers to take these objectives forward.
• The defence of the revolution is the protection of the revolutionary instruments. The defence of the revolution is the ideological revitalisation of the organisations of the people, trade unions and other organisations of the working class.
• The realignment of forces is the reality we must confront. We must act consciously to defend the revolutionary programme in its midst. The SACP remains committed to working with Cosatu and the broader working-class movement to traverse the challenging political terrain and protect the gains of the working class while maintaining the forward movement of our revolution.

On the Alliance

• The SACP remains committed to the Alliance as the most capable and historically proven political and organisational mechanism to unite our people and organise them in pursuit of revolutionary goals.
• The Alliance and its mode of operation must be aligned to the revolutionary demands of the day. This means its analytical framework must be on par with the objective conditions of the motive forces of the revolution it seeks to accomplish. This also means its organisational approach must be consistent with the revolutionary requirements as objectively manifested at a given time.
• The SACP, for more than a decade, has consistently called for the reconfiguration of the Alliance. Such reconfiguration remains necessary and relevant at this time as it was when it was first conceived. The reconfiguration must take into account the changes in the political ecosystem and organisational formation in the present time. The reconfiguration means the reframing of the decision-making, the coordination of policy processes and implementation, the restructuring of the accountability processes between the organisations and between government structures and the implementation of other Alliance-related decisions. These are some among several examples.
• The SACP remains committed to dual membership. Any threat against dual membership places the Alliance in great peril. Even as the Alliance faces the changes related to the SACP approach to elections and state power, the Alliance must remain steadfast on the promise of its founding. The SACP sees no contradiction between the SACP contesting elections directly and the continuation of the Alliance. These are not mutually exclusive.
• The Alliance can only make significant progress when we seriously implement the principle of reconfiguration.

On Cosatu

• The SACP offers its full support to Cosatu as the most powerful and biggest trade union federation in the country, organised around objectives of socialism, international working-class solidarity and class-orientated trade unionism. These principles are what enjoins us with Cosatu. On this May Day, we reaffirm our commitment to working with Cosatu to unite the South African working class and pursue a radical transformation agenda with like-minded forces.
• Cosatu remains the main trade union federation whose fate is intimately tied to the fate of our whole movement. In that spirit, it is in the interests of all progressives that Cosatu remains a prominent federation in our country. If we succeed in this mission, Cosatu is best positioned to play the most significant role to radicalise the working class and our politics and sustain the mass base of our revolution.
• The organisational autonomy and political independence of Cosatu must be preserved at all times. Cosatu has played a key role in the shaping of our history. In doing so, it has acted with full organisational autonomy. Any political choices that have been apportioned to Cosatu were not an imposition from outside but were consciously actions of a working-class organisation that understands its position relative to history and the rest of society. This principle, even at this stage of realignment of forces, must remain in place, and the Communist Party remains committed to that principle. The class vanguard position of the SACP with regard to working-class organisations is not contradictory to the principle of organisational autonomy of the individual trade unions and autonomy of trade union federations, including Cosatu.
• The SACP remains committed to a relationship of mutual respect with Cosatu. Any and all political engagements between us are based on sound political analysis and commitment to a shared revolutionary vision for the benefit of the working class founded on organisational respect.

The working class must organise not only as a social force, but also as a conscious force for systemic change. This requires unity.

• Unity across workplaces, sectors and industries.
• Unity between permanent, contract and informal workers.
• Unity between employed and unemployed.
• Unity across gender, race, nationality and geography.

Unity requires organisation.

• Strong workplace organisation rooted in shop-floor power.
• Democratic and accountable unions.
• Coordination between workplace and community struggles.
• Mass organisation of the unemployed and precariously employed.

Unity requires class and political clarity.

• That the problem is not individual employers alone, but a system based on exploitation.
• That poverty is not natural but produced.
• That unemployment is not accidental, but structural.
• That inequality is not a flaw, but a requirement of wealth accumulation under capitalist private ownership.

The struggle to end exploitation and not only pursue improvements must intensify.

• Struggle for immediate gains in wages, conditions and services.
• Struggle against retrenchments, privatisation and casualisation.
• Struggle for public ownership and democratic control of the economy.
• Struggle for a society where production is organised to meet human needs.

Workers of South Africa, the task before us is clear.

• We must defend every gain we have won.
• We must resist every attack on working-class conditions.
• We must deepen organisation in every sphere of life.
• We must intensify the struggle for transformation.

Let us unite to build a popular Left front and a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and the poor. Let us unite behind the Conference of the Left scheduled for the end of this month.

The days of voting but being excluded thereafter when policy direction and key decisions are made must come to an end, including within the Alliance. Real democracy must mean ongoing participation in shaping power, not periodic, temporary inclusion followed by exclusion from meaningful decision-making and exclusion from participation in implementation.

Above all, we must move towards a society where the wealth created by workers is collectively owned and democratically controlled, where production serves social development, and where human need is placed above private profit.

This is the horizon of our struggle. It is not a distant dream. It is the logical outcome of the contradictions we confront every day.

On this International Workers' Day, we call on the working class to rise with clarity, discipline, and unity.

Unite! Organise! Struggle!

The future belongs to those who produce the wealth of society!

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ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA.
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