WASP, youth wing call on workers to occupy factories, mines facing retrenchments

The Workers and Socialist Party (WASP), along with its youth wing, the Socialist Youth Movement, is calling on workers to occupy factories and mines facing retrenchments, demanding they be expropriated and run under democratic worker control.

The organisations have described the current wave of job losses across South Africa as a “jobs bloodbath” and a deliberate class offensive by business and the state.

They said mass layoffs in sectors like steel, automotive, food, agriculture, mining, and public services mark a historic deindustrialisation of the country.

The party highlighted closures such as ArcelorMittal South Africa’s long-steel operations in Newcastle and Vereeniging, Goodyear’s Kariega plant, and looming job cuts at Daybreak Foods, Ford SA, and Glencore’s ferrochrome operations.

Party spokesperson Mametlwe Sebei also pointed to job losses at state-owned entities, such as the Post Office, Transnet, and Denel, all of which are undergoing staff reductions.

“The reality we must face is that the capitalist system is not only failing in general, which has been the case for a long time now, it has now entered a particularly turbulent period of deepening economic crisis the past decade and a half in which the economy has failed to fully recover from the great recession of 2008/2009.”