The South African Communist Party (SACP) and COSATU in the Western Cape held a bilateral meeting on Tuesday, 11 August 2026, at Community House in Salt River, Cape Town.

Ahead of the International Day for Decent Work on 7 October 2026, the Left Axis comprising the SACP and COSATU committed to intensifying joint working-class mobilisation against six interrelated socio-economic crises: violent crime, deindustrialisation, retrenchments, privatisation, unaffordable municipal services, and the rising cost of living.

 It was within this context that the bilateral meeting reaffirmed the historic responsibility of the organised working class to unite its struggles around a coherent programme capable of confronting the deepening capitalist crisis and addressing the worsening conditions facing workers and poor communities across the Western Cape.

The meeting resolved that the working class cannot continue fighting fragmented battles while capital organises and advances its interests as a class. The working class and its organisations must therefore unite their struggles into a coordinated working-class offensive capable of challenging the power of capital and advancing the interests of workers and poor communities.

 CRIME REQUIRES BOTH EFFECTIVE POLICING AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The SACP and COSATU are firmly of the view that the persistent crisis of violent crime in the Western Cape is rooted in three interrelated crises: chronic underdevelopment, the deliberate weakening of police intelligence capacity, and the persistent under-resourcing of the police service.

It is against this background that the Left Axis SACP and COSATU reject attempts by the DA-led Western Cape Government and other liberal forces to present violent crime in the province as solely a policing problem. We maintain that violent crime is deeply rooted in the chronic crisis of underdevelopment. Unemployment, poverty, inequality, apartheid spatial planning, the abandonment of young people, and the lack of meaningful economic opportunities have created conditions in which gangs, extortion, murder, and organised crime can flourish.

However, the crisis of policing and law enforcement in the Western Cape cannot be ignored. While crime cannot be defeated through policing alone, an under-resourced, poorly coordinated, and intelligence-deficient police service is incapable of effectively confronting organised criminal networks.

It is against this reality that our bilateral meeting called for:

● Urgent and adequate resourcing of police stations in working-class communities.

● A station-by-station audit of police personnel, operational vehicles, detective services, and crime-intelligence capacity.

● Improved CCTV coverage, police response times, and case management.

● The urgent appointment of a Provincial Head of Crime Intelligence; and

● A coordinated strategy to identify, infiltrate, disrupt, and dismantle organised criminal networks.

The SACP and COSATU reject the DA’s call for devolution of Police Powers. We believe that fragmenting the police service and creating competing security structures would be disastrous for both the Western Cape and the country. We remain firmly convinced that a single, integrated national police service is essential to effectively combat organised crime, coordinate intelligence, and protect communities across provincial boundaries.

However, opposition to the devolution of police powers cannot become a defence of police underperformance. Working-class communities have a right to an effective, adequately resourced, accountable, professional, and responsive police service.

The fight against violent crime therefore requires both effective policing and fundamental socioeconomic transformation. We need a capable police service alongside a developmental programme that tackles unemployment, poverty, inequality, spatial injustice, and the conditions that allow organised crime to take root.

NO TO DEINDUSTRIALISATION YES TO REINDUSTRIALISATION AND DECENT WORK

The bilateral meeting expressed serious concern about the accelerating deindustrialisation of the Western Cape, a trajectory pursued by the DA government and big business. It’s devastating impact is on decent work, productive capacity, and the livelihoods of working-class communities. As a result of this neoliberal economic trajectory, factories, including food-processing plants, are closing or scaling down, while warehouses, imported goods, property speculation, and precarious logistics employment continue to expand. This represents a shift away from a productive industrial economy towards an increasingly speculative or casino economy- finance-, property-, consumption-, and logistics-driven economic model.

While this economic model may generate profits for monopoly capital and property interests, it comes at the expense of decent work, industrial skills, local suppliers, manufacturing capacity, and the broader productive base of the province.

The Left Axis SACP and COSATU, therefore rejects deindustrialisation as an inevitable outcome of economic development. We call instead for a comprehensive reindustrialisation programme centred on decent work, local production, worker development and skills, public investment in productive infrastructure, and strengthened local procurement.

The Western Cape must build an economy that produces, manufactures, creates decent jobs, develops productive capacity, and serves the needs of working people, rather than one that primarily facilitates the accumulation of wealth through imports, property speculation, and precarious employment.

DEFEND PREMIER FOODS WORKERS STOP THE CLOSURE AND RETRENCHMENTS!

The SACP and COSATU will intensify mobilisation and escalate the struggle against the planned closure of Premier Foods and the retrenchment of workers in the Boland region.

We reject the closure and retrenchments as an attack on workers, their families, and the productive capacity of the region. Workers must not be sacrificed for corporate profit. The livelihoods of workers and their families, decent employment, food security, industrial capacity, and the economic future of working-class communities cannot be subordinated to the pursuit of profit.

The proposed closure is yet another expression of the broader capitalist offensive against productive industry and decent work. At a time of mass unemployment and a deepening cost-of-living crisis, the destruction of secure jobs is completely unacceptable.

The SACP and COSATU will stand shoulder to shoulder with affected workers, their families, trade union structures, and surrounding communities to build a sustained and militant campaign to stop the closure and defend every job.

We will continue mobilising workers and communities, intensify workplace and community campaigns, and use every legitimate avenue of working-class struggle to force an alternative to retrenchments and the destruction of productive capacity.

NO TO THE PRIVATISATION OF MUNICIPAL SERVICES – REJECT OPERATION VULINDLELA

The bilateral meeting condemns both the DA’s call to outsource municipal services and the creeping privatisation of municipal water, electricity, sanitation, waste management and other essential services through Operation Vulindlela Phase II. The SACP and COSATU state plainly that the ANC-led government is not an innocent bystander. Coordinated through the Presidency and National Treasury, the ANC-led government is the political driver of this neoliberal restructuring and must reverse it. Municipal failures, fiscal distress, infrastructure backlogs and corruption cannot serve as a pretext to hand public assets and services to monopoly capital.

Privatisation will not repair the state. It weakens democratic accountability, casualises work, undermines collective bargaining and makes poor and working-class households pay more for basic rights. We demand a capable developmental state built through insourcing, stronger municipal technical capacity, recapitalised public infrastructure, worker protection and community oversight. Municipal services must remain publicly owned, publicly operated and democratically accountable. Water, electricity, sanitation, refuse removal and public transport are public goods, not commodities. The working class must mobilise to defeat Operation Vulindlela’s privatisation agenda and defend every municipal service from profiteering.

Issued by:

SACP Western Cape and COSATU Western Cape

For Enquiries:

Benson Ngqentsu – SACP Provincial Secretary

082 796 6400

Malvern De Bruyn – COSATU Provincial Secretary

060 977 9027