While business elites gather in conference halls to debate unemployment, those living it will be gathering in the pews of history. From 23–25 February, grassroots organisations from across the country will convene a People’s Assembly on Unemployment, Austerity and the Fight for Decent Work at St George’s Cathedral, on the eve of yet another anti-poor, pro-capital budget.
Just days before a high-profile unemployment conference hosted by News24 and opened by the President, this Assembly will shift the microphone from CEOs and policymakers to the unemployed themselves. Because unemployment should not be discussed about us, without us.
The Assembly will unite popular movements, labour formations, community organisers and the rural and urban poor to confront deepening inequality, mass unemployment and austerity. Participants will debate concrete alternatives to budget cuts, privatisation and elite accumulation and map out a common programme of action for sustained resistance.
Discussions will foreground the lived realities of workers, the rural poor, women and young people, while advancing bold proposals for decent work, livelihoods, and a state-led re-industrialisation drive that breaks with corruption, crony capitalism and an economy that continues to rob millions of a future.
This is not a panel discussion. It is a political intervention.