Open Mic: Financialisation & Gender

In this article Molefe Pilane* considers the impact of financialisation and the global economic crisis on working class women and how they have responded.

The global economic crisis deepens

2009 marked a deepening of the global economic crisis that started in 2007. In South Africa one million workers lost their jobs between September 2008 and September 2009 as a direct result of the crisis. This raised already high levels of unemployment in the country, and no doubt contributed heavily towards increased levels of poverty, starvation, homelessness and all the usual social problems that beset the working class as large sections fall further and further into pauperism.

Against this background, Jubilee South Africa (JSA) requested Khanya College to run a series of workshops on Financialisation and Gender nationally. Jubilee has been in the forefront of the struggle against Apartheid debt and for reparations since its formation over a decade ago. After years of internal upheaval JSA is in the process of organisational renewal and rebuilding. Specifically, it is repositioning itself in the public domain as a movement organising around various issues facing the working class, including rising poverty, personal debt and unemployment, as a result of the global economic crisis, in particular debt and financialisation. The latter two are the outstanding features of neo-liberal capitalism, and reflect the emergence of money capital as the dominant fraction of the capitalist class. Money capital refers to the bosses who make their profits from buying and selling money and money-related products. This includes the banks, the stock-broking firms, insurance companies, finance administration companies, and so on. One of JSA’s tasks is to explore and assess the impact of the global economic crisis on working class communities and women, and to explore the issues that directly affect these communities and women in the context of financialisation From October to December 2009 twenty-three workshops were held in 7 provinces. About 530 participants attended the workshops, 55% of them women and 45% men. This article is based largely on the discussions and debates that emerged out of the workshops.

The impact of the crisis on the working class

The workshops revealed several common tendencies when looking at the impact of the crisis on the working class in general. These included the following:

Closures of Factories and Mines

Many factories and mines closed due to insufficient profits, a situation that led to an increase in unemployed. The closure of mines and factories dealt a heavy blow to the working class which was already struggling to survive even before the crisis.

Increase in Unemployment

The closure of companies is not the only contributing factor to the rise in unemployment. Many capitalist enterprises took a decision to cut costs due to decrease in demand for their products. As a result they opted for retrenchments of their workers as not only an option but a priority for them to save their profits. The bulk of the unemployed are the youth and women.

Rise in prices

As if that was not enough the prices of basic goods like food, medicine, clothes, etc. have risen, which makes it very difficult for the working class to survive, especially people living in rural areas where the levels of poverty and unemployement are very high.

Casualisation

Capitalists had their backs to the wall as there had been tremendous pressure from the unions. The capitalists used more casual labour to weaken the power of organised labour. Companies also used a lot of labour broker workers who are paid way below the minimum wage level and do not enjoy any benefits like medical aid, housing benefits, etc.

The impact of the crisis on women

1. The majority of the workshops agreed that women had been the hardest hit by the crisis. Examples of this included a shift in roles. Some women who were largely dependent on their spouses for survival now have to go looking for jobs because of their husbands’ retrenchment. Apart from now being the income earners in the home they also have to keep up with their nor- mal household duties, thereby greatly increas- ing the burden and stress on them. More and more women are depending for their and their families survival on government grants, which is proving very difficult. This is directly tied to greater levels of personal indebtedness, as more women, continuing to be responsible for run- ning households on ever-decreasing levels of income, increasingly turn to the mashonisas for daily survival.

2. Another effect has been the break up of families, while older women are faced with the burden of child care as youth leave their children to mothers and grandmothers as they head for the cities in search of work. Other effects mentioned included more teenage pregnancies, higher levels of sex work, more school dropouts, more substance abuse and also higher levels of suicide.

Women respond to the crisis

The working class in general responded with a record number of service delivery struggles in 2009. Many of these community struggles took place in the informal settlements or squatter camps, which many workshop participants identified as worst hit by the crisis. At the workplace, workers also resorted to a number of strikes, including a first- ever national construction worker strike. Outside of these overtly political responses communities also responded with the formation of co-operatives and organisation, like The Voice of the Farmers in the Eastern Cape, for example.

The personal responses of women to the crisis varied widely. Some women reported taking low paying jobs, working for labour brokers, as casuals or domestic workers. Others reported selling sex in order to survive. The workshops revealed specific organisational responses by women. An example was given of a women’ organization called Community Child Welfare in Newlands. It had recruited about 20 volunteers in and around Nxarhuni, taking care of orphans, the elderly and HIV/AIDS victims. The organisation is also involved in community projects.In Free State province, women in Intabazwe township formed an organisation called Abomama Besihlahla, whose members visit the sick and elderly in hospital, visit prisons, run a soup kitchen and generally provide support to the poor and the vulnerable, especially women. In Phuthaditjhaba in Qwaqwa women have formed advice centres ( eg Cricare, Ikaseng Basadi, ADAAF). Groups of women started their own projects such as vegetable gardens. Women also formed organisations such as Ponto Mpate and Ikageng Basadi, which provide support and counselling for victims of abuse. In De Aar women have formed organisations such as Cash Money Sisters, Ubuntu and Masakhane, tea and hamper clubs intended to mediate the worst effects of the crisis. Ethembeni Advice centre was also formed to take care of orphans, women and children who are victims of abuse.

Conclusion

While the current global crisis has impacted severely on the South African working class, its effect on black working class women has been most severe. Women are being forced to take on more social responsibilities with ever diminishing resources. The result is that the position of working class women in South African society is worsening drastically. However, women are being far from passive: new struggles and even new organisations attest to this.