african reds update

 


Address by Congress of South African Trade Unions
(COSATU) General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, at the
South African Communist Party (SACP) special Congress


April 8, 2005

Durban south africa 


excerpt:


"As our bilateral concluded....
 
 the first decade of
            liberation
                       benefited capital 
            The next decade 
                    must above all benefit 
                                 the working class...."



==========================

what 94 brought 


"First, we won democratic space within which to
operate underpinned by a progressive
Constitution. You only have to look at our
neighbours in Zimbabwe and Swaziland to
understand the extent of the political space
won by the working class and its allies in
South Africa. This we must guard jealously.

Second, workers have gained rights in the
workplace, as contained in our progressive
labour laws. This year marks the tenth
anniversary of the Labour Relations Act, which
was the first salvo fired by the democratic
government in its efforts to replace the
apartheid labour regime.

We recognise, of course, that we must still do
more work to translate all these pieces of
progressive labour legislation into weapons at
the hands of workers and our activists to
defend and advance interests of workers at the
workplace and in society in general.

The recent much published threat to exempt
small businesses from the aspects of labour
laws points to the correctness of the assertion
that workers gains in any capitalist society
are consistently under threat. We welcome the
government's more recent assurance that it will
not undermine workers' rights. The lesson from
this is, once more, that the price of freedom
is constant vigilance!

The third major gain for the working class was
the provision of basic services, including
shelter, health care, water, electricity,
education and so forth, especially in the rural
areas. Roll out of basic services is critical
in the struggle to transform the gendered
household division of labour and to relieve the
burden currently borne by women. Still,
millions do not have access to these basic
services and there is a real possibility that
rising user fees may cut-off those that
currently enjoy access.

Government's income transfers in the form of
social grants provide a buffer for millions who
otherwise will be plunged into destitution.
Coverage is however not universal and there are
millions of poor people, particularly the
unemployed, that do not have a social safety
net. For this reason, COSATU has called for the
Basic Income Grant as well as mass job
creation. We need real debate on these matters.

Comrades and friends,

While we recognise these gains in democratic
space, social wage and rights at the workplace,
we also recognise that for many workers they
have been offset by deepening unemployment and
poverty and by the failure to deal adequately
with the HIV pandemic.

A new tidal wave of job losses is looming in
mining and clothing and textile sector due in
large part to the strength of the rand. Job
losses and unemployment should be declared a
national disaster.

We have a much higher unemployment than other
middle-income countries. Even if we ignore
those unemployed people who are too discouraged
to seek work, almost 30% of workers here are
jobless. That compares to under 10% in
comparable economies.

The Minister of Finance says these figures must
be wrong because otherwise we would see a
revolution. Three weeks ago I was in Secunda. I
found a massive stayaway and riot. Not even
COSATU knew it was coming. In the past year, a
wave of unrest has swept from Diepsloot in
Gauteng to the Free State and the Western Cape.
The less obvious underswell of crime, family
killings and HIV infections arises largely out
of mass youth unemployment.

True, the past year saw job creation in
construction and retail. But these jobs are
mostly low-paid and insecure. Moreover, they
will not survive long if manufacturing and
mining are shrinking.

The causes of mass unemployment are easily
found. Above all, government has not moved
consistently to restructure the apartheid
economy. Instead, it adopted a neo-liberal
export strategy that left our industries
unprotected and unsupported. Job losses
resulted on a mass scale while new employment
lagged far behind growth in the labour force.

To make matters worse, government simply has no
political will to deal with the overvaluation
of the rand, which is an immediate cause of
mass retrenchments in mining and manufacturing.
Moreover, it has not fast-tracked WTO-legal
safeguard measures for vulnerable industries.
Meanwhile, workers are being thrown onto the
streets.

The underlying problem is simple. Business
knows one way of dealing with anything that
threatens their margins of profitability -
retrenchments at the slightest chance. It would
rather retrench workers than find alternatives.
In particular, we have seen the mining houses
move abroad rather than develop our economy.
Meanwhile, government has not done much to
ensure all its programmes save and create jobs.

The economic growth path since 1994 has
benefited the rich and big business. It has
largely left behind the working class and the
poor who gave their lives to bring this
government into power.

Government seems to be helpless in face of the
scourge of retrenchments and is reluctant to
intervene to counteract job losses. This does
not suggest government does not care - it has
simply does not have ideas on how to avert job
losses and create employment outside of the
public works programmes.

While unemployment is soaring, workers' pay and
conditions have stagnated. The share of workers
earning under R1000 a month has remained
virtually constant even in the formal sector,
at about 25%. That is, even in the formal
sector, one worker in four earns under R1000 a
month. Even in the unions, half of our members
get less than R2500 a month.

Low pay is reflected in the declining share of
wages and salaries in the national income. In
1994, workers got 51% of the national income;
in 2004, their share had fallen to 46%. That is
an indictment for our democratic society. It
demonstrates that there is no easy trade off
between low pay and jobs - we have got low pay,
and we're still not getting the jobs.

Against this background we need to ask the
difficult question: Is the NDR on course? There
no doubt that the democratic ANC-led government
has registered progress in laying the basis for
non-racial, non-sexist democratic South Africa
as envisaged in the Freedom Charter. Yet
political transformation has not been matched
by substantial transformation of economic
power. The recent bilateral between COSATU and
the SACP concluded that in the economy, capital
has gained the most from the past decade. In
economic terms, capital scored the most and has
reaped massive profits at the back of large-
scale retrenchments.

Economic power is still in the hands of white
monopoly capital. The aspirant and vocal black
bourgeoisie remains numerically small and
depends heavily on the state and white business
for its survival.

In these circumstances, state power remains
both a critical instrument for reshaping the
economy, and a key site of contestation between
capital and workers, reflected in conflicts
within the bureaucracy and political
leadership. In this contestation, the working
class has in the past five years won some space
for change, reversing the dedication to free
markets and budget cuts experienced under GEAR.

But we must still go much further. The
accumulation path inherited from apartheid and
subjected to the chill winds of international
competition is now a brake to progress to
achieve the economic aims of the NDR. The NDR
cannot and will not be pursued on a terrain of
an apartheid economy - the time for serious
transformation and a new growth path has come.

As our bilateral concluded, the first decade of
liberation benefited capital in economic terms.
The next decade must above all benefit the
working class and the poor,

* by creating employment on a mass scale;
 
* by ensuring more equitable ownership,
including through land reform, development
of a co-operatives movement and
transformation of the financial sector; 

* by establishing an effective, holistic
campaign to end the HIV pandemic, including
the mass roll out of anti-retrovirals; 

* by building working class culture through
transformation of the schools, media and
cultural institutions; 

and 

* By strengthening participatory policy-making
to empower our people in all aspects of
life.

First, we must mobilise our power to fight the
wave of retrenchments. We need to demand that
both business and government do more to protect
and create employment. We can no longer sit by
and watch as our members lose their livelihoods
while their grown-up children stay home, having
had no chance of getting a job since they left
school.

For this reason, COSATU has brought a dispute
on the unemployment crisis to NEDLAC. We are
developing a programme of action, including
mobilisation for mass action, which will be
debated by our CEC at the end of May.
Unemployment cannot just be a crisis for the
poor and for workers, neglected by leaders in
business and the state.

Second, we need to strengthen our organisation.
In the past few weeks, I was able to spend a
lot of time with comrades in two of our COSATU
regions. The biggest lesson I learned is that
we need to recognise that the recruitment of
workers into the federation depends on a
successful organisational development drive to
improve service to members and the pick up our
gains in terms of workers' rights.

In short, the future of the democratic and
revolutionary trade union movement depends on
the successful implementation of four
interlinked campaigns:

   * To strengthen our organisations so as to
serve our members and ensure worker
control;

   * To drive recruitment so that on-going
retrenchments and restructuring do not
undermine the organisation of the working
class;

   * To pick up our gains, so that workers
really benefit from their rights in the
workplace; and

   * To mobilise to protect and create jobs
for all.

Given these challenges, what does the working
class expect of its Party?

First, we assume that the SACP cannot simply
walk out of government.

 That means you have to
discuss how to link efforts to build power and
campaigns outside of the state with work within
the state. 


Usually, this problem emerges as the
question of how 
do we give a voice 
to our
          people 
when the state 
has undertaken mistaken
policies,
 without undermining 
long-term
relations 
that can also bring benefits?





the  working class 
does not have the luxury
to be despondent

 Setbacks must be used 
        to draw
lessons and to march ahead

 History is on our
side!

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