Brothers and Sisters, thank you for inviting me to address your National Congress. It is an honour to stand before you on this platform in a democratic South Africa .
I bring solidarity from the 125 million trade unionists of the ICFTU to the men and women who fought for that democracy and are now rebuilding this country from the ruins of apartheid.
This new South Africa, for all its problems, remains a monument to the principles that inspire our movement.
No-one can visit your country without remembering the courage and determination of those who sacrificed their lives so that we could gather here in freedom to help carry the struggle forward.
Trade unionists throughout the world need the same determination, the same courage now.
Because we are witnessing the creation of a New Wand Order, being created not by political leaders with a vision of social justice, but by massive transnational companies committed to total profit.
Their drive to globalize trade is not to build a world economy that will serve people, but to reshape and control a world in which people will serve them.
To them, South Africa, Poland and Korea are not proud nations with a right to be rebuilt, but production zones in which people will know prosperity or poverty according to their ability to maximise the returns of multinationals.
What sort of world are they making? The results are all around for anyone with eyes to see:
Why in such a world that cries out for social justice are governments even of powerful nations, so silent, so subservient to the greed of trans-nationals.
What is the size and nature of the force that so frightens them, but which we must stand up to?
Of the 100 biggest economies in the world, only 49 are countries. The rest are trans-national corporations.
Wal-Mart, is one of those corporations. It ranks only 12th in the TNC league tables, and yet is bigger than 161 countries.
Mitsubishi is bigger than Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation on earth. General Motors is bigger than Denmark. Toyota is bigger than Norway. Yes, and Ford is bigger than South Africa.
The combined sales of the world's top 20o corporations surpass the combined economies of 182 countries - every country on earth minus the nine biggest.
These corporations have almost twice the economic clout of the poorest four-fifths of humanity.
And the most offensive aspect of all, is that the people exercising control of this money seem to have a vested interest not in running companies, but in running them down.
Between 199O and 1995, redundancies in their companies went up by 39 per cent. Yet corporate profits rose by 75 per cent. And the wages of their Chief Executive Officers rose by a staggering 92 percent.
It is the terrifying logic of the world they live in, that the more jobs they destroy, the more money they make.
And yet, in the hands of these people, who show neither conscience nor compassion, lies the greatest accumulation of financial and industrial power in the history of the world.
Individual governments, however big, have reason to fear the exercise of that power. They saw how, in just 24 hours, financial multinationals wrecked Mexico's economy, causing the average wage in Mexico to be halved and a million jobs to be destroyed.
Yes, and governments will do what they are told to make sure they get even a small share of the phenomenal investment power of the trans-nationals.
300 thousand million dollars and with it an awesome potential to create countless numbers of jobs in parts of the world where they are so desperately needed.
Africa needs those jobs ! A continent that has a wealth of skill, talent and commitment that its people are aching to use. South Africa has the human raw material to enable it to become the powerhouse of the continent. But will they get the chance? Not while greed continues to make the rules.
Out of $100 billion invested in the developing world, China alone gets £38 billion while the whole continent of Africa with its 53 nations gets a disgraceful £5 billion.
The attractions of South East Asia to the merchants of greed are obvious. Not only does the area have some of the lowest wages and workplace standards in the world.
But also many of its countries are effectively dictatorships whose leaders get rich by allowing multinationals to descend on their country like locusts.
Colleagues, this global drift to disaster has to end, and we have to end it. And yes, it is the trade union movement’s greatest challenge. But we have faced overwhelming odds before. And beaten them!
What chance would anyone have given us against apartheid? Against fascism? Against the other forms of dictatorship that held independent trade unionism in contempt? Well, they have gone and we're still here.
We can win this battle too. It was our ideas that changed the world for the better - and will again. The workplace standards we have established in individual countries must become international standards enforced in every country in this world of global trade.
The ICFTU'S campaign for an international social clause of core labour standards is gaining ground as more governments are beginning to realise that, unless the international community bands together, the trans-nationals will continue to pick their countries off, one by one.
But you know that it's not enough to win the battle of ideas. Apartheid didn't rule for all those years because it was a persuasive ideology. It ruled because of raw power.
And in the end, it proved no match for the people of South Africa, and their allies all over the World, including the international trade union movement.
At the heart of the alliance that defeated apartheid lies a simple concept: Unity.
Unity across barriers, across cultures, across all the divisions that have beset our movement in the past. Because, you know, we can't afford those divisions any more.
Ultimately, the impact and credibility of the trade union movement will only be maximised if we speak with one voice, and if we act against one enemy: Injustice.
The ICFTU is the biggest and most powerful organisation representing the interests and aspirations of working people. That’s a simple statistical fact.
But if we are going to match the might of the multi-nationals it will mean international democratic trade union organisations speaking and acting as one.
Yes, co-operation first, but the aim - integration - and trade unionism must recognise that we are part of a wider movement striving for human tights, social justice, freedom and democracy.
It is for us to harness the strength of those who share our principles.
But the most important focus for unity must be the trade union movement. Your congress theme is about defending, consolidating and advancing social transformation. It naturally focuses on the problems facing the new South Africa.
And your government must realise, that the only way forward for a nation to achieve the change required to meet the challenge of globalisation, is the path of partnership.
A partnership committed to competitiveness with social justice.
But Brothers and Sisters, in this world of globalisation, trade union solidarity must cross borders, continents and oceans.
To you I say, that the organisation, discipline and determination that enabled you to defeat injustice in your own country has to be part of a unified trade union movement in Africa. Such unity is desperately needed in an Africa drowning in injustice.
Let us unleash the power of solidarity with a warning to this continent's politicians that trade unionism will not stand silently by while structural adjustment destroys the livelihoods of millions of people.
While Africa's men and women are herded into the industrial concentration camps they call export-processing zones.
While trans-nationals think they have the right to exploit the men, women and children of this continent in the name of profit.
While trade unionists are held in jail anywhere in Africa.
No, we will not accept it. Not now. Not ever!
But the unity of Africa’s trade union movement must be part of a wider solidarity.
Since its creation, the trade union movement has transformed the world. We have played a leading part in every social advance of the last two centuries. The trade union movement were the drivers behind every step taken that improved working conditions and pay, attacked the evil of child labour, brought more equal opportunities for women and better education and training for all.
But now we face our toughest challenge. Trade unionism itself is under attack on every continent in every country.
Labour legislation, social security, pensions all the advances we made are being undermined by governments too frightened to oppose the unrestrained free market agenda,
And those who are shaping this world where there are more losers than winners now think they are too powerful to be stopped.
Brothers and sisters, let this congress send a message to them. Trade unionism exists to improve life. And they, neither trans-nationals nor governments will stop us.
Yes, let's tell them that trade unionism has a secret weapon that has changed the course of history before and will again,
It is called solidarity.
It drives COSATU.
It is what trade unionism is made of.
It is why we are going to win.
