Declarations of the COSATU Central Executive Committee on the Political challenges facing the Federation, 07 November 2002

 

We, the delegates gathered in this last COSATU CEC for the year 2002,

Note the dynamic and complex political, organisational and socio-economic developments within our country, our continent and the rest of the world. Since our last CEC a number of events have taken place. They include the launching of the Africa Union, WSSD, the SACP National Congress and the ANC Policy Conference. Five weeks ago, millions of workers heeded the call of the Federation to embark on the general strike to protest the effects of privatisation of the basic services, high unemployment, poverty and soaring food prices and rising interests rates. All these events demonstrate the scale and complex city of the challenges we face.

We are emboldened by the decisive victory of the Workers Party in Brazil, signalling the disenchantment of workers and the poor with the neo-liberal policies imposed by the IMF and the World Bank on developing and developed countries.

The world is going through tumultuous changes, calling into question the triumphalism of the capitalist super-powers following the collapse of the cold war. Global capitalism is enmeshed in structural decline and has run out of ideas on how to overcome the crisis. Instead, it prescribes the same medicine, which at best manages the crisis, rather than resolving it.

The working class globally is paying dearly for the global crisis through deepening unemployment, casualisation, grinding poverty, privatisation of basic services and so forth. Almost every day, new information comes to light pointing to deepening inequalities between the nations of the world and within each and every nation. Faced with this reality, the world must reach the inescapable conclusion that neo-liberal globalisation has failed the poor. Globalisation and the system of capitalism have not worked for the humankind in particular the working class and the poor.

The domination of the world political and economic system by a unipolar power has continued to lead to world political crises. The Middle East remains in turmoil and there is no resolution to the Palestine question. The threat to invade and attack Iraq further demonstrates this world political crisis. The food crisis in our own region as well the deepening HIV/AIDS epidemic spells a disaster for our people.

We are encouraged by the renewed courage evident in the working class movement and the emergence of progressive social movements. Yet this movement has not cohered and lacks clear leadership and programme. Generally the world progressive movement, despite its growing potential, is still too weak to change the balance of forces substantially.

We also note that the rightwing movement is on the rise and has captured power in some countries. In our own country a lunatic fringe continues to pose a threat to the safety of our people as demonstrated by the Soweto bombings. The rise of the rightwing poses the danger that a fascist movement could take advantage of the ‘social crisis’ and that the left movement may be unable to provide direction given its relative weakness.

The working class has made significant gains in the last eight years of democratic rule in South Africa. We have not done enough to celebrate these victories. They include:

• The Declaration of the Ekurhuleni Alliance Summit, which has put us on a firm ground to move towards the Growth and Development Summit,
• The progressive positions adopted by the recent ANC Policy Conference,
  
• The coming into effect of the labour amendments that further protect workers, including the further amendments to the Insolvency Act,
  
• The positive response of both the SABC and City Press to our demands and their changing role and attitude in terms of covering workers and working class issues,
  
• The agreement to retain Spoornet in state’s hands, even though there are now new challenges. In this regard we call on the government to ensure management does not undermine the agreement reached with the labour movement.
  
• The relaxation of next year’s inflation target and government attempts to address soaring food prices.

All these gains reaffirm our belief that a conscious working class can from time to time suffer setbacks, but it will never be defeated. No workers’ struggle is a waste of time. Our sacrifices are not in vain.

These gains are, however, offset by rising unemployment, poverty, rising food prices, major disinvestments by big business constituting a capital strike, and conservative economic strategies on the part of government. Studies suggest that the percentage of the population in poverty rose from 41% in 1996 to 49% last year. At the same time, the workers’ share of national income has drastically declined. In 1990, labour’s share of the national income stood at 57%; last year it had fallen to around 52%. This reflects deepening unemployment, casualisation and the destruction of secure and quality employment, which has been replaced by insecure jobs mainly in the so-called informal sector. Workers are paying heavily for the failure to ensure that political democracy also brought about the transformation of the economy.

In sum, we are experiencing rising inequalities and poverty. This trend primarily reflects the main contradiction between capital and the working class and between blacks and whites. In addition, inequalities within the black communities are now on the rise, with the phenomenal growth of an upper class. A sprinkle of blacks have become multi-millionaires whilst the overwhelming majority remain trapped in unemployment and grinding poverty.

Against this background, the Federation embarked on socio-economic action to protest against privatisation, rising food prices and interest rates, job losses and poverty. In this context, we commend the continuing struggles of workers against the imposed decision of Cabinet to concession the management of ports to the private sector. COSATU fully supports the workers’ struggle and will mobilise its affiliates in solidarity with the harbour workers.

We conducted an assessment and are convinced that, despite the denial by some of the significance of the action, as well as the fruitless numbers games, our campaign had a major impact. It mobilised workers and communities around our demands and placed them at the centre of the national agenda.

The impact of the general strike is reflected in government’s agreement to take some action on food prices, social security and inflation targeting, as well as the resolutions of the ANC policy conference. Government has proven unable to rush through its proposals to sell some of the assets of the big parastatals, although it has not yet begun to negotiate meaningfully on those plans. This requires that we step up our struggle against privatisation in all the sectors and the regions. To that extent we commit to developing a coherent programme of action that will be sustained until the 8th Congress.

We call on our members and structures to continue evaluating and assessing the general strike including some of the weaknesses identified in the CEC.

We believe that the wild attacks on COSATU, including accusations of an ultra-left agenda, are an attempt to divert us from the real issues and to close the space for political discussions in the country and within the democratic movement. We shall continue to engage in the public debate. Part of the strategy of those making unfounded allegations against the Federation is to impose their own hegemony by denying the heroic role that workers continue to play in the reconstruction of our country. All affiliates will engage more with the public debate to complement the work of the Federation.

We shall embark on a systematic campaign to inform our members and communities on our campaign against unemployment and poverty, which includes our position on privatisation of state assets. We will start a national report-back to workers, which will include the convening of workers forums at all levels, in addition to discussions at routine meetings of our affiliates, regions and locals. We further commit to continue and intensify the process of meeting with organisations from all sectors of society. In this regard we shall ensure that we meet both SANCO and the ANCYL before the end of the year to take forward the discussions we have held with themselves.

We remain committed to a long, in-depth policy discussion on the differences that exist between ourselves and the ANC before the 51st National Conference in December. We urge the National Office Bearers to move fast to ensure that this discussion takes place in order to resolve the long outstanding differences in the interest of our revolution. We believe that the ANC Policy Conference resolutions significantly narrow the policy gaps between COSATU and ANC. This lays a ground for a constructive solution to these differences.

We remain united in our belief that transformation of our country cannot succeed without a more coherent mobilisation of the masses of the people, with the Alliance at the head of the efforts to tilt the balance of forces in favour of the democratic forces. We are committed to strengthening the Alliance by strengthening COSATU, the ANC, SACP and SANCO.

In this context, we debated the coming 51st Conference of the ANC. We call on workers to swell the ranks of the ANC and other Alliance formations. There can be no better way to ensure the ANC maintains its historic bias towards workers and the poor than to have workers swell the ranks of the ANC.

For this reason, consistent with the 6th National Congress resolution, we shall allow COSATU members and leaders to avail themselves to stand and be elected into the NEC of the ANC as members of the ANC in the coming ANC National Conference. The CEC political commission will coordinate this work to ensure workers’ issues receive due prominence at the conference. A special Executive Committee will be held in the first week of December to receive reports and consolidate this work.

We therefore resolve to embark on the following programme of action.

1.Jobs and poverty campaign

We shall take forward the campaign on jobs and poverty. The campaign will continue to focus on privatisation of basic services, job losses, food prices, high interest rates and highlighting the plight of poverty-stricken communities. It will include mass pickets, demonstrations, workplace and industrial-based general meetings marches in all of our regions. We shall continue to raise awareness so that more children are registered for the government’s child support grant. The times frames are:

• Mpumalanga 04 – 08 November 2002
• North West/Western Transvaal 09 – 15 November 2002
• Wits and Limpopo 16 – 22 November 2002
• Eastern Cape, KwaZulu Natal and Western Cape 23 – 29 November 2002
• Free State / Northern Cape 23 – 29 November 2002

2. Food Prices

Under the slogan, "No festive season when the majority is going hungry" we shall continue to mobilise all communities, our allies and the rest of civil society to stage demonstrations against all food manufacturing companies and retailers in particular during a period December 16, 2002 to January 2, 2002. Each region will mobilise the workers, the shop stewards and members of the community to demonstrate in all towns and places at the main chain stores and other food suppliers.

3. "16 Days of activism against the abuse of women and children"

We are horrified by the continued media exposures of frightening increase in incidents of violence and abuse of women and children. The 16 days of activism against women and children abuse (November 25 to December 10) will be used to galvanise all the members of the society and turn each one of us into a soldier involved in a sustained struggle to fight this scourge that remains a dot in continued struggle to retain a dignity of all. We shall participate through demonstration and pickets in particular in front of our country’s magistrate buildings to demand that the judiciary show no mercy to those who abuse women and children.

4. HIV/AIDS and World Aids Day

We are encouraged by the discussions taking place in NEDLAC to develop a more comprehensive strategy to fight the epidemic. These negotiations must result in an agreement that will commit all parties into specific programmes and timeframes. Whilst it would have been ideal to announce a complete agreement as part of the celebrations of the international world aids day, we recognise that this may not be feasible. We however urge parties to announce at least the framework agreement and continue to work on the details between now and the Growth and Development Summit early next year. We shall hold a strategic workshop on the 11-13 November as part of efforts to improve our work and the coordination between work led by affiliates and our partners.

Together with Fedusa and Nactu, we will hold a labour conference on November 30 – December 1 this year, which will lead to our own campaigns around HIV and AIDS.

5. Proudly South African – The buy local campaign

We are encouraged by the growing popularity of the campaign that started as the COSATU campaign. We congratulate all those who ensured that it becomes a success. As part of the food price actions, we shall remind the South African consumers of their obligation to protect the existing jobs and create more jobs in South Africa by buying goods that carry the Proudly South African label.

6. Recruitment Campaign

For three months we have been in many work place where we are weakly organised. In this process we have recruited thousands of workers into the COSATU-affiliated unions. We will assess the full impact of the campaign on November 28-29, where all affiliates will report back and we will develop strategies for the next round, which last from February 2003 until August 2003.

7. Organisational Renewal

We are encouraged by the work of a number of COSATU-affiliated unions which continue to reposition the trade union movement to face the challenges of our time. We urge all affiliates to move faster and ensure that there is a thorough review of their operations in preparation for our Central Committee in April 2003. In the lead up to the 7th National Congress, we declare 2003 as the "year for organisational renewal and deepening of service to members."

8. May Day 2003

As we move towards 2003, we commit ourselves to ensure a better celebration of May Day by workers and working class families in 2003. We commit ourselves to ensure that all venues and budgets for 2003 May Day are finalised by the first EXCO scheduled for February 2003.

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