This week... EDITORIAL Eskom nods at workers' wage demands Fight against Aids can start today, from comrade to comrade - Mandela Unions emerge victorious as Court rules against Eskom "Junior" company negotiators delay progress in wage talks, union says Cosatu commends ICASA's move "It's pay back time for South Africa," SFTU leader tells Exco Union show Eskom they meant what they said as power cuts hit the country Alliance is the only vehicle in conquering national difficulties, says SACP, COSATU Letters | Write to us | Back Issues In other news...

Happy Birthday Madiba!

Cosatu leadership, staff and leaders of the federation's affiliated unions this week threw a surprise 83 Birthday party for former president, Nelson Mandela. See story.

EDITORIAL:
COSATU Executive Committee

The COSATU executive Committee (Exco) this week met for three days on an ordinary session. The meeting had the honour of being addressed by former president Nelson Mandela, Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions general secretary, Jan Sithole.

The leader were invited by the federation to enlighten the Executive Committee on the state of affairs in their countries.

The invitation happens on the background of the passing of the much debated and criticised decree by the Swaziland monarch, King Mswathi III.

The examples paint an unfortunate picture on the situation in the country. Madiba, invited to speak on the HIV/Aids topics, made an indication of how serious the pandemic is in this country.

The Executive Committee was also highlighted by the discussions on issues such as the Alliance summit, privatisation campaign, World Racism Conference, Central Committee, Women's Day and on the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).

The Exco emphasized the need for the Alliance Summit, which is scheduled to take place on September 22, especially amid current important developments such as the government's decision to privatise its parastatals. It also reiterated the strength of the Tripartite Alliance.

The Exco further expressed its appreciation at the racism conference that is scheduled to take place in Durban later this year. This, it said, signals the progress made by people against the apartheid monstrosity.

The Exco further acknowledged the seriousness of the political situation in Swaziland and pledged its support.

Strike action…

For the first time in the history of the labour movement three unions, one representing mostly white workers, come together to join hands in the strike.

This week's strike action, which received support from the federation, taught Eskom a lesson never to be forgotten.

Adding pressure was the labour court ruling in which saw electricity giant being forced to withdraw its unilateral implementation of wage hikes and massive workers' turnouts in support of the action. COSATU commends the enthusiasm and courage illustrated by workers in this wage struggle. We are sure of victory!

Eskom nods to workers' wage demands

Thousands of Eskom workers from three unions who have been participating in a massive strike action against the company's unilateral wage hikes are expected to resume with their work at various workplaces countrywide.

Eskom has finally bowed to the wage demands by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), National Union of Metalworkers of SA (NUMSA) and the Mineworkers Un
ion Solidarity.

The three unions's 21 thoussand members who joined hands in a four-day national strike this week, signed the proposed collective bargaining wage agreement after they welcomed the revised proposal from the Eskom company.

The company has offered nine percent increase for the lowest paid workers with one percent effected in January next year.

The highest paid workers have been offered seven percent increase with o,5 effected also next year January. Said the three unions: "We accept on behalf of workers that this agreement we have signed constitutes the outcome of hard and extensive negotiations which led to the most successful strike action.
We
believe that the agreement will go a long way to addressing the
short and long-term needs of workers." They said the agreement will create certainty for workers and improve their purchasing power.

Happy Birthday Madiba!

Cosatu leadership, staff and leaders of the federation's affiliated unions this wee threw a surprise 83 Birthday party for former president, Nelson Mandela

Mandela, who was invited by the Cosatu's Executive Committee (Exco) to address it on the issue of HIV/Aids, was surprised by the federation's people with a huge cake bearing the Cosatu colours and a Birthday message. An obviously healthy looking Madiba was earlier this week diagnosed with prostate cancer.

He thanked Cosatu for the cake and asked the federation to donate it to one of the primary schools. "I have received so many cakes since I turned 83, the biggest of them was from Shoprite (supermarket). My request is that you donate a piece or the whole of it to any primary school...there are kids who are not as fortunate as us; who have never tasted someting as sweet as this," said Madiba.

Fight against AIDS can start today, from comrade to comrade - Mandela

HIV/Aids is like a message on the cigarette pack; we know of its dangers but we continue to take risks, former South African President, Nelson Mandela, told the COSATU Central Executive Committee (Exco) on the topic of HIV/Aids this week.

Former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, addressing the COSATU Executive Committee this week.

The Exco, which is being attended by leaders of the unions affiliated to the federation, took place from 24-26 July. The former president was invited by the federation to address the committee on the issue of HIV/Aids.

Mandela said the infection rate in this country is still unacceptably high and it is needed of leaders from all sectors to start talking about the epidemic in their speeches.

"About 4.7 million or 13 percent of the world's 37 million HIV infected people live in South Africa. 250 000 people in South Africa die of Aids related diseases each year and anywhere between 50 000 and 100 000 children under the age of sixteen are heads of the household," said Mandela.

He said people need to ask themselves why HIV infection rates continue to spiral, in spite of the numerous efforts and the millions of rands being spend to educate people about the disease.

Mandela said in recent surveys commissioned by the Nelson Mandela
Foundation and the Children' Fund, it was found among others, that HIV/Aids awareness programmes are not reaching all South Africans because of barriers such as culture and language; where awareness occurs, it does not necessarily translate into behaviour changes; and the continuing hugemistrust of the message and the medium where it was found that only one percent of South Africans "listen" to the media, whether it emanates from government or Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Mandela said that he believed the reason the anti-Aids message is not succeeding is because of stigmatisation, which is the major obstacle in the fight against the pandemic.

"There is still a huge sense of shame attached to the disease. Those who become HIV positive are often seen as simply promiscuous, when infact the truth is far more complex," Mandela.

He said that there are still people who believe that they can get Aids from simply being in the same room with someone with the disease.

"The time has come for South Africans to make a concerted effort to fight the stigmatisation of those who are HIV positive and those who are dying of Aids," he said, adding that it is the responsibility of every person to help in combating the disease.

He said the fight against the disease should start with, for example, each member of Amakhosi talking frankly to his people members of parliament devoting first ten percent of every speech on the topic or every trade union leader and shopstewards asking themselves what should be done to combat HIV.

He said in some African countries there are leaders of states who are under an obliged to at least spend five minutes of their speech time talking on the issue of HIV/Aids.

Mandela said the same should be done by the leaders in this country.

"This country should develop an army of anti-Aids campaigners, they should regard Aids as an enemy against which our country is at war with…they should fight this war everyday, in offices, on sports fields, in classrooms and shopfloors, said Mandela.

Perhaps, he said, we can start today with a message from comrade to comrade.

Unions emerge victorious as Court rules against Eskom

The three unions involved in a strike action against the electricity giant Eskom's unilateral implementation of wage hikes emerged victorious on Wednesday when they netted a crucial point in their struggle.

Acting judge Jammy ruled in favour of the three unions collaborating in the strike, National Union of Mineworkers, National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and the Mineworkers Union Solidarity, after they launched a court application disputing Eskom's lack of consultation on wage decision.

Said judge Jammy when ruling on the matter: "Eskom as the employer jumped the gun by contravening section 64 of the Labour Relations Act."

The Act allows mutual decision making between workers' representatives and employers. The court ruling also interdicted the company from implementing the wage increases.

An ecstatic NUMSA said the ruling is a major victory for the Eskom workers. "The company has no absolute rights to unilaterally change the terms and conditions of the workers. No company, including Eskom, can bypass the LRA because of money and power," said the union.

The union said Eskom's action demonstrated contempt both for the law or the country and its own workers.

"It was an attempt by Eskom to unfairly use its control of the administrative system to impose a wage increase which hoped will undercut the unions' demands and by so doing demoralise and divide the workers that are on strike," said NUMSA.

Meanwhile, the electricity utility has withdrawn its Monday's Labour Court urgent court application preventing workers in the essential services sector from participating in the strike.

NUMSA termed the Eskom's move "irresponsible and unnecessary", especially amid burning issues that the company should be addressing and the fact that the unions committed themselves to such agreement.

"The company should not play double standards but must concentrate on resolving the issue of wages rather than focusing on court interdicts," said NUMSA.

"Junior" company negotiators delay progress in wage talks, unions says

As the country and business across the country are experiencing power cuts and the electricity utility not prepared to bow to unions' demands, the three unions in the strike action against the company's unilateral wage hikes are calling for a more diplomatic and experienced team of negotiators from the company.

The three unions, Mineworkers Union Solidarity, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) have repeatedly denounced the Eskom team in the wage negotiations of lacking experience - something that is delaying progress in the dispute.

On Tuesday wage talks between the two parties failed at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA) after the company made request for a caucus after the unions presented their proposals.

"We insist that the company is not serious in resolving the matter because of lack of capacity and wit on the part of their negotiators," said the unions.

The unions contest that the Eskom's "junior" wage negotiators have not been properly oriented on these kind of matters as a result negotiations have ended up in hostilities and tension.

"We believe that the essence of any negotiations is on compromise in order to break the deadlock and such talks should be based on fairness, transparency and proper vision to deal with sensitive issues," said the unions.

They said the union negotiators have been trying hard to change the mindset of the Eskom management without success. "The company has been completely unreasonable in dealing with the union," said the unions.

Meanwhile, thousands of workers countrywide turned out on the second day of the strike on Wednesday presenting memorandums of demands to the Eskom management at various offices in the country.

Said NUMSA spokesman: "The success of the protest marches demonstrates workers' preparedness to fight for their working conditions at the company (Eskom). They also signal frustrations and dissatisfactions at the company the company's poverty 7% wage offer."

Workers have vowed to continue with the demonstrations at their respective workplaces and the company's plants countrywide should there be no speedy solution to the impasse.

NUM, NUMSA and MineWorkers Union Solidarity are demanding wage hikes of 10 percent to minimum earners and 9 percent to maximum earners against Eskom's seven and nine percent wage offer respectively.

COSATU commends ICASA's move

This week COSATU welcomed proposals by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) that consumers in this country would get more affordable telephone bills in future, but called for a more comprehensive telecommunications price structure.

ICASA earlier this week announced its proposals to make telephone calls more affordable to the consumers.

The Authority proposed among others, that price of basket of telecommunications services should fall by five percent a year in real terms; and that the cost of the main services used by residential consumers , including payphone tariffs, should fall by at least five percent a year.

COSATU commended ICASA's recommendations saying they will contribute in making telephone usage more affordable for the people.

It said these will be a relief to consumers as they have been faced with increasingly expensive phone rental costs and massive price increases on local calls.

"This has contrasted with big price cuts for long distance national calls and international calls" said the federation, adding that it has been low income consumers who have borne the brunt of price increases, while wealthy consumers and businesses seen their costs slashed.

"Affordability is a precondition for universal service: high charges result in disconnections and hinder the roll-out of much needed services," the federation said.

However, COSATU called for a more comprehensively progressive price structure based on the system of lifeline services and progressive block tariffs developed for municipal services.

This, it said, would ensure that everyone has access to some basic telephone services, such as outgoing local and national calls.

"Telephone charges would then rise progressively at higher levels of usage. Based on the assumption that high-income households with higher ability to pay are likely to make greater use of telephones, this would build in cross-subsidisation to lower-income users," said COSATU.

Nevertheless, the federation said the ICASA proposals highlight the important role of proper regulation in ensuring the extension of affordable services.

"It's pay back time for South Africa", SFTU leader tells Exco

The Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) has indicated its intention to engage in a socio-economic protest action against the controversial Decree 2 and other laws imposed by King Mswathi III in the country.

SFTU general secretary, Jan Sithole, told the COSATU Executive Committee (Exco) during his address about the status quo in the kingdom this week.

The SFTU executive committee, made up of its general secretary and the president, was invited by the federation to enlighten the COSATU Exco on the state of affairs in Swaziland.

Sithole told the meeting that the Decree, which was slammed by organisations such as COSATU, Amnesty International and other international countries, deprives formations such trade unions the right to protest any activities pronounced by the King in the country.

Last week King Mswathi could not bear the heat from various sectors against the decree. He declared that the he signed the document in haste and will have a look at it.

The decree among others, gives arbitrary powers to the Minister for Public Service and Information to prescribe, without stating any reasons, and cannot be challenged in any court of law; criminalizes any impersonation of the king and pack in a fine of E500.00 or 10 year or both and generally puts tough law on political parties and trade unions.

Sithole said the his trade union federation is demanding a total eradication and removal of all decrees including the founding Decree of 1973. He said the king's promise to make amendments to the decree would not make a difference to the oppressed people of Swaziland.

"The entire International Community should not be hood winked by the removal or amendments of Decree No.2 and begin to relax pressure and focus on Swaziland.

The Decree No.2 of 2001 and many others that may come in future are products of the founding 1973 draconian decree, unless the 1973 decree is removed, dictatorship still remains and human rights and civil liberties are non-existed," Sithole said.

Sithole made an appeal to COSATU to continue supporting Swazi people's fight for democracy and human rights by putting sanctions on the country and supporting their activities against the monarch.

He said Swazi people participated in the South African struggle against apartheid and they would like the same thing from the SA government.

He urged the South African government to, among others, advice the Swazi authorities to re-instate the Bill of Rights and allow for an all-inclusive forum in the kingdom so that all people can have their rights to self determination; and to advice the king to allow negotiations with progressive formations.

"The African National Congress-led government cannot just stand back whilst the draconian regime continues to undermine good governance and the human dignity of its citizens," said Sithole. He said it is pay back time now.

Besides a national strike action, the union federation said will embark on protest activities such as blockage programmes, boycotting good from and to Swaziland in all factory shops and storage places, call for Swaziland to be withdrawn from the South African Customs Union (SACU) and engaging the SA government and the Tripartite Alliance to pressurise the Swazi government to establish dialogue with its people.

The decree has resulted in the international community giving the monarch warnings on the negative effect it has on its relationship with the kingdom.

This week the United States Ambassador in the Swaziland told the country his government will reconsider Swaziland's benefits from AGOA.

Unions show Eskom they mean what they say
as power cuts hit the country

The strike by three unions in Eskom against the electricity utility's unilateral implementation of wage offer kicked off with major power disruption and huge workers' turnout in all province in the country.

Thousands of workers from the unions collaborating in the strike, the National Union of Mineworkers, National Union of Metalworkers of SA and the predominantly white Mineworkers Soldarity Union, downed tools at various workplaces in the first day of the strike.

The workers continued with demonstrations outside the Eskom offices in Braamfontein, Johannesburg on Tuesday.

The unions said the current wage offer implemented by Eskom is degrading the purchasing power of the majority of the workers and would lead to poverty and misery.

The said wage impasse which forced workers to take the streets, could have been avoided had the electricity company sent senior negotiators instead of junior ones in the talks.

"Most of these junior managers do not have the vision and capacity to deal with crucial national issues that affect the working conditions of workers," said the unions.

The unions further demanded their immediate removal from the wage talks.

On Monday Eskom brought an urgent court application interdicting workers falling within the provisions of minimum services agreement from embarking on a strike action.

NUMSA deemed the move unnecessary and further slammed the company for "concentrating on peripheral issues" instead of addressing the wage problem.

"The court application is unnecessary and irresponsible because the agreement binds all parties. It is not our intention as unions to act in aberration with such critical agreements," said NUMSA.

It said the three unions respect the agreement but what worries them is the company's failure to take courageous move to resolve the impasse.

"The company's urgent interdict will exacerbate the already strained relationship which will have serous ripple effect, not only to Eskom company but customers as well," said the unions.

The unions said Eskom has continued to put workers at disadvantage despite huge profits it made last year. The company made a profit of R30 billion.

"The whole profit went to the company executives in a form of huge salaries and bonuses…the majority of the workers did not receive the profits," said the unions.

Alliance the only vehicle to conquer national difficulties - SACP, COSATU

Many important gains for working people and the poor have been made since the first democratic election in 1994, but have often been overshadowed by massive job losses. Two of the Tripartite Alliance partners, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and COSATU, said after their bilateral meeting yesterday.

The two parties yesterday held a meeting to discuss, among others, the state, role and capacity of the trade union movement and the political capacity of the SACP; and a joint reflection and assessment on the current political situation and the context and its impact on the poor people in this country, including workers.

COSATU and the SACP said that although important achievements such as outlawing racism and repression have been made during the past seven years, there are still difficulties such as unemployment that need to be dealt with.

Statistics South Africa (Stats-SA) this week announced that the official unemployment figure has risen to 26 percent.

The organisations said practices such as casualisation and outsourcing are dealing the hard earned democratic, social and economic gains a heavy blow.

They blamed government for the 1996 adoption of the macroeconomic strategy, Government, Economic and Redistribution Programme (Gear). COSATU and the SACP said the adoption of the policy has marked a significant policy shift and has used capitalist means to achieve the goals of the shared national democratic vision.

"Gear and the related privatisation programme have failed to achieve the fundamental restructuring of our society, and in many respects these policies have taken us backwards," said the organisations.

In an attempt to address these difficulties, the two organisations agreed, among others, to take forth the COSATU campaign against government's privatisation of state assets; uproot corruption in conjunction with the ANC; and to revitalise organisations, including the ANC.

However, they said while there are serious policy disagreements in the alliance, the three organisations, including the ANC, remain united around long term visions of a non-racial, non-sexist, united and democratic South Africa.

"The alliance is the only vehicle capable of achieving these objectives," said COSATU and the SACP. Further meeting between the two organisations have been planned to carry forward discussions and programme of action.

Letters

COSATU Weekly believes that there are a variety of weekly developments that need to be discussed or raised to the attention of the readers and workers at large. If you have any compliments, queries or comments on the current issues, send us your brief letter to The Editor or fax it to (011) 339-7788. The newsletter can only publish a few letters a week.

Dear Editor

Re donation for Swazi refugees in Amsterdam- Mpumalanga…

The Swaziland Solidarity Network is appealing for donations of any kind for the evicted refugees from the two villages in Swaziland who are now housed by our comrades in Amsterdam.

These people are direct victims of the autocratic rule of the king of Swaziland who evicted them towards the end of last year because they resisted the imposition of Mswati's elder brother as a double chief of these areas.

They have been surviving through handouts from individual comrades from Swaziland and South Africa, but as the number keeps on growing there is a dire need for all people to make contributions of whatever nature.

Primarily these people are forced to share a sheet in such cold and sometimes go to bed without having eaten a thing.

All donations can be made through the head office of the Swaziland at COSATU House, 7th Floor, Braamfontein, 1-5 Leyds street.

We thank you in advance. In the true spirit of international solidarity.

Fraternally yours

Sandile Phakathi
Publicity and Campaigns officer
Tel - 011 339 3621+ADs-