In memory of Comrade John Zikhali of SACTWU 21 - 04 - 06

In memory of Comrade John Zikhali, President of SACTWU
Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary, April 2006

Family members,

Leaders of SACTWU and COSATU,

Comrades and friends,

We are here to remember one of our greatest comrades, John Zikhali, the president of SACTWU, who died tragically in a car accident over the Easter weekend. He was taken from us suddenly and untimely, and we will deeply miss him.

Comrade Zikhali was an example for unionists and activists across our country. The best way to remember him is to take his struggle forward.

Comrades and friends,

We remember Comrade John above all for his hard work, dynamism and dedication. We knew him, not just as the President of SACTWU, but as a long-serving union activist, including years as the chair of COSATU in KwaZulu Natal. He was an outstanding regional leader for us at a time when the regional structures there needed strong leadership. He carried our banner high in a time and place where it was vitally important and often dangerous.

John Zikhali worked very hard to secure an ANC victory in 1994. He was not a man of many words but of incredible deeds. He commanded the unions as an army general, making them to do things that they would not normally achieve.

We did not succeed in KwaZulu Natal in the elections in 1994 and 1999. I remember calling him and sharing our anguish that we were to live with the reality of an IFP-led government. He was extremely disappointed but kept his composure.

Then I saw his face beaming when eventually we liberated KwaZulu Natal in the 2004 elections, which was a major step forward for working people. I can vividly remember his laughter that displayed his justified pride and joy in the fruits of his work. Even though he was no longer the chairperson of the province, COSATU had deployed him to work in the most dangerous parts of the province. He never demanded security or flashy cars.

But he knew the risks involved; after all he had survived numerous attempts on his life.

Comrade Zikhali was a master campaigner. He led many of our battles against employers and from 1994 against mistakes in government policy. Our campaigns centre on our jobs and poverty campaign. He could get the best out of shop stewards, union officials and leaders of the unions alike. KwaZulu Natal is till today renowned for its ability to get the numbers in its marches and rallies. This culture of mass participation is no accident, but results from the efforts and political mobilisation led by John Zikhali to get workers and working class communities to understand that they are their own liberators.

As important, John Zikhali helped mediate the many conflicts in the region, especially between the IFP and the ANC. We can be grateful today for his work in this most testing province of our country.

John Zikhali's life showed the development of the union movement from the early 1970s. His life in the union movement symbolised the great re-awakening of the South African working class following the 1973 Durban strikes. He spent all his life in the trade union movement, from shop steward to branch, regional and provincial leader, to national president of his union, SACTWU.

John Zikhali's career typified the broader transformation of the labour movement. It saw our worker leaders emerge to take a total control and guide the unions through hard times and tough challenges as well as huge victories. His life symbolises a victory for our style of democratic worker controlled unions. COSATU takes an ordinary worker with no formal education and transforms them into organic intellectuals managing complex negotiations with employers, government and global institutions. John Zikhali was one of thousands that developed in the union movement through education and training, but most importantly through engagement with these complex processes and exposure to national and world debates.

Today, all of COSATU's leaders were once shop stewards. None of them are intellectuals from the university, as used to be the case. All our Presidents are workers who must manage their time between their workplaces and their national responsibilities. Today, all our unions General Secretaries, including at the federation level, are former shop stewards and ordinary worker activists. John Zikhali symbolises this great stride and triumph of the principle of worker control.

John Zikhali's life reflected another shift in our labour movement: from the oppression of apartheid to the complications of democracy. In recent years, as President of SACTWU and vice-president of the International Union Federation for clothing and textiles, he has had to confront the challenges of globalisation.

South Africa in particular has faced a flood of imports because the government cut tariffs while letting the rand become overvalued. More and more, retailers in the clothing industry have used imports to fuel super-profits at the cost of jobs and economic growth.

This Monday we will attend a meeting convened by the Minister of Trade and Industry to be told the terms of the draft agreement between South Africa and China. We would have preferred that the agreement were concluded after extensive consultation with us instead of being called at the tail end of the process to be informed, like children summoned by their guardian.

China symbolises the threats of globalisation in an imperial age. Since 2002, imports from China increased by a 480%. South Africa has a trade deficit of R23 billion with China. In this period we have lost thousands of jobs, affecting hundreds of thousands of dependents on the retrenched workers.

It is this situation that compelled the Alliance to establish a special task team to look at measurers that can be invoked to save the clothing, textile and footwear industry. It is simply not acceptable that under these circumstances, the Minister has not given us the opportunity to engage and consult on the draft agreement. Instead, he has just called us to a so-called, last minutes and largely symbolic stakeholder meeting, together with the employers.

These threats to our members mean that the leaders of SACTWU and COSATU must negotiate and mobilise at many levels. On the one hand, we have to engage with the state both on bilaterals and in WTO negotiations. We are fighting for a better trade policy, one that will protect our industries and our jobs. On the other, we must mobilise our members to demand that employers and the government do more to build our economy and create employment.

In recent months, in particular, we have had to organise to stop WTO proposals that would make South Africa cut tariffs even further. If these proposals go through, we can write off any chance of an industrial policy. South Africa would be doomed to a future as a minerals-based economy. We shall be condemned to be a tourist destination for rich people from the developed countries. We would be left without industry, with only weak agriculture, and with mass poverty, huge unemployment and inequalities.

In the process, our former colonisers would maintain the economic relationship they have always enjoyed with their colonies. We would remain a country exporting raw materials to the imperialists' headquarters. They would continue to beneficiate, creating jobs in their countries, and sending the sophisticated products back to our countries as finished products.

In short, the objectives of our NDR will not be realised if we as a country together with the other developing nations allow the current proposals at the WTO to stand.

As the recent WTO negotiations in Hong Kong showed, the government has adopted a more militant approach in trade negotiations. We expect them to maintain this strong stance. They must ensure that we do not end up with tariff cuts that will cost even more jobs.

SACTWU has also spearheaded the drive for better macroeconomic policies, especially to end the overvaluation of the rand. In the past two years, huge investments in stocks and bonds by foreigners have inflated the value of the rand. But they have not led to job creation or higher production. Instead, we have seen massive job losses, especially in the clothing sector.

COSATU and SACTWU have long argued that the state must do more to bring down the value of the rand. Key steps would be to use tax and exchange control policies to slow down speculative, short-term capital inflows, which add dangerously to economic instability. Moreover, we expect the Reserve Bank to adopt a more pro-growth, pro-development and employment stance by cutting interest rates.

In sum, with SACTWU, COSATU demands an industrial and macro-economic strategy that gives our economy a future. In particular, we must take forward the work of Comrade John Zikhali by implementing a strategy that transforms the clothing industry from a threatened sector to a source of growth, jobs and comfort for our people. That strategy must take into account the needs of our people in South Africa and the region. It must add to the capacity of the industry. And it must be able to rely on assistance from the state through targeted credit, appropriate trade support, and insistence on local procurement by both state agencies and the retail sector.

Finally, John Zikhali was a lesson in solidarity and dedication. He hated this big rush to get rich in whatever means possible. He hated the culture of crass materialism that is fast developing in the democratic movement. He was extremely concerned that some of our leaders seem to believe the task of building a better life to all is intertwined with their lust for personal wealth.

He was worried that the growing close relationship between some of our leaders with business has led to an ideological floor crossing - from the side of the working class into the arms of big business. He was worried that this unholy relationship will deepen corruption. More importantly, he knew eventually the bonds of business interest could end the ANC's historic bias toward workers and the poor, to form a new alliance with the bourgeoisie.

Comrades and friends,

We will pick up the banner that our comrade had to drop. We will continue to hold dear the principles for which he fought. Those principles include solidarity amongst workers nationally and internationally. They include the conviction that unionism cannot stop in the workplace, but must look to transform our industries, our communities and our society. And finally, they include the recognition that the union movement will require our hard work and dedication over years and decades of struggle.

Comrade, we will always remember you as we go forward. To his wife, four children and family, we say you are not alone in your sorrow. We have become part of your family. Your pain is our pain.

Long live the spirit of John Zikhali!