Input at Lauch of Trade Unions and Democracy by Z. Vavi 20- 07 - 06

Input at the Launch of Trade Unions and Democracy
Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary, COSATU – July 20, 2006

Dear comrade professors, comrades and friends,

We in COSATU are pleased and indeed flattered by this book. We are always grateful for new analyses of our work and our situation. We will always learn from others’ insights. That does not, however, suggest that we agree with all the areas where we have been criticised.

For us, publication of this book recognises the importance of COSATU and indeed the South African and the international labour movement as a critical voice for the people. That voice is particularly important in a world where big business has re-asserted its hegemony and global reach. In this context, the trade unions have emerged as one popular movement with an independent and relatively coherent social, political and economic power base.

A central strength of the book is the use of the SWOP survey of union activists, which has been repeated in 1994, 1998 and 2004. The survey is particularly important to us because of the emphasis on shopstewards, who will always form the backbone of the workers’ movement.

Trade Unions and Social Democracy looks at critical challenges that we face every day as COSATU. It has chapters on how the labour movement manages politics and alliances in the democratic order; organizational development, especially around women’s emancipation, internal democracy and atypical workers; and responses to BEE, amongst others. These are all issues that since 1994 have required qualitatively new answers from COSATU.

One thing for sure is that COSATU in particular and the South African trade union movement in general has disproved the predictions of the doomsayers. Our movement remains by far the biggest social force for change. We are undoubtedly the most democratic and membership controlled. We remain independent as well as ideologically and politically coherent. We have shown repeatedly that workers can use their power both in the workplace and through national demonstrations and strikes.

COSATU’s membership has stabilised at almost two million; it has held a number of successful general strikes in recent years; and it remains the strongest force on the left in our country.

In short, we remain a revolutionary and transformative trade union movement that no business or political formation can afford to ignore.

We make these claims without any fear of a contradiction. Indeed, the findings of the SWOP survey in the book that we are here to honour confirm these main strengths of the federation. Show us any other formation that has dealt as well with today’s global challenges. Show us a more vibrant and democratic formation.

Whilst we always boast of our strengths, we never hide our weaknesses. In fact many believe we tend to focus on our weaknesses to the point that we remind outsiders too much of the negatives instead of the positives.

COSATU has undertaken two major organisational reviews since 1994. The first was the September Commission in the mid-1990s, followed by the Organisational Review that began in 2000 and continues today. In all these studies, we openly confronted our weaknesses in order to multiply our strengths. Our recent political discussion paper, “Possibilities for Fundamental Social Change,” summarises our strengths and weaknesses in the true tradition of our movement - frank and brutal honesty.

COSATU’s challenge is not to compete against weak fish-and-chips formations. We are not entering a race against nobodies. We want to consistently appraise ourselves against the best of the traditions we ourselves established in our long history. No one else holds these traditions except our selves. This book and the survey that informs it help us to continuously look at ourselves in the mirror. Any organisation that does not do this will eventually die.

The book also illustrates some of the challenges facing labour studies today, particularly in a middle-income country.

One problem is that theories in labour studies seem excessively influenced by the internal problems and substantial decline in membership of unions in the U.S. As a result, they tend to be highly pessimistic about unions’ potential for ensuring internal democracy and surviving globalization.

The fact is, of course, that unions in Europe face similar challenges, but have not seen nearly as serious a decline. Moreover, in middle-income countries like Brazil, Korea and South Africa, union membership and political influence has grown or at least stabilised over the past ten years.

COSATU, KCTU and CUT in particular don’t fit preconceived ideas about bureaucratic, inherently reformist, and ultimately declining union movements. In themselves, these two union movements point to the risks of generalising based on theories about workers in parts of the industrialised countries. In the words of Mark Twain, reports of our demise are greatly exaggerated.

The gap between theory and reality emerges clearly in some parts of this book. Parts of the theoretical sections often read as if COSATU is on the brink of collapse or at least a bureaucratic transition that will doom workers to silence. These sections may be too influenced by the general pessimisms on unions based on U.S. unions.

COSATU has championed the cause of the entire working class not just a declining base of “permanent employees.” In addition to the NUM/Chamber of Mines example provided in the book as efforts to protect temporal/casualised labour, we have countless other examples where COSATU affiliates signed agreements that sought to protect this category of workers. This includes the NUMSA and SEIFSA 2003 agreement and the historic agreement reached by SACCAWU and Shoprite Checkers. It is correct though that we have not succeeded in implementing many of our own strategies to recruit atypical workers. It is true that most of our members are in permanent positions. We have pointed out this through out our recent history including in the September Commission and the Organisational Review Commission.

Beyond this problem, there is a subject/object problem inherent in labour studies. We as COSATU aim to give the working class a voice. In academic studies, however, we become the objects of scrutiny, and we ourselves seem to lose voice and agency.

Part of the answer is for scholarly, scientific work to do more to take on board the mass of position papers and reports generated by COSATU and its affiliates. Even more, we need to think about how we can structure a more consistent dialogue. Ideally, we should exchange insights and materials on an on-going basis, instead of studying each other as foreign objects seen at a distance. We want to engage organically, not just through published articles and speeches at rather long intervals.

Finally, we need to ask how we can combine scholarly insights with internal democracy. This is particularly a problem where a number of intellectuals disagree with our members’ views – notably, it seems, around the Alliance. We can’t just say our members are misguided, since that would spell the death of internal democracy. The fact is that for ordinary South Africans, it remains true that the Alliance brought about liberation, and with it a host of new freedoms and real benefits – even if the gains in economic terms have gone mostly to capital.

Comrades and friends,

Let us again express our gratitude to those who have done so much work to make this book a success. We appreciate the interest and will learn from your insights. Above all, we hope this book will form the start, not the end, of a process of closer collaboration and discussion in facing the challenges ahead.