COSATU NOB'S statement 31 - 03 - 06

 

COSATU National Office Bearers Statement

The National Office Bearers of the Congress of South African Trade Unions met on Monday and Tuesday (27-28 March 2006) to discuss the organisational, political and international work of the federation, as part of their responsibility to implement the decisions of COSATU constitutional structures.

ASGISA:

COSATU has informed the Deputy President that we are willing to interact to see if the gap between the positions of the government and COSATU on ASGISA can be narrowed. We are ready to do this anytime the Deputy President is ready to take forward our discussions on this and other matters.

We congratulate Gwede Mantashe, the outgoing NUM General Secretary, who has been elected as chairperson of the Joint Initiative to Procure Scare Skills (JIPSA). He, together with Thulas Nxesi, the SADTU General Secretary, and other unionists who are serving in JIPSA, are playing an important role in this structure. We however wish to clarify that Gwede Mantashe is not moving to JIPSA full-time at the end of his term of office in May 2006, as many have speculated.

Jobs and Poverty:

The National Office Bearers assessed the federation's state of readiness to take the jobs and poverty campaign to new heights. We are satisfied that our affiliates, and other structures of the federation, are doing the best they can to mobilise members to participate in their millions in the campaign. We are satisfied that our locals are hard at work picketing and demonstrating against employers who continue to retrench, casualise or practise discrimination against workers. We call on all who have not yet began to embark in these demonstrations to do so and to ensure that our members are ready for the May 2006 sectoral strikes, as listed below.

Unemployment remains a serious problem. The recent increase in employment is too small to make a difference. Casualisation remains a new phenomenon that continues unabated, condemning hundreds of thousands to a life of uncertainty. The inadequate numbers of jobs created, mainly in the service sector of the economy, only serve to worsen this trend towards temporary employment. The reality is that our members continue to face retrenchments in some manufacturing firms and in the mining industry. Many public servants face unbearable pressure as government does not move fast enough to replace workers who resign, or to invest in the infrastructure. This leads to untold suffering and stress.

Our unions will hold sectoral summit meetings, preceded by demonstrations, which will take place as follows:

• Manufacturing - 19 April
• Services - 20 April
• Mining and construction - 24 April
• Public sector - 25 April

These will be followed by sector strike action as follows:

• Manufacturing - 9 May
• Public sector - 11 May
• Mining - 16 May
• Services - 18 May
• HIV/Aids conference:

HIV/Aids conference:

COSATU is continuing to cooperate, through a task team of COSATU, SACC and the TAC, in order to take forward the declaration of the joint executives of the three organisations which we announced in November 2006. We are pleased to announce that the three formations will host a civil society conference on HIV/ AIDS on 24-25 May 2006. This conference will serve to unite, and ensure effective coordination of, the civil society campaign and efforts to defeat the scourge of HIV/AIDS. We are moving ahead to create a civil society political liaison structure on HIV/AIDS in the light of the near collapse of SANAC, the structure created to drive society's assault on HIV and AIDS.

Gautrain

The National Office Bearers fully endorse the COSATU Gauteng Provincial decision to submit a Section 77 Notice to allow members to protest against the Gautrain project. The crisis we face in South Africa is that there is no coherent and comprehensive public transport system that is affordable, accessible and efficient. We reject completely the Gauteng and national government decision to prioritise the elite who drive each day in their sedans, get trapped in the highways and consequently occasionally get late. Workers in their millions are inconvenienced on a daily basis. They lose their jobs because the very elite that the government is prioritising refuses to accept that the trains are inefficient and hardly ever on time.

Labour market

We reviewed the continued propaganda by some rogue elements among the employers and their ideologues, which is intended to make society believe that the protection of workers from the worst forms of exploitation and abuse comes at the price of employment creation and economic growth. Only a handful of hard-nosed political shop stewards of the employers continue to make this noise.

Those hell-bent on reversing workers gains should watch their television screens carefully and realise what is happening in France today. There is mass resistance to attempts create a two-tier labour market system, which would and condemn current and future generations of French young people to become second-class citizens.

We warn that we would make the French demonstrations look like a Sunday picnic should any shop steward of the small but vocal backward grouping of the employers try to introduce a two-tier labour market system in South Africa.

We salute the French workers and organisations of young people who are making a determined effort to defend their hard-won gains.

Preparations for the COSATU 9th National Congress:

Its all-systems-go for COSATU's 9th National Congress which will take place on 18-24 September at the Gallagher Estate, Midrand, Gauteng. The COSATU Secretariat will, in the next few weeks, finalise the political paper for the CEC that will be circulated in time for our provincial congresses taking place in June and July 2006. This paper, which will be an update of the political report of the secretariat presented in the February 2006 CEC, will seek to highlight the key challenges facing the federation and the working class as we implement our 2015 programme.

May Day 2006

The theme for this year's May Day is AIDS is the new struggle - Each one teach one! Test, Treat and Fight for Life! This is an attempt to focus all our energies on what has become the second biggest challenge after unemployment and poverty.

The HIV epidemic has hit working people hard. More and more people have been infected by the virus. Every family now has someone with HIV. More and more people need treatment - but thousands still cannot get it. Young people desperately need to know how to avoid being infected.

To deal with HIV and AIDS, all of us need solidarity from our comrades, our families and our communities. Our shop stewards must support and defend members who are infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.

COSATU demands that the bosses do more for workers with HIV or AIDS.

• No employer may discriminate against workers with HIV and AIDS.
• No worker can be fired, demoted or harassed because of their HIV status.
• Employers must help workers get voluntary testing, counselling and, if needed, anti-retroviral treatment. They must help set up peer education programmes on HIV and AIDS.
• Managers must not tell anybody if a worker has HIV.
• Workers must get more time off if they are sick or if they have to care for people who are ill because of HIV.

We attach the list of our May Day Rallies below.

Local government elections

The National Office Bearers considered the assessment prepared for discussions with the ANC and the structures of the federation.

The elections once more prove that there is no viable alternative to the ANC and its allies. There will never be a successful challenge to the ANC and Alliance hegemony, in particular from the right. Only left-wing programmes have a mass appeal. The transformation project driven by the ANC and its allies has struck a chord with the overwhelming majority of our people.

The elections however proved to have been the most difficult campaign fought by the Alliance. There were too many problems at both at political and organisational level.

All these political and organisational experiences must be properly recorded, as we have done in our submission to the ANC. But the key challenge is not just about recording but to do something about all of these challenges. COSATU will insist that the ANC, the Alliance and the mass democratic movement return to these experiences and ensure that they never again arise in the future to cause an improper political environment that is not conducive to campaigning.

Jacob Zuma

The National Office Bearers discussed the rape trial of ANC Deputy President. We resolved not to issue any public statement on the matters involved in the trial until the judge has come to his conclusion. Only then will we issue a statement. We remain convinced that the CEC statements in November 2005 and February 2006 remain correct.

SABC

The National Office Bearers welcomed the constructive discussion between COSATU and the SABC Board on the 21 February. Amongst the points agreed upon were to have joint programmes to:

• Improve on the current funding model and to lobby government for more funding.
• Encourage people to pay TV licenses
• Prepare society for the forthcoming 2010 World Cup.
• Work together around the proudly South Africa campaign especially around BEE matters and have unions playing a role in the BEE committee.
• Address the problems of working conditions for the creative workers in the industry
• Develop a monitoring mechanism on the content of SABC TV programmes
• Compile and provide a list of trade unionists and progressive commentators who can be invited for interviews on various economic and related topics.

SACCAWU

We met with the SACCAWU National Office Bearers. We agreed that COSATU and SACCAWU should do everything possible to ensure that the SACCAWU national provident fund, which has been under curatorship since 2002, is returned to the control of its members. We are going to discus with the Treasury, the Financial Services Board and the Curator to achieve this.

We fully endorsed a campaign that SACCAWU is to launch against attempts to deny workers in the country's shopping malls a constitutionally guaranteed right to picket. We condemn the picket rules enforced by some CCMA officials that dictate that workers must picket 500 meters away from the vicinity of the mall. The property clause cannot supercede the fundamental right to strike and picket that is in our Bill of Rights. If need be we will cooperate to launch a legal challenge against these unfair picketing rules.

World Cup 2010:

COSATU has received a letter from Mr Danny Jordaan, CEO of the 2010 Soccer World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC), which is proposing a meeting between COSATU and the LOC. We are doing everything possible to ensure that the meeting takes place soon.

We reiterate our demand that labour be granted a seat in the LOC for the reasons outlined by our CEC.

We welcome the public announcement by SAFA regarding their plans for development. We however insist that the SAFA plan be subjected to a much broader debate. In the context of the extent of the deterioration of our soccer, we require a much broader buy-in into a new path and a comprehensive development plan.

To this end we insist that a series of workshops be convened to look at all aspects of the game, leading to a soccer indaba within the next four months. All role-players must be invited to make an input, in particular current and former soccer players, coaches and members of the technical staff and all soccer administrators.

COSATU will be working with SA Football Players Union to convene a meeting of current and former soccer players to consider the current SAFA development plan, so as to prepare an input by players to the indaba we want SAFA to convene.

Swaziland

The blockade of four border posts into Swaziland on 12 April is proceeding. In the coming week we will meet the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions and the PUDEMO opposition party to look at how we can ensure that the protest on the borders is more effective. We will also consider other forms of solidarity actions beyond 12 April.

We welcome the withdrawal of the SA lawyers who were to act as prosecutors in the treason trial of freedom activists in Swaziland.

Zimbabwe

COSATU has made contact with the Zimbabwe Solidarity Campaign, and is continuing its campaign of solidarity with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. Zwelinzima Vavi is to attend its forthcoming National Congress to be held on 19-20 May 2006. We condemn the continuing harassment of trade unionists by the regime.

Australia

We are organising a campaign of solidarity with the Australian Council of Trade Unions in their struggle against draconian new labour laws. There will be a week of action from 29 May to 2 June, to coincide with the date for the enactment of these laws on 1 June. Action will include:

• A seminar on workers' rights in Australia;
• Protest letters to the ILO and other international organisations;
• A meeting with the Australian High Commission to ask them to convey our concern to their government;
• Affiliate-level communications with Australian unions;
• Coverage of the issue in the SA media;
• A picket at the Australian High Commission and disruption of its communications;
• Consumer boycotts, and
• Industrial action by workers in companies trading with Australia.
  

World Trade Organisation

At a meeting at Nedlac on non-agricultural market access (NAMA), COSATU showed that the coefficient we would need to avoid further tariffs would be 1800 when the WTO is proposing a coefficient of 30. So even with the proposed 5% exclusion of the tariffs line being phased out, SA will need a coefficient of 900. The government has since taken these issues back to the WTO negotiations in Geneva and has joined a group of 11 countries who issued a strong statement saying that the NAMA negotiations are anti-development.

COSATU is disappointed at the lack of cooperation from the DTI, particularly around the reported agreement between SA and China which we have not seen. The lack of more effective cooperation means we cannot work together to mobilise the progressive forces in the world against the current anti-developmental negotiations taking place in Geneva. The effects of this on our economy will be devastating.

May Day rallies

Province	Rally	Venue
Limpopo	National Rally Polokwane	City centre, Cricket Ground (Opposite Peter Mokaba Stadium)
Mpumalanga	( Provincial Rally Middelburg Mhluzi Stadium Nelspruit Kwa- Nyamazane Stadium Secunda Sasol Club Bushbuckridge Mapulaneng Multipurpose Center
Eastern Cape	Provincial Rally Port Elizabeth Centenary Hall East London Mdantsane Indoor Spoor Center Port St Johns Sports Ground Queenstown Indoor Sport Center
Free State	Provincial Rally Bethlehem Stadium Botshabelo Arena Virginia Harmony Stadium Sasolburg Community Hall Tromsburg Local Sports Ground
Northern Cape	Provincial Rally Hartwater Community Hall Colesburg Community Hall Kakamas Community Hall Springbok Community Hall Tromsburg Local Sports Ground
North West	Provincial Rally Vryburg Huhudi Stadium Zeerust Lehrutshe Stadium Brits Indian Stadium Klerkdorp James Motlatsi Stadium
Gauteng	Provincial Rally Katlehong Huntersfield Stadium Tshwane Atteridgeville, Mbolekwa Stadium
Western Cape	Provincial Rally Cape Town Good Hope Centre Saldanah Bay Stadium George Stadium
KZN	Provincial Rally Durban Curries Fountain Pietermaritzburg City Hall Estcourt Lambert Park Newcastle Osizweni Community Hall Cecil Emmert Stadium Portshepstone Marburg Stadium Mhlatuze Esikhawini, College Sports Center