Cosatu message for Freedom Day 26-04-07

 

COSATU message for Freedom Day

On this Freedom Day 2007, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, and the country as a whole, celebrates the 13th anniversary of our first free and democratic elections on 27 April 1994.

That historic day was a milestone in the history of our country, our people and each of us individually. After decades of racist tyranny, that day gave us confidence that we were firmly on the road towards a just and democratic society.

In the 13 years that have followed, three ANC-led governments have given us a democratic constitution and many progressive laws, which enshrine the human rights that the majority was deprived of for centuries.

Workers have benefited from laws which force employers to adopt fair employment practices and minimum standards. Millions of previously oppressed people have moved into new homes, their children are in school; they have access to health care and receive running water and electricity.

COSATU calls on workers to celebrate these achievements on freedom day. We also call on all South African not to forget the thousands of members and leaders of the liberation movement who laid down their lives and made all manner of other sacrifices to help free our nation from the bondages of apartheid and oppression.

In this regard we salute the memory of Oliver Tambo, the 14th anniversary of whose passing we marked on 24 April. We pay tribute to the memory of Chris Hani, whose murder on 10 April 1993 guaranteed us the date for the first democratic elections. We salute the memory of Solomon Mahlangu the Umkhonto we Sizwe guerrilla brutally hanged by the apartheid regime on 6 April 1979. His blood and that of hundreds of thousands of others truly watered the tree of freedom. COSATU further sends its best wishes to the father of our nation Nelson Mandela who is a symbol of everything good with our nation.

But while we celebrate what we have achieved in 13 years of democracy, and enjoy our holiday on Freedom Day, we should not forget the millions of South Africans who still do not reap all the benefits of our political freedom - the 22 million who live in poverty, the 40% of the working population who are unemployed, the millions still living in shacks. You cannot really celebrate your 'freedom' if you are unemployed, have no income and have no proper house.

This poor majority of our citizens cannot understand the statements they hear on the radio or read in the papers about our economic boom and the record profits and executives' massive salaries. They have got nothing from this 'success' story and very many who have been retrenched or casualised, are even worse off.

The much-trumpeted 500 000 news jobs a year are not being created nearly fast enough to meet the modest, but necessary, target set by the Growth and Development Summit to halve unemployment by 2014.

Most of these new jobs, concentrated in retail and construction, are low-paid, casual, insecure and temporary. Many of those who are employed are little better off than the jobless. Far too many employers pay poverty wages and impose intolerable working conditions.

Racism and exploitation are still commonplace, especially on farms, where many employers think they still live in pre-1994 South Africa, treat their workers like slaves, flout the labour laws, abuse and even murder workers who stand up for their constitutional and legal rights and routinely throw their families out of their homes. There is no 'freedom' for these citizens of the new South Africa.

The millions who suffer from HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases - many of them diseases of poverty - are also denied the fruits of freedom. We praise the new spirit of national unity in the struggle against HIV/Aids but will not rest until we have dramatically reduced the numbers infected and made sure that every one of them is getting the treatment they need, so that they too can live their lives in genuine freedom.

The challenge for the trade unions and society as a whole is to fight to bring the fruits of the 1994 breakthrough to all South Africans. The rights and freedoms promised in the law books must become a living reality in the workplaces and poor communities.

Laws alone will never win us freedom. The key to winning real and full freedom for workers and their families is for them to have strong, active trade unions, a strong tripartite alliance and civil society formations. We must bring into our fold all those workers in low-paid, insecure, dangerous and unhealthy jobs and transform our own organisations, so that they recruit more members and give them better service.

COSATU urges every worker, and all South Africans to celebrate Freedom Day actively, by attending the many events around the country, and not just going shopping or watching TV. Then on Tuesday 1 May, we want to see workers in their thousands flooding into the May Day rallies that COSATU is organising around the country.