Jobs and Poverty Campaign Conference 18-06-07 |
Towards a charter for the Jobs and Poverty Campaign
A paper presented by Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, to the Jobs and Poverty Campaign Conference in Boksburg18 June 2007
The Freedom Charter has long voiced the claims of South Africans for a democratic and equitable society. Despite the democratic victory, we still face the challenge of putting these claims into practice. We have made many gains around improvements in services and political freedom. But for too many of our people, apartheid remains in the form of mass unemployment and poverty plus poor services from the government.
We recognise the major achievements since 1994 in improving the conditions of our people.
South Africa has a vibrant democracy that opens opportunities for the majority to shape policy at local and national level. As always, we need to stay vigilant to ensure these gains are never eroded. As in every democracy, there will always be attacks by some powerful people on their opponents and on the media. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that democracy in South Africa has taken strong root.
The law now forbids discrimination based on race or gender in key areas of life, including the economy, public administration and housing. The Skills Development, Employment Equity and Broad-Based BEE Acts, amongst others, go further by seeking to open new opportunities for the historically oppressed. Many black people have been able to take on managerial and skilled jobs, particularly in the public sector.
The labour laws protect the rights of workers to organise, negotiate and strike. Today, over a third of formal workers belong to a union, providing a key voice for working people in our society. The laws require employers respect basic conditions and set a floor for pay for the most vulnerable workers, including those in the farm, domestic, security and taxi industries.
The law ensures that there can be no discrimination in access to public services on the basis of race. Under apartheid, the best of our national institutions were limited almost exclusively to whites. Today, they serve all our people. Government has sought to improve basic social services, social grants, infrastructure and housing for black people, who faced deprivation under apartheid.
Finally, the past five years or so have seen improved economic growth, which has generated more employment and opportunities for our people.
While we recognise these achievements, they fall short of our people's expectations and the standard set by the Freedom Charter. We cannot simply ignore the fact that while we have come far, we still have very far to go. This is not the time to debate whether the glass is half full or half empty - rather, we need to agree on how to ensure more decisive action to meet our people's needs in the future.
Mass poverty and unemployment persist. South Africa remains amongst the most inequitable countries in the world. (Table 1) Unemployment is higher here than in virtually any other middle-income country. (Table 2) Hunger persists as an on-going threat to millions of our people. (Table 3)
That, in turn, reflects the failure to transform the structures of production and ownership. Instead, we have seen an economic policy more in tune with the needs of capital than those of the majority of our people. This emerges in:
1. Continued support for capital-intensive industries that cannot create employment for most people, while neglecting sectors that could create opportunities for our people while meeting basic needs.
2. Growth based on rising consumption by the rich, plus high minerals prices and speculative investment from overseas. In contrast to our expectations before 1994, there is little evidence of broad-based growth based on improved conditions for the majority. Inequalities worsened in the late 1990s, and have only improved slightly with economic growth.[1]
3. Trade and monetary policy that permit imports on a huge scale and make it harder for South African industry to compete. That has undermined growth across agriculture and manufacturing.
4. A focus on promoting black capital in the name of BEE, rather than ensuring real equity and employment for all our people.
The failure to transform the economy means that employment creation has occurred almost exclusively in retail and construction. (Table 4) Permanent jobs have given way to casual work. Pay for many workers remains terribly low. (Table 5) About half of the recorded growth in employment has been in informal occupations that report no earned income at all. In industries that are hard to organise - notably farm, domestic and security services - employers ignore the labour laws and racial abuse is common. (Table 6) Moreover, local governments and the police routinely use violence against workers' demonstrations during strikes.
It is these facts that lead us to conclude that business captured most of the economic gains of the first 13 years of democracy. The share of working people in national income has declined, while profits have grown. (Table 7) Business has taken these profits and returned very little to our country in the way of job creation or investment.
Government's AsgiSA programme goes some way to requiring that business and government support more shared growth. But we have yet to see vigorous measures to mobilise our people to achieve these goals. We have yet to see a systematic redirection of economic policies to meet the needs of our people, rather than satisfying big business.
Similar shortcomings persist in the social sphere.
Despite the laws requiring equitable education and health, discrimination persists on the ground. Historically black institutions still lack staff, decent buildings and materials. Poor black people are still far at the back of the queue for education, health and services. The rich pay for private and semi-private facilities with world-class quality; the poor remain with little improvement on the shambles left by apartheid.
Persistent inequalities reflect the failure to redirect spending to facilities in poor regions combined with the budget cuts of the late 1990s under GEAR. At the same time, government has permitted the rich to opt out of public systems, reducing the scope for social solidarity. Figures on school attendance (Table 8) and access to healthcare (Table 9) demonstrate the persistence of inequalities. Moreover, only in the past few months have we seen an effort to mobilise seriously to deal with HIV and AIDS.
In infrastructure, too, huge inequalities persist, despite some progress. (Table 10) Even where services have been provided, they are often unaffordable. Every month, millions of people face shut-offs because they can't afford to pay for water and electricity. (Table 11)
While the housing programme has brought houses to many people, apartheid geography persists. Public transport remains a shambles, at the mercy of large and small profiteers - Metrorail, the taxi industry and the bus systems. As a result, our people end up with long and expensive commutes, dependent on transport that is both unsafe and costly.
Our claims
As civil society, we unite around the following claims. These demands do not exhaust the issues, but rather provide a platform for unity.1. Decent work for all!
a. Government must provide massive support for industries that can create employment, as well as for industries that already create jobs but are under threat. This support must be rooted in an industrial policy geared to transforming the economy to meet the needs of our people. That industrial policy must be agreed, not only with business, but with the representatives of workers and the poor in Parliament and in civil society. It must ensure trade and monetary policy support local agriculture, industry and services, rather than tearing down the capacity of our economy in the name of globalisation.
b. BEE must be truly broad based. Above all, it must favour worker and community ownership, not individual entrepreneurs. All state agencies, including the Public Investment Commission (PIC), must act consistently to strengthen public and collective ownership.
c. We need a true agrarian reform, including
i. An expansion in small-scale production and processing, backed by retailers, agro processors and government at all levels, and
ii. A decisive improvement in the conditions of farm workers combined with expansion of broad-based BEE in the commercial farming sector through employee ownership schemes and community trusts.
d. Public employment programmes must create a million person-years of employment every year. To do this, stipends must be provided to cultural workers and community volunteers on a mass scale. These programmes must provide opportunities for our young people, who bear the harshest burden of joblessness.
e. The state must do much more to support the unionisation of non-organised workers, especially farm workers, as that is the only way to protect their rights. Specifically, government should fund an organising drive for farm and security workers.
2. Education and health must benefit all our people equally!
a. We need a major intervention to improve education particularly in historically black schools. To that end, government must do more to redistribute the income from fees. It must use resources to ensure that
i. Every school has adequate texts and buildings;
ii. Every learner can take maths, science and cultural studies/design; and
iii. Every educator enjoys opportunities for continuing in-service training and progression.
b. A National Health Insurance scheme must ensure improved funding for health care and regulate the private sector to end waste and over-charging. The scheme must not place new financial burdens on working people and the poor, but rather support social solidarity as the basis for a more cost-effective health system overall. In general, health requires strong political leadership to address the twin crises of inequality and HIV/AIDS.
3. Housing and basic services must be available and accessible to all!
a. A national convention on water and electricity must set targets for improving access in black communities, quality of service and tariffs. There must be an immediate moratorium on shut-offs in services and on pre-paid metres until a national policy is agreed amongst all stakeholders.
b. New RDP housing must be no more than 30 minutes from the city centres, which will require a significant increase in the housing budget and greater emphasis on rental and multi-storey housing. The funds set aside for Gautrain should be redirected to improve public transport for working communities.
4. The social wage must set a floor on poverty!
The combination of free basic services, grants including basic income grant and public employment must rather ensure that no South African goes hungry or lacks basic services. That requires revision of the current system of social grants, which leaves out working-age adults, as well as basic social services and infrastructure.
We call on all South Africans to work together to achieve our aims - an equitable and just society where all have an opportunity to contribute and no one lives in poverty.