COSATU statement on the ANC Policy Conference 30-06-07

 

COSATU statement on the ANC Policy Conference

The Congress of South African Trade Unions congratulates the African National Congress on its successful National Policy Conference, held from 27-30 June 2007 in Midrand.

COSATU is very pleased with the comradely and positive nature of the debates at the conference. Our first reading of the resolutions reassures us that the ANC remains first and foremost a liberation movement with a bias towards the working class.

Before the conference, COSATU had expressed serious concerns about the draft Strategy and Tactics and Economic Transformation documents. In the discussions in the commissions, however, it became clear that the majority of ANC rank-and-file delegates shared many of our concerns and embraced many of our perspectives. Many of COSATU's political perspectives and economic arguments are in fact the same as those of the overwhelming majority of ANC members. This bodes well for the future of our Tripartite Alliance.

We have no doubt that the resolutions of the conference, which now have the status of recommendations to the national conference, underline the fact that the ANC is essentially a formation of the left.

On economic policy there was clear recognition that unemployment and poverty are our biggest challenges, and support for a more interventionist role for government, a faster pace of land reform and rural development, and a drive towards more beneficiation of South Africa's natural resources so as to create more manufacturing employment.

In brief the policy conference was categorical that we need an industrial policy that will help restructure our economy and move it away from the capital-intensive sectors that continue to dominate our economy and move towards labour-intensive sectors that can create mass employment. There was no talk of more 'flexible' labour laws.

On social transformation COSATU welcomes proposals to raise the age of entitlement to child grants to 18 and lower the retirement age of all workers to 60. We were pleased that delegates recognised that there is a huge gap in welfare grants for unemployed adults with no dependent children and that the ANC is moving closer to the idea of a Basic Income Grant. We shall however need to engage with them on the concept that this must be 'linked to work', given that the lack of any work opportunities is the main cause of their poverty in the first place.

On all these issues a great deal of further engagement and debate is required to make sure that the policy conference resolutions are adopted by the ANC National Conference in December and, most importantly, are then implemented by government. COSATU trusts that the Alliance will play the central role in these debates and the ongoing national democratic revolution.