Zwelinzima Vavi on Numsa annivesary 19-05-07 |
Zwelinzima Vavi COSATU General Secretary - salutes the metal workers on the occasion of NUMSA’s 20th anniversary celebrations
Delivered at the Port Elizabeth rally on 19 May 2007
ChairpersonLeadership of NUMSA
Leadership of other COSATU unions
ANC and SACP leaders
Membership of the tripartite Alliance
On behalf of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, I congratulate the National Union of Metalworkers – NUMSA – and its 216 000 members, on this historic anniversary.
The union of Vuyisile Mini, Jabulile Ndlovu, Sam Ntuli, Phenius Sibiya, Mbuyiselo Ngwenda and your countless other heroes and heroines has every reason to celebrate 20 glorious years of metal workers’ struggles.
Of course metal workers’ struggles do not date back only to the past twenty years. MAWU, MICWU, UMMAWOSA and NAAWU are the unions that led the revival of the democratic movement in the early 1970. NAAWU itself was the result of a merger between WPMAWU, NUMARWOSA and the UAW. And two COSATU unions – GAWU and the TGWU - also gave their metal members to NUMSA. MACWUSA and SAAWU are part of this history as well a the dock workers union of the 1950s.
This group of militant unions, largely organising the blue-collar black workers, led the historic 1972/3 Durban strikes. These are the unions that formed FOSATU in 1979. It is they that, together with other organs of people power created the United Democratic Front in 1983. It was these unions that were part of the unity talks that lasted for 4 years, leading to the creation of the giant union federation COSATU in December 1985. Of course that’s a short history of our generation.
The revival of the democratic trade union movement in the 1970s (thanks to relentless efforts of the SACP and the ANC underground) was built on foundations laid down by the ICU in the 1920s, and SACTU in 1955.
For this reason the history of NUMSA and COSATU is the history of the whole militant and democratic trade union movement - the movement of Moses Kotane, Moses Mabhida, JB Marks, and Vuyisile Mini.
It is a privilege, indeed an honour, to be invited to speak at this momentous anniversary event.
NUMSA has a proud history. Metal workers are the backbone of the industrial proletariat, a central pillar not just of COSATU but of our movement as a whole. You have earned your stripes! We are not singing praises just to fill paper space.
The metal workers have carved for themselves a very special space in the annals of our history. NUMSA, throughout its glorious history, has been an all-rounder, producing all-round cadres and leaders for our broader movement.
You taught all of us how to combine the workplace and broader community struggles. Politically you have never been a tightly knit coherent movement with strict adherence to any particular ideological line. In the true fashion of a trade union movement, it is not necessary to be a strict hegemonic entity. But NUMSA has always been the most dynamic, vibrant and engaging movement, whose commitment to socialism remains undiluted.
At the workplace level the metal workers have been the federation’s pacesetters. You have not only provided strong support but frankly led the federation in key policy developments, especially around development of skills and training polices, grading and appraisal systems - which have contributed immensely to flattening workplace hierarchies - wage policies, industrial strategy policy and at NEDLAC.
Your union’s work in the industrial sectors has been exemplary, as are your strong efforts to involve shop stewards and ordinary members through educational campaigns. NUMSA belongs to that special blend of unionism. Training shop stewards, leaders and staff has always been your preoccupation.
This is why this movement has always been one of the most dynamic, vibrant and engaging formations. Talk of the correct application of the principle of worker control and you are talking metal workers. Talk of internal democracy and you are talking of the NUMSA of Moses Mayekiso and Daniel Dube. Talk of a fighting movement and you are talking about the union of John Gomomo. Talk about a union with clarity in the mind and you talking about Vuyisile Mini, Mbuyiselo Ngwenda, Enoch Godongwana, Alec Erwin and countless others.
We salute current and past leaders and members of NUMSA for maintaining and deepening these traditions.
For many years, NUMSA has set trends within COSATU on collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is the lifeblood of the trade union movement. Without it no trade union is worth its salt. We have to bargain collectively or perish as individuals under the yoke of capitalist exploitation.
Historically more than any other COSATU affiliate, NUMSA has had a history of robust debate and confronting differences, but without undermining the union’s strength and unity. NUMSA has many lessons to teach on how to manage the many inevitable debates and arguments within a mass organisation without undermining the movement’s unity in action in defence of the membership.
I am aware that this tradition has somehow been undermined in the recent period and the union is challenged to be what we have always known it to be.
Comrades
This year marks the thirteenth anniversary of our new democratic dispensation. We have seen many important advances in the struggle for democracy and socialism. The foundations for a truly non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society have been laid and NUMSA has played no small part in our transition to democracy.
Metal workers have scars all over their faces; they bear the brunt of the violence directed against our movement by the apartheid regime and its surrogates in KwaZulu Natal.
It is no accident that on the very day that our Federation was formed, four of the shop stewards of MAWU from Mpophomeni in Howick which included Phineus Sibiya, Simon Ngubane, Flomina Mnikathi ) were burnt live in a car travelling to the launch of COSATU rally in 1985.
It is no accident that Jabulile Ndlovu was killed by the warlords in Pietermaritzburg in 1987. It is no accident that Sam Ntuli was killed by a sniper of the apartheid regime in Thokoza Township in September 1991.
You had to target the metal workers to weaken COSATU whom Chief Albert Luthuli correctly referred to its predecessor as a spear. And you had to weaken COSATU to weaken the congress movement led by the ANC which Luthuli called the shield. The apartheid regime knew that. The enemies of the working class and of progress know that today.
Over the last few years, NUMSA and many other unions have been forced to wage struggles to improve the conditions in the workplace and the community.
Today we are on the eve of a titanic battle by a million public service workers for a pay rise which will start to rescue them from the poverty in which many now struggle to survive.
They can be sure that NUMSA and all the other private-sector based unions will be marching alongside these low-paid workers who treat us when we are sick, educate our children and protect the defenceless workers from the armed thugs - the criminals that threaten to take over our streets and rob us of our hard won basic freedoms such a freedom of movement.
We are celebrating NUMSA’s birthday at a time when workers are under relentless attack on all fronts. The job-loss bloodbath continues unabated in some sectors of our economy. The backbone of unemployment has not been broken, with close to 40% of our people unemployed. The quality of jobs is on the decline, with well-paid jobs being replaced at an accelerating pace by insecure, casual jobs that are creating an army of working poor.
Poverty still afflicts and robs millions of their dignity. Inequalities are deepening. A new black elite is developing slowly, yet overall blacks’ living standards are still nowhere close to those of their white counterparts. We still have two worlds in a single country.
Racism against workers, in particular in the farms and small enterprises is often as bad as during the apartheid years.
We have gained political freedom yet economic power is firmly in the hands of a white minority, while poverty, unemployment and inequality are still rife among the black majority.
Daily we are hear of a sustained economic boom, propelled by a huge growth in demand. We are told that this is a season of hope.
This is the world of the elite. They share a consensus that things are going well. You can see why they share amongst themselves this optimism when you visit their houses and see the cars they drive - indeed things are going well in their small planet.
Contrast this with the world of our members. It is a world of complete hopelessness. Unemployment is hovering at just below 40%. 500 000 new jobs a year are welcome but too few to reach even the modest objective of cutting unemployment by half in 2014.
And income inequality is also high and growing. The workers’ share in the national income has been on the decline since 1981 and has continued to decline in the first 12 years of democracy. The share of profits continues to increase.
According to the Labour Force Survey, 16.7% of all officially employed people in South Africa earn less than R500 a month, 34.3% earn under R1000 a month and a total of 54% of all workers earn less than R2500 a month. Most of these workers are sole income earners in their households.
Poverty remains the reality of 40% - 50% of the population. There is a debate on whether poverty has decreased but there is no doubt that poverty remains extremely very high.
The ANC’s 1969 Morogoro Strategy warned against the danger of superficial change. The question we need to answer is whether we have not betrayed those who gathered in 1955 to draft the Freedom Charter and those who gathered in 1969 in Morogoro to draft the Strategy and Tactics document?
We have of course advanced, with the destruction of apartheid and have established the foundations of political democracy. We have made progress since then, meeting the basic needs of millions through such programmes as the rolling out of water, electricity, housing, etc.
But the power of capital has increased, its arrogance has doubled, and now that they control much of the body of government they are demanding its soul. The advance towards economic transformation has been halted and even reversed.
This is the main challenge facing the working class. More than ever we need to implement our slogan – “an injury to one is an injury to all”. Unless we give practical meaning to our principle of worker solidarity, we are all dead in the water.
This is true not only nationally but globally. Globalisation has had a profound impact on all workers, as many of your members know all too well. It has increased the mobility of capital. Multinational corporations move from one continent to the next at lightening speed in search of both workers and consumers they can exploit more ruthlessly.
Powerful financial institutions hold the economies of countries to ransom, gambling and attacking national currencies to make a quick buck, indifferent to the damage this may cause to ordinary people’s lives.
At the core of globalisation is the ideology of neo-liberalism, which believes in the supremacy of the market, in the belief that markets work best if they are left to themselves and the role of the state is to maintain law and order, protect property rights and create a favourable climate for business to prosper.
This philosophy of neoliberal globalisation manifests itself in austerity programmes, privatisation and liberalisation. Its spread means that our unions cannot succeed if we remain confined to our traditional big employers. We must recruit in small companies and the growing ranks of casual workers in the informal sector.
We cannot be successful if we continue to have a fragmented trade union movement in our country, and the same now applies internationally. We cannot win our battles here if unions within the SADC region remain weak. International working class solidarity is the key to building a new world where there is decent employment opportunities for all, where poverty, diseases, ignorance and divisions form the core values of that world.
International work is becoming absolutely important. Worker to worker contact is now sacrosanct. Strengthening of SATUCC, SIGTUR, OATUU and ITUC is extremely important. We must also campaign against xenophobia here at home, in order to build unity amongst all workers and defeat past and potential future divisions.
In this year of the ANC policy and national conferences we have the best opportunity in five years to challenge the neo-liberal offensive and address the legacy of racial-capitalism. We must commit the ANC to use state power to create jobs, eradicate poverty and better the lives of the exploited masses.
Next month’s national launch of the broadest front for job creation and against poverty must be a turning point in the drive to mobilise the forces for change. It must extend working-class hegemony and build up the momentum for a people-centred, worker-driven national democratic revolution to bring about decent work, a better life for all and freedom from exploitation.
Comrades
I totally agree with your anniversary statement, “NUMSA,” you say, “which remains the largest metalworkers union in the continent, continues to share a deep and profound responsibility with progressive forces to ensure unity in the fight against the negative aspects of globalisation and the marginalisation of developing countries by the developed world. This is a struggle that we will continue to wage with the rest of the progressive trade unions and other formations around the world.”
I could not agree more and I wish you an even more successful next 20 years.
Phambili ne ntsimbi ayigobiLong live the metal workers