Cosatu expectations from the State of the nation address

COSATU expectations from the State of Nation address

05-02-08

COSATU’s expectations from the State of the Nation Address

When President Thabo Mbeki delivers his State of the Nation Address on Friday 8 February, the Congress of South African Trade Unions looks forward to hearing a bold programme of action to implement the progressive policies agreed upon by the historic ANC Conference in Polokwane in December 2007 and the ANC NEC Lekgotla in January 2008.

In particular the federation expects to hear plans to tackle the huge challenges South Africa faces in the following areas:

Employment: Even before the electricity crisis the rate at which new jobs were being created was falling behind the number needed to meet the government’s target of halving the 2004 levels of unemployment by 2014. The government therefore needs to redouble its efforts to promote manufacturing industry, especially through the beneficiation of our natural resources, protect vulnerable industries from unfair competition from cheap and subsidised imports from China and the wealthy developed countries, and accelerate the Expanded Public Works Programme to create jobs and improve service delivery.

Quality jobs: COSATU expects the President to reject opposition demands to weaken the country’s labour laws, and to strengthen those laws to protect workers who jobs have been casualised and vulnerable workers, particularly in informal sectors like agriculture and domestic work, from exploitation and abuse.

Poverty and inequality: Given that the country’s wealth gap is widening, we expect radical measures to reduce poverty, through increased grants to compensate people from the rocketing prices of essential food products, and measures to target those who presently do not qualify for grants but live in poverty. Last year’s budget surplus must be used to alleviate the plight of the poorest South Africans.

Prices: Everything possible must be one to stabilise and reduce the price of food, fuel, electricity and other basic necessities, on which the poorest families spend the highest proportion of their meagre incomes. Allegations of price-fixing and ‘import-parity pricing’ must be thoroughly investigated and strong punishment meted out to any companies found guilty of illegally profiteering at the expense of the poor. Subsidies to keep down prices should be considered and way found to increase the production of food so that the price can be brought down, including…

Land redistribution: The pace of land reform needs to be dramatically increased if we are to come near to the target the government has set. We look forward to the end of the ‘willing-buyer/wiling-seller principle’ so that land can be given to the people and more assistance to help the new owners use the land to increase food production and thus help to bring down prices.

Service delivery: COSATU expects the government to honour commitments given in previous State of the Nation Addresses to speed up the delivery of water, electrification, sanitation, roads, telecommunications and other services to poor communities.

Education: COSATU looks forward to bold plans to move as fast as possible towards meeting the goal of the Freedom Charter for the doors of learning to be open to all, thorough the implementation of free and compulsory education for every child. Safety and security in schools must be urgently addressed to ensure that teachers and learners are not in danger. More resources need to be invested in skills development.

Health care: Drastic measures are required to end the growing chasm in the quality of health care service between the public and private sectors. All the improvements in the pay and working conditions of health workers must be implemented and further increases introduced to stem the haemorrhaging of skilled workers to the private sector and overseas.

HIV/Aids: More urgency needs to be injected into the rollout of the National Programme to prevent and treat HIV/Aids. Antiretroviral medicines must be made available without delay to all those who require them.

World trade: The President must recommit the government to work with other developing countries to bring about a world trade system that ends the current bias in favour of the rich and powerful nations and ensures protection and market access to the economies of the developing world. He should reject any attempt by the developed countries to sign agreements with individual countries, which could divide and destroy the unity of the majority of the world’s people.

Electricity crisis: COSATU looks to the President to propose bold measures to minimise the effects of the power cuts, prevent job losses, ensure safety in the mines, oblige employers to continue paying workers – who are not responsible for the crisis - and restore power to all consumers as quickly as possible.

Having admitted, and apologised for, the government’s error in not heeding Eskom’s earlier requests for more money to invest in new generators, the president must now take full responsibility for providing the funds Eskom needs to meet future demand for power. He should also make proposals for electricity saving and the development of new forms of electricity generation. He should also reject calls for the privatisation of Eskom and mobilise society to be part of the management process.

COSATU rejects with contempt the pathetic pleas by DA leader Helen Zille for the President to ‘repudiate’ the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) and ignore the mandate he has been given by the delegates at the Polokwane Conference. Far from being a threat to democracy, as she claims, the NDR is democracy in action. Unlike Zille’s preferred form of democracy in which you are allowed to vote every five years and then told to shut up and let the government and state do what they like, the NDR is a means by which the masses can take active control of their lives, their government and the future of their society

The Conference delegates, representing millions of workers, the unemployed and the poor, were rebelling against their exclusion from the economic boom they kept hearing about for the past five years. They knew from their own lives that only a tiny minority - the people Zille’s DA represents - was benefiting from economic growth, while the majority remained stuck in poverty and despair.

They demanded a change from previous pro-business and pro-rich policies and now expect the government to implement the new progressive policies they voted for. Unemployment, poverty and inequality must now be at the top of the political agenda. The State of the Nation Address must be the start of a new drive to transform South African society to benefit the majority of the people and create a better life for all.