Volume 6 No 6 - December 1997 / January 1998
Twelve years ago, worker delegates from 33 unions representing 450 000 workers converged in Durban to launch Cosatu. Remarks at the launch that "a giant has been born" have proven to be true. Cosatu's membership has grown by more than 400% to 2 million, of which 1.8 million is paid-up. We have grown despite repression, exploitation, killings and dismissals by employers and the apartheid regime. We have continued to grow despite the fact that workers across the globe are under attack from neo-liberalism and where retrenchments under the guise of global competitiveness and fiscal discipline are the order of the day.
With such a history, capacity to survive and resilience, our detractors ignore us at their own peril. Cosatu is here to stay! This "giant" has over the past 12 years proven that it is a force to be reckoned with. Together with other progressive forces we brought about the current democratic dispensation. We have made major strides in improving workers' working conditions and wages. We have campaigned for better workplace health and safety standards; training; an end to the single sex hostel system; safe transport, especially for night shift workers and an end to gender discrimination. We have continued to address the structural deficiencies of the labour market inherited from centuries of oppression and exploitation. Cosatu and its shopsteward movement were at the forefront of community organisations' struggles for housing, water, electricity, education, health care, sanitation and infrastructure. We played a pivotal role in building and leading a strong civic movement, students, rural and women organisations and other organs of people's power.
The principles and objectives in the RDP and our new constitution dealing with the basic needs of our people can be traced back to these militant struggles of our people. Our commitment to the country, to its liberation and to social transformation is unquestionable. Our credentials are impeccable. Those who question our commitment to transformation should look at our history. As is often said, history is the best teacher.
We formed deliberate alliances with the UDF and its mass-based affiliates to launch a relentless campaign against apartheid and the NP government. Cosatu cadres were in the front rows of marchers in the cities, in the dusty streets of our townships, villages and rural areas to demand a free, non-racial, democratic and non-sexist South Africa. These campaigns undoubtedly contributed to forcing the stubborn racist NP to initiate dialogue with the authentic representatives of our people. The regime started to talk directly to comrade Nelson Mandela and the ANC leadership. The Harare declaration, the unbanning of the ANC, SACP and PAC, the lifting of emergency regulations, the scrapping of apartheid legislation, the Groote Schuur Minute, the Kempton Park negotiations, the Transitional Executive Council, the Constituent Assembly that drafted our new constitution and the elections are all historic moments of our proud history. We are proud to have been part of this rich history of our people's struggles for liberation. We remain committed to play an even bigger role as we prepare for the next general election.
From the onset, Cosatu took a deliberate strategy to be a broad social movement taking up issues far beyond our workplaces. We built cadres that today continue to serve society in all spheres of our lives. The current national cabinet, the provincial executives and legislators at all three tiers of government include Cosatu cadres. Our contribution to society is far wider than some analysts care to admit.
Today as we celebrate 12 years of our heroic struggles, our country is firmly on the route of dealing with structural problems we inherited from centuries of mismanagement by successive minority governments and capital. At the political level, we have a democracy based on our ideals. We have a constitution with protections for workers and the broader society that many nations can only dream about. We have an open and transparent political system with strong oversight institutions such as the Public Protector, the Constitutional Court, Gender and Youth Commissions etc. We have institutions aimed at promoting participatory democracy such as Nedlac. Most sections of society have access to the current parliamentary system. At a socio-economic level, progress is being made to reach our goal of a better life for all. In some cases these achievements outpace the highest expectations of our people. Health care is being made accessible and affordable for all. Education is being restructured and made compulsory up to the age of 15 years. More and more rural people have access to clean running water and electricity. Progress is being made in addressing land poverty and those displaced by forced removals. The economy is growing, albeit with no job creation. Many more people have access to telecommunications and other basic infrastructure. Increasingly worker rights are being recognised in law.
Cosatu is proud to have taken part in shaping policies that led to the massive delivery of these basic needs to our people. On behalf of workers who were killed, dismissed, victimised, humiliated and condemned to poverty, we can now declare that our struggles and sacrifices were not in vain.
Despite these victories, Cosatu still faces countless challenges. Despite being regarded as one of the strongest trade union federations in the world, we must continue to strengthen our organisation and structures and improve our service to our members. We must build unity amongst workers which should lead to a truly unified non-racial trade union movement in our country. We must recruit millions more into our ranks. April next year will be a month of recruitment and strengthening of our organisation. The education of our membership on political and social issues will be intensified. Through our structures, our members must shape the direction of our unions and the federation. After all, this is what worker control is all about.
We must consolidate and deepen our gains. Many of our people still need decent and affordable houses. In this regard we call on the government to establish a housing parastatal. The Tripartite Alliance must as a matter of urgency conclude the debate on Gear and arrive at an amicable solution. Cosatu calls for a macro-economic policy that will address the unemployment crisis of our country. This must address squarely the problem of domination of our economy by a few monopolies. It must be centered on a job-creating industrial policy and it must close the gap between the poor and the rich, and between management and workers.
As we celebrate our 12th anniversary, we wish to call on the Ministry of Finance to desist from blocking the labour and health ministries' efforts on a training levy and National Health Insurance respectively. We must not succumb to the business view that more training or better health is a form of taxation. To the extent that the management in the finance department are using comrade Trevor's name in vain, he needs to correct it publicly or explain to workers why he is denying them training and better health care. The trade and industry ministry should undertake trade liberalisation with due regard to job losses. We reject any policy whose basic thrust will lead to massive job losses. We call on the government to review its approach to public service restructuring. Massive retrenchments of teachers, nurses and other workers are not in the interests of social transformation.
Over the past few years, Cosatu has tabled many proposals on job creation, training, housing, industrial restructuring, eradication of poverty etc. These positions have not been challenged by anyone, beyond the tired old slogans that they are based on socialist ideas.
Cosatu is a reality. We have a constituency - both employed and unemployed. We are committed to play a meaningful role in shaping our country's future. Just as we triumphed over apartheid, we will win the war for jobs, houses, good governance, training, industrial restructuring and against poverty. Above all, in spite of bad publicity and attacks from some of the media and apologists of Gear and the neo-liberal agenda, we will not fail our country and our membership.
During the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing on the role of business under apartheid, most business organisations claimed they always opposed apartheid and did not benefit from apartheid. Cosatu made its own submission which showed that the opposite was true. We invite our readers to write to The Shopsteward to tell their own stories about the human rights violations by business during the apartheid years - and even now!
Write about issues being debated in your union and elsewhere. Send your letters to:
The Shopsteward
PO Box 32022
Braamfontein
2017
Alternatively you may send your letters by e-mail to: annette@cdc.org.za
It is our job, comrades, to defend our children against the blood suckers, the day-light robbers of the capitalist market place and the workplace. The bosses are not just want to exploit the workers. Now they even want to suck the blood of our children in their early ages. They are cruel as the devil when it comes to profits.
We are not surprised by the position of some parties in Nedlac who are pushing for child labour in South Africa, because our country is still a capitalist state. Victor Feathers, in his book, wrote "Men and women slaved night and day for a meagre livelihood. Children became wage earners at five years of age, and were carried to work by their parents to toil 12 hours a shift, day or night. In thousands of cases, homeless, orphaned children worked, ate and slept on factory premises. If they died at work, as many did, their bodies were thrown into lime pits, kept open for the purpose." As much as we need to develop our economy, we cannot allow our children to be abused by the merciless bosses. Our government has an obligation to protect the 16-year-old children from abuse by the employers.
Workers have a special role to play. We must ensure that change in South Africa remains on the right track but not at the expense of our children. If we cannot defend our children against these wolves, history will call us to account. We must make our communities aware of this brutality which is going to kill the leaders of tomorrow.
Thobile Maso, SAMWU, Port Elizabeth
Please allow me to express my steadfast solidarity with the Cosatu activists arrested in Cape Town during the anti-Indonesian dictatorship demonstrations.
Cosatu's long-standing tradition of struggle and solidarity had a clear and moving expression towards the East Timorese people and their leader, Xanana Gusmao, and our brothers and sisters who strive for democracy in Indonesia and also suffer under the Suharto dictatorship.
We thank you for your stand and the action you undertook for the release of Xanana Gusmao and the liberation of East Timor. Just like during the anti-apartheid struggle, where the release of Nelson Mandela was a turning point in the freedom of the South African people, the release of Xanana Gusmao and his taking up the role of key player in the peace-seeking solution for East Timor is a must for the freedom of the East Timor people.
Your motto, "An injury to one is an injury to all" is an inspiration to the East Timorese. We could not agree more with it. However, right now, our motto could also be "The freedom of one - Xanana Gusmao - is the freedom of all".
Please convey our solidarity to the arrested Cosatu activists and our gratitude to Cosatu's members and militants for their precious solidarity. - Roque Rodrigues, East Timor ambassador to Angola and East Timorese Resistance Representative to Portugal
(Click here for more information on Cosatu's protests)
We are three shopstewards from Cawu. We are attending a training course about trade union leadership and democracy.
The problem facing our members on the ground is the lack of education which allows issues and problems to be solved solely at leadership level. In order for our members to participate fully, we need to educate them so that they can be part of decision making. Union members and shopstewards who are informed and educated are in a better position to criticise and direct leadership.
An example is when leadership tries to go with a decision that is not in the interests of the members or the union. It will be more democratic for the workers to take decisions if they are educated and informed about the issues. If workers have information, then when they are given a report-back they are able to criticise and come up with a concrete decision. It will encourage them to come to the meetings and participate. In this way, attendance at meetings can also be improved.
We also recommend that the following courses must be offered to as many workers and shopstewards as possible:
Yours in the struggle for workers control and democracy.
From the shopstewards who attended a course on leadership and democracy -
SM Xhalisa, GM Mqokolo, H Jezile, Cawu
We are applying to subscribe to your magazine, The Shopsteward, through our union, Communication Workers Union, Potgietersrus branch. We find important information inside the magazine which was not known to most of the workers.
We wish our application will be given a considerate attitude.
Annah Thobakgale, Deputy Chairperson, CWU Potgietersrus
Thanks for your request. There are two ways in which comrades in Cosatu affiliates can get copies of The Shopsteward. You can ask your union, CWU, to order copies to be sent to you as part of the CWU distribution list. Alternatively, members can subscribe to The Shopsteward as individuals - see the subscription form in this edition. We have sent your request to CWU.
The transport which we are provided with is not healthy and safe. Most of the contractors are using tipper trucks as transport for workers to go to work. Most of these tipper trucks have no canopies. Workers have to use plastic to cover themselves during the winter or on rainy days. Even those that do have canopies have no seats for workers to sit on and are very uncomfortable.
Some of the gang trucks load shovels, picks and wheelbarrows inside with the workers being transported to work.
We are in new South Africa and everything must change. Why can't the contractors use buses or taxis to transport workers? You will hear them saying, "There is no law which say we must provide you with transport". Please let our unions take care of this problem. Sometimes one doesn't enjoy being a shopsteward because one will be painted with red-coloured paint.
The management is fighting with the shopsteward left and right. Some of the contractors don't like the unions members but they have to sign an agreement in the contract that the union must be allowed. If someone has a problem, the company refuses to help because the person is a union member. Please! Our union must write letters to the contractors, like Con Roux Construction, to let them stop their nonsense. To Con Roux Construction the best employees are the ones who are outside the union.
I appeal to Cawu / Cosatu to show the contractors like Con Roux Construction that we are powerful and we know what we are doing.
Con Roux employees are members of Cawu, so I request our organisers to give themselves a chance to stop one of the Con Roux trucks in the morning or evening. They will see what happens. I'm not telling a story.
Forward with Cawu!
Forward with Cosatu!
Cawu member, Hammanskraal
We have forwarded your letter to Cawu so that you as workers, together with the union, can look at how best to challenge the problems you face.
I am very much concerned about the Northern Electroplating Works in Hammanskraal. The owner of this factory does not recognise workers as human beings. Every time we start negotiating wages with him, some of the workers are retrenched without notice and with no packages at all.
We are under Numsa, but for the past three years nothing has changed. More than 150 workers have already had their employment terminated without packages. What I wonder about is that the owner has been in and out of courts because of this, but nothing is coming right for the workers. We, the remaining workers, are always threatened with being fired.
Please solve this problem for us. I am sure the owner is still applying slavery. He is a racist. Help us please.
S Lemekoane, Numsa, Hammanskraal
The LRA outlines clear procedures on retrenchments. We suggest you contact your union to assist you in taking up these problems.
Our national anthem has undergone some musical metamorphosis with the advent of the government of national unity since 28 April 1994. The all-inclusive stanzas of the rainbow nation has the following lyrical rhythm.
Nkosi Sikelel'i Africa
Maluphakanyisw'u phondolwayo
Yizwa imithandazo yethey,
Nkosi sikelela thina lusapholwayo.
Morena Boloka Setjhabo Heso,
O Fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho
O se boloke, o se boloke, setjhaba sa heso
Setjhaba sa South Africa
Uit die blou van onse hemel
Uit die diepte van ons see
Oor ons ewige gebergtes waar
Die kranse antwoord gee
Sounds the call to come together
And united we shall stand
Let us live and strive for freedom
In South Africa our land
What are the new features?
The choral fraternity is long on board with this new version and it is internationally rendered to some extent, but yoo! the local mzabalazo fraternity is very much oblivious of this chorally transformed masterpiece.
Dear comrades, has the time not arrived to conform to the unifying new version without reminding amaqabane of the Adam's Apple folk to take off their hats? Have we not graduated from protest politics to affirmative, reconstruction and development politics?
Lastly, grapple with the problem of which palm should rest on your bosom, or clenched fist, as a last resort.
Mabuti ka Mlangeni, CWIU national organiser
What do other comrades think?
Heyta comrades heyta! Viva new South Africa viva! With a humble attitude I am asking Cosatu to assist the workers with the PAYE tax deductions from their salaries. I feel betrayed about what is happening nowadays in the Receiver of Revenue.
Since the 1994 elections, things are going wrong in that office. Workers are busy filling in some forms for rebates, but they are sent from pillar to post. What they get is 20c or 34c due to them. Before the elections, workers were reimbursed satisfactorily. But nowadays it is in vain.
Sometimes the receiver used to divide the workers. If there is a workforce of 500 or 6000, they used to refund a quarter of them from R500, others R200 and others 20c-34c. So that, when they want to form a campaign around PAYE, they must be divided.
They also don't consider how many children a worker has. And they forget that the money they see in the IRP5 is not all. Workers also pay VAT, which is not appearing there. The system of processing our forms is very slow. You fill them in this year and they answer you the following year, as if you are going to get more money. I am appealing that all the forms be reviewed to be checked once more or close down that office.
A Honwani, Sarhwu
I'm sure this letter will touch the heart of the overwhelming majority of our beloved country. South Africa as a country has it own history, as it has been said by others that a country without history is not a country. As a South African citizen and a member of the South African Communist Party, I have this to say.
During the campaign prior to the 1994 general election, we saw and heard leaders of the National Party (NP) or New National Party (NNP) for the first time in the history of the NP/NNP opening gates for blacks to join their party and apologising for what happened during the past. They apologised for not regarding blacks as human beings.
I want to ask the NP/NNP this:
We even heard De Klerk saying that some of the mistakes, killings, shootings, bombings and imprisonment of black people were not known by the NP. How can De Klerk today proudly tell us that, while he was and still is a prominent figure of the NP? Is this true?
This is history. There is no hiding place for De Klerk and the NP.
Calistro Bhila, Malelane
Next year is going to be a busy year for Cosatu. The federation's Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting on 18 and 19 November adopted a comprehensive programme of action to implement the sixth national congress resolutions in the three years leading up to the next congress in the year 2000.
The CEC was the first since the September congress and agreed on major campaigns and activities for 1998. The key emphasis was on implementation of resolutions and the CEC allocated responsibilities to various Cosatu structures, including the national office bearers, the CEC, Exco and affiliates. Time frames for implementation were also set.
The detailed programme is to be discussed in all constitutional structures within the federation and affiliates. Key elements of the programme are:
Cosatu deputy general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi called on all workers to help implement Cosatu's programme of action.
"Each one of us and not the Cosatu office bearers and CEC should define a specific role for ourselves to ensure successful implementation of this programme," he said. "At the next congress we can not afford to make a statement that we are rich in policies but poor on implementation."
The first meeting of Cosatu's new structure, the Central Committee, has been set for June 1998. The CC is the highest decision-making body in between congresses. The June CC is expected to have two major items on its agenda:
Top trade union leaders put Cosatu resolutions into action recently when they demonstrated outside the Indonesian embassy in Pretoria against Indonesia's human rights abuses and to call for the independence of occupied East Timor.
The protest was timed to coincide with Indonesian dictator Mohammed Suharto's visit to South Africa and signalled Cosatu's first steps in implementing its congress resolution on the matter.
Union presidents, general secretaries, other leaders of Cosatu affiliates and Cosatu national office bearers held placards, sang and toyi-toyied outside the embassy, which was heavily guarded by police.
They had come from Cosatu's central executive committee meeting in Johannesburg to participate in the protest. They were joined by a strong contingent from Numsa and members of the East Timor Action Group in South Africa.
Cosatu president John Gomomo and general secretary Mbhazima Shilowa addressed the gathering and handed over a memorandum to embassy staff.
The following day in Cape Town, Cosatu demonstrators were arrested during a protest to mark Suharto's visit to parliament. Among those arrested were Cosatu's Western Cape regional educator and Numsa's regional secretary. They were later released and charges against them dropped.
In its memorandum to the Indonesian embassy, Cosatu said it was totally appalled by the situation in East Timor. The federation expressed its outrage at Suharto's violation of human rights and its brutal methods in dealing with the resistance of the people of Indonesia and East Timor. "Since the invasion of East Timor by the Indonesian army in December 1975, the people of East Timor have only experienced the most horrifying repression and gross violation of their human rights," the memorandum said.
"We are disturbed by the continuous massacres that have characterised the occupation of East Timor. More than 250 000 East Timorese, which represents a third of the original population of East Timor, have been killed in the past 22 years in the most gruesome manner. This is totally unacceptable." Cosatu said it "fully and unequivocally" supported president Nelson Mandela's efforts to resolve the situation of East Timor and pointed out that its demonstration was not an act of spoiling these efforts but to strengthen Mandela's hand.
"We come from a history of gross violation of human rights in this country. It pains us to see other people suffering even worse repression than that inflicted on us by the apartheid regime. Just as we have vowed, as South Africans, that never again will the situation of apartheid be repeated in South Africa, this vow extends to all the places in the world such as East Timor, Indonesia, Nigeria, Swaziland, etc. We will support the oppressed peoples of these countries in every way we can."
Cosatu condemned the shabby treatment meted out by Suharto's regime against trade unions such as the SBSI. Independent trade unions are prohibited in Indonesia. Only state sponsored unions are allowed to operate freely. "We urge him to listen to the voices of the Indonesian people who are denied trade union and human rights. We urge President Suharto to allow free trade union activity in Indonesia. We urge him to refrain from disrupting meetings of independent unions such as was done with the recent congress of the SBSI."
Cosatu called for the release of East Timor's resistance leader Xanana Gusmao and trade union leader Muchtar Pakpahan, whose health is reportedly deteriorating. The Indonesian government has refused to allow Pakpahan to travel overseas to get better health care or allow him access to independent international observers to assess his health.
"We add our voices to the calls that have been made from East Timor,
Indonesia and everywhere else in the world. We urge President Suharto and
his government to begin to observe United Nations resolutions on East
Timor. We urge him to listen to the voices of the East Timorese such as the
Nobel Peace Prize winners James Ramos Horta and Bishop Belo.
"As we have learned in South Africa, the best way to resolve differences is
through negotiations. We think that negotiations conducted in good faith
can go a long way in resolving some of the problems in Indonesia and East
Timor outlined above. We commend the efforts by United Nations secretary
general of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Annan, and president Nelson Mandela
to try to resolve the dire situation of East Timor."
Efforts to build Cosatu local shopstewards councils across the country are well under way. In November the federation's education department ran three-day workshops for local office bearers in all Cosatu regions. The training covers Organising, Planning, Leadership and Communication and a resource book on these areas has been produced for office bearers to complement the workshops.
The training is the result of a process which began in March this year. Educators from all Cosatu affiliates came together to brainstorm around issues for the Cosatu local office bearers training and for inclusion in the resource book.
The book will serve two main purposes. Individuals will be able to read it to gain valuable skills and the book's workshop guides will assist facilitators using it for further training.
The book was piloted at a workshop in the Northern Transvaal region in
August and redrafted following feedback from this workshop. Cosatu's
regional educators attended the pilot to contribute to the process and to
familiarise themselves with the book's content. They are now in a strong
position to run workshops in their own regions.
Labour negotiators will have their hands full in dealing with labour legislation next year.
While the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill was passed in November, discussions on issues not adequately captured in the Bill are likely to continue well into 1998.
Negotiations on the Skills Development Bill (see page 37) are continuing and the Employment Equity Bill, released on 30 November, will now also join the Nedlac negotiating agenda.
Commenting on the passing of the Basic Conditions of Employment (BCE) Bill by the national assembly in November, Cosatu said the Bill was a milestone in the attempt to combat the conditions of abuse and insecurity which workers face as a result of decades of apartheid, colonialism and capitalism.
"Today will go down in the history of the country and the workers' calendar as one of the days that represents a shift away from exploitative working conditions to fair labour standards, in line with our constitution and the RDP. This is a result primarily of the struggles of workers and the programme of the Alliance to transform the apartheid labour market." The new legislation will be a step towards ensuring that workers are given relief from the relentless onslaught of unscrupulous employers on the working conditions of vulnerable workers like domestic and farm workers, Cosatu said.
It said important gains for workers include the following:
These and many other provisions of the Act would change the power relations between vulnerable workers and employers who think that we still live in a period of slavery, Cosatu said.
However, the federation said the government now faced the challenge of ensuring that the Act's provisions would be effectively monitored and enforced. Many employers would not comply with the provisions without being forced to do so.
"The inspectorate should be resourced in a manner that will not allow farmers, small business bosses, unorganised establishments and employers of domestic workers to continue with their exploitative conduct as if nothing has happened," Cosatu said.
While Cosatu leaders have hailed the Bill as a progressive one, they have placed on record that this does not mean the federation is happy with all areas of the new legislation.
They point out that, since the negotiations began, Cosatu compromised on its key demands in order to induce a settlement. A number of issues were resolved through political agreements reached in the Tripartite Alliance. But some of these were not properly captured in the Bill that was finally passed, including the key issue of variation.
Cosatu deputy general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi says that, since then, the Alliance national office bearers have agreed that an Amendment Bill should be introduced to effect these agreements. This will be done before the Bill comes into operation next year.
Vavi said a process to resolve other outstanding matters will be dealt with by the Alliance technical committee. Once this process is agreed on, an Amendment Bill will be referred to Alliance structures for endorsement. Cosatu had also presented a number of proposed amendments to the Labour Standing Committee. Few of these proposals were taken on board. Another outstanding matter which is likely to be discussed is the 18-month exclusion of public sector workers from the Bill's provisions.
"We remain of the view that these outstanding issues can be resolved by the Alliance in the same way that we resolve an earlier impasse," Cosatu said. The federation's parliamentary submission on the Bill had harsh words for business and accused it of endless attempts to delay the negotiations process around the Bill.
While Cosatu had compromised in order to reach a settlement, business had refused to compromise its positions.
"Obviously business is in no rush to see the implementation of new basic conditions legislation as the present Act was drafted by the apartheid regime at a time when the majority of workers were disenfranchised and when employers had a close alliance with the regime."
"In the process, business, supported by their representatives in parliament
- especially the NP and the DP - have exposed their true intentions.
"Under the guise of 'labour market flexibility' (ie undermining worker
rights) they are determined to stop progressive labour legislation which
limits the unfettered power which they enjoyed in the past."
It is up to us as the national liberation movement's different formations to use the country's new Constitution to achieve some of the movement's goals, National Council of Provinces (NCOP) chairperson Terror Lekota told delegates at a Cosatu regional workshop in Johannesburg in November. Lekota said the Constitution was one of the liberation movement's greatest achievements.
"If comrades study it thoroughly, we would see that it advances the ethos of the Freedom Charter," he said. "It is up to the different formations of the liberation movement to use it, not as an end in itself, but as a means to achieve some of our goals."
Lekota was addressing workshop delegates on the workings of the newly established NCOP. He commended Cosatu for its efforts to empower workers in understanding South Africa's new structures of governance and challenged workers to take this new-found knowledge out to their communities. The workshop was the seventh in a series of eight regional workshops organised by Cosatu's parliamentary office and are part of a process of empowering Cosatu regions to interact with legislatures.
The key aims of the workshops were to:
The first day of the workshops covered inputs on Cosatu and the challenges of governance; the national legislative and policy processes; the NCOP and the new Constitution; and the workings of the NCOP, provincial legislatures and local government.
Speaking on the challenges of governance, Cosatu parliamentary office head Neil Coleman said we must be careful to avoid a situation where the reactionary forces use the constitution to stall the country's democratisation process, while the forces on the left relax and leave everything to the parliamentarians.
Cosatu needs to be involved in defending and deepening the democratisation process, he added.
This could be achieved through building the capacity of progressive formations to effectively use the parliamentary processes to their advantage and through mass mobilisation of the people on the ground. In an input on the national legislative and policy process, Cosatu parliamentary office researcher Kenneth Creamer said Cosatu needs to find an effective combination between mass mobilisation and timeous interventions in the law-making process.
"One mistake our comrades make is to criticise the legislation when it is already passed, while they could have intervened before it was passed." Creamer said a crucial question was how we effectively intervene at different levels of government without overstretching the organisation's capacity.
Provincial members of parliament at the workshops identified opportunities for Cosatu regions to intervene at the provincial level, through lobbying ANC members in the provincial legislature and by making submissions to provincial standing committees.
An NCOP member told workshop delegates that most provincial legislatures are in the process of setting up public participation offices so that organisations interested in a particular Bill could receive training in the processes of drawing up submissions to provincial standing committees. On the second day of the workshops, participants heard how Cosatu's Cape Town-based national legislative operation works and brainstormed around key areas such as:
It was clear at the workshops that the NCOP was an important part of building the culture of participatory democracy. Cosatu's engagement with the legislative process offers the federation an important opportunity to develop a cadreship who are well equipped for the tasks ahead in the working class struggle. It would also strengthen Cosatu's own capacity to formulate policies in the interests of the working class.
Thousands of delegates at Cosatu regional congresses on the weekend of 22 and 23 November adopted a wide range of resolutions to take forward the federation's programme in their regions. Congresses, which also elected new regional office bearers, were held in the following regions: Wits, Western Transvaal, Northern Cape/Free State, KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape. The Northern Transvaal region postponed their congress until next year, while the Mpumalanga region held their regional congress earlier this year.
Outsourcing, sub-contracting and retrenchments could lead to a further decline in affiliates' membership in the Northern Cape and the Free State, Cosatu regional secretary Jomo Bonokwane told delegates at the regional congress in QwaQwa on 23 November.
Bonokwane reported that membership in the region had already dropped by 4 794 members since the last regional congress, and now stood at 201 746. He said bosses were "applying all the tricks to maximise their profits" at the expense of the working class. This included a reclassification by the Confederation of Employers of more than 150 000 workers at over 3000 companies as independent contractors.
The public sector was increasingly outsourcing certain functions to private companies. This could further decrease affiliate membership, Bonokwane said. More than 3000 Goldfields workers in the region also face retrenchment.
Farm workers in the region are under threat and Cosatu would have to assist SAAPAWU, whose members often faced eviction after joining the union. On top of this, agricultural production in the region was becoming more untenable due to European Union trade restrictions on South African agricultural products.
On transforming the public sector, the key role of Cosatu's public sector affiliates was highlighted. They would have to put up a tough fight against a lack of public sector transformation as well as corruption and nepotism in the provincial government.
Bonokwane said Cosatu should work towards building a government which would allow ordinary people to have say in the way it was run. The criteria for making a contribution to governance should not be masters degrees in political science or public administration. Workers opinions should be taken seriously as they had a wealth of experience in dealing with people's needs.
Addressing the congress, Cosatu first vice president Connie September called on delegates to support Cosatu's "Summer Offensive" recruitment drive in April next year under the slogan, "Every worker an organiser". She called on delegates to start discussions on the formation of super unions to ensure that members are taken on board in the process in preparation for Cosatu's March 1998 CEC meeting.
She also appealed to the congress to assist SAAPAWU in organising agricultural workers as this was a very difficult sector in which to organise.
The congress adopted a range of resolutions which, if implemented, will go a long way towards overcoming the problems confronting the region:
The following are the new regional office bearers: Silas Diamond, (chairperson, NUM); Elliot Botha (deputy chairperson, Saccawu); Grace Qabethe (treasurer, SAMWU); Jomo Bonokwane (regional secretary).
KwaZulu-Natal's Cosatu regional congress identified poaching of membership between affiliates as a key issue that needed to be resolved to ensure the strengthening of Cosatu and its affiliates in the region.
The matter was referred to the region's first executive committee meeting along with the question of participation in the province's regional economic forum and other socio-economic issues such as industrial development zones and the impact of Gear.
The region has a paid-up membership of 277 796 members from 16 affiliates and 700 worker delegates attended the congress.
Much of the congress was spent on speeches by former Cosatu general secretary Jay Naidoo and SACP chairperson Blade Nzimande as well as a lengthy secretariat report.
Naidoo's speech attracted controversy when he reportedly said Cosatu had failed to present alternative proposals on socio-economic policy and likened the federation to disgruntled whites. Cosatu deputy general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi later said Naidoo's statement had played into right-wing agendas and was a stab in the back.
Nzimande, who is also chairperson of the parliamentary committee on education, called on shopstewards to explain the Education Act to workers and to encourage shopstewards to participate in school governing bodies. He also called on shopstewards to support peace initiatives in the province and to ensure that during the holidays, workers were preaching peace and recruiting people to join the ANC in preparation for the 1999 elections.
Addressing the question of political violence, regional secretary Paulos Ngcobo said counter-revolutionary forces in the province would oppose peace initiatives. Continued violence strengthened their agenda to block transformation through dividing communities and perpetuating the myth that things were "much better during the days of NP rule".
The secretariat report was brutally frank about the threat of HIV and Aids in the province.
"Cosatu has not taken the issue seriously enough," said regional secretary Paulos Ngcobo, adding that many who are HIV positive are Cosatu members by virtue of them being poor and living in hostels and informal settlements. Quoting statistics that one in three people in Northern Natal are HIV positive, Ngcobo said, "In the past we used to laugh and make a joke out of it. Today we cannot do that because most of us have lost friends and relatives and it is opportune for us to rise to the occasion and educate our members.
"In short, comrades, this epidemic is here to stay and we need to embark on a campaign by early next year," Ngcobo said.
Ngcobo proposed that the government be asked for financial assistance for the campaign and that employers be pushed to give workers time off for Aids education.
Other issues raised in the secretariat report included:
The newly elected regional office bearers are: John Zikhali (chairperson); Livingstone Nzuza (vice chairperson); Madala Nhleko (treasurer); Paulos Ngcobo (regional secretary).
Affiliates that have resources should not see themselves as the better than those with few resources, Cosatu's Western Transvaal chairperson Alfred Nebe told delegates at the region's congress in Klerksdorp. Stronger affiliates should begin to share what they have with those that are lagging behind, as this could help a lot in building Cosatu structures at all levels, Nebe said.
The region's 159 192 members from 14 affiliates were represented by 650 delegates at the congress.
Nebe also reminded the congress about the daunting task of campaigning for the ANC in the forthcoming elections. He said the federation would have to answer to the electorate on issues of delivery as well as the RDP.
"The RDP is our brainchild," he said, "and our participation in the Masakhane campaign is of vital importance to ensure delivery of services to the masses of our people."
The congress was also addressed by the MEC for finance in the North West Province, Martin Kusus, who appealed to workers to be careful not to believe the propaganda spread by the enemies of progress that the provincial government is doing nothing.
He said recent surveys by independent research organisations had found that 62% of people in the province responded positively towards the government's performance.
The province was also on the right track as far as affirmative action was concerned. Black people occupied 70% of managerial positions and women 14%.
The congress adopted resolutions on the following:
The REC was tasked with devising plans to implement national congress resolutions in the region.
The union's new office bearers are: Alfred Nebe (chairperson); Sam Marenene (vice chairperson); Winnie Molapo (treasurer); Swayi Mokoena (regional secretary).
Cosatu's Western Cape regional congress has resolved to support the ANC in the 1999 general elections and called on its members to vote for the ANC candidate in the December 3 Elsies River by-elections.
More than 1000 delegates from 16 Cosatu affiliates attended the congress on 22 and 23 November.
Delegates said the National Party had continued to show its inability to improve the lives of working people and was instead focussing on maintaining white privilege.
Newly elected regional secretary Tony Ehrenreich said the congress noted the National Party's continued hostility to working class people. This was clearly demonstrated by the NP's stand on the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill, which was passed by parliament in November. The NP voted against a 40-hour working week and opposed maternity benefits for working women.
NP-sponsored racism in the province also came under the spotlight. Racism was a legacy of apartheid and the NP still encouraged it, delegates agreed. A key source of racism among black people was competition for scarce resources to improve the lives of disadvantaged communities.
"These resources are really the scraps after whites have been allocated the lion's share in the province," said Ehrenreich.
On Cosatu's anti-crime campaign, the congress adopted a resolution detailing a programme to deal with crime and to ensure a safe Christmas for people in the province.
The congress also resolved:
Regional office bearers elected at the congress are: Randy Pieterse (chairperson); Gloudia Litcing (vice chairperson); Jacky Breda (treasurer); Tony Ehrenreich (regional secretary).
The Wits regional congress lived up to the expectations of its theme, "Defend, consolidate and advance social transformation" as delegates vigorously discussed strategies on how to transform the economy to serve the interests of the majority.
Wits is Cosatu's biggest region and 1 163 delegates from 18 affiliates representing 396 256 paid-up members attended the congress in Springs. Outgoing regional chairperson Aubrey Sithole told delegates that the region still faced many challenges. Many locals were still weak and affiliate attendance at regional executive meetings was not up to scratch. "This denies the federation the qualitative contributions it so badly needs," he said.
Cosatu president John Gomomo lashed out at continued poaching of members between affiliates. He said this was even worse in a situation where millions of workers remained unorganised.
Gomomo told delegates that Cosatu's resolution on demarcation was being implemented, including a study on the implications of super-unions. He criticised officials who failed to disseminated valuable information such as The Shopsteward to the membership on the ground. He said he had found copies of the Cosatu magazine lying on administrators' desks. This was a waste of affiliates' limited resources and denied shopstewards access to valuable information.
Gomomo called on shopstewards to enrich their structures by discussing socialism and other ideas to advance our struggle and not to reduce their participation to mere letter-writing.
The argument from individuals within the ANC that the SACP should leave the Tripartite Alliance was dismissed by SACP deputy secretary general Jeremy Cronin as ill-informed and misguided. Such people did not have the interests of the working class at heart, he said.
Cronin said the SACP welcomed Cosatu's resolution on socialism and looked forward to working closely with Cosatu in achieving these objectives.
"Workers and all other socialist forces should avoid falling into the trap of the capitalist class, which uses the mainstream media as the agency of sowing discontent and demoralisation amongst the masses."
The media does not report on the delivery of water to the areas that previously had no access to clean drinking water. It failed to report on the massive support for Nkosazana Zuma's health bills and instead focussed on opposition from minority parties.
The paid-up membership of Cosatu affiliates in the Wits region has grown by more than 60 000 since the 1994 regional congress. However, Wits regional secretary Dan Mohapi said recruitment could have been even higher if unions had devised more effective strategies to recruit workers in outlying areas such as Delmas, Balfour, Westonaria, Randfontein, Heidelburg and Krugersdorp.
In his secretariat report, Mohapi said Cosatu and the SACP should develop joint programmes on building socialism. This should include discussions and education forums.
Among the challenges facing Cosatu in the region were the "Holomeyer-aligned" Mouthpiece Union, taxi violence and how to strengthen the Alliance on the ground.
NUM delegates at the congress said Mouthpiece was fighting the entire Alliance the mining regions. They reported that people involved in Mouthpiece activities were known supporters of the United Democratic Movement and had direct links with UDM leader Holomisa.
NUM delegates appealed to the ANC and the SACP to join the struggle to root out Mouthpiece. A rally will be held in the West Rand on 14 December this year to heighten workers' awareness of the political dangers posed by the Mouthpiece.
Mohapi raised the need to intervene in the law-making processes in the region without overstretching the capacity of the federation. He said the federation had identified shopstewards who would participate in ANC policy units. It is hoped that this deployment will help Cosatu influence ANC thinking and policy positions in the legislature.
An extended REC will workshop how to implement a range of national congress resolutions as well as proposals flowing from the regional secretary's report.
Among the resolutions adopted at the congress are:
The newly elected regional office bearers are: Matserane Wamapena (chairperson); Aubrey Sithole (deputy chairperson), Dan Mohapi (regional secretary); Sipho Mkhize (treasurer).
Delegates at Cosatu's Eastern Cape regional congress have reaffirmed their commitment to a transformed, efficient, equitable and citizen-friendly public sector. Held in East London, 855 delegates representing 209 708 paid-up members in the region attended the congress.
In a declaration on the Eastern Cape public sector, the congress rejected neo-liberal moves such as outsourcing government functions and trimming the public sector in line with Gear's fiscal imperatives.
It called on the provincial government to enter into an Alliance process to retrain redundant civil servants and redeploy civil servants to areas of need in service delivery in the province.
A provincial Alliance summit on service delivery will be called in preparation for the national summit.
Delegates agreed that Gear was leading to cuts in social spending as well as the privatisation of services such as water and electricity. The major thrust of an economic transformation programme based on the RDP should be meeting the basic needs and improving the quality of life of all.
The congress called on members of Cosatu affiliates to expose corruption, nepotism and inefficiency in the public sector and to act as watchdogs in defence of the NDR.
Other resolutions at the congress included:
The congress elected the following regional office bearers: Alfred Mtsi
(chairperson); Xola Phakati (vice chairperson); Lidelwa Dunjwa,
(treasurer); Patrick Ntsengani, secretary.
Socialism will not come about through the adoption of resolutions, nor will it be achieved through disunity in the organisation. It would be realised through the implementation of our decisions and resolutions, SAMWU president Petros Mashishi told delegates at the union's fifth national congress in Johannesburg at the end of October.
Nearly 200 shopsteward delegates and union officials attended the congress, which culminated in celebrations to mark the union's tenth anniversary. Held under the theme "Transforming local government to meet the needs of the people", the congress signified municipal workers' decade-long struggle for socialism and worker democracy.
"What does building of socialism actually mean?" asked SACP secretary general Charles Nqakula. He said detractors of socialism argued that socialism died a natural death in Eastern Europe because it was an unworkable ideology.
"They are simply missing the point, because what actually happened in the Eastern Europe was the collapse of bureaucratic elitism.
"We are continuously told that the public sector is inefficient and that we must privatise in order to make things more cost effective. This is a great myth.
"The private sector is efficient at making profits for a small elite. But the public sector serves public needs. It must help to build a society based on social need and not private profit. The public sector is there to build a society of solidarity and caring. That is how the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the public sector must be measured."
Delegates were eagerly awaiting the speech by Mbongeni Ngubeni, the general secretary of the South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco), in the hope that it would clarify Sanco's position on privatisation for once and for all.
But this was not to be. Instead, delegates felt that for most of the time he spoke in circles. At one point he said that Sanco was opposed to privatisation in principle, but later said the organisation would accept "expertise" from foreign companies if this proved necessary.
Ngubeni added that "there must be a measure of rationalisation" in the speeding up of public service delivery, but that any such rationalisation should lead to black empowerment, among other things.
At the end of the question and answer session, most delegates had the feeling that Sanco's position on privatisation was one of keeping their options open, rather than the clear opposition delegates had hoped for.
SAMWU is one of Cosatu's fastest growing affiliates. At its launching congress in 1987, the union had 15 406 members, two thirds of whom were from the Western Cape. In the space of just ten years, it has grown by a phenomenal 800%. The current membership as approved by the congress is 120 109 paid-up members.
The secretariat report to the congress attributed the membership increase to affiliation to Cosatu; the union's adoption of the principle of non-racialism; and its willingness to embrace the social, political and economic challenges of its members.
The report went on to say that there were those who persistently argued that membership growth could increase more if the union had better benefits for its members.
This view, however, was never weighted against other problems the union was encountering, including a failure to provide efficient service to its membership in some areas.
A survey of TUC members in Britain has found that the majority of workers joined for reasons of workers solidarity, better wages, and employment related benefits. A survey of South African workers conducted by Naledi, established similar reasons for joining unions.
To help consolidate SAMWU's membership growth, the congress resolved to put in place staff development and training courses as a matter of urgency.
Delegates also agreed that organisers should be given adequate funding for travel to ensure that they could reach more members in their areas of jurisdiction.
The secretariat report also raised the thorny issue of the public service union merger. The report stated that the process had initially been upset by the unilateral withdrawal of Potwa from the merger.
"Thereafter a series of difficulties and obstacles plagued the process between Nehawu and SAMWU." This included a failure to agree on the establishment of branches.
The union has learnt from the mistakes of the past and believes that unity between the unions must be informed by the readiness of informed membership and leadership at all levels of the union structures.
For SAMWU, an important first step will be co-operation between Cosatu's public sector affiliates on issues that affect workers in the sector. The congress adopted a resolution which called for the establishment of co-ordinating committees at regional and national level as a means to jointly harness the strength of unions in the public sector.
A shopsteward from the Western Cape drew delegates' attention to the harsh reality that, in its ten year history, SAMWU had never had a woman national office bearer.
"This is against the principles of socialism which the union has championed over the years," she said. "This congress is different because we as women are going to push very hard for the election of women as national office bearers."
Despite its progressive constitutional provisions to address the visible absence of women in union leadership positions, SAMWU went into its congress as one of those unions without women national office bearers. But the congress changed this trend when Desiree Thloaele, a shopsteward from North West Province, was elected to the position of second vice-president, for the first time in the history of the SAMWU.
"I knew that through hard work and determination women would be elected to the leadership positions, irrespective of quotas," she said.
SAMWU's constitution compels all its structures to ensure that women have at least 30% representation in its structures. The constitution also makes provision for the demarcation of specific women constituencies for the purposes of shopsteward elections. The union expects this policy to be implemented before its NEC meeting in November.
In an attempt to promote gender equality in the union, the congress resolved that all regions should ensure that women are elected into leadership positions. This should be on the basis of their abilities, skills and leadership qualities and not for tokenistic purposes, as this would be contrary to the union's constitution.
The congress also resolved that SAMWU regions should ensure that women structures are set up by March 1998, prior to the SAMWU Women's Charter Conference.
The union's new office bearers are: Petrus Mashishi (president); Xolile Nxu (first vice president); Desiree Thloaele (second vice president); Roger Ronnie (general secretary); Mncedisi Nontsele (deputy general secretary); Klaas Rens (national treasurer).
Campaigning in the forthcoming elections should be informed by an electoral platform based on the principles of the RDP.
The union called for a local electoral platform which will focus on housing, water, electricity, roads and public transport at affordable rates, underpinned by the principles of public ownership.
That the ANC-led government should implement a new macro-economic policy with RDP objectives. SAMWU, through Cosatu, should embark on a campaign involving MDM structures to resist elements of Gear such as subsidy cuts, privatisation and labour market flexibility.
Calls on international community and international secretariat to join and support its campaign to scrap the apartheid debt.
The union calls for a bargaining conference for the purpose of dealing with job grading, the social wage, conditions of service, wage gap between grades, levels of bargaining, agency shop, long-term wage strategy, worker benefits internal to SAMWU and a capacity-building programme for negotiators.
Mechanisms should be put in place to recall councillors who are not accountable to the communities they represent. A code of conduct for councillors should be developed to be implemented by the Alliance.
The congress resolved that the union set aside sufficient funds for staff development and training and that the necessary programmes be put in place as a matter of urgency.
That the union's recruitment of municipal employees be intensified to increase the union's majority in the bargaining council. The congress set the union a target of 150 000 members by the next congress.
SAAPAWU delegates and representatives of various non-governmental organisations have appealed to the government to put an end to child labour and conditions of slavery on South African farms. The appeal was made at a SAAPAWU conference on child labour in Johannesburg on 28 October 1997. The conference took place at the same time as an International Labour Organisation (ILO) conference on child labour in Oslo.
The conference faced the challenge of defining the age at which a person should be classified as a child. ILO Convention 138 defines a child as a person from 0-14 years of age. South Africa's constitution classifies any person younger than 18 years as a child while the Department of Labour regards any person younger than 16 as a child.
"In other words, a 16-year-old can acquire an identity book, driver's license and fire arm license. These are the contradictions we have to grapple with in South Africa," explained SAAPAWU projects co-ordinator Thamsanqa Myeza.
Although most delegates agreed that ideally the definition should include people below 18 years of age, they nevertheless resolved not to add more confusion to the issue. As a compromise, conference delegates agreed that 15 years should be the cut-off age, in line with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and ILO convention 138.
SAAPAWU research shows that South Africa has about 1.7 million farm workers, of which 85 000 are children whose ages range from 5 to 14 years. According to recent ILO figures, there are about 250 million working children worldwide. More than 90% of these are in Third World countries, working mostly in fishing and in agriculture.
The conference agreed that children should not be organised, as this would imply that SAAPAWU accepts their status as workers.
Cosatu deputy general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told the conference that farmers were still clinging to the old "baasskap" mentality, despite the fact that South Africa has a new political dispensation.
"It is regrettable that we lost the battle that there should be a threshold in the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill for age 16 to be regarded as an employable age. This could have made the employment of 15 years old children illegal, because they are supposed to be at school," he said.
"Child labour is not regarded as an offence," said Sam Tshabalala from the Centre for Human Rights, "because police do not see it as their duty to arrest those who exploit children. In fact, the police and some of us buy newspapers from these children who are supposed to be at school." He said child labour does not only occur on farms, but is rampant in townships, especially in bricklaying yards, which employ seven-year-old children to load 400 bricks a day.
The conditions under which children work and the wages they receive are appalling and help to continue the vicious cycle of poverty, he said. Tshabalala accused parents of contributing to child labour by forcing their children to work at an early age.
"What is so painful is that these parents take the wages of their children and use it to buy liquor," he said.
The child labour problem is compounded by the lack of a compulsory education system and the fact that large numbers of children from neighbouring countries work on farms, said Mathilda Bergman from the Department of Labour.
She said a solution to the problem of child labour on farms needs a holistic approach as it involves a number of government departments such as education, justice, home affairs and welfare. Unless all these departments work together, the question of who is responsible for the elimination of child labour will remain entangled in bureaucracy.
Eva Tabor of SID, a Danish project dealing with child labour in Southern Africa, blamed globalisation and its search for more profits at the expense of human rights for the increase in the use of child labour. She appealed to NGO and SAAPAWU representatives to also globalise their struggle against child labour.
In an attempt to eradicate child labour and conditions of slavery on the farms, the conference took a number of resolutions, including the following:
The International Labour Organisation estimates the number of working children worldwide to be a staggering 250 million, of which at least 120 million between the ages of five and 14 years work full time. On 22 and 23 February this year, a group of leading child rights and human rights organisations from Asia, Africa, Europe and America met in the Hague to plan a Global March Against Child Labour.
They agreed to organise a Global March that would begin in January 1998 and end in the first week of June in Geneva, when representatives of governments, business and unions meet to draft a new ILO Convention on child labour. The mandate for the march will be: "To mobilise worldwide efforts to protect and promote the rights of all children, especially the right to receive a free meaningful education and to be free from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be damaging to the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development." The march will involve a combination of international foot marches and bus caravans linked with an extensive programme of local and national demonstrations, events and advocacy campaigns.
The aim of the global march is to raise awareness of the issue of child labour to an unprecedented height and to motivate governments, businesses and citizens to take direct action to address this injustice.
The campaign will be launched in South Africa on 20 November 1997, in
Johannesburg. The Global March will reach South Africa on 21 March 1998.
- Land Update, October 1997
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings on business were a damning indictment of the role of white business in violating human and trade union rights in the apartheid era.
This was evident, not only in Cosatu's lengthy submission, but in what business representatives themselves did and didn't say.
Cosatu wanted business to confess to their support for apartheid laws such as job reservation and pass laws; how they paid starvation wages, employed children in farms, used prison labour, refused to recognise black trade unions as well as denied them any other basic rights.
"Can we trust business to fully and with humility disclose their role in defending apartheid?" Cosatu asked on the eve of the hearings. "We doubt. Business is known to want the whole world to believe that it was not the heroic struggles of the struggling masses that brought about an end to apartheid, but the struggle for reform by capital."
"How soon we forget," said Cosatu. And, perhaps predictably, submissions by representatives of white business claimed they had always opposed apartheid. "What could we have done?" they asked. Their only concession was that, with hindsight "they could have done more". "For that we apologise," they said.
Key business organisations such as the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob), the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut (AHI) as well as business giants such as Barlow Rand, Rembrandt, Sanlam, Anglo American and the Chamber of Mines, said they never benefitted from apartheid. They used fancy footwork and reams of statements to back up their claims.
But submissions by Cosatu and others at the hearings debunked the myth of white business opposition to apartheid.
"Apartheid with its institutionalised racism masked its real content and substance - the perpetuation of a super-exploitative cheap labour system. We all know that the primary victims of this system were the black working class and the primary beneficiaries the white ruling elite. To deny this reality today is a perversion of truth, reconciliation and justice," said Cosatu.
"The idea that the private sector's chief sin, if indeed there were any, was that it failed to 'speak out against a system that was against economic logic' is spurious. Capitalism in South Africa was built and sustained precisely on the basis of the systematic racial oppression of the majority of our people. Indeed, historical records show that:
"The historical record does not support business claims of non-collaboration. A vast body of evidence points to a central role for business interests in the elaboration, adoption, implementation and modification of apartheid policies throughout its dismal history. Apartheid's labour laws, pass laws, forced removals and cheap labour system were all to the advantage of the business community.
"For much of its history, apartheid was enormously profitable, and South African business fell over itself, not just to secure state contracts and subsidies, but to sustain the cheap labour policies which underlay such profitability. Viewed in simple monetary terms, there is absolutely no doubt that the major beneficiaries of 40 years of apartheid policy were business interests, including many of its self proclaimed liberal representatives."
From its inception, COSATU vowed to engage in struggles with other progressive organisations to bring about democracy in our country. A core feature of that heroic resistance was the tireless struggle by the working people for better working conditions as well as to challenge both employers and the state policies of apartheid.
"We were determined to wage a relentless struggle for the basic rights of workers to be regarded as human beings, both on the factory floor as well as in the land of their birth. Any attempt to divorce the link between the struggle for basic trade union rights on the factory floor from the broader struggle for human rights in society was not only undesirable but impossible in the South African context."
Cosatu said business had directly cooperated with the apartheid state and had taken measures to crush independent trade unions.
"That fact that trade unions survived is due entirely to the strong organisation and commitment of thousands of workers, despite the suffering and sacrifices endured. These are the faceless mine workers, unknown women in the farms and domestic service, those workers who were killed in strikes and other political activities, the dismissed workers who were fighting for better rights and working conditions as well as those women who remained in the rural areas and refused to be broken by the migrant labour system." The federation's submission said the attitudes of white South African business today was reminiscent of those expressed by German businessmen just after World War II.
"It would appear that none of them ever supported apartheid and its institutions, profited from it, or (worst of all) ever voted for the National Party. Listening to current accounts, it would seem that South African businessmen (for they are mainly white men) courageously and openly opposed the National Party and its obscene apartheid policies at every turn.
"Indeed business - just like the National Party - has claimed for itself the mantle of the force which effectively brought apartheid to its knees!" A few businessmen had somehow escaped this rampant historical amnesia and still remember some of their past actions. "They appear genuinely embarrassed both by the claim that business interests destroyed apartheid and by the enormous profits made from apartheid. This group now tends to claim that they had no alternative - they were simply obeying the law. Like millions of Germans who were 'only following orders', their only crime, it seems, was cowardice," Cosatu said.
"While we acknowledge the fact that a few individual businessmen and companies did speak out against apartheid before it became fashionable to do so, hardly any of them declined to partake of the vast profits created by decades of cheap labour policies.
"With a few honourable exceptions, very few of them recognised the right of black workers to organise in trade unions until more than 30 years after the NP came to power."
While business was willing to negotiate with white workers and to recognise their unions, black workers were persecuted for daring to organise themselves into trade unions, or to be seen to be questioning, let alone challenging, the decision of the "baas".
Few declined to use punitive labour legislation against black workers. Almost none of them stood aside from the chase for state contracts and subsidies, particularly those associated with the armaments industry.
This is in the main due to the fact that over and above its specific policies, apartheid reflected a mind set, an almost philosophical consensus, a discourse of natural privilege, shared by the vast majority of white South Africans, including liberal business. These themes pre-dated apartheid and remain prevalent in the discourse of business, even in the new South Africa. This was a racialised mind set of self and other. It was a discourse which classified South Africans into sets of racial categories - seeing one as naturally superior and skilled and the other as inherently inferior and backward. The terms of this dualised discourse have changed over time. In the 1940s, it was depicted as the division between the so-called "civilised" and "primitive" sections of the population. Today it is characterised as the so-called "first world/third world" dichotomy in the population.
Despite the changes in terminology, two things have remained constant in this discourse. The first is that, at least since the adoption of the "civilised labour policy" in the 1920s, these are overwhelmingly racial and class categories.
While a few educated and wealthy blacks have recently been granted admission to the "first world group", we all know that the so-called "third world population" refers to poor and dispossessed black South Africans. Indeed, much of the discussion about the possible growth path for the South African economy focuses on the obstacles to growth represented by the fact that this "third world population" unrealistically aspires to "first world" living standards. Seldom however, are we told that our "first world population" lives way beyond the means of what remains a relatively poor country.
The second is that whatever its current terms, this dichotomy has justified the privileges and power of one group and the dispossession and poverty of the other as somehow inherent and in the natural order of things. This has meant that these profound inequalities of power and privilege were never described as the result of human agency, of conscious political, economic and social policies adopted by the "first world population" which held a monopoly of power and privilege. Rather, such vast differences are seen as somehow natural to the human condition. It is for this reason that, even in the new South Africa, attempts by the black majority to change the existing distribution of wealth and income in their country somehow runs counter to nature. The myth continues that only those in the "first world population" know how to bring about social change.
The development of an industrial and mining economy required the forced conquest of the indigenous African people. The colonial period sowed many of the seeds of political oppression we saw entrenched in apartheid legislation later. The systematic denial of trade union rights to black workers in the earlier industrial years was designed to subjugate and entrench an inferior status on black workers. The enforcement of the migrant labour system destroyed the fabric of millions of black families in Southern Africa. It was a gross human rights violation that will take us many generations to recover from.
The Industrial and Conciliation Act of 1924 entrenched the racial exclusivity of white workers acting in concert with the white bosses and a white ruling clique. Security legislation throughout the pre-democracy period was used to ensure the brutal suppression of the rights of black workers.
In the sixties, South Africa recorded one of the highest economic growth rates in the world. Much of this came on the back of the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority, the Sharpeville shootings and the banning of the ANC and PAC in 1960. This period saw the National Party government implementing a host of totalitarian measures, including repressive security legislation giving almost unlimited power to the security forces and resulting in the arrest, imprisonment and execution of many trade union activists.
The Bantustan system was implemented in earnest by both the state and employers. In cities, Africans were simply temporary workers. Labour laws were tightened further with the twin aims of controlling workers and channeling their labour to meet the needs of the bosses. Real wages declined for black workers.
The golden age of apartheid brought no fruits to the enslaved black workers and lead to the outbreak of the mass strikes of 1973. This was a spontaneous reaction to the super exploitation and poverty that black workers faced. The response was predictable. Co-operation between the police and the bosses in crushing strikes, often violently, was commonplace. Mass arrests and dismissals were the order of the day. There was no discernible action by the bosses to distance themselves from the naked brutality of the apartheid system.
The rejection of toothless liaison committees and the struggle for the right to genuine trade unions forced the apartheid state and employers to rethink their strategies. The apartheid state responded by appointing the Wiehahn Commission which sought to combine reforms with repression. It sought the co-option of the minority black urban workers through the granting of Section 10 rights. At the same time, it entrenched racial divisions amongst workers. Trade unions which had essentially white executives were allowed to register, while those that were dominated by a black militant, mainly migrant and hostel-based leadership could not register. Those independent trade unions that did register insisted on the principle of non-racialism and refused to exclude migrant workers. The fact that we today have non- racial and democratic trade unions is as a result of struggles by workers and not through the solidarity of the bosses.
Trade unions were targeted by the national security management system created by the generals and police chiefs which served to co-ordinate all the components of the "total strategy" to ensure the maintenance of apartheid rule. Input and representation on the secretive security structures extended beyond state security organs to include members of the business community such as Mayer Kahn of SAB, town councils and local industry.
In addition, the Stratcom wing of the security branch usually dealt with operations affecting trade unions. These operations included violent and non-violent methods. Operations ranged from disappearances and abductions to theft of trade union subscriptions to a major wave of arson and bombings of our offices. In was in this period that our headquarters, COSATU House, was destroyed in a bomb blast, a crime that the apartheid state now acknowledges it committed.
On 24 February 1988, the regime effectively banned 17 organisations as well as promulgated far-reaching restrictions against COSATU, in effect declaring our political activity illegal. While we were not ourselves banned, we were now denied the right to express our political views and vision. This clampdown on COSATU was never opposed by the business community. In fact, in a meeting held with them in Broederstroom, they refused to condemn the state for its actions. These are the same people who today would want us to believe that they were opponents of apartheid.
Cosatu's proposal to the TRC on business reparations to correct the wrongs it committed under apartheid:
Black workers, Africans and women in particular, were victims of apartheid oppression and exploitation. The denial and violation of our rights as well as our exclusion from political and economic activity were not a natural phenomenon, but based on systematic planning and policy implementation by the regime and business.
We want to differentiate between two important issues:
In order to say something about ordinary capitalist preoccupations, it has to be made very clear that the TRC mandate, definitions, and visions of the abuse of yesterday and the non-abuse of tomorrow systematically excludes all the "ordinary" crimes of business.
If the only meaningful reparation is a future without abuses, this hinges on how we define these abuses, as the following examples illustrate:
There are other forms of reparation:
The capacity to abuse comes from unequal power and wealth. To get rid of these inequalities means challenging the basis of this inequality, which lies in the private ownership of capital. It is in this regard that we propose the following:
A major source of inequity in the society is the huge differentials in earnings between workers and management. These differentials are based on the apartheid wage gap which existed between white and black. The gap remains one based largely on colour.
International experience shows unambiguously the importance of a well-trained workforce to high growth economies. The development of a country's human resource is a sustainable advantage in the search for new markets. It offers real equity benefits to workers, through increased pay for increased skills. It leads to increased productivity. It provides skills to overcome the skills bottlenecks which previously choked off growth. Investment in training and retraining is a key means of addressing one of the structural problems in the economy Ñ the low level of skills. It will lead, through increased effectiveness of workers, to sustainable job creation in industry.
During apartheid, most employers neglected to build factories as well as invest in the rural areas and in black areas. Those who did were only interested in the cheap labour system associated with the bantustan system. The commission should ensure that all of those who were investors in the so-called black spots, who left as soon as labour laws became applicable, should either return or be forced to pay reparation damages to workers in these areas.
Cosatu supports the recommendations of the Leon and the Myburgh Commissions on these issues.
The current political and social situation has been brought about by the relentless struggles of workers. We believe that those who are currently enjoying the fruits of our struggle and have been our oppressors should make a contribution towards a remembrance for workers. A Workers Museum encompassing the struggles for trade union rights in our country since industrialisation began would be a fitting gesture and remembrance to the fallen heroes and heroines - the workers of our land.
During the apartheid era, a lot of video footage was taken by the security forces and, in isolated cases, by employers. It is our view that their usefulness, if ever there was any, has come to an end. Many people were arrested, detained or killed after various union activities. We call on the TRC to request the return of all materials that were taken by the police from our various offices as well as materials such as photos and videos which were taken by them without our consent.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, there was massive capital flight from South Africa. Much of this capital flight was illegal and was disguised by the over invoicing of imports and the under invoicing of exports. We propose that the TRC considers granting amnesty to those business people who come forward to acknowledge this unpatriotic deed on condition they disclose fully what they did and how they did it as well as reinvest such funds in the development of the disadvantaged communities.
Cosatu strongly believes that big business in our country directly benefitted from the decades of apartheid enslavement of the majority. It would be nice that all of us were freedom fighters as is so often portrayed by those who have been the direct beneficiaries of apartheid. In fact, too often we hear the view that 'I did not know what atrocities were committed in my name to maintain my privileges'.
Common decency would require the humility of saying "I was wrong and I commit myself to helping make our new South Africa a better place to live for all".
As raised elsewhere in the submission, we will judge South African employers on the basis of full disclosure and how they behave in the future on issues such as basic trade union rights, the closing of the apartheid wage gap and allocating sufficient resources for the training of workers, especially African and women workers. As workers we are ready to forgive them. Our only condition is full disclosure and real commitment to the future.
The majority of South Africans require no more and no less.
ANC acting secretary general Cheryl Carolus took time off from her busy schedule just three weeks before the ANC's 50th national conference in December to talk about the challenges facing the ANC.
What are the major issues and challenges facing the ANC as you go into your national conference?
Our objectives as Cosatu, the ANC and the South African Communist Party in the Alliance are common ones and, within this big picture of transformation, we all have particular responsibilities. So we welcome this opportunity to speak to Cosatu members, through The Shopsteward, about what we hope to achieve through the conference.
This conference has the same kind of importance and magnitude as the 1969 Morogoro conference and the 1985 Kabwe conference. These were watershed conferences in defining new directions for the ANC. The December conference will be our first opportunity to do a serious evaluation of the new site of struggle that we have occupied since 1994, that is government.
When we went to conference in Bloemfontein in December 1994, it was too early for us to understand what we have inherited, what the challenges are and what needed to be done to utilise the political power we had won to transfer power to other aspects of people's lives.
At this conference we will for the first time be able to sit with the different components of the ANC - our branch delegates, our leadership in our provincial executive committees and national executive committee and the comrades we deployed into government - to look at where we have come from and how we have coordinated to bring about effective transformation in our country.
We need to evaluate what it is we inherited. We all know that on 11 May 1994, when president Mandela walked into the Union Buildings, nothing had changed. Black people were still by and large poor people, workers were still working under very dangerous conditions, very large numbers of people who wanted to work were unemployed and so on. So we knew that it was not freedom that we won on 27 April 1994. What we did win was an aspect of freedom. And that was political freedom.
The challenge we outlined for ourselves in 1994 was to use political power to transfer power to other aspects of people's lives, economically, socially and politically. Even politically, we had not transferred power completely. We inherited a parliament which was completely unreconstructed. The rules by which parliament was run were hostile to the process of transformation.
In many ways we underestimated the challenges. We did not begin to understand how deep apartheid, and fascism, in this country had run. At this conference we will take a serious look at policy. We know that we went into government armed with the RDP, which was a major achievement, quite comprehensive and a very good tool for integrated development in South Africa. But it was a framework.
We had hoped to immediately start working on delivery. This was possible with the free health care for women and children, the school nutrition programme and so on. But we realised that it was also very important to have a policy framework within which we deliver. So a lot of time since our last conference, in government in particular, was spent in fleshing out the framework which the RDP spelt out. So we would take the section on health or education, for example, and translate that into a broader policy paper and then into different kinds of laws which would give legal force to those policy papers.
One of the transformational aspects we implemented was to give South Africans a greater say in legislation and policy positions. This meant long standing committee meetings, where people could make presentations. We learnt that participatory democracy takes time and that is something we need to factor in.
This conference will also look back at the strategy and tactics document adopted at the last conference and how appropriate it is to the current circumstances. This document was informed by the notion of a government of national unity and how we relate to that. It looked at how we harness the widest range of social forces in South Africa to begin to tackle the many tasks of transformation. This time round we will be looking at the implications of the fact that, after 1999, there is no constitutional obligation on us to have a government of national unity.
We will also look at the changing political scenario. We believe that we have achieved many of our objectives. Today, with the exception of a few very regrettable situations, we have by and large broken the back of political violence and we are beginning to normalise our democracy in that regard.
All of this depends on the state of the ANC's organisational machinery, its levels of cadre development and the level of understanding among ANC members of what we were trying to do and of the mandate of the 1994 conference. So we will also look at the state of our organisation. We will look at the different structures that make up the organisation and how appropriate they are under the new circumstances. We will also look at a range of other issues like our code of conduct, the disciplinary code, the ANC constitution and other matters which relate to the culture of the ANC.
How would you characterise the ANC under these new conditions?
The ANC is still very much a broad liberation movement which works in alliance with a broad range of other revolutionary forces. The primary alliance is of course the Tripartite Alliance.
When our political detractors keep saying that we must become a "proper" political party it is a cheap propaganda trick to essentially say the ANC must cut its ties with Cosatu and the SACP. We actually take exception to this.
We are proud of the fact that we are a liberation movement. What we won in the democratic elections of our own government for the first time in the history of this country, was the establishment of a vehicle which could take us forward to our freedom and to the democratisation of our country.
But in many ways the struggle became more difficult and more intense. Because we now had an opportunity to actually build freedom, not just to oppose the forces which deprived us of our freedom. In many ways those challenges are much tougher now and need much greater cooperation of all our people in South Africa.
History will judge us, because we are the people who had the opportunity to build freedom. Poverty is still rife in our country, there is still huge inequality. We cannot possibly say we must disband the liberation movement, because this can only happen once we can say our liberation is now complete and conclusive. We are a long way off from having reached that point. At the same time, it is important to understand that the new situation is throwing up new challenges. We need to look at how we adapt ourselves to best carry out the tasks and adapt to these new conditions. For example, over the past three years since our last conference, there has never been a shadow of doubt of the need for the Tripartite Alliance and for a broader alliance of progressive social forces in South Africa. But we can't run away from the fact that one of the parties of the Alliance, the ANC, is now the leading component of government. And one of the tasks of the Alliance in this period is to ensure that government stays on the path of its mandate that was determined by the electorate in 1994 - the broad framework of the RDP.
How do we deal with the fact that from time to time we differ?
Cosatu congress already started discussing this and the ANC should also discuss it. This doesn't mean that we are for one moment contemplating any kind of break in the Alliance. If anything, it is precisely because we want to strengthen the Alliance that we must be clear about the new challenges and the new difficulties which the new situation may put into our relationship.
Within the ANC, we need to look, for example, at the role of our caucuses and how we relate to them. They have no official standing within the ANC now, but they are important vehicles in the transformation process. They are a very important link in the policy chain of the ANC, both in fine-tuning policy as well as implementing policy into law and then monitoring and evaluating how these policies impact on society.
We also have to look at how we improve the relationship between the ANC's constitutional structures and the structures of governance and of legislation, which is parliament at national and provincial level.
Cosatu has decided to deploy some of its leadership to stand for election to the ANC NEC. What impact could this have if they are elected?
From the ANC side, we recommended very strongly that Cosatu allow its cadres, including its senior cadres, to stand for positions in the ANC's national executive committee and at provincial level. We believe that the ANC can benefit very greatly from the perspectives which those comrades would bring. But those comrades would serve as ANC cadres - they are not there in a federal way as Cosatu representatives. They are there as ANC members who come with a Cosatu perspective, one which is lacking in the ANC at the moment because of Cosatu's decision last time round to withdraw the comrades who did very well in the NEC elections.
We think the ANC membership was deprived of insights which we otherwise just get in a very formal setting in the Alliance. The ANC is a broad liberation movement and it represents a large range of interests. But we say unequivocally in our strategy and tactics documents that primarily the ANC represents the poor in this country. And that we mobilise even those who are not poor in support of our objectives to address the needs primarily of poor people.
Working people in our country are a very important component. They are poor people who are underpaid, work under dangerous conditions often and are deprived of many basic rights which workers in civilised democracies ought to have. They are also people who have families who are unemployed, who have children who go to terrible schools and so on. And they bring with them another perspective into the ANC. That is why we think it is so important for Cosatu leadership to make themselves available for election to the NEC.
We have business people who sit on the decision-making structures of the ANC and we value their contribution, because they bring perspectives which none of us have. At the moment, because of Cosatu's decision, we lack a perspective which comes from organised workers and workers who are rooted amongst the poor in this country.
The ANC discussion document says the ANC is a multi-class movement with a bias to the black working class and the poor. But there is a view in Cosatu that the ANC at times, particularly in government, tends to present itself as a neutral referee. Could you comment on this?
One of government's roles is from time to time to mediate conflicting interests in society. But governments have mandates. The ANC said in its election campaign that its priority was the eradication of poverty and inequality in South Africa and on that basis the ANC achieved an overwhelming majority mandate. That mandate was based on the RDP. And we expect the ANC to implement that. We would strenuously resist any notion that the ANC is ever neutral. The ANC has a very clear mandate. So the ANC is not some neutral umpire that stands outside.
Especially when there are conflicting interests in society, the ANC must and will choose in favour of the most disadvantaged sections of our community.
Sometimes the ANC as government also needs to represent interests of people who are not organised. Nedlac, for example, is a critical component of policy-making and law-making in South Africa which impacts on transformation in a substantive way. It represents organised forces, like the government, the labour movement and business. We have to be careful that we don't marginalise the interests of the most marginalised people who we ought to be taking care of. So when we look at the role of government, one of the challenges must be to create a voice for those people who, because they are not organised, cannot be accommodated in the structures of governance which we have at the moment.
Your discussion document on the character of the ANC says the ANC must be careful not to represent simply the interests of a new emerging elite but ensure that it continues to represent the interests of the majority. It says one way of doing this is to maintain the ANC's mass participatory nature. How can this be strengthened?
It means that the involvement of our people must remain a central part of keeping the ANC and the project for change and transformation alive in our country. The ANC's strength has always been its rootedness amongst the masses. An ANC government, no matter how smart it is and how many bright revolutionaries it has, can't change things by itself. To change our country we need the active participation of ordinary women and men and young people in this process. So maintaining the mass character of the ANC is very important.
It has to do with mass mobilisation for change. One of the many good things about South Africa is the fact that ordinary people have a sense of responsibility and willingness to participate in change. They want to take responsibility for their own lives in a way that they took responsibility for their own freedom.
But, as Cosatu noted at the congress, the progressive forces have abandoned mass mobilisation to right-wing forces. Many demonstrations on our streets are of those who want to resist fundamental transformation.
As the ANC we haven't found a formula to deal with that. Cosatu activities over the past while in defence of worker rights were very good examples of how we can mobilise. In some ways Cosatu was sending a message to government, but primarily to society as a whole, especially to those forces who want to hold the process of change hostage on the basis of the fact that they have money. It was saying, yes, investment is very important, in financial terms. But there is also human investment in this country. If workers are not going to buy into the process then this country is not going to go very far. So we need to look at how, in the new situation, do you creatively use the tool or weapon of mass mobilisation.
For example, it is a pity that, when the education bills came in front of parliament, there wasn't a huge demonstration by students, parents and teachers, in support of those bills.
The president's and deputy presidents programme in provinces, conducting People's Forums and meeting with sectoral organisations in provinces and with branches have been critical components for us.
Mass participation means giving ordinary people structures and processes where they can interact with the leadership and the processes of change. And we have started a system now, which is very uneven, of getting our councillors to start operating, not in stadiums, but in ward meetings, and interacting with people. That is very important.
We need to workshop on how to drive this mass participatory processes under the new circumstances. How do you engage constructively with people? In the past when we called people together in street committees and so on, it was usually to attack the council. How do we have meetings where our councillors are not defensive but are very open to the participation of residents in local development? These are issues which conference will be able to look at.
Given its staffing cuts, will the ANC be able to effectively address the need for cadre development, capacity building and policy formulation within the ANC?
The ANC went through a process of restructuring after the NEC Lekgotla last year and there were two reasons for this.
Firstly, we said that the situation has changed so we need to bring about certain changes within our organisational framework and this has had implications for our full-time staffing.
Secondly, we couldn't afford to operate like before and needed to cut our operational costs and put in motion what Cosatu and many unions have done, sustainable funding capacity.
The policy department will in fact grow bigger because we realise that policy is a crucial responsibility at this phase in our struggle. It is the one area where there are differences of opinion amongst ourselves and between ourselves and our Alliance partners and other MDM forces. So we recognise that we need to beef up that capacity very substantially. There is no question that the ANC constitutional structures formulate policy. And we expect our comrades in government to implement those policies and fine-tune them, in consultation with the ANC constitutional structures. But we don't want to start creating parallel processes.
The ANC has a set of goals and objectives and principles, and we mustn't confuse those with policies, with strategies or tactics. Policies should be quite durable and move us towards our goals of deracialising our society, democratising society, building a non-sexist society and full equality between all our citizens. Formulating policy has to be a dynamic process. That is why we need to beef up that componen