Volume 8, No. 3 - June/July 1999

COSATU SPECIAL CONGRESS 8 - 20 August
TRAINING OF LEADERSHIP

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EDITORIAL COMMENT

By the time this edition of The Shopsteward comes out we will be heading towards the Special Congress at Gallagher Estate. This is a very important Congress for the Organisation. The theme of the Congress is "Consolidate and Advance Social Transformation for Socialism". COSATU has come a long way over the past five years since the first democratic elections in 1994. Workers have played a crucial role in shaping the future of our country.

In the last edition of The Shopsteward we focussed on elections and why workers should vote for the African National Congress. You heeded our call and brought about an overwhelming victory for the ANC. However, your task is not over.

This Congress will be looking at how the organised working class can continue to play a meaningful role in the socio-political affairs of our country. We will be looking at the state of the Federation and discuss ways of building a strong united vibrant COSATU. We need to consolidate resolutions from the last Congress and from the Central Committee and find creative ways to implement them - resolutions on building women's leadership, training of shopstewards, recruitment, etc.

We will also be looking at the Alliance and how to build it. This is not a new area. We are all familiar with the proposals which have been circulated over the past few months around building the Alliance based on a strong programme of social transformation. This Congress needs to consolidate those discussions into a workable programme of action.

We will also be discussing economic transformation of our country. COSATU has always believed that without economic liberation, our political liberation is meaningless. Transformation must mean that the living conditions of the poor and working class are fundamentally improved. We intend to formulate a detailed and clear programme around socio-economic transformation.

Lastly, we will be electing new Office Bearers to lead the Federation into the next millennium. Over the past few months we have faced difficult times coping with four of our Office Bearers having moved over to government. However, in true COSATU spirit we rose up to the challenge and managed to not only pull off a successful elections campaign, but also to plan a National Congress.

I hope that all of you will be well prepared for the Congress. I trust Affiliates have had proper discussions around all of these issues and will, as always, bring lively, fruitful debates to the floor.

I should remind you however, comrades, that we cannot afford to only focus on the Congress. Our members are facing a terrible onslaught from the capitalist class in the form of mass retrenchments in most industries. Many unions have taken to the streets to protest the jobs crisis, in one form or another. The COSATU Executive Committee has developed a broad programme of action to combat this crisis. I am calling on all of you to remain vigilant and ready for action. We need to unite and be strong as a Federation. We need to give support to those industries which are most under threat of job losses, and at the same time ensure that our own members enjoy maximum job security.

We have already submitted a Section 77 notice to Nedlac. This is to inform government and employers that COSATU intends to embark on protest action should they not agree to our demands around job losses. Details of these demands are on page 10 of this edition.

Comrades, the time ahead for us is not going to be easy. But I have no doubt that, as always, the workers will rise to whatever challenges are presented to them.

Peter Malepe
Acting President

LETTERS

Unfortunately, due to space limits, we are not able to print all letters which are sent in. SHOPSTEWARD reserves the right to refuse and to edit all letters.

AFRICAN RENAISSANCE / UBUNTU

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WORKING CLASS AND THE POOR?

Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, is currently preaching that Africa needs to go back to their rich culture that was forgotten due to various cruel activities imposed on the African people in the past.

The African people had a culture of caring, sharing and instilling security through the "live and let live" philosophy. They also had a set of codes that could be matched with any successful communal system.

Then came colonialism, slavery, apartheid and other cultural thinking. This created a new system where oppression, corruption, poverty and dehumanisation were the order of the day. African novelist, Chinua Achebe's "THINGS FALL APART" shows to a large extent the how colonialism can break a society that knew no anarchy.

Now with this talk of ubuntu / African renaissance, the neo-liberals flag it vigorously with a view which says that African renaissance will change the mindset of the people from that of communism to that of capitalism. They believe that people will easily buy into their strategy if they remove the focus from that of oppression to that of co-option. They think that this co-option of the African people would make them less militant. How naive.

An African renaissance must start by improving the quality of life for the poor first, i.e. taking care of basic essential needs of human beings. Are people, whose objective is to accumulate wealth at all costs, humane? If not, then live the ubuntu way. African renaissance, come quickly for the sake of humanity.

By Bobby Pandaram, SACTWU - KZN

Comrades, I think it is very important to take a close look at the government's budget - after all, from this budget we will be able to know what the government's priorities are.

Here's a table showing how the funding for some key areas has changed.

HOW MUCH WE LOST (a conservative estimate based on price rises to January of at least 8% and allowing for just 2% for additional demand arising from population growth)

gain (on paper)		actual loss :%
EDUCATION:	5.3	>4,7%
HEALTH/WELFARE:	5,5%	>4,5%
HOUSING:	5,2%	>4,8%
TRANSPORT:	3,5%	>6,5%

Just to clarify - the figures in the first column show how much more is being spent on these items - education, health, housing and transport. It all looks good, till you realise that the cost of living is about 8% higher this year, and there are many more people to provide services for.

When you do those calculations, you find that the government is actually spending less on basic needs!

The SACP is wrong when the say this budget "prioritises service delivery to the poor". It doesn't!

The government is paying less towards services, yet it is paying more towards debt payments. It is asking bosses for less tax (company tax has been cut by 5%), yet it still forces poor people to pay VAT for basic foods.

We urgently need to answer the question: 'How will we force the government to listen to workers' demands?'

Peter van Heusden, member of NEHAWU, UWC

Dear Comrade

"Every combatant a patriot, every patriot a combatant, every democrat an ANC member, every ANC member an organiser, each one teach one.

It affords me great pleasure in writing you this letter on the occasion of the Movements victory against neo - liberalism. During our hey days as student activists (1976 era) we would be saying (Victory was certain) then Aluta Continua (The Struggle continues). The people have spoken and for that matter we will have to remain vigilant and be the vanguard. I will give myself the mantle of speaking for the unemployed, the unorganised, the marginalised, the poorest of the poor.

I would like to express my opinion as to what should be the way forward towards the development of our people. Our perception of other people is affected by a number of factors which ultimately determine the degree to which we like or dislike them. The ANC president was or has been described by various people in different ways, all reflective of the precipitous nature about him perceptions of professional jealousy, hatred, love, indifference etc. but my gut feeling tells me he will be equal to the task

Philosophy and education must be primarily concerned with the social and moral problems of the present moment. Not to work for human equality is to accept injustice. However, in order to know what is good of man (sic), we have to know his nature, recognise his needs and seek the most acceptable and possible solutions to his problems, not unlike other creatures, suffers from boredom and discontent.

We need to recognise that for the next period of history, the world is looking for those political forms which are able to produce and maintain a society in which the chronic fear is a miserable and meaningless life for the masses is abolished.

If against these moral and ideological demands for our country is facing a problem of reconstruction and development however honest we may be, we cannot hope over night to reach the ultimate solution. It is more realistic to hope that our honest and frank deliberations will enable us to get fragments of that solution about the problems that confront us in development, respectively in our communities, as these problems are directly related to the well being of the industry and community at large.

It is often said that developing countries can avoid many of the problems of the developed world by avoiding the negative aspects and by accepting the positive ones. These are said to be some advantages in coming last to profit experiences to other before you.

But, a few of us have dealt frankly with the disadvantages of coming last e.g.

1. Starting with the very wide gap between wealth and poverty
2. The gap between skills
3. The jarring effects of the bureaucratised forms of so called "modern" existence on the traditionalist value systems.
4. And then there is the rising competition for acquiring material wealth often without thought to the other related problems.

In short, development trends to sharpen rather than lessen competition between different groups within a nation. It becomes increasingly evident that to desire rapid socio - economic development means to accept the realities of a permanent and continuous social transformation on a deep and wide scale.

The entrance of any new nation, today, into the development race, is bound to have and effect on the international scene on for as power and trade equilibrium are concerned. Perhaps it is why the third world slogan has appeared to be "Seek ye first the political kingdom then the rest will follow"

It is not possible to understand the rise of the so called third world or even without realising that this is a conglomeration of the nations as it were in the world turning on the valves, ideologies and patterns of the first and second worlds e.g. some countries of the first world define justice in terms of social and economic welfare. (Not forgetting President Mbeki's famous advice: SA a country of two worlds.

The second world countries define as an attempt to practice political liberty solving problems of social deprivation and economic poverty. (DP way). Injustice of this kind, they say, they can only be practiced by an elite.

The developing countries it two be their sovereign right, however subtly undermined by the developed world, to make their own choice and develop their own values, from within themselves whilst at the same time accepting their political dependence on already established and tested forms of development practice and expertise.

I find it outrageous that the ANC government and lately COSATU / SACP tries to please the capitalist by claiming that our countries Macro - Economic policy is cast in iron. Brutal discussions should take place between or within the Alliance partners. We should come up with something that is relevant to our situation. We must therefore within realistic concepts, find the right kind of development patterns for our country.

We must seek assistance from developed countries on only those technologies which suit our new situation. Most importantly, we must set our agenda, we must seek to set a pace of development that does not increase our dependence, but which enables us quickly to find our economic freedom, based n political equality for every citizen.

I am deliberately addressing this to your organisation especially to you to spur you to action, i.e. the labour movement should start taking on board every aspect of the struggles of the poorest of the poor, irrespective of whether they are organised or unemployed.

It becomes imperative for COSATU to take the lead. The institutions that need restructuring and re-visiting, to fit in more closely with an appraisal for the needs and aspirations of the developing country like ourselves, are those concealed with administrative structures and appropriate methods of the industrial and agricultural development best suited to the development process.

Norman B Ackerman