SPECIAL CONGRESS

This is a summary of the most important resolutions adopted by the COSATU Special Congress.

South Africa is facing a national crisis of job loss and rising unemployment which is deepening poverty and inequality, and threatening the gains of our new democracy. Despite the agreements of the Jobs Summit in October 1998, employers are still retrenching workers in large numbers.

Congress condemned this destruction of jobs and looked at some urgent measures to address this growing crisis.

Workers are being retrenched in large numbers in all major economic sectors. The following facts show a shocking picture of just some sectors:

• Between 1996-1999 there was a net loss of more than 365 000 jobs in the non-agricultural sectors.
• More than 150 000 mineworkers lost their jobs between 1997 and 1999.
• More than 110 000 jobs have been lost in manufacturing sectors between 1996-1999.
• The parastatals continue to retrench workers, with Spoornet threatening to retrench 27 000 workers and Telkom 11 000.
• The public sector employs about 170 000 less workers than it did four years ago.

Retrenched workers are often from the poorest communities and regions in the country, including rural areas.

• Some of the major causes of job losses are:
• the investment strikes by South African corporations - companies continue to plough money into the stock exchange, rather than invest in new factories, plant, equipment and people. Increasingly, South African corporations are disinvesting from the country and are making major investments in other countries ;
• that employers continue to retrench workers as a first resort;
• laws that make it too easy for employers to retrench workers;
• the Reserve Bank's policies, which are choking the economy;
• the cutbacks in state spending are also discouraging growth of the economy.
• privatisation, casualisation and outsourcing reduce employment.
• the state and public corporations not investing enough in job and employment creating activities.
• the lack of an effective employment-generating industrial strategy.
• inappropriate trade and tariff policies, specifically faster reductions of tariffs than was agreed in the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) levels, are worsening job loss.
• inappropriate management of exchange rate policies, which negatively affect specific industries.

Proposals in the ANC Manifesto and the COSATU Central Committee Resolution on building the economy and creating jobs should be used as a basis for urgently addressing the present crisis.

These proposals include:

• Amending the LRA to make retrenchments a compulsory negotiation matter
• Changing the law so that employers who plan to restructure have to fully reveal these plans to unions.
• Amending the Insolvency Act to protect workers, and ensure adequate notice
• Measures to penalise retrenchments, using tax, tender, and other instruments.
• Making contributions to a Social Plan Fund a legal obligation.

• Urgent negotiation of a National Framework Agreement (NFA) for the public sector, to govern restructuring, the expansion of the public sector in areas of under staffing, and any proposals for redeployment or cutbacks.
• All public corporations to publish employment plans and amendment of the NFA for state owned enterprises to compel full disclosure and negotiations on restructuring plans.

• To convene Sector Summits, not later than the end of the year, to stop job loss, create new employment and a moratorium on retrenchments in the run-up to these summits.
• Trade and tariff policy must actively promote employment and limit job destruction.
• All government agency policies must be geared towards maximising employment and stemming job loss.
• Measures to promote labour intensive investment.
• Carrying out of a national campaign to Buy Local and Invest South Africa.
• Tightening up customs and excise laws to combat the import of illegal goods.

• Government must introduce new laws to penalise speculation and to discourage disinvestment.
• Measures to urgently bring down interest rates and affordable credit.
• Review of fiscal strategy and the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (METF), and restructuring of the Government Employees' Pension Fund (GEPF).
• To introduce asset requirements to channel funds into job creating investment.

• Addressing job losses and evictions on the farms, and carrying out of a large scale land reform programme, to absorb unemployed people in the rural areas.
• Promoting the development of co-operatives, self-employment and the social sector.
• Implementation of the Social Plan, and accelerated and pro-active training and retraining of workers, before retrenchments take place.
• Addressing the plight of unemployed women and youth.
• The urgent introduction of a comprehensive social security system.

Congress decided the following:

• To carry out agreements reached.
• To change existing policies which are not working.
• As a priority, to convene an Alliance Summit to deal with the Jobs Crisis.
• COSATU must engage other Federations, allied mass formations, and NGOs, in a joint campaign to address job losses.
• To request Parliament to urgently convene public hearings on the job's crisis.
• The names of companies who engage in mass retrenchments must be forwarded to COSATU for blacklisting.
• To embark on a National mass action following our Section 77 notice to NEDLAC.

Congress noted the calls by sections of business, both white and black, for greater labour market flexibility. Also, there are vast inequalities in wealth and income between those at the top and those at the bottom of the labour market.

Certain sections of business want a flexibility that means no standards:

• They want the right to hire and fire without due process or fair reason, and to casualise labour contracts.
• They want the right to pay low wages.
• They want to promote small business, because this is a convenient way to cut costs through subcontracting work.
• They want to reduce the powers and coverage of central bargaining agreements.
• What is noteworthy is not the attitudes of the traditional employers of labour, but that sections of black business have been co-opted so quickly.
• They are promoting policies where the poverty of workers is the means of their enrichment.

Congress decided that:

• COSATU must defend the gains made in the transformation of the labour market;
• the Bargaining Councils will not be weakened;
• we will not give up the protection which workers have against unfair dismissal;
• we must prevent working condition in the small business sector from dropping to sweatshop levels
• we must defend the rights of workers through hard battle.

Congress further agreed to call for the strengthening of the LRA in the following areas:

• The prohibition of scab labour.
• No right to lockout.
• Improve disclosure of information, including directors' pay.
• Prevent the loophole of 'independent contractors' being used by employers to bypass the employment relationship.
• Increase severance pay to four weeks per year of service.
• Require subcontracting arrangements with an employment impact to be negotiated with representative trade unions.
• Change section 189, requiring retrenchments be made a matter for negotiation.
• Ensure that 'dismissals' specifically refer only to instances where a company has no alternative, rather than for any 'objective reason'.
• To improve protection for secondary strikes.
• Where companies are sold, protection for workers should be improved.

The Insolvency Act:

• To ensure that the Act does not exclusively protect the position of 'creditors', but that it makes provision to save companies on social and public interest grounds.
• The liquidator to use the period of judicial management to maximise job retention.
• To amend the section of the Act which terminates all employment contracts during a provisional liquidation phase.
• To put workers' claims on the top of the creditors' list.
• To consider the setting up a compulsory guarantee fund for payment of all workers 'claims' when a company goes into liquidation.
• Directors and shareholders should be liable for prosecution and, if guilty, to imprisonment when they do not pay out workers statutory contributions of the proceeds of the liquidation.

A change in the BCEA:

• A 40- hour working week
• No downward variation of the standards
• Carry out the other package of proposals agreed within the alliance to strengthen the BCEA and address the problems of workers.

Programme of Action

Congress committed itself to the following programme of action in defence of worker rights:

Rolling mass action

• A campaign in defence of jobs and labour rights at the shopfloor, industry by industry, focussing on a new sector every week;
• Action at provincial level;
• General strikes if demands are not achieved.

Congress noted that South Africa now has more than 3,5 million HIV-positive people. The situation requires a new approach and strategy, based on a partnership between government and civil society, in which the organised working class should play a leading role.

Congress decided that the government should declare HIV / AIDS a national emergency. The following steps need to be taken:

• An education programme on prevention and awareness among COSATU members.
• Assistance to workers with HIV/AIDS affected by discrimination.
• Counselling and other services to union members and staff.
• Bargaining Councils to provide funds to link education and the issue of HIV / AIDS.
• A campaign in support of the government's progressive legislation against multinational pharmaceutical companies which make huge profits on medicines.
• COSATU should support existing policy on accessible primary health care and basic needs and ensure that the Minimum Benefits under the Medical Schemes Act provide affordable and effective treatment benefits for people with HIV / AIDS.
• The Federation should work in the most vulnerable sections of the working class and to encourage leadership and members to voluntarily take HIV / AIDS tests.
• A campaign for a supportive environment for workers and people living with HIV / AIDS. This will support the rights of people living with HIV / AIDS to confidentiality.
• COSATU will continue to fight against discrimination based on any unfair grounds, including HIV / AIDS status.
• A study on the socio-economic impact of the epidemic on the country and to look at the affordability and availability of drugs such as AZT.

Congress noted the huge job losses caused by tariff reductions and:

• the fact that 80 000 workers have lost their jobs in the clothing, textile and footwear sectors alone since the tariff reduction programme;
• the government's plan to reduce clothing and textile tariffs on 1 September.

Congress called on the government to immediately freeze tariffs in the clothing and textile sectors and other similarly affected sectors and to enter discussions with COSATU affiliates in the sectors.

Congress accepted and reaffirmed that:

• there is a revolutionary strategic alliance of the ANC, SACP and COSATU;
• during the NDR phase, the ANC should lead the Alliance;
• the relationship is among three independent, equal partners;
• the essence of the relationship is trust and sharing of a common vision and objectives.

Congress therefore resolved that:

• the Alliance has to be strengthened;
• within the Alliance, COSATU will continue raising workers' problems and concerns;
• when unions in the public sector raise issues with the state as an employer, this should be understood as the essence of trade unionism;
• the ANC, as the leader, should convene regular Alliance Summits to deal with issues;
• the relevance and effectiveness of the Alliance should be raised in the first Alliance Summit, which should be convened urgently;
• the ANC should make a clear distinction between the role of Government and the ANC as an Alliance partner.

Congress noted:

• that the current wages dispute in the public service has dragged on for eight months;
• that the government - as the employer - has negotiated in bad faith;
• the employer has used questionable tactics, which undermine good faith bargaining;
• the tardiness of managers in the public sector in defining 'essential workers'.

The unilateral actions of the government amount to a denial of basic labour rights in the public service. They set a dangerous precedent, which potentially weakens collective bargaining in the private sector as well.

Congress therefore resolved:

• to continue to support the public sector unions in their legitimate struggles to fight for a living wage;
• to condemn the unilateral actions of the government in the strongest terms;
• to call upon all affiliates to begin the process of engaging in secondary strike action and other forms of solidarity action;
• to demand that the employer come back to the negotiating table;
• to call on the government to seek a negotiated settlement of the current salary dispute and to stop announcing salary increases in parliament before meaningful negotiations can take place with unions.

Consolidation of COSATU for the New Millennium

The 1997 6th National Congress, the 1998 Central Committee and the last 1998 Central Executive Committee developed a three-year programme of action, which sets out the agreed organisational policy. Congress endorsed these policies and noted the following:

• Shop steward training, Staff development, Shop Steward elections;
• The CEC and EXCO recommendations to establish defined Portfolio Commissions;
• Leadership development.

Congress decided on the following priorities for organisational renewal, until the next national congress:

• To step up a people driven campaign for a National People's Budget.
• To co-ordinate shop steward elections in April at federation level.
• To clearly define the lines of accountability, responsibility, discipline and job description of departments and individuals within the departments.
• To develop a detailed discussion document on the role of the federation's NOB's and a training and development programme.
• To strengthen the powers of COSATU NOB's in solving problems arising from affiliates.
• To speed up the resolution of demarcation disputes.
• To implement the Super Union resolution before the 2000 Congress.
• To target the following issues:

- the annual recruitment campaign;
- education priorities and strategy;
- to encourage women's leadership;
- a review of collective bargaining strategies and policies;
- to conduct, in every affiliate, a review of recognition agreements and audit these against gains made in the LRA;
- to revive the Living Wage campaign;
- to organise the unemployed and informal sector;
- to revive the National Health Insurance Campaign;
- to continually review the Job Creation Fund basis

The liquidation of ERPM, despite a workable proposal by the NUM, is a clear indication that the Insolvency Act needs to be amended urgently.

We call upon the Job Creation Trust to intervene in this matter, as the dismissals have serious socio-economic implications for the country.

We strongly condemn the mass dismissal at Harties Gold Mine and we will challenge this. The Durban Roodepoort Deep Group must engage with the NUM to find a solution.

This offensive on mineworkers is an offensive on the working people of South Africa. Congress restates its commitment to solidarity with workers who are under attack. The campaign to save the mining industry is part of a broader campaign to save and create new jobs.

Closing the Congress

Closing Address to the COSATU Special Congress by Willie Madisha, incoming COSATU President

Comrades, it falls to me to say a few words to bring this Special Congress to a close.

First a word of thanks. For myself, and on behalf of the new Executive you have just elected, we thank you for the trust you have given to us. To serve in the leadership of COSATU is a great honour. It is also a great challenge. With your continued support we can rise to meet that challenge.

I also need to thank all those who made possible this Special Congress - a difficult task coming so soon after the elections' campaign, and with a skeleton staff left to run the Federation:

First, to the Congress Preparations Committee - our thanks go to each of you - for the leadership you have shown at this difficult time.

Also, thanks to the staff of COSATU House, who handled the technical arrangements; in particular our appreciation goes to Comrade Rose Makwane the National Administrative Secretary for her work in coordinating Congress arrangements.

To the staff of Gallagher Estates, our thanks for your warm welcome and assistance.

Thanks to EISA for ensuring that our elections were free and fair.

To our generous sponsors - who we mentioned by name in the opening ceremony - we remember you and we appreciate your support.

Last night we expressed our heartfelt appreciation to the out-going executive members These are comrades who have given years of service to this Federation, and are now deployed to the parliamentary arena -where we believe they will continue their service to the working class movement and to the cause of socialism.

To our guests:
From the ANC, From the SACP, From other fraternal and allied organisations, From international labour organisations, your presence here has contributed to the work of this Congress. We hope we have been able to benefit mutually from the discussions and exchanges of the last few days.

Lastly, I need to thank you, the delegates; the 2,500 worker leaders present here today - representing the 17 affiliates, with a combined membership of more than one-and-three-quarters of a million workers. The success we claim for this Congress would not have been possible without your co-operation and hard work.

Weaknesses

In this movement we are not afraid to confront our weaknesses. I need to refer briefly to some of the short-comings during this Congress.

Listening to the comments by delegates, it is clear to me that our pre-Congress work was still not adequate. As a result we sometimes became bogged down in issues of process; we were overwhelmed by some of the documentation; at times our discussions lacked focus; and precious time was not always utilised optimally.

We give this solemn undertaking: that in the preparations for Congress 2000, these weaknesses will be addressed. This is a collective responsibility. We welcome constructive criticisms and suggestions from comrades in this respect.

Accelerating change: deepening the NDR and transforming society to build socialism.

The ANC led government has articulated a programme of priorities to accelerate transformation of our society. As workers we support this objective. It is the contention of COSATU, as stated in the resolution of this Congress and previous Congresses, the Central Committee and various other structures, that without this thoroughgoing transformation of our society there will never be peace, stability, prosperity, and the better life for all we have striven for.

For this reason the leadership you have elected have a major challenge and tremendous responsibilities. We will have to ensure that this vision of transformation is clearly developed, in the smallest of detail and given programmatic expression, to avoid any possibilities of failing you, the delegates who have elected us.

It is also the contention of this and previous Congresses that transformation is about building socialism. Under capitalism we can never resolve the contradictions in our society, the legacy of gender, racial and class oppression and exploitation that apartheid has left us.

Challenges facing the Federation

This Congress has deliberated on the main challenges facing the Federation. Policy has been affirmed and reaffirmed. We have debated the programme of action. It remains for me - together with the General Secretary and the rest of the Executive - to provide the leadership which is expected of us, and to facilitate implementation. Clearly comrades, this requires the close co-operation and assistance of the affiliates and our allies.

Let me sketch out some of the main areas which need to be addressed:

Building our federation

History has demonstrated that unless workers are united and led by a progressive trade union centre they will never realise the objectives they set out for themselves. In our country workers are still divided on racial grounds and organised in predominantly racially-based unions and federations. It is imperative that we change this and built a giant, united, progressive COSATU that unites all workers.

It is important that we also highlight and prioritise the predicaments of women in the workplace, farm workers and differently abled workers. Addressing the apartheid wage gap must also simultaneously ensure that we address the gender wage gap and discrimination against the differently abled at work.

This Federation also has clear policy to accelerate the movement of women into the decision-making structures at every level.

To do this we must prioritise and focus on improving the basic service that members pay for; that is, assisting them at the workplace to deal with wage bargaining, unfair dismissals, discrimination at the workplace, restructuring at the workplace and other such matters. What has distinguished COSATU and made workers flock to the affiliates of the federation has been the ceaseless and fearless championing of workers rights and interests. We must jealously guard this reputation.

Of course COSATU has done this in the tradition of progressive unions and federations before it by having a clear political understanding of the broader interests of workers and the working class as a whole. By locating itself in this manner COSATU has shown that the claims by the capitalists and its agents that it is a federation of a labour aristocracy are cheap lies and propaganda. COSATU has always and will continue to represent the broader political interests of the working class, not by replacing its allies, the ANC and SACP, but by strengthening the Alliance. The reason we have confidence in the Alliance, and are determined to make it work, not because of sentiment, but because of a shared strategic programme.

Strengthening the Alliance

It is true that we must not take the Alliance for granted or assume its relevance without continually reviewing this position. There are contradictions in our society, which have an impact on the Alliance. That is why we reiterate that the Alliance must be made up of strong, independent organisations that debate and decide broad political strategy and policy.

The truth is, comrades, that we as leaders, at national, provincial, and branch level, have neglected the Alliance. We have taken each other for granted. A key challenge for this leadership will be to ensure that the Alliance finds the time to meet regularly, discusses and debates key political issues and policy, and finds a common vision and programme that is implementable to take our revolution forward.

As working class leaders we will have to mobilise to ensure that our members, the workers of this country, are the key leadership in the ANC and the Party, at all levels of society. We must be in the forefront of the struggle to consolidate the NDR, the struggle for socialism, at work, at home, and in our leisure time. That is the tradition of this federation, the Congress tradition. In this we defeated the Apartheid regime.

Comrades have identified the core political issues which face us, in particular:

• the need to revitalise and strengthen the Alliance, on the basis of the independence of each partner and the mutual respect of each for the other;
• the need - as workers and socialists - to raise the concerns of working-class communities within the Alliance. Comrade Terror, it seems we can't avoid these medical metaphors: I am talking about the injection of working class content and character into our political work at every level;

One thing we need to clarify, especially for the media. When comrades from the leadership of the ANC take us to task, we should welcome this as an opportunity to debate and clarify issues.

Similarly, when workers raise concerns - in this forum - about the direction we are moving in, or, about particular policies which affect them negatively, that is their right. Comrades, if workers cannot raise these things here - in this parliament of the working class - then there is something wrong. Let's not paper over any cracks.

And comrades, when the Minister of Labour - Comrade Membathisi Mdladlana - takes us to task when we fail to support progressive initiatives; when we fail to make submissions around crucial issues of policy, let us address the problem.

The real question regarding the Alliance, comrades, is how do we take this process forward? This congress has proposed that an Alliance Summit be held as a matter of urgency. For as long as this forum fails to meet, the tensions will be allowed to fester. This is where we can best address our differences.

Economic policy

COSATU cannot support conservative fiscal and macro-economic policy, which leads to job losses and undermines the commitments for greater social delivery we made in the Election Manifesto. We thought towards the end of last year we were starting to emerge with a new consensus in the Alliance on macro-economic issues. This must be urgently taken forward in the next Alliance Summit.

Comrades, it is not only our caps that we want to see manufactured in this country.

We also need economic policy which is home-grown, and not manufactured in Washington, or elsewhere.

We strive for policies, which are rooted in the real needs of working people and their families. As workers, we will not keep quiet on policies which severely disadvantage our members, and which have not been properly debated with us as COSATU.

Earlier, Comrade Terror, argued that if the patient does not improve, you go back to the surgery for a different prescription. Of course "surgery" has another meaning: "to cut and remove". Let me leave the matter there for the present.

The Jobs Campaign

Comrades, the central campaigning focus to emerge out of this Congress must be around job retention and job creation. We have to defend ourselves against this "bloodbath" which Comrade Blade refers to. In the process, it is crucial to combat attempts by the bosses to portray this as a selfish struggle on behalf of those fortunate enough to have jobs - a so-called "labour aristocracy".

We are tired of being lectured about:

The need for labour market flexibility meaning job insecurity and casualisation;
To accept job losses today, in the hope of degraded employment in the future;
To tighten our belts, and sacrifice for the bigger picture.

And what is this bigger picture? - simply that the fat cats get fatter; the rich get richer.

But, we also have to join hands with the vast majority of our people who remain poor - the unemployed and the informal sector - together with the organised labour movement in a single struggle. We have to convince them; we have to win them to the socialist alternative.

The Federation has adopted a programme - it is for us to implement.

The Federation must evolve a strategy that will stop the capitalist class from using clauses of the Insolvency Act to circumvent the LRA and the legal procedures that must be followed during retrenchments. The ERPM is a case in point.

Equally, people must be dissuaded from believing that retrenchments in the public service are justified because of the notion that the public service is bloated, and therefore workers must be retrenched even prior to a scientific skills audit. We welcome the congress proposal and resolution that there must be a moratorium on retrenchments until proper procedures and a skills audit are formalised and negotiations entered into between employers and the unions.

Ideological struggle and the orientation of the federation

As a famous revolutionary once said, the correct line will come from correct theory. To make this theory practice, to orientate the trade union movement and the broader working class movement, we must aggressively contest ideas in our society.

Exaggeration of debates and differences, in an attempt to portray them as fundamental schisms are partly a result of attempts by reactionary forces to undermine the vision and policy of the movement, in favour of the interests of the powerful in our society. This progressive vision is hegemonic amongst the people and supported by the majority of South Africans - but the institutions of our society, the press, media, even key officials within government departments and parastatals, and certainly in the private sector, do not support this vision of our Alliance. The problem we face is one of ensuring that our ideas, ideas that favour the working class as a whole, become the dominant ideas of our time.

This means that we must debate, debate and debate again in the Alliance, until we agree, or agree to disagree. But we must involve our people in these debates. We must go to the ground and report to our people, not only during elections, but regularly, how we are progressing as COSATU in achieving the living wage our members desire and in eradicating the apartheid wage gap. The ANC must address our people on how we are progressing at the level of government, what the constraints are, what we can do to assist in achieving the objectives of the revolution. We must ensure the Party addresses the masses on our progress towards our socialist objectives. In every sense of the slogan, let us make this transition one that is truly people centred.

Public sector restructuring

I need to make the following points: As COSATU, and the Alliance we remain committed to public sector restructuring by which we mean:

• Increased social delivery to the mass of working class and rural communities;
• The transformation of public sector employment to overcome previous racial and gender inequality; and
• The development of a work ethic which promotes greater service and efficiency.

By restructuring, we do not mean whole-sale downsizing, outsourcing and privatisation.

With regard to the current dispute in the public service, Congress has spoken forcefully in its declaration on the matter. I need only to emphasise the following points:

As COSATU, we see no contradiction between the fight for a living wage and improved service delivery. In fact, we believe the two go together.

The unilateral actions of the state set a dangerous precedent for other employers to follow. The effects of this will be felt by every affiliate in this room, and by the millions of workers throughout this country.

We have a slogan made famous by our predecessor - SACTU - during the great struggles of the 1950s:

An injury to one, is an injury to all!

Today, that slogan is more relevant than ever before.

Conclusion

In conclusion, comrades, let me remind you again of your revolutionary tasks in the current conjuncture:

To build COSATU for the next millenium;
To build the SACP To build the ANC.
By doing this, we also:

• strengthen the Alliance,
• we deepen the National Democratic Revolution, and
• we lay the foundations for socialism.

Finally, comrades we face a new enemy the HIV / AIDS epidemic. As worker leaders we also expect you to lead on this matter. In every speech, in every meeting, in every structure, HIV / AIDS education must be a part of that. The lives of millions of workers and their families are at stake.

Farewell comrades. Travel safely.

Amandla!

Meeting the challenge

Opening Address by Peter Malope, Acting President

The most important thing about this Congress is that it heralds the start of a new era for COSATU and the trade union movement in general.

We are meeting to launch a new campaign that we have dubbed "The consolidation of COSATU to meet the challenges of the New Millennium."

As we say good bye to this century, every organisation should be asking: ACan we survive the New Millennium? What must we do to reposition ourselves to meet the challenges of the next century, within a continuously changing and complex environment of globalisation and the era of technology?"

This Congress needs to decide on a concrete and implementable programme to reposition COSATU to meet the challenges of the New Millennium.

Weakneses

Let me reflect on some of our organisational weaknesses. Over the past decade we have seen declining service of membership. This is because of a combination of factors. Chief among these is the decreasing resources we commit to the development of Shop Stewards and leadership. In a situation where no one is adequately equipped, the lines of responsibility become blurred.

We attach no importance to worker control, report-back and mandates. Increasingly, leadership takes decisions and then does not even have the decency of reporting to those they represent. This happens at all levels and the gap among all layers of leadership widens. This results in some campaigns failing to take off. The consolidation of COSATU and its repositioning will not happen if we do not tackle these weaknesses.

Political situation

Our people want transformation accelerated. They have chosen the ANC to lead the way to the realisation of their dreams.

I want to use this opportunity to thank COSATU cadres for the role that they played in ensuring a decisive ANC victory in the elections.

The Alliance came out more united and strengthened from this election. We also became aware of destructive tensions that exist in some localities.

The challenge now is, "How can we sustain this momentum for the next round of local government elections? How do we create space in government, parliament and our organisations so that our people can help shape their own destiny and are in charge of their own fate?"

We must deal with these challenges, lest our people accuse us of using them. Only leaders who lack confidence in themselves will seek to keep members out of policy formulation.

The challenge facing Congress is how to reduce the directives of the election manifesto into a five-year, implementable programme. We need to map out a role for COSATU and the Mass Democratic Movement, in partnership with our government, to lead society in carrying out this manifesto.

As we enter the New Millennium, we observe the dwindling power of the extreme white right wing that posed a severe threat in the run up to the 1994 elections. This does not mean that the white working class has suddenly embraced transformation. It has found a political home in the Democratic Party of Tony Leon.

We need to continuously analyse these political events as they help to answer the three questions: "Who we are, where are we coming from , and where are we going?"

We still face daunting challenges, including:

• extremely high levels of poverty, particularly in rural areas;
• unacceptably high levels of unemployment ;
• continuing job losses;
• the fact that women remain the most oppressed and exploited of our people;
• the highest inequalities in the world;
• the growing gap between the nations of the South and North;
• the HIV/AIDS epidemic that threatens to wipe out our society;
• crime, violence and corruption.

Unemployment crisis

Congress is meeting at a time when workers are facing serious attacks from the bosses. The worst of this assault is the systematic destruction of millions of jobs.

Congress must challenge the normal response that policy fundamentals are in place and what needs to happen is a review of the labour market.

New economic statistics show that the economy is performing well. Unfortunately, only a small section of the population - the bosses - has reason to celebrate this growth. Despite this growth, workers and their families continue to face job losses and humiliating poverty.

We repeat the call for an immediate amendment of section189 of the LRA that makes retrenchment of workers a mandatory negotiations issue instead of mere consultation. We must change the Insolvency Act to ensure that companies and liquidators make workers a preferred creditor. They should be forced to inform workers in good time when financial problems arise that may lead to liquidation.

Companies that fail to make the transfer of workers' contributions to the provident fund and/or other joint contribution funds should be prosecuted. Their senior managers should be given jail sentences without an option of a fine. We call for the immediate review of the rate of tariff reductions and for such tariffs to be in line with our undertaking to the World Trade Organisation.

Some people believe that we, as COSATU, are exaggerating the extent of job losses. They say that the current job losses are necessary. They say that in the future, which they do not define, they will create jobs. When we highlight these job losses, they accuse us of recklessness, playing to the gallery, or jockeying for position.

The first question that we must ask is, "Where do we send these thousands of retrenched workers? Where are the factories or workplaces of the growing service industry?"

This Congress must come out with a concrete programme of mass mobilisation. Let me send a message to all those eager to retrench workers: COSATU is determined not to allow workers to be thrown onto the streets.

I want to thank all COSATU members who donated one day's salary to the Job Creation Fund. Workers are sending an extremely important message of solidarity to the unemployed. You are sharply contradicting those who claim that you do not care about those who have no jobs. I call on all workers who have not yet made their contributions to do so.

Labour market

Let me deal with this naked lie that bosses are continually spreading - that our labour market has become inflexible. Now they have a new excuse to cover their investment strike that has been running for years and blame the current job losses on labour market transformation.

Bosses and their ideologues ignore all the studies conducted into the labour market, which categorically state that the South African labour market is flexible even when compared to other developing economies. COSATU believes that the labour market is not only flexible, but too flexible. The growing casualisation of labour, which we remain opposed to, is testimony to this. The growing use of labour brokers points to the direction of too much flexibility. The government has confirmed that it will continue with the labour market policy pursued in the last few years.

The living wage

As we sit here, thousands of our members are on the streets fighting for a living wage. Our members are tired of having to pay for transformation, while a few continue to live in luxury. A quarter of employed workers earn below R500 per month. Let me send a message of solidarity and support from myself and this Congress to all our members: "We salute your bravery in the face of blackmail from heartless ideologues."

Public sector dispute

I want to express our disgust at the government's unilateral decision to implement its final wage offer to public sector workers.

All those committed to sound labour relations must condemn this action. Instead of engaging the unions, the government took extraordinary steps which contradict the ILO convention on collective bargaining that they have signed.

Their action is completely out of line with the spirit of co-operation and smacks of bully tactics to scare public sector workers into submission.  This bad faith unilateral action will set a precedent for the private sector.

Congress must make an intervention that will tilt the balance of forces in favour of workers.

Above all, I trust that you will live up to the challenge of consolidating and repositioning COSATU to meet the challenges of the New Millennium.

Towards a socialist society

by Blade Nzimande, SACP General Secretary

Congress takes place against the background of one of the most intensified attacks on the working class and organised workers in particular. It is only the working class that can take the national democratic revolution to its conclusion to win our objective of a socialist society.

Accelerated change

I want to thank all workers and COSATU and all its affiliates for the role they played in the overwhelming victory on 2 June. It is workers who returned the ANC government with an overwhelming majority. It is therefore proper that we should expect the ANC to continue with worker friendly legislation and policies.

There is a heavy contestation around the direction and future of our country. It is not enough to have voted for the ANC. It is crucial that we mobilise and build the political confidence of the working class to ensure that those forces that want to hijack this victory towards a capitalist and elitist direction must be engaged and defeated.

Those who see organised workers as a 'hindrance to economic development' think that, now that the ANC has been returned to power, it will deal with them. Privatisation, outsourcing and casualisation are the path of the bosses. This path will never lead to the realisation of the RDP goals.

We need to ask what kind of South Africa we are building.

Our starting point is that the struggle of South Africa's working class is a struggle for socialism.

This means a society based not on greed, but a caring society, a society free from class exploitation, free from women's oppression and free from racism and national oppression.

As the SACP, we firmly believe that capitalism can never solve the problems facing humanity today. A society based on private profit and greed intensifies and deepens poverty, inequality and misery. The scale of retrenchments facing workers today and the poverty in the rural areas are a direct result of a society based on profit rather than meeting social needs.

That one woman is raped every 36 second's points to the depth of violence in our society. Members of the South African Agricultural Union march to Pretoria to protest crime against white farmers, but are dead silent about their members who daily exploit and brutalise farm workers.

It is urgent that we intensify working class struggles to deepen the national democratic revolution in a way that places the interests of the working class as the primary interests of society.

Part of this struggle is the public ideological questioning of the many things presented to us as gospel truth, when in fact they project only the interests of the bosses. For instance, is it not time to challenge the SABC to cover working class issues much more seriously than has been done so far? Is it not time for the public broadcaster to cover labour news as they cover 'business' news? Is it not time for us to question the perverted values and morality shown to us through soapies imported from the US, thus wanting to turn South Africa into an American ideological colony?

We must also focus, on the newspapers and magazines read and supported by the working class. Why do we have to be presented with daily analyses of the performance of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange while they raise the plight of workers, including farm workers only occasionally? It is time that we call the bluff of the capitalist print media, which claims to be neutral, but viciously attacks the working class on a daily basis.

The working class must take a more active interest in what is taught at our schools. We must turn the introduction of Curriculum 2005 into a chance for our children to learn about working class struggles and the virtues of a caring society.

To win ideological struggles, we must always root these in concrete daily struggles facing the working class at any historical point. We must take up these struggles so that they expose the lie that only a society based on profit can overcome the legacy of apartheid.

Job losses

As the SACP, we believe job creation cannot take place without serious attention to job retention. Women are in the most vulnerable jobs that are prone to being shed or casualised. Unemployment in general puts more pressure on women, as they are the ones who look after our children, care for the sick and the elderly and keep our homes going. This work, which is unpaid, increases as more workers are thrown out of jobs in a society that does not have a social security network and poor social services. We welcome the initiative of the Dept of Social Welfare to seriously explore the question of a minimum social security grant.

The SACP repeats its call for the immediate implementation of the Jobs Summit resolution on the question of halting retrenchments and on a path to job creation.

State transformation

One critical task that faces our revolution is the transformation of the state. Globalisation erodes the power of the state. Our challenge is to build a state which will forge a national development agenda.

We have two main weapons as a movement:

• the state instruments themselves; and
• our organised mass power.

Our approach as the Alliance is that workers are a key asset for transformation. There is no contradiction between a living wage and service delivery. We cannot expect only workers to make sacrifices for the sake of transformation in this country and everybody else to defend their interests to the hilt.

The public sector wage dispute is significant because it is essentially about what kind of state we want and the role of public servants in the transformation process. As the SACP, we are concerned about the fact that the public sector dispute may end inconclusively. This poses the important question of the unique role of COSATU public sector unions and the ANC government in the transformation of the state.

The SACP calls upon both government and the public sector unions to resolve this impasse. Given the sensitivity and political leadership required to deal with these questions, only the Alliance, and not any one of its components alone, can best deal with it.

Challenges

It is important that we are clear about what needs to be done to turn the current crisis into an opportunity for a progressive economic path and deepening a working class led NDR

• Building a people-driven developmental state

One strategic objective in deepening the NDR is to strengthen the capacity of the state in social and economic development. A principal lesson over the past five years is that we have delivered services to our people through an aggressive state-led development programme, and not through some ideologically-driven privatisation process. We challenge the ideologues of privatisation to tell us where it has made a fundamental impact in the lives of our people, other than increased retrenchments and casualisation. The working class needs to intensify the struggle to promote state intervention in economic development, and not allow the provision of basic social services to be left to the market.

It is very important that we intensify working class international solidarity and common action against capitalist globalisation

• Building the labour movement

The key challenge of this Congress is to strengthen and deepen the unity of COSATU and its affiliates. If restructuring, privatisation and retrenchments hit one sector, and other COSATU affiliates sit back, by the time it is your union's turn there will be no COSATU to defend you!

Building a strong labour movement requires that we draw all trade unions into a strong worker's front towards our goal of a single worker federation to defend workers' jobs.

• Strengthening the ANC and the Alliance

The Alliance is the only vehicle to take transformation forward in our country. The ANC is essentially an organisation whose majority membership and support is the working class and the poor. To abandon the ANC would be to agree with those who try to present the ANC as a conservative, elite organisation. We must challenge all those who would like to turn the ANC into a home for non and anti working class forces, pursuing a narrow capitalist agenda. A break in the Alliance will mean a split within all our organisations, not least the ANC itself.

• The SACP as political vanguard

At the 6th COSATU Congress we took an important resolution to build and strengthen the SACP as the political vanguard of the working class. One product of this increasing collaboration has been the production of a joint political education text and many joint political schools. We need to go out and build the SACP industrial/workplace units and branches. We have declared October 1999 as Red October, to target recruitment among workers.

We need to intensify the SACP's debit order campaign in order for it to have a huge positive impact on the SACP's financial self-sufficiency and its capacity building. We would like to thank those workers who are contributing through our debit order campaign. We hope that this Congress comes out with some concrete mechanisms and targets to take this campaign forward much more vigorously.

Towards workplace change

by Membathisis Mdladlana, Minister of Labour

I want to share with you the Ministry of Labour's vision and priorities, as we position ourselves to consolidate the considerable gains we have achieved in transforming the labour market in the first five years of democratic rule.

I wish to pose to you some critical challenges we face together in realising this vision.

Priorities

We have recently emerged from a general election with a renewed and strengthened mandate to transform our society and make it a better place for all to live and work in.

Our challenge is to translate the policies and strategies that we have developed over the past period into concrete delivery to improve the lives of our people. Our focus as government must be on effective carrying out and an accelerated pace of delivery.

We are proud of the fact that over the last five years we have put in place labour market policies and programmes which have begun to reverse apartheid's legacy of high rates of unemployment, poverty and inequality, low skills levels and adversarial labour relations and a lack of protection for vulnerable workers.

We have laid the basis for a labour market which promotes sustainable economic growth and investment, social development and job creation; efficiency and productivity; a labour market which promotes sound and stable labour relations, employment equity and skill's development which improves working conditions and social security benefits; a labour market which is characterised by labour standards and worker rights.

The Labour Department's 15-point programme was drawn up in consultation with our social partners, including COSATU. The programme includes:

• Prioritising job creation and implementing the Jobs Summit agreements;
• All workers to have access to skills and training;
• An end to discrimination based on race, gender, disability and HIV status
• Addressing wide income differentials;
• Protecting vulnerable workers;
• Minimum wages and improved conditions of employment for farm and domestic workers;
• An adequate social safety net to support workers who are retrenched;
• Improving health and safety through the reduction of occupational diseases and workplace injuries and fatalities
• The promotion of stable labour relations and improved dispute resolution systems.

The successful transformation of the labour market requires the concerted and determined effort of government, acting in partnership through organised formations such as COSATU.

Job creation

We all agree that one of the most vexing problems we continue to face is the high unemployment levels and job losses.

We agree that we need investment and sustainable economic growth to address the crisis. How do we achieve these objectives?

The signatories to the Jobs Summit Declaration in October last year agreed that we must all contribute to restructuring and building the economy. It is not the work of the government or anyone social partner alone.

The government's job creation strategy rests on four pillars:

• the restructuring of the economy to promote growth, investment and sustainable employment;
• the proper co-ordination of economic and social policies, employment creation and the removal of obstacles to job creation;
• a social security policy to lessen the impact of massive retrenchments;
• a human resource development strategy co-ordinated between the Departments of Education and Labour.

The Department of Labour has placed particular emphasis on skills development, through the Skills Development and Skills Levies Acts.

Over the next five years, I am confident that:

• the skills of the workforce will be upgraded to meet the challenges of economic restructuring;
• skills will be provided to help infrastructural delivery and the development of micro, small and medium scale enterprises;
• investment in education and training will be increased;
• as a result, the employment prospects of youth, rural women and other vulnerable sectors of the community will increased .

Recently, I announced the key areas of progress that government has made in fulfilling its obligations arising from the Summit. What is the contribution of our social partners - organised business and labour? Both constituencies have launched job creation funds. Together with the Umsobomvu Fund, these are in the process of getting money moving to concrete projects.

I can only express my support for COSATU's initiative to raise funds for job creation. Most of your members earn low wages and must be admired for having made such a sacrifice. The R l 8,7 million you raised is a credit to your organising and mobilising capacity. It flies against claims that you, as organised workers, are ignoring the plight of the unemployed.

Responsibilities

The seriousness of the unemployment crisis demands a critical assessment of the extent to which all our actions contribute to the resolution of the problem.

The manner in which we address these issues will determine the extent to which we can truly say that we can meet the challenges of the New Millennium. Otherwise we may face a new revolution, of the unemployed and the poor clamouring for the right to jobs, and aimed at those perceived to be in the more comfortable positions in the labour market.

We are all aware that our political detractors, inside and outside parliament, claim to speak on behalf of the unemployed. They continue with the myth that labour laws have resulted in job losses and that the regulation of the labour market is directed at protecting what they call the 'privileged working elite' against the interests of the unemployed. Some even call for the Department of Labour to be abolished!

Negative perceptions of the labour market continue to exist within the business sector in South Africa. This has a potentially adverse impact on overseas investment in our country and on growth and job creation. It raises questions on the role of labour in promoting dialogue with business to address these issues. It also raises questions on the depth of social partnership, when on the one hand we reach tripartite agreements on key policy issues while, on the other, parties fail to defend positions which they have agreed are necessary.

Flexibility

The thrust of labour market reforms is consistent with - and indeed promotes - the achievement of the social and economic responsibilities of employment creation, economic growth and efficiency, equity and the alleviation of poverty.

I believe that our current legislative framework reflects an acceptable balance between labour market flexibility and security.

Our approach to labour market policy aims to forge a middle route between the extremes of unqualified labour market flexibility or deregulation on the one hand and an over regulation on the other.

I challenge you at this Special Congress and other constitutional structures to have an open and frank debate and discussion about these critical questions.

Retrenchments

All of us are committed to the restructuring and transformation of the economy and the state. We have the alarming situation where retrenchments are continuing unabated, although we have provisions in the law and in agreements such as the Social Plan to address this situation.

Our challenge is to clearly identify the cause of large-scale job losses and its solution. Are we saying, like our detractors, that the problem lies with our labour laws? Are we saying that the LRA, and section 189 in particular, is the cause of job losses?

We must also question how successful we are in using the power of organised workers to transform and democratise their workplaces, and to put into place alternatives to job losses.

How do organised workers shift from a defensive role restricted to negotiating fair packages once job losses are already a reality? How do you secure a more important role in which you are involved in restructuring from the word go?

Labour market stability

We have changed the labour relations environment to address the high levels of conflict that existed in the labour market under apartheid. We have established more efficient institutions to ensure stable and sound labour relations. Nevertheless, we need to ask ourselves: "how effective are we in reducing conflict in building a labour market conducive to economic growth and stability?"

The workplace renaissance

I want to ensure that the new labour legislation we have introduced transforms our labour market and our workplaces. Are we able to ensure a 'workplace renaissance' across our economy?

As Government, we would like to see:

• our laws rid workplaces of discrimination, conflict and poor and unhealthy working conditions;
• workplaces that can address the challenges of the HIV / AIDS pandemic;
• well-trained workers, interactive and co-operative workplace relations, new management capacities, a diverse workforce and efficient dispute settlement process.

The challenge to achieve this rests with you. The laws which you have helped forge are your tools and weapons. Use these tools to shape your own destiny.

First, let me address the situation of vulnerable workers. We have passed laws but it is up to you to ensure that we hear the voice of these workers.

Secondly, let me turn to opportunities that organised workers are squandering. The new LRA brought down the barriers of trade union registration. Instead, we have had union splits and rival factions registering themselves and fighting for members.

Worse still, I have had employers at my door asking, "What should we do, we support sectoral bargaining in our company. However the majority of workers belong to a company-based union that wants us to negotiate at plant level?" Another employer asks what they should do when "workers are on strike, because the union has decided to 'fire the shop stewards'."

Such things discredit our whole project to transform our labour laws. The commitments in your Congress resolutions encourage me to believe that these matters will be addressed.

Thirdly, I would like to raise the challenge of dispute resolution and enforcement of our labour laws. We are all proud of the CCMA and the fact that it has made such a significant difference to dispute resolution. However, if we continue to flood the CCMA with cases when there are more appropriate places to go, we weaken the effectiveness of the CCMA and reduce access of those most in need of its services. We would like to see CCMA focus more on preventative work, on strengthening and supporting bargaining councils and addressing the problems facing farm workers and workers of small employers.

In respect of enforcement and monitoring, I believe that unions have a critical role to play in ensuring that employers who do not comply with the law are brought to book. This cannot depend on the Department of Labour inspectors alone. It is also up to union organisers and shop stewards to be our eyes and ears on the ground.

If you identify abuse of worker rights and disregard of the law, you should take the initiative to ensure that you take these issues to the correct forums for a remedy. I believe that you need to stand up for the more defenceless workers like those in part-time employment or on a contract.

I am also encouraged by resolutions at this Congress on the issue of HIV / AIDS as a human rights issue. It is an employment equity issue, a health and safety issue and an economic issue.

We need to make sure that workers are not discriminated against because of their HIV status. The Employment Equity Act prohibits HIV testing without consent. We need to ensure that employers introduce supportive and preventive workplace programmes.

In the first five years we laid the foundation for basic change in our workplaces. The issues I have raised are just some challenges we face.

The challenges of the Tripartite Alliance

by Terror Lekota, ANC Chairperson

Again we gather to affirm and celebrate one of the Alliance partners and its ever growing record of service to the people of South Africa. Given the recent overwhelming victory our movement achieved in the elections, I take this opportunity to congratulate COSATU alongside other partners. The Alliance is living and leading!

The NDR - the present phase

Since we came to power, we have tried to deepen democracy and eliminate inequalities of race and gender. As with many other situations, the tricky part is the 'how?'

We behave in ways that raise the question "Is the Alliance still intact?" Of course, the quick response is: "Yes!" Most of the time, we leave the listener uncertain of the conviction of our positive reply.

The Alliance has always been Characterised by Contradiction!

Policy debates within the Alliance would have been impossible without differences of opinion. The secret was the art of handling such differences during policy debates. Only consensus positions were aired outside the Councils and Committees of our organisations.

The masses of people who support our organisation cannot always be sure which is decided policy and which not, if all of our differing views are thrown at them. Such a state of affairs can only lead to confusion and ultimately anarchy.

At this stage of our revolution we need even more policy debates that ever before within the Alliance - but we need an even more responsible management of those policy debates.

Tactical and Strategic Contradictions

The present debates in our ranks, whether on GEAR, privatisation or wages, are all tactical in nature. Ongoing debates among us can resolve them.

This is so because they all take place against the backdrop of our agreed strategy - that we aim at deepening democracy and eliminating inequalities of race and gender through the transformation process we set.

Nor are comrades wrong when they continue to draw attention to weaknesses of GEAR and/or privatisation as we carry out these policies. Only as we engage in this exercise can we retain those levels of vigilance which will make it possible for us to adjust tactics in time.

A consensus on any policy position does not mean total unanimity. Nor does it mean that such policy positions will totally succeed at implementation.

Thus the need to revise policy from time to time within the structures and discipline of our organisations arises.

Discipline

The recent trend of some highly-placed comrades criticising or agitating against the policies and actions of the movement, inside and outside government, smacks of a lack of revolutionary discipline.

This is particularly so because we have not heard these critical voices in the committees and councils of our structures, where they can systemically analyse them, test and then adopt them if they pass the test of debate.

This undisciplined approach has many negative consequences:

• it confuses the mass-based support of our movement;
• it lends itself to exploitation by our opponents and opposition parties;
• it creates a climate in which agent's provocateur can thrive and advance their counter-revolutionary agendas.

May I repeat that the success of the revolution is our collective responsibility.