EDITORIAL COMMENT
This edition of the Shopsteward comes out at a very exciting time of our country’s transformation. A number of important events are taking place. Most important to all is the coming COSATU National Congress in September. The SACP held a successful strategy conference in May and early in July the ANC will hold a National General Council.
The timing of all these conference is perfect, as they seem to feed in to one another. A special edition of the Shopsteward, dedicated to the National Congress, will be issued later in July. This will help generate discussion amongst the membership so that the resolutions to be submitted by affiliates reflect these discussions.
In this edition, we carry a summarised and updated report on our campaign for job creation and against job losses and poverty. We want to thank all cadres again for the sterling work in mobilising our members so effectively during this campaign.
But we want to warn against triumphalism and complacency. The campaign for job creation, job retention and against poverty is part of the broader struggle for a better life. It is a campaign to deepen the gains of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) so it can have a better meaning to the working class and the poor in general. It is a campaign to deepen the contradictions between different class forces that the NDR will not solve.
It is part of the ongoing class contradictions that Marx and Engels talked about in the Communist Manifesto. This struggle is by nature therefore long-term and not short-term. Jobs will not flow now that we have held such a successful campaign; capital will not suddenly transform itself into a vehicle to meet the needs of the majority. This struggle is ongoing.
Whilst we are making slow progress in terms of our short-term demands, our demands for the transformation of economic relationships, so that the economy works for the needs of the majority, will not come through on a silver plate. We must therefore commit ourselves into a long-term struggle to achieve our goals and understand that there will be no easy victories.
We shall have an opportunity to assess the campaign together at the national congress. It must develop a tight three-year programme to take forward the campaign against the unemployment crisis and poverty.
The COSATU National Gender Conference is taking place in early July 2000, on the theme " Women crush poverty - for self emancipation and socialism". It will focus on challenges facing women in COSATU:
- Gender policy,
- 7th National Congress discussion paper,
- Gender struggle within the struggle,
- Job losses,
- The HIV/Aids epidemic.
The conference is timed to help gender activists, and women in particular, to meet, to lobby their affiliates to submit resolutions that will take the struggle for women’s emancipation and gender equality to new heights. We wish all delegates the best of luck and a successful conference.
The local government election date is tentatively announced as 1 November 2000. The campaign has now started. We have already seen a merger between the NNP and the DP to form the Democratic Alliance. As you can see, the anti-transformation bedfellows are trying to emulate the revolutionary Tripartite Alliance led by the ANC.
The difference between the ANC-led alliance and the DP alliance is that one seeks to transform society to the benefit of all, in particular the working class and the poor, whereas the other is hell-bent on defending the privileges accumulated by the white minority under apartheid. Obviously they present this through claims for effective opposition, democracy, etc.
Our members and cadres should begin now to work tirelessly for another overwhelming ANC victory in November. We must however use the process of drawing up lists of candidates to ensure that those who have been transformed by the system they were elected to transform, those who have been corrupted and those who work for themselves and their personal positions are replaced by candidates with a proven track record of struggle and who genuinely want to transform local government for a better life for all.
ANC members have the power! The must use the power in their hands, instead of complaining about corruption and lack of delivery.
The Zimbabwe elections are finally over. The run-up was marred by violence and intimidation and 30 people died in state-sponsored terrorism. The government turned a blind eye to land invasions and openly encouraged illegal occupation of land.
In COSATU’s view, the land question was cynically used to manipulate public opinion and mask the failure of the Zimbabwean government to address this issue for 20 years. COSATU, like many other progressive forces, supports land redistribution, to address the vestiges of colonialism and restructure the economy to benefit the poor and historically disadvantaged.
We congratulate Zanu-PF on their victory in becoming the majority party in Parliament and also the MDC for such a good performance after only nine months of existence, and for their acceptance of the result. We pledge that we will work with the new government, through SATUCC and SADC.
It is now time to focus on the pressing economic and social problems confronting Zimbabwean society. Unemployment is close to 50% and must be considered a catastrophe. Inflation, at 58 % is abnormally high and the economy is on the brink of disintegration. It will be a shame if all parties do not co-operate to tackle these problems.
The land question must not be allowed to disappear. President Mugabe must stick to his pronouncement that the land question was "not an election gimmick". It can only be in the interests of everybody to address this question, to ensure that the programme to redistribute land is implemented immediately but in an orderly and legal manner.
The 17th World Congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) took place in Durban on 3-7 April 2000. Resolutions adopted by congress reflect the changing culture of the ICFTU. These progressive policy statements serve as a benchmark of the working-class mood as we begin the new millennium. Globalisation is not working for the working people. We must do more to globalise social justice and workers’ rights.
In the last editorial comment we prematurely congratulated Nhlanhla Mbatha, who we had appointed as the Shopsteward’s editor. Little did we know that he had changed his mind. We have since appointed an equally exceptionally experienced comrade, Patrick Craven, to this position. This is the first edition which he, in his new capacity, has played a key role to produce. We wish him well and hope that the Shopsteward will benefit from his contribution.
Zwelinzima Vavi
Cosatu General Secretary
Editor-in-Chief
LETTERS
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No experience, no job
Dear Comrade General Secretary
In the name of the struggle for the Job Creation Campaign led by COSATU, I greet you.
I am a woman of 38 years old. I have all the necessary skills that are required by many of the South African companies for employment. But it seems that everything is not well in these companies, because the agents that recruit for them talk about two years and so of experience for those vacancies that they advertised in newspapers to us who have graduated recently. This is impossible as we are fresh from college.
It is a complex situation. It is like these agents want to reserve work for whites, because only whites have those experiences, nevertheless their education. These racist agents, especially here in the Vaal Triangle, are untouchable, especially to us vulnerable black women.
I ask you comrade, since you are going to the Nedlac meeting on 19 June, can you please also put this matter in the meeting to show the minister and those bosses what these racist faceless agents are trying to do, not to say there is no jobs. They keep on advertising but they do not want to employ us.
I hope your inputs, comrade, can make these racist agents come to sense and also take and employ us, so that we can also be developed and gain that experience because we have the necessary qualifications. What else do they want? These companies must identify with us. This behaviour cannot go unabated in this country of ours.
We as unemployed also want jobs too. To me what they are trying to do is like saying that we must start to blame our very people’s government. Even in the government, there are also some of those who are doing these dirty tricks to us. I ask you, comrade, to warn them there is no place in this government for those faceless elements.
Thank you comrade. I hope I will hear good news from you on this regard. Amandla! Viva COSATU Viva!
I wish you good luck on the COSATU struggle for job creation
Bulelwa Flora Gusha (Mrs)
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Mobilise for the RDP
I feel very happy about this letter to write to you, as I am a shopsteward of NUMSA and a member of the Tembisa Local.
The Alliance National Agreement needs two things:
Firstly a popular transformation programme that is aimed at taking the RDP forward, with clear strategic priorities, supported by other progressive social forces.
Secondly, the organisational capacity and political will to drive this popular transformation programme in such a way that it can sustain mass mobilisation and participation in the transformation.
The RDP remains the transformation programme of the Alliance. What we need is to agree on a strategy needed for implementation. This strategy needs to be based on the identification of core areas which constitute our qualitative move towards the implementation of RDP.
This process will be driven by a political centre, that includes the national leadership of the Alliance partners, who will have to meet from time to time with ministers. The same process should happen at provincial and local level.
The Alliance should reach a national transformation agreement on strategic issues regarding transformation, as well as a programme to implement these different levels of government and civil society.
The Alliance should openly mobilise people for the popular implementation and defence of the agreed programme in Parliament, Nedlac and in other spheres of government.
With many, many thanks. God will bless you too. Respond please.
F.M. Mogothane,
Chloorkop
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I'm learning from The Shopsteward
I am working at Transito Cash & Carry as a stock controller, also as a shop steward. Since I read two of your Shopsteward magazines, I've learned more and am getting interested in issues such as workplace democracy, workplace reorganisation and how to build the organisation.
Lastly, as a shop steward, my question is: how will I force the employer to end up unnecessary hearings and listen to workers' demands? Thank you.
Heimanus Jacobse, SACCAWU,
Bronville, Welkom
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Invest in the workers
I have head a lot about us workers saying that capital owners should create jobs.
- What kind of jobs do we want created?
- When must they be created?
- What skill do we the workers have to do these jobs?
- When the workers do ultimately take over the control of the company are we going to be labour intensive and perpetrate massive unskilled labour?
I wish to see all the unions that have established investment wings leading in Job Creation. The monies that sustain those investments are the monies of the same workers who are loosing their jobs daily. These workers some of them due to their ignorance can not even ask for the dividends or even a loan from these companies.
I am here thinking about Unions like NUMSA and SATAWU (SARHWU). Could it be maybe I have missed the bus. Somebody give a lift to the next bus stop.
Thapane Thapedi
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Discrimination on the farms
Please comrades I need your help to reduce the struggle in the rural areas. Discrimination is still alive around the farms. Nobody can help without the residents via yourselves.
Now please I want you to send me Labour Act books to study and help ourselves around the farms and for that I can pay something. Please help. I am writing this because I see now that the advantaged people still don't give up to oppress the disadvantaged people.
Yours comradely
Abdula Lucky Milanzi,
Secretary of the Branch around the farm (ANC), Steerpoort
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Use the news on the Internet
On 8 and 9 May I led wage negotiations in the cotton textile sector. On the evening of 8 May I downloaded my e-mail, scanned the Daily Labour News update, and got a very interesting article about the relationship between wages and inflation (very intellectual article, with references to Keynes, etc. I must admit).
The next morning (completely unexpectedly) as their opening gambit, the employers tabled a copy of the article. I could respond immediately and authoritatively, having read the article and thought about its implications - they were stunned.
Thanx! It helped our union in the negotiations.
Regards
Andre Kriel, SACTWU
Why not follow Andre's example and visit Cosatu's web site, http://www.cosatu.org.za, and see the Daily Labour News update. It is essential reading for all trade unionists.
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Racial discrimination and social oppression
Dear Comrades
My name is Harry Singh and I’m employed at Finlan Textiles, Pinetown, Durban. Comrades, as I’m writing this letter to you at this moment I could be fired or alternatively demoted.
The company has a capacity of plus/minus hundred workers, of which ninety percent are exploited and earning well below their wage level. Racial discrimination is at its peak and I was feeling sore to see such repression in front of me! Certain Africans and Indians are well paid just to keep their workers down and be the watchdogs of the white bosses.
The company has embarked on short-time in one department. One hour every day short-time was implemented within one week of notice.
It was sad to see the faces of disappointment and whilst the other department was complemented with overtime and no short-time. Yet the company have invested millions of rands of improvements recently.
I therefore decided to take a stand and take up the struggle alone to fight the capitalist bosses. So I asked workers to join SACTWU and I started to enrol members and whilst doing so, I was immediately threatened. They have alleged that SACTWU cannot last for long in Finlan Textiles and cannot do anything.
I have notified my attorneys of the repercussions and to my amazement they (Finlan Textiles) have served me two disciplinary hearings, the second within half an hour of the first hearing.
Comrades, I have contacted Senzo of Pinetown SACTWU office and he gave me support on this. The company has a watchdog over me throughout the whole of nine hours and they do not allow me to use the telephone/fax. I cannot talk to anyone and they are infringing my rights of freedom
They have allegedly challenged SACTWU and this is horrifying me. Poor staff members are threatened not to join and the company is trying its utmost to oust me from Finlan Textiles.
Our main suppliers and customers are also affiliated to SACTWU, including Brits Textiles, Pinetown, and Feltex Foam, Durban and Caligen Foam, Pinetown.
Comrades, is there any way you can help as soon as possible to eliminate these social and capitalist pigs and make them bow down to our demand for a union and free labour practice? Please advise! I’m in desperate need of help for my fellow comrades! Can we have supportive strike action?
Viva COSATU Viva!
Viva SACTWU Viva!Yours in comradeship
Harry Singh
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Tip of the Month - Put a stop this offensive internet sexism
The corporate web site LabourNet http://www.labournet.co.za/ is currently running an animated 'Tip of the Month' advising all and sundry that it is now perfectly "fair" for employers to refuse to hire women into senior positions if they are pregnant.
Please e-mail them at support@labournet.co.za to protest this blatant and offensive sexism.
Charley Lewis,
Information Technology Officer, Cosatu
© COSATU