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The Shopsteward, the voice of the workersBy Zwelinzima Vavi - Editor-in-Chief This edition of the Shopsteward comes rather late in the year. This delay is necessitated by the amount of work in the shoulders of Patrick Craven, the editor, and Moloto Mothapo, the writer. In the absence of a spokesperson for COSATU, these two comrades have acted as spokespersons whilst trying to do their own jobs - an impossible task when considering the time and effort it takes to issue statements and respond to all media enquiries. I want to use this magazine to express my gratitude and appreciation on behalf of the CEC and the entire membership of the federation to Patrick and Moloto who have not only managed to ensure that our profile does not suffer in the absence of a person employed for this daunting challenge, but who have even succeeded to improve our profile. Very few organisations enjoy the same coverage in the media as we do. Whilst this is itself a tribute to all COSATU members, it also reflects the sacrifices made by these comrades. I know this came at the very high price to them and their families. We take off our hats and salute their selfless and exemplary revolutionary commitment to the greatest cause - serving the working class. We welcome Vukani Mde, the new spokesperson of COSATU, who started on 20 May 2002. The young Vukani, like a number of other officials of the federation, was a student activist. He is yet another example of the contribution to the workers' movement and struggles made by COSAS and SASCO, which have proved to be a major resource for the working class.
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In this issue Labour News - from Lenasia to Newcastle |
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Our capacity to engage at the intellectual level has over the years improved dramatically. Whilst this will not go down well with our detractors, who are worried at the growing capacity of the workers to engage in complex and technical debates, we rejoice in the swelling of our ranks by comrades who are essentially sons and daughters of the working class. They are prepared to forgo the plum jobs they could walk into in the private sector and government but choose the greatest cause - serving the working class. We hope Vukani will have a long-lasting relationship with the organised workers - the leading detachment of the working class. The Shopsteward covers a range of informative and educative stories from within and outside our borders. The bulletin covering our work in parliament also contains information that we should use. The other day I had a long discussion with shop stewards and members in Daveyton. One thing that struck me was that despite the important contribution of the bulletin, there are still information blockages that we must address. For many years, the Shopsteward magazine has been not just a source of information for our shop steward and activists, but has served as a platform for debates, training and deepening of workers' class consciousness. Under the leadership of Vukani Mde and Patrick Craven we hope that this workers' magazine will move from strength to strength. This edition comes at the background of a number of important events and it attempts to report some of these in detail. The CEC declared 2002 "A year of the Member" in recognition of the ongoing work to strengthen our organisation. The theme for May Day - "Members First Now And Forever!" - was in line with this commitment. Whilst it is vital that COSATU continues to speak out on the major national and international issues affecting the working class, our country and the world, it is important not to forget who we are - a trade union whose membership is restricted to those who work. Our primary responsibility is to provide our members with tools to defend themselves from unscrupulous bosses and to mould their collective strength into a weapon they can use to improve their wages and conditions of employment. Following a successful Central Committee, where the first draft report of our Organisational Review Commission was debated, our affiliates are currently hard at work developing proposals on how best we can position our movement to be relevant to workers in the 21st century. The Organisational Review process must help us address glaring weaknesses in many affiliates and the federation and help us consolidate the strengths we have. Let us emphasize, COSATU is not embarking on this organisational review because we are weak and dying, but precisely because we are strong, with a strong vision of placing workers where they belong - at the head of the transformation struggle. Again, workers must participate in this process; after all it is they, not their leaders or officials, who suffer most from poor service and disorganisation. All this will culminate in our next Central Committee in April 2003 which will compile a report to our 8th National Congress in September 2003. The people's movement, the ANC, celebrated its 90 heroic years of existence this year. The other day we celebrated the 90th birthday of one of the greatest statesmen to be produced by our revolution - Walter Sisulu. On a sad note, in December 2001 we bade farewell to yet another cornerstone of our liberation struggle, Govan Mbeki. The other week we bade Steve Tshwete goodbye. Only two months earlier he helped us carry the coffin of Pinki Ntsangani, our Eastern Cape Regional Secretary. Sandile Mqaka, the former vice President of SAMWU and Eastern Cape regional chairperson of SAMWU passed away on 12 May 2002. All these events must serve as a reminder of the length of the journey we have travelled behind the banner of the people's movement, the ANC and its alliance partners. The ANC has also declared the year 2002 as the Year of the Volunteer
for service to the people. COSATU supports and has participated in the
Letsema campaign that seeks to actively involve our people in the struggle
of building a better life for all. Our challenge is ensure the implementation of the Alliance Summit resolutions in a manner that addresses the challenges of our revolution and economy. The Summit did not however resolve all the disagreements that have arisen in the past within the Alliance. There is still a need to resolve differences on an appropriate macroeconomic framework, privatisation, the basic income grant, national health insurance, the budget, etc. At the political level there remain important disagreements as to whether the black bourgeoisie is part of the motive forces of the NDR. There is no agreement on how we conceptualise the Alliance, who is the political centre and how we can coordinate a comprehensive programme for transformation which defines the roles of each component of the Alliance. Debates on these questions continue, but at least they will now continue in conditions where no one would question the other's bona fides. As we count our victories from the summit, we face a central challenge - how do we give the processes agreed to in the summit a chance to succeed, whilst at the same time not demobilising our members? After all, without mass mobilisation and the militant tradition of COSATU members, it is doubtful if the summit would have taken place at all or been productive. Linked to this challenge is the dilemma which we find ourselves in - that government continues to implement programmes and policies in areas where there is still no agreement between us. Effectively this may mean that whilst we have ceased fire, government marches on - implementing its programmes, some of them at a very high cost to our members' job security. The Executive Committee at the end of May discussed this challenge. This year, the SACP will hold its 11th National Congress in July and the ANC its 51st National Conference in December. We wish both partners successful congresses and wish that they contribute positively in our struggle for the total emancipation of our people from apartheid colonialism and its legacy. Both the Mesebetsi Survey conducted by FAFO and commissioned by the Department of Labour, and the Labour Force Survey vindicate our stance that unemployment and the resultant poverty is the number one priority for our country. Unemployment has reached alarming proportions and the job loss bloodbath continues unabated. Thanks our principled stance in highlighting this problem many now realise that it is a central priority of our country. Food prices, in particular those of staple food that workers use, have gone up tremendously in the recent past. Whilst we continue to give due credit to our government for what they have done to meet the basic needs of our people, there is little doubt that when it comes to addressing the unemployment crisis we inherited from apartheid economy, our government has been found completely wanting. All its interventions so far, in particular the controversial and much hated GEAR, have completely failed to address this crisis. This calls for the rapid implementation of the Alliance Summit resolutions that will culminate into convening of the Growth and Development Summit. We welcome the finalisation of the regulations that will allow the Labour Relations Act to be implemented by Nedlac and the CCMA, and call for the speedy enactment of the amendments by the President so that we can use our right to strike against retrenchments that we won through struggle Lastly we salute the revolutionary stance adopted by our cabinet on
HIV/AIDS. The nonsensical debate on HIV/AIDS and antiretrovirals, in
particular Nevirapine, has wasted so much time and caused so much division
when the central challenge was unity, decisive action and a mass campaign
to defeat the scourge of HIV/AIDS. This ugly chapter is finally closed
and no-one should be allowed to take us back. |
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