Creative mass action, large scale stayaways, sit-ins of leadership in government offices and strategic political and economic intervention made Cosatu a force to be reckoned with. Cosatu campaigns significantly bolstered the political struggle for freedom and won significant rights and improvements in workers' working and living conditions.
Cosatu campaigns officer from 1990-1994, Lisa Seftel, highlights some of the campaigns.
During 1987, Cosatu members were the only workers to win wage increases above inflation rate. But this was not won without a struggle. A massive surge in strike action was associated with this increase - according to a managment consultant, a million hours of lost production was recorded in 1986. This rose to a record nine million hours in 1987.
Then, in September 1987, PW Botha's government hit back with amendments to the Labour Relations Act (LRA). The amendments sought to emasculate the growing union movement and undermine the gains made by workers since the 1970s. The amendments aimed to:
As Cyril Ramaphosa, Num general secretary at the time, said: "It is no surprise that business has greeted the bill ... with deafening silence. There can be no doubt that capital, as a whole, supports the bill."
It was clear that Cosatu was fighting an alliance of the apartheid government and employers beyond the shopfloor.
The Anti-LRA campaign included lunchtime worker demonstrations. Because of restrictions on the right to protest, Cosatu members took to spreading the message on trains and buses.
Cosatu lodged a formal complaint with the International Labour Organisation (ILO). In doing this, the union effectively internationalised the issue and exposed management claims that the proposed amendments were in line with 'Western' labour legislation. The federation's attempt at forging an alliance with Nactu bore fruit in 1989. By August, the alliance held a Workers Summit under the shadow of the state of emergency.
In February 1988, the UDF was banned and Cosatu was restricted from engaging in any 'political activities'. Cosatu reasserted its right to be politically involved. At its Special Congress in May, Cosatu called for three days of national protest against the LRA and restrictions on political organisations.
In March 1988, Cosatu met, with the South African Consultative Committee on Labour Relations (Saccola). Cosatu delegates called on the employers organisation (Saccola) to reject the Bill. The employers refused. Then Saccola called Cosatu to a meeting to try to convince the federation to call off its plans for 'protest action'.
When Cosatu refused, Saccola embarked on a campaign to discredit Cosatu leadership and frighten workers into ignoring the protest call.
In the end, the stayaway exceeded all expectations. Between 2.5 and three million workers stayed away on the first day. Employers retaliated by dismissing thousands of workers. While support in some areas dropped on the second and third days, it went down in history as the country's first three-day national stayaway.
The day after the action, Saccola and the Director General of Manpower met Cosatu's lawyers. They agreed that the promulgation of the bill would be postoned to 1 September 1988 to allow for a process of negotiation on the content of the bill. The union movement had won a major victory.
But all was not what it seemed. Although the parties had agreed to a process for submissions on changes to the bill, Saccola was two weeks late with their submission. On 5 August, with time running out, it was agreed that Cosatu, Nactu and Saccola would jointly decide which clauses would not be promulgated on 1 September to give them more time to negotiate an agreement.
Cosatu and Saccola agreed on 'six offensive clauses' to be delayed for further negotiations. These went to the heart of the federation's objections to the bill. The parties communicated their agreement to the Department of Manpower, but to Cosatu's amazement, on 12 August, a notice in the government gazette announced that from 1 September 1988, the new Labour Bill - to be known as the Labour Relations Amendment Act (LRAA) - would become law in its entirety. No clauses would be suspended.
The amendments were passed without any changes, but the struggle against them continued.
Eventually, in May 1990, Saccola, Nactu and Cosatu signed an accord which agreed to reverse the 1988 amendments and made a commitment to achieve basic rights for workers.
Now, it was a united front of business and labour versus government.
Finally, in October 1990, the Labour Accord was signed by the three parties and government. The agreements in the accord paved the way, not only for reversing the 1988 amendments, but for negotiations on basic rights for farm and domestic workers, an LRA for public sector workers and a commitment from government to consult labour and business on key issues concerning them.
By May Day 1986, the tradition had been observed for 100 years. Cosatu was barely six months old, but May Day celebrations in South Africa that year were the biggest ever, with huge rallies all over the country. By then South African workers had embraced the day as their own. Most unions had campaigned for and secured May Day as a paid public holiday in plant and industry agreements.
But the apartheid government steadfastly refused to officially recognise the day. Its attempts to decide for workers on which day they should observe Workers Day became a joke spanning four years.
Before 1 May in 1987, the government declared that in future Workers Day would be on the first Friday of May. Conveniently for the government, 1 May fell on a Friday in 1987. The following year, in 1988, 1 May fell on a Sunday. Workers observed the occasion on that day but also gleefully took off the government-designated worker holiday on the first Friday of May, 6 May. Employers were livid and the government embarrassed, having been caught out at its own game. But still the state did not learn its lesson. In 1989, before 1 May, government declared Workers' Day to be the first Monday in May. Surprise, surprise! May 1 fell on a Monday that year. Only in 1990, and to avoid further embarrassment, did the state proclaim that, henceforth, a workers' holiday was to be observed on May 1.
"We cannot divorce the struggle for national liberation from the struggle against capitalist exploitation," said Num's Gwede Mantashe.
Other unions argued that the Freedom Charter was "a good foundation on which to start building a working class programme", but was not enough to ensure socialism. Cosatu needed to develop, they argued, a programme for "true socialism and democracy". These unions were not against participation in the anti-apartheid struggle. However, the fear was that, without its own clearly defined programme, the working class would be overwhelmed by other class forces.
Opponents of adoption said it would make the federation too sectarian and would work against the creation of one union in each industry, thus weakening the working class.
The advocates of a Workers Charter were, rightly or wrongly seen as presenting it as an alternative to the Freedom Charter. And, in the end, only the Freedom Charter was adopted.
At Cosatu's Third Congress in 1989, a resolution was tabled calling for a Workers Charter to be drawn up after thorough consultation and debate.
The time was ripe for the development of a Workers Charter as a clearer understanding had developed within unions and the progressive movement on the role of workers in the struggle for democracy and socialism. The ANC's constitutional guidelines had also made a provision for a Workers Charter.
The Congress resolved to launch a Workers Charter Campaign to draw up a Charter that would "articulate the basic rights of workers" and be "guaranteed by the constitution of a people's government".
It was hoped that the Worker's Charter would reflect the demands of the "broadest section of the oppressed and exploited masses of our country". In the end, however, demands were collected mainly from members of Cosatu unions.
A special Workers Charter Conference in 1990 debated key demands of workers. Besides developing positions on issues such as the lock-out and closed shop agreements, discussions on Gender and the Constitution covered: the state's responsibility for childcare and creche facilities; equal rights in marriage; the legalisation of abortion; non-sexist education and equal pay for equal work.
While a draft Workers Charter was tabled, it was never extensively discussed or adopted at Cosatu's 1991 Congress.
Some of its demands would later make their way into the RDP and the constitutional debates at the World Trade Centre.
2 March 1988:
The captains of industry and the commissars of labour meet for the first time
A large Cosatu delegation of about 25 people met with about 15 employer representatives. The venue was the main boardroom of the Anglo American Corporation. Staring down the walls were oil paintings of the Oppenheimer clan and other captains of industry. The room exuded an air of power and established wealth. On the vast boardroom table were antique silver containers, with cigarettes and Cuban cigars! Tea was served by black men wearing colonial-style white coats and gloves and whispering 'viva comrades' as they passed the union delegation their cups. It was a bizarre setting for the first meeting of the captains of industry and the commissars of labour.
Striking Back
Taxation has historically been a hot issue between the trade unions and government. In 1991, faced with inadequacies in the General Sales Tax (GST) system of taxation, government decided to replace it with VAT.
Without adequate consultation, South Africans suddenly found themselves confronted with the prospect of paying tax on a far wider range of items than had previously been the case. VAT would now have to be paid on such things as water, electricity, union subscriptions, medical services at private and public hospitals, rentals, all basic foodstuffs and so on. The system was also more complicated to administer, especially for small entrepreneurs.
The Cosatu Congress in July 1991 took a resolution calling on the Federation to take action.
Initially Cosatu's call was for the postponement of the implementation of VAT to allow for further consultations.
Our call was welcomed by many other organisations and lobby groups and soon Cosatu was spearheading a coalition of about 20 organisations opposed to the way in which VAT was being introduced. Over the following months, the number of groups which formed part of the VCC (Co-ordinating Committee on VAT) grew to over 100.
Barend du Plessis, then Finance Minister, was adamant that he would not postpone the VAT implementation date. However, he made a number of significant concessions in the early days of the campaign, including no VAT on rentals, union subscriptions and public health care.
But it was not enough for the union movement or the coalition which had developed. Their central demands became:
So Cosatu together with Nactu and a number of other independent trade unions called for a general strike on 4 and 5 November 1991. The list of demands grew to include:
The general strike on 4 and 5 November 1991 was one of the most successful ever (see box). By March of the following year, some of the demands of the strike were met. A range of basic foodstuffs were exempted from VAT and business had come to the table to discuss a national negotiating forum.
Business had realised that the trade unions were too strong to crush, it was better to talk to them. It took until June 1992 for the apartheid government to come to this same realisation and by the end of the year a national negotiating forum, the National Economic Forum (NEF), was established.
The VAT campaign had a significant impact on Cosatu, putting it on the map as a voice of all the poor and exploited people. The following year Cosatu was taking up issues like high food prices and it became active in forums dealing with drought relief, housing and electricity. Many Cosatu activists who are now MP's and Ministers in the national and provincial legislatures were groomed in such forums.
The VAT campaign was a good example of the power and success of alliances on single issues. Groups as diverse as welfare organisations, doctors' associations and small business organisations were galvanised into action by Cosatu.
But the most important long-term effect of this campaign was that it compelled government and employers to enter into negotiations around economic issues affecting workers. In particular around issues such as job security job creation, centralised bargaining, industrial restructuring, restructuring the public sector, customs and excise as well as more long-term negotiations on foreign investment and trade policy.
The roots of the tripartism we see today, in forums such as Nedlac, lie in the anti-VAT campaign.
Lisa Seftel
National Strike Results
The Labour Monitoring Group reported that 68 per cent of the black workforce stayed away on Monday 4 November, the first day of the stayaway. That is a conservative estimate of 3.7 million workers.
On the second day, the figures dropped off slightly to 60 per cent, representing 3.4 million workers.
"These figures are substantially higher than those recorded during the September 1989 stayaway (called to protest the Labour Relations Act) ... and are comparable to the June 16 1986 stayaway, previously the largest stayaway on record."
SA Labour Bulletin, vol 16, no 3, January 1992