WORKER NEWS
Although peppered with logistical problems, the Autumn Offensive has laid firm foundations for organisational renewal within Cosatu and for the federation’s annual recruitment drive until the year 2000.
Armed with pamphlets and membership forms, comrades ranging from union presidents and general secretaries to shopstewards and officials have visited workplaces throughout the country.
While it is too early to assess the numbers of new members recruited, it is clear that the nationwide recruitment drive has revived mass work in the federation and has directly addressed the oft repeated call to "go back to basics". The campaign has been an eye-opener for union activists at every level of the federation and has uncovered organisational weaknesses such as a lack of participation by affiliates in Cosatu regional structures and a lack of servicing of members.
The mass recruitment drive kicked off on 23 March with a launch in the industrial area of Alrode, Gauteng, which was attended by the top leadership of Cosatu and all its affiliates as well as ANC president Thabo Mbeki and SACP secretary general Charles Nqakula. The Wits event was followed by launches in other provinces.
On the first day of the recruitment, a team from Cosatu’s Wits region, including Cosatu deputy general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, poured its energies into recruiting workers at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.
"It was amazing," said Vavi. "There were many many workers who came to sign up. In fact, our biggest problem was that of resources. We ran out of forms!"
Vavi said one of the problems that hadn’t been anticipated was that of illiteracy. "A number of workers couldn’t read or write, so we had to fill in forms for them. Some had to sign with fingerprints. It took a lot of time. We weren’t prepared for that."
At bigger factories, lunch time meetings were too short to recruit all the workers who wanted to join and recruitment teams had to return the following day.
While full regional reports are still being compiled, early indications are that recruitment among categories of workers identified as top priority has been uneven.
Among the strategic priorities identified were farm workers, white and white collar workers, the public sector and sectors such as paper and pulp, catering and retail, transport and construction.
The Northern Cape/Free State region reported that white workers had been recruited in Kimberley while recruitment teams in the Eastern Cape had scored some successes among white auto workers.
In addition to recruitment of individual workers in workplaces, Cosatu teams have also targetted organisations not affiliated to Cosatu.
According to Cosatu’s national coordinator Bangumzi Sifingo, separate meetings with nurses, police, musicians, soccer players and engineers had met with positive responses and a number of unaffiliated unions are expected to join the federation.
Vavi said in a number of cases, workers affiliated to unions in other federations such as Fedusa and Nactu had been under the impression that they were indeed Cosatu members. Plans were being made to bring them into the relevant Cosatu affiliates.
Cosatu’s transport unions have reported significant gains among management and white collar workers. According to Sarhwu, significant numbers of Transnet managers have joined the union. TGWU president John Dube said his union was very happy with the results so far and an estimated 15 000 new members had joined the union. This was largely due to TGWU’s mobilisation in a two-week strike in the build-up to the campaign. Dube said the union’s biggest problem was reaching outlying areas, where a lack of resources meant that servicing of members tended to be weak.
One weakness has been the recruitment of farm workers. While the Western Cape said farm workers had been recruited in some outlying areas, other regions will only target farms in the last leg of the campaign.
Another problem was that some affiliates only recruited in their own sectors. This meant that Cosatu affiliates in sectors where organisation is weak, such as agriculture, did not benefit from the organisational muscle and resources of other affiliates.
In some cases, the Autumn Offensive coincided with existing union recruitment drives. NUM, for example, has targetted mines in the Rustenburg area, where the union intends to reverse serious organisational setbacks it suffered in the past.
Vavi said the recruitment drive was not a once-off campaign and that recruitment would continue. The top priority now is for affiliates to develop detailed plans to service new members, elect and train new shopstewards.
Cosatu regions have been collecting forms and some have indicated that these will only be released to unions once servicing plans are in place. Some regions will set up monitoring teams to assess the implementation of these plans. Regions will conduct detailed assessments in the next two months.
Vavi said that in May, lists will be given to affiliate head offices detailing when shopstewards will be trained and when collective bargaining will take place. By July, new shopstewards should have received training and be in a position to service members on issues such as working conditions and wages.
Cosatu’s first Autumn Offensive has been a learning experience for the federation and a thorough assessment will have to be done after April to ensure that weaknesses highlighted in the course of the campaign are addressed. Many of these are not new and had already been identified as ongoing organisational priorities for the federation and its affiliates. These are: recruitment, servicing membership, rebuilding Cosatu locals and regions, developing leadership with a specific focus on women, assistance to weaker affiliates, developing self-sufficiency and building effective administration.
Other problems highlighted in the campaign were:
After robust debate , Numsa’s national bargaining conference in March agreed that nothing could be gained from boycotting the national Jobs Summit but stressed the need to forge an Alliance job creation strategy before the Summit.
Held under the theme "Defend our jobs! Fight for job creation", the conference also resolved that job creation should form part of the ANC’s election platform.
Numsa members in the engineering, motor and auto and tyre sectors have been severely affected by retrenchments. In engineering alone, 114 345 jobs have been lost since 1990.
Conference delegates spent a day discussing the country’s unemployment problem and debated the Job Summit conscious of the fact that their resolutions would feed into Cosatu’s proposals to the Summit.
Most of the deliberations centred around the neo-liberal character of Gear with delegates warning that Gear would continue to destroy jobs if not reviewed.
"Retrenchments are an enemy to us and the nation as a whole," Numsa president Mtutuzeli Tom told conference delegates. "Left and right wing economists agree that up to 40% of the population is currently unemployed. Gear promised to create 200 000 jobs annually, but we see the opposite. The government is failing to link job creation to economic transformation."
Some delegates argued that, because of Gear, an Alliance agreement on the Jobs Summit was highly unlikely.
"In the event there is no agreement within the Alliance, Cosatu should withdraw from the Summit and call for a stay away on the day of the Summit," argued one delegate.
However, the conference agreed that the Jobs Summit was contested terrain and that nothing could be gained from boycotting it. The labour movement should participate in the Summit, but this should be preceded by an Alliance Summit to forge a common position within the Tripartite Alliance. However, the conference said Cosatu should reserve its right to disagree with its Alliance partners and to mobilise its members around such issues.
"The summit must not be a ceremonial event," said Numsa general secretary Mbuyiselo Ngwenda. "It must deliver on jobs. The Alliance must adopt a common strategy to present at the meeting. However, if this does not happen, Cosatu must go it alone and present its strategy. The Job Summit should not roll back our gains and the parties should review their economic policies so as to explore alternatives."
The conference resolved:
The conference recommended that Cosatu’s job creation proposals include:
The conference felt that the Cosatu Exco’s proposals to the Job Summit should take into account existing government policy in a number of areas and include more concrete proposals for implementation. Other observations included:
A historic bilateral between Cosatu and the Cuban trade union federation, CTC, has agreed to mobilise for an International Day of Action to highlight the devastating consequences of globalisation and to put forward alternatives to neo-liberalism. The two federations will lobby international labour forums and other worker organisations to support the Day of Action, which will include strikes, demonstrations and other forms of action.
While various Cosatu and CTC unions have had exchange programmes and Cosatu leaders have visited Cuba, this was the first full bilateral between the two federations and their affiliates.
The meeting discussed a wide range of issues and proposals relating to the role of trade unions within the global economy; economic changes and workers’ rights in Cuba; the role of women in the workplace, in unions and in society; the impact of technological change; relations with ruling parties; the social dimension of foreign investment; privatisation and the restructuring of state assets; collective bargaining and trade union education and training, and occupational health and safety.
On the second day of the bilateral, Cosatu affiliates in different sectors hosted meetings with their Cuban counterparts to discuss initiatives to further strengthen solidarity between Cuban and South African unions. The Cuban trade unionists also met Cosatu members in various workplaces.
In welcoming the CTC comrades, Cosatu office bearers expressed their profound thanks to the Cuban workers and people for their selfless contribution to the struggle against apartheid and their continued support in the building of a democratic South Africa.
CTC general secretary Pedro Ross Leal expressed his federation’s deep appreciation of the warm expression of solidarity by Cosatu and its affiliates in hosting the meeting and in providing the resources to make it possible.
The two federations agreed that the devastating impact of neo-liberal policies underlined more than ever before the need to build international solidarity and to build a struggling force "which unites workers and peoples to fight for a better world, a world based on meeting the people’s needs and not on the search for maximum profit".
The bilateral noted the fact that the international labour movement remains deeply divided. Cosatu is affiliated to the ICFTU and CTC is affiliated to the WFTU. But the meeting agreed that international solidarity is not only based on affiliation to an international labour federation but on a common programme which unites labour movements internationally in the interests of working people across the globe.
"We commit ourselves to build international solidarity and bilateral and multi-lateral relations both within our own international federations and beyond, including in forums such as the ILO workers group and other multi-lateral labour forums," said a joint statement issued after the bilateral.
"We commit ourselves to build a united international labour movement based on the principles of independence, democracy, mutual respect and cooperation, a labour movement not based on domination by the strong but one which gives a voice to the workers of poor and rich countries alike.
"We believe this unity will be born out of our common struggles. It is this unity in action that will lay the basis for structural unity.
"As Cosatu and the CTC we believe we have an important role to play in building this solidarity and unity in action across the globe, particularly in our own regions, continents and in building South-South relations."
The next edition of The Shopsteward will carry an interview with CTC general secretary Pedro Ross Leal.
Samwu has scored a victory against the privatisation of basic services. The CCMA ruled in March this year that the introduction of privatised refuse removal in Khayelitsha amounted to a unilateral change in the terms and conditions of employment of municipal refuse removal workers, was an unfair labour practice and was in breach of the 1997 SA Local Government Bargaining Council agreement that the public sector is the preferred deliverer of services.
The ruling has halted a refuse scheme run by Billy Hattingh, which Samwu says is a labour broker which sub-contracts downwards.
Samwu filed for arbitration after negotiations broke down. Services in Khayelitsha, which falls under Tygerberg, deteriorated rapidly as did relations between workers and pro-privatisation local ANC councillors. Council officials allegedly tried to intimidate Samwu members and shots were fired at a Samwu member from an unmarked car. In February, ANC councillor Buyiswa Kalako was shot at and another ANC councillor, Vuyani Ngcuka, alleged that Samwu was attempting to assassinate witnesses in the case.
According to Samwu, Ngcuka is the main instigator of the privatisation scheme, and the union called on constitutional affairs and development minister Valli Moosa to investigate the council’s vested interests in the deal.
During the arbitration, Khayelitsha’s refuse continued to mount. In March, the situation got so bad that the council asked municipal workers to help the Billy Hattingh scheme clean the area.
Following the CCMA ruling, the Tygerberg council decided to take the decision on review to the Labour Court. However, they missed the six-week cut-off period to file for review. On April 9, Samwu filed for an order of the court to make the CCMA award legally enforceable. At the time of going to press, the union had not yet heard whether the council would contest this.
The union says it plans to use the CCMA judgement and the Bargaining Council agreement to campaign vigorously against privatisation.
NUM president James Motlatsi has urged the South African government to refuse to sign the Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI) being drawn up in secret negotiations between the world’s richest 27 countries. He was speaking at the NUM special national congress at the end of March.
Motlatsi’s call is in line with an international campaign against the MAI. In February this year, over 600 civil society organisations from 68 countries declared their opposition to the agreement in a letter to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). They said the MAI conflicts with many international treaties on human, social and cultural, economic and political rights and promotes corporate greed disguised as investor rights.
"Our democratic rights would be swept away because non-elected corporations could over-ride the decisions of our elected government," Motlatsi told NUM delegates.
"The intention of the agreement is to lay down a set of rules which are legally binding on governments and which give corporations the right to move their operations wherever they wish around the world without any government regulation or interference."
Motlatsi warned that, under this agreement:
The NUM special national congress has reaffirmed the union’s unwavering support for the ANC, pledging active involvement in building the ANC as well as human and financial resources to ensure that the ANC wins a two-thirds majority in the 1999 general elections.
"We want an ANC government returned to power with more than a two-thirds majority so that it can alter the Constitution, amend the Bill of Rights and pass laws that are suitable for the conditions in this country," NUM president James Motlatsi said in his opening address to the congress, held from 26-28 March.
"We want a strong ANC government and we will work hard to get it," Motlatsi said.
Ensuring a high voter turnout would be a key challenge in the election campaign.
"It would be foolish to think that it is going to be easy to persuade ordinary people to support the ANC on the same scale as they did in 1994," said Motlatsi. "Our most difficult task is going to be to prevent mass abstention by voters who believe that the government has failed them in some way."
This could be avoided by addressing issues of socio-economic transformation such as unemployment.
Kgalema Motlanthe, outgoing NUM general secretary and now ANC secretary general, reiterated the need for a two-thirds ANC majority to ensure transformation.
The country’s constitution was the outcome of a negotiated settlement. "There are still a number of clauses which need to be amended if we are to create a constitutional framework within which to implement our transformation agenda."
Motlanthe said the 1999 elections would be contested around the ANC’s performance in government.
Opposition forces were undermining efforts to transform the country. There were consistent attempts to portray the ANC as synonymous with corruption and crime and that the ANC could not govern or build the economy.
The immediate challenge was to revamp ANC structures and to improve communication so that "you as ANC members are armed with authentic information regarding our achievements and failures".
Motlanthe stressed the importance of rebuilding democratic structures in every community. "At present many ANC cadres feel alienated. Sometimes policy originates from government without our cadres having had the opportunity to participate."
He said ANC structures should be rebuilt in a way that opens up space for the movement’s activists to participate "with the assurance that this finds its way into the process of policy formulation and implementation".
Presenting the secretariat report to the congress, new NUM general secretary Gwede Mantashe said the NUM NEC acknowledged positive change within ANC structures in revitalising democratic practices.
"We support and commit ourselves to work tirelessly to ensure that the ANC is not only democratic in outlook, but also that it is seen to be democratic in practice."
The NEC had observed positive improvements in the working of the Alliance "after a long period of a clearly observable breakdown in the Alliance structures".
The report identified the need to strengthen the Alliance and "revitalise the political centre of the democratic movement".
Mantashe called on NUM members to implement NUM and Cosatu resolutions by building an ANC branch in every mine and an SACP branch in every shaft.
"We can only strengthen the Alliance through active participation at branch level, at regional level, at provincial and national level of the Alliance structures.
"We must avoid becoming referees and linesmen while expecting the ANC to play the game.
"If we can succeed in building strong structures, we can sustain our movement in the face of the brutal counter-revolutionary offensive," Mantashe said.
The secretariat report said revolutionary gains since the 1994 elections had directly benefitted mineworkers. It listed increased public holidays, the Mine Health and Safety Act, the Labour Relations Act, the Leon Commissions into mine health and safety and into the Vaal Reefs disaster, and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, which will reduce mineworkers’ working hours from 48 to 45 hours a week.
"It is these changes and many others that need to be implemented that have influenced our union to reaffirm its unwavering support for the ANC."
The congress agreed on the need for engagement in the ANC and the Alliance to finalise the process leading up to the elections. This would involve reaching agreement on an election manifesto and an election strategy in an Alliance Summit, including developing focussed campaigns in the Western Cape and Natal.
Congress also stressed the need to identify areas for visible improvement in government delivery in the build-up to the elections.
Speakers at the NUM congress and at a farewell dinner afterwards showered praise on the union’s outgoing general secretary, Kgalema Motlanthe, elected ANC secretary general in December last year.
"This is a conscious deployment aimed at ensuring that the ANC remains working class biased," said the secretariat report to the congress. "We wish him all the success in this daunting task.
"We can assure all the Alliance structures that the NUM is committed to being the training field for leadership for the broader democratic movement."
"Thank you Mkhuluwa for your unwavering commitment and service to mine and energy workers and to Cosatu members in general," said Cosatu president John Gomomo in his tribute to Motlanthe. "Thank you for the leadership you have provided. Your contribution will not only be missed by the NUM, but by the constitutional structures of the federation as a whole. We say goodbye to you, even though we have no doubt in our minds that you will continue to serve the interests of the working people in your new position as the secretary general of our movement, the African National Congress."
In a speech largely devoted to the country’s economic problems and the unemployment crisis, NUM president James Motlatsi called for a return to the RDP and for government to play a greater interventionist role in the economy.
Lamenting the disappearance of the Freedom Charter and the RDP from the country’s political vocabulary, he said big business had won "hands down" in the struggle over economic policy since the 1994 elections.
The government had begun to apply a fiscal policy determined by the IMF which resulted in the sale of government assets and its withdrawal from the economic management of the country.
"It has become so keen on balancing its budgets and introducing free markets that it has run ahead of the requirements of the IMF. The word RDP was added to the list of forgotten words in our language."
Motlatsi called on his union, with Cosatu, to place the labour movement back at the centre of the economic debate.
"We must inject new life into the Tripartite Alliance so that it can once again play a central role in the development of economic policy."
"We have the campaigning skills that no others possess in our country and we must use them amongst all of our members and the poor, the landless and the dispossessed who are not members of trade unions in order to mobilise them in support of a return to the RDP and a greater interventionist role by the government.
"We want the government to play a role in the private as well as in the public sector. We want it to stop the flood of profits to foreign ventures. We want it to invest in the economy and regulate the activities of all those who are not working towards the same ends as we are — who do not have the same priorities."
Motlatsi strongly dispelled the myth of the patriotism of the free market and of big business. He gave examples of capital flight from South Africa since the eighties, which contributed to the running down of the economy the ANC inherited in 1994.
"The mining companies who were the biggest contributors to the outflow of capital did not alter their apartheid habits to concentrate on building up South African industry after the election. The very reverse happened."
In the three years following the election, SA corporations invested more than R61 billion abroad — equal to their total direct investments in South Africa in that period.
"This was the time the country was crying out for investment funds, when we were asking the mine owners to join with us in raising capital for the RDP and were being turned down; when the government decided to privatise enterprises to get its hands on extra capital to finance house building and the provision of water and electricity. That amount of money could have made a success of the RDP," Motlatsi said.
He said only the government could kick-start the economy on the road to economic recovery. "We need a massive creation of jobs in labour intensive industries located in regions where they are required most. Private industry will not and cannot do that alone."
"It we want to make real progress in our fight for jobs, we must combine the restoration of the RDP with an attack on globalisation. We have to challenge multi-nationals at every stage of their activity within our boundaries and beyond."
Hundreds of mine and energy worker delegates stood in the hot midday sun waiting for something to happen. Some chatted, others looked a little puzzled. "An international event" was the only clue the congress programme revealed.
Suddenly a motor bike roared around the corner, its driver none other than NUM president James Motlatsi, beaming beneath his peak cap. Delegates cheered and broke out into spontaneous applause.
Motlatsi proudly climbed off the bike and let Victorene Kalongi, deputy general secretary of Fenamiza, the mineworkers union of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), try it out for size.
Motlatsi’s display was all in aid of international solidarity. The NUM gave four motor bikes to Fenamiza to travel across the DRC to organise and service their members in the country’s mines.
DRC’s democratic forces swept to power in May last year, but the Mobutu dictatorship had left widespread devastation in its wake. Lack of infrastructure and means of communication such as telephones makes building unions a daunting task. Organisers travel for up to two weeks from one mine to the next.
NUM’s solidarity in action will extend beyond material support to sharing collective bargaining strategies and negotiating skills. This forms part of a broader strategy to strengthen unions in the region. South Africa’s mining houses are increasingly moving into other Southern African countries. This puts the need for "cross-border bargaining" and solidarity firmly on the union movement’s agenda.
NUM, Cosatu, ANC and SACP leaders at the congress spoke with one voice about the regrouping of counter-revolutionary forces aimed at destroying the Alliance and sabotaging transformation.
Cosatu president John Gomomo and ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe pointed out that these forces were using the freedoms won through hard struggle to push their own agenda.
"The gains we have made in democratising society have also opened spaces to counter-revolutionary forces to use our democratic constitution to take forward their agendas," said Gomomo.
Reactionary forces were daily trying to undermine and derail attempts by the ANC-led government to deal with the apartheid legacy.
"These forces in parliament, civil society and the public service are bent on using the very constitutional provisions meant to improve the lot of ordinary South Africans to entrench their privileges and undermine transformation in South Africa."
NUM has come face to face with the counter-revolutionary threat.
"As mineworkers we felt the impact of this threat in Rustenburg, where hit squads eliminated a number of NUM shaft stewards and members," said Gwede Mantashe, presenting the secretariat report to the congress.
He reminded delegates that the National Party did not give up power voluntarily. "We always expected it to try to make a come-back by making it impossible for the ANC to govern. We even expected it to sabotage any progress made by the people’s government. This risk remains."
The DP was most consistent in trying to ensure that the ANC continues to govern with injuries and "remains in power limping".
However, Mantashe said the new and most serious threat of counter-revolution came from Bantu Holomisa and Roelf Meyer’s UDM. "This threat is serious because it is the coming together of two leaders with apartheid military backgrounds with serious connections with military intelligence.
Some of those arrested for the assassination of NUM members had clear connections with the former Transkei Defence Force. Mantashe warned that the Mouthpiece Workers’ Union had built a base at Amplats mine and was trying hard to expand its presence in Rustenburg and in the Free State.
Gomomo and ANC president Thabo Mbeki said the key objective of counter-revolutionary forces was the destruction of the Alliance.
"The strategic goal of counter-revolutionary forces has always been the breaking of the Tripartite Alliance," said Gomomo.
Mbeki concurred: "The enemies of change sleep neither at night nor during the day. For them, every minute of time is the birth of new space in which they must act to change change itself into a backward advance to the past."
Their agenda included weakening and destroying the NUM and the ANC and dismantling the Tripartite Alliance, "using its component parts to fight one another until each perishes in the fratricidal conflict".
"At the centre of the tragic upheaval in the platinum mines in the Rustenburg area last year, which threatened to spread to the Free State Goldfields and took lives as far afield as the Transkei, was the strategic objective to weaken and destroy the NUM," Mbeki said.
What is to be done to counter the threat of counter-revolution?
Mantashe said the mining industry crisis creates fertile ground for these forces. They play with the emotions of mineworkers and attract them by promising things that will never happen.
He said the union had to deal with this problem with renewed vigour. "It is a wise organisation that does not only analyse its own weaknesses and strengths but also its opposition, no matter how small."
"Our task as revolutionaries is to isolate this fringe group conniving with the most reactionary white right-wing forces," said Gomomo. "We must penetrate ordinary workers in order to point out the dangers of following abo Thele-weni."
"We should use the Cosatu Autumn Offensive to camp in the hostels of the platinum mines and recruit workers back to the democratic fold. In doing so, we should ensure that we train our shopstewards to provide service to members and to give them basic political education.
"Our members should be able to know the differences between policies of political parties. They should be in a position to say we support this party because its policies are meant to shift the power relations in favour of workers and the working class.
"They should be able to say we don’t support that party because its policies are meant to perpetuate the status quo and shift the power relations in favour of employers and the capitalist class."
Membership peaked at 331 000 in March 1997, dropping to 285 022 by December 1997. This was due to many factors, including retrenchments and the impact of counter-revolutionary forces. Membership by sector is: gold (61%); platinum (12%); other (10%); coal (9%); energy (5%) and diamonds (3%).
Over 51 000 gold and coal mining jobs were lost in 1997. Restructuring led to job cuts, premature closure of shafts and a focus on rich-ore bodies. In addressing this, NUM played a leading role at the Gold Mining Summit and is participating in policy debates on the Minerals and Energy Green Paper.
