WOMEN WORKER LEADERS
When Nehawu president Vusi Nhlapo addressed the union’s national congress last month, he referred to the unions’ "glass ceiling", which has prevented women from rising into leadership positions in the labour movement.
But two Nehawu stalwarts — second vice president Noluthando Sibiya and treasurer Lindelwa Dunjwa — have shown that the glass ceiling can indeed be broken, if not shattered altogether.
Sibiya’s life experience and long record of struggle has laid a sound basis for meeting the challenges she faces as a leader of the country’s biggest public sector union.
The greatest challenge, says Sibiya, is transformation. "We are dealing with a public and a private sector which is resistant to change. Nehawu, as a public sector union, is at the very core of the challenges of transformation.
"We are also dealing with the neo-liberal agenda, which is directly impacting on our daily lives. The government has adopted Gear, which is not worker friendly, and in terms of that we have a lot of work to do.
"Nehawu has set certain specific goals in our Five Year Strategic Plan and our programme to ensure that the whole country is transformed and is biased towards the workers and the poor.
"This means that we have to deliver and be part of the transformation process, not only within Nehawu. Nehawu faces the challenge of transforming itself so that it can transform other formations outside.
Transformation
"We need to participate within other democratic structures so that we can ensure transformation. We are part of the transformation process beyond Nehawu, for example in the ANC and SACP. All members must participate actively and be card carrying members of the organisations. So we must transform ourselves and also the organs of civil society outside."
Sibiya is fully aware of the enormity of the tasks she faces. She says she will have to work out how to balance this with the need to spend some quality time with her family. She has three daughters. One has just started medical school, one is in standard 8 and the youngest is in standard 4.
"It will have an impact because of the demands of activities outside home. But I have a good support system at home from my mother and the rest of the family."
Sibiya comes from a tradition of political activism and both her parents were ANC activists. Her family comes from KwaZulu Natal, but was forced to live in Swaziland for some time. Her father was a teacher and her mother a professional nurse and they paid the price for their activism.
"They were jailed time and again. They were wanted by the police and so on," Sibiya explains. "As a kid I became angry at all that I was feeling but I could not channel my anger properly." But student activity at high school provided this channel and, like tens of thousands of other students nationwide, the 1976 student uprisings were an important politicising event in her life.
After school, Sibiya followed in her mother’s footsteps and qualified as a professional nurse. She got married and started a family.
When she started working at Prince Mshiyeni hospital in Natal, it was the beginning of a long involvement in public sector unionism which saw her rise to the ranks of Nehawu’s national leadership.
"We were a group of nurses at the hospital. A few of us decided that we could not allow the situation to go on and just fold our hands."
But Sibiya’s husband did not take kindly to her activism.
"My husband wanted to keep me out of the picture and he wanted to control the situation. He knew the kind of background that I came from, but he had a problem, he did not want me to get involved. I did get involved while we were married and it impacted negatively, and in the end we divorced.
"I got involved and in the end he could not control me any more. I was dealing with something which was far greater than even our relationship."
In the eighties, the Prince Mshiyeni hospital was under the control of the KwaZulu bantustan authorities, which was openly hostile to the democratic movement and to workers’ right to organise themselves into a union.
Undaunted, Sibiya and other nurses decided to organise underground for Nehawu. They held secret meetings at the nurses home and were the pioneers of organising nurses into Nehawu.
In 1990, workers at the hospital went on strike and Sibiya was elected as a shopsteward. She was one of those responsible for taking up workers’ grievances in negotiations with the KwaZulu authorities, including Inkatha’s Frank Mdlalose, later elected KwaZulu Natal premier. While the authorities refused to grant Nehawu recognition, the union membership at the hospital continued to grow.
Sibiya and her comrades combined workplace struggles with the fight for political rights. Since the 1980s the province had been characterised by high levels of political conflict. "During the run-up to the 1994 elections, we had to come face to face with the IFP." Inkatha was resisting participation in the country’s first democratic elections. But Sibiya and many other comrades were staunch ANC members and campaigned vigorously for the ANC.
"We went on strike in March 1994. In addition we had worker related issues. We wanted our rights, and KZN did not want anyone in KZN to be part of the unfolding political process.
"So, together with other public servants like teachers, police and administrative staff, in all the areas in Durban, we went on a two and a half month strike demanding that right."
During this time they met ANC leaders such as Cyril Ramaphosa and Jacob Zuma to explain their position and to win support.
"We were organising for the ANC. We organised workers to vote for the ANC. We were fighting the apartheid system and also for our rights."
Today Sibiya displays the same determination that saw the country’s first democratic government come to power. Only, now, her energies are directed at transformation.
"My message is, let us build Nehawu together and let us trust the leadership that we elect. Let us build one another. Let us involve ourselves in the struggles ahead. The road is not going to be easy.
"It was difficult when we all fought apartheid. I think it is even more difficult now that we are facing the transformation process. So we need to all come together and use whatever means we have at our disposal to ensure transformation."
Putting women’s leadership into practice
Many nehawu comrades, including newly elected second vice president Noluthando Sibiya had hoped that their national congress would elect at least three women national office bearers. This would have been in line with the union’s policy of a 50:50 gender balance. But Sibiya she says the election of two women national leaders shows that the union has made important progress.
"At the Cosatu congress we were one of the only unions who defended the need for gender representation in our structures," she said. "So I really felt happy that finally Nehawu has put into practice what it already stands for in terms of women in leadership positions."
While Sibiya says Nehawu has made a good start in correcting gender imbalances in the union, she says it has not been easy to put this into practice, especially in implementing the quota system.
"There has been some resistance, even from institutional level, where male comrades felt threatened by women. They say, what do women know about unions and politics and so on. Some don’t believe a woman can do it.
"But Nehawu has made headway because, after the realignment process, we got women into leadership structures. In some branches the quota is 50:50, but the higher you go, women’s participation decreases."
Women’s development programmes are key in ensuring women’s participation and leadership. Sibiya says these will ensure that shopstewards have the necessary information and skills, through basic shopstewards training, leadership training and so on. "This had done a lot in empowering shopstewards in general," Sibiya says.
Nehawu’s plan for a programme to train 20 women from each province over the period of a year will go a long way towards developing women’s leadership.
"Provinces are identifying core activists within the provinces for this programme. So the union is investing in them. And, by the time the year is over, they will have acquired specific skills which will enable them to participate generally and also, importantly, to participate in political debates."
Sibiya agrees that gender struggles are not an act of charity, but part and parcel of Nehawu’s socialist vision. She stresses that women should be well informed on political, socio-economic and other issues. "We have left crucial debates up to male comrades. I think now it is time that women rise up. But they cannot do it without having the necessary skills."
"We want to develop women so that they are on a par with their male counterparts and so that, in the end, we have the quality leadership that we are all looking for. We want people who are going to try to deliver what is expected of them."
Sibiya is confident that there is no turning back the growing tide of women’s leadership in the union. She hopes that, at its next congress, Nehawu will "take the plunge" and elect women to 50% of the national office bearers’ positions. But this will not happen overnight.
"It is not always easy to break new ground. The gender question is still sensitive to many, including women themselves. Often they elect people and fold their hands, saying we’ll see what will happen. It doesn’t mean we don’t trust male comrades. But men and women need to run the organisation together, because we are all members of this union. Women are in the majority, within this union and even in South Africa. About 53% of those voting in the 1999 general election will be women. So it is a question that cannot be shied away from."
Cosatu and its affiliates held an historic bilateral with the Cuban trade union federation, CTC, earlier this year. The Shopsteward spoke to CTC general secretary Pedro Leal Ross about the gains of socialism and some of the new challenges facing his country
The Cuban people made a significant contribution to our struggle against apartheid and continue to help us build a better life for all through the provision of doctors and so on. How does it feel to be here?
I feel very happy to be here. To be able to see this country without apartheid was a dream that finally turned into a reality. It has also given us the opportunity to meet with Cosatu and its affiliates and to interchange ideas and concepts between CTC and Cosatu.
The entire people of Cuba have been following the situation in South Africa very closely and were overjoyed to see the victory against apartheid and wish to congratulate the forces of the ANC and its allies in this struggle.
You have been a great inspiration for us to continue our revolution and to continue struggling for socialism. We continue to follow very closely the situation in South Africa.
We have a very strong admiration for comrade Nelson Mandela and for all South Africa’s freedom fighters.
On the day of our arrival we participated in a concert paying tribute to that dear figure of Chris Hani. We had the opportunity to spend much time with him when he visited Cuba and our federation. We felt very close to him. Though he has disappeared physically, his ideas will remain with us.
Cuba has developed its own "homegrown" socialism. Can you tell us about socialism in your country?
The revolution in the first place and socialism resulted in the complete transformation of the lives of all the people of Cuba. As you know, the decision to adopt a socialist character was taken in the midst of many acts of aggression, particularly the Bay of Pigs.
We had already accomplished the Moncada programme, the minimum programme that the revolution had set out. This programme had established a series of demands which our people had been struggling for. It included a literacy campaign; opening up of schools to all; social security for all, where previously there had been none; the elimination of racial discrimination which was prevalent at the time of the revolution; and the creation of new jobs, since there had been high unemployment.
There was a need for land reform as well, as many peasants didn’t have land. This land reform resulted in the fury of the United States and they initiated their plans of aggression. This culminated in April 1960, just one year and a few months after the triumph of the revolution. They thought these were communist measures but we were protecting the rights of our people. They thought they could punish the Cuban people and the revolution because of that. Those measures weren’t really socialist in nature but national democratic in nature. With socialism, many of the demands of our workers and our people were able to be fulfilled. Our workers and our people became the main spine of the revolution. We are not a perfect society but we are struggling every day to perfect it.
When the revolution triumphed, life expectancy was 55 years of age. Today it is 75 years of age.
The infant mortality rate was 66 out of every 1000 children. Today it is less than nine out of 1000. How many children has socialism saved in Cuba? Thousands.
Health care was private. Today it is completely free for all citizens, regardless of the type of sickness.
Before the revolution, unemployment was very high. Today the unemployment rate is 6,5%, despite the US blockade and the difficulties we faced with the demise of the Soviet Union and the socialist camp. The firing of workers was eliminated.
The culture and technology levels of our people was raised as education was made free for all. All the children of workers and peasants had the opportunity to study, whether it be a technical career or a professional career. At the time of the triumph of the revolution, one million people were illiterate out of a population of six million. Today no-one in Cuba is illiterate. The level of schooling is at least 10 years.
The participation of our people and our workers in the activities of the economy and political life and the socialist character of this is extremely important. The revolutionary government has always taken into account the opinions and criteria of the people and the workers and their representative organisations, including the unions and the Cuban workers’ federation.
After the revolution, laws passed have always been consulted with the masses of the people and the workers. All major decisions have been taken on the basis of consensus, through consultation with workers and in carrying them out with workers’ participation. We call this participatory democracy. There are many definitions of democracy and even those who are anti-democratic believe they are the champions of democracy. Therefore our people and our workers determine the main character of the life and of the actions that are taking place in the construction of a more just society and socialism.
If there was no participation of workers and the people, it would be impossible to carry out such an enormous task as the construction of socialism, as we were just 90 miles away from the enemy. Without the strong support of the masses, it would be impossible to resist the permanent aggression from such a strong enemy as the US. So the basis of our political conception is the people, the masses. Without them, the revolution would never have reached the point where we are now. My own opinion is that any true revolution cannot ignore the real participation of the people, the masses. It is the workers, the people, who defend and advance the revolution.
The first stage of the revolution was a democratic, national liberation phase, because the real humanism only came with socialism. Humanism was deepened with socialism. Some say socialism doesn’t have a humanist nature, because of mistakes that have been committed. In any type of society there are always errors, there are mistakes. Politicians must have the capacity to understand that, when they make mistakes, these must be rectified in order to avoid a situation occuring again where a small group of people is able to destroy a whole project.
Can you tell us more about how participatory democracy works in Cuba?
In our elections, in Cuba, there is only one party, not all those parties like in other systems. We have been criticised for that. But in the conditions of our country, this one party is able to represent the masses of our people and is able to reflect the aspirations and the interests of those masses. It is able to maintain the unity of our people. For us unity is vital, as vital as the air that we breathe or the blood that circulates through our veins.
It is important to understand that we are subjected to a blockade, to a war in which the cannons are not sounding (although they have as well sometimes), but where they are trying to kill us in a silent way. And they even try to make other countries have complicity, manipulating realities, appealing to the lies, and trying to demonstrate that our system is not a just system, is not a real, true, genuine system of democracy. If you are in a war, you cannot be divided. You have to be more united than ever.
We weren’t the ones to invent this. These were the teachings that we inherited from the apostle of our independence, Jose Marti. They were the first ones to create a party in order to carry out a revolution to struggle for national independence. Even before Lenin, Jose Marti had already considered this idea and had already put it into practice in order to struggle for independence. Jose Marti was not a Marxist. He knew about the ideas of Marx, because he was a very cultivated man. He was a philosopher, and he left that heritage for us.
Before Jose Marti, the attempts of our people to win independence from Spanish colonialism had failed due to the internal divisions, due to regional and local factors. That is why we have the Party. It is not a very large party, relatively speaking. Right now it is about 800 000 militants out of a population of eleven million. And in the youth there are about 600 000 militants, members. But many women and men of our people that are not members of the Party are for socialism. They participate, they give their ideas and they work for socialism.
When we speak about participatory democracy, it is because our people are the ones that propose their leaders in the assemblies, at the local level. They are the ones that elect those leaders and discuss the programme that is going to be carried out. And they work so that the programme can be implemented. Therefore the exercise of democracy is not finished when one or other candidate is voted for. Democracy is exercised when the programme is elaborated, and when the programme is executed. That is what we call participatory democracy. We call it that because participatory democracy gives a very important role to workers and to the people in taking the most important decisions.
Even now we are carrying out a series of economic reforms in the country as a result of the changes in the world and the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the socialist camp. In order to carry out those reforms, we are celebrating what is known in Cuba as the Workers Parliaments. Before they are adopted in the National Assembly, the programme of measures were discussed at 70 000 assemblies in the workers centres. And the workers gave their opinions of which measures should be adopted, which should not be adopted. The measures were explained, why they were applied, others were clarified, and in the end, the government, the national assembly, approved those measures that had the highest consensus in that consultation. Each time we carry out an important activity, it is transformed into a plebiscite.
For example, on 1 May, there will be very big gatherings in the capital, in the provincial capitals, the municipalities and the small villages in the country. It is called the march of the combatant people. The workers will be there, as well as their families, children, and the people who have already retired. In Havanna, we expect a march of about one million people. As always, it will be a very big gathering. But that is not publicised by the media. The media is unfortunately controlled by the centres of power; imperialism controls the means of communication, the mass media.
But when the Pope was in Cuba, the world was able to see how the people of Cuba were mobilised by our party and by our union movement. Because we felt we should receive and welcome him in the way he merits — a warm fraternal, respectful reception. Many had expectations that the Pope might change things in Cuba. The Pope did speak about Cuba. He said Cuba should have more participation in international relations and he spoke against the isolation of Cuba, which to us refers to the blockade. We didn’t ask him to do that. He also said that it is necessary to globalise solidarity. And Fidel [Castro] told him that he agreed completely. And we listened carefully to everything the Pope said, even things that we didn’t agree with completely. We have a very good impression of that man that has such a large responsibility, as he is the head of a religion that has so many people following it in the whole world. And that has to be taken into account.
How have you achieved such a high level of ongoing mobilisation and participation?
We were talking about the subject of participation, in which our men and women are the main actors in what is done and what is said. We have also been able to raise the political level of the people, the political culture, economic culture and culture in general.
Related to this is that the leaders of the revolution, at whatever level, are always in contact with those masses. This is the method that Fidel taught us since the initial days of the revolution. For instance, I am the general secretary of the Central Federation of Trade Unions, a leader of the Party as well and a member of the state council. Although I participate in a lot of meetings, I visit many workplaces every single month, every single week. And I speak to the workers directly, in their workplaces, or when they recess, or in the assemblies with them.
Right now we are celebrating assemblies that are called the assemblies for economic efficiency. We are struggling in order to make our economy more efficient. Because without efficiency, it is impossible for us to survive in this world where there is very high level and very unequal competition. Because the most developed countries have the technology and they have the resources that have accumulated over many years, resources that have come out of our countries. Our countries in the third world are the ones that contributed to the richness of those countries called the first world countries. But we don’t have the access to that technology. We have to make enormous efforts, human efforts and human talents, in order to be able to compensate partly for that lack.
So we are carrying out those assemblies with the workers to give their opinions on what is to be done in the productive process, from the organisational point of view, from the productive point of view, in order to raise the efficiency of production and the quality of what is being produced, in order to reduce the energy expenditure and to make our production more competitive. We have to take into account that those workers are the owners of those means of production. And their lives depend on the realisation of that production. The means of production are in the hands of the people, of the state, of the revolutionary state. That is the conception of socialism.
This doesn’t mean that private production doesn’t exist. We will always have private production, particularly in the countryside. Right now, many people have adopted self-employment. But the main means of production are in the hands of the state. The wealth of the country is national. And therefore, we have to defend that wealth.
Some Cosatu comrades expressed concern that the economic reforms in Cuba are a retreat from socialism. What is your response to this?
I want to pose a concept — the economic process you want to carry out, in our case, socialism. We cannot carry that out on the basis of voluntarism. You must have the political will, but not voluntarism. You cannot make it against the realities. Many things have changed in the world which have a great influence on our country. The demise of the Soviet Union and the socialist countries have meant the demise of our principal allies and our principal economic partners, where we acquired the raw materials, steel, wheat, fuel and so on. We had very mutually advantageous economic relations, where we paid for products and sold our products at a very just price. So there was an exchange which was very mutually advantageous, and advantageous to us as well.
With the disappearance of all that, we had to reorganise our economy. But something else also happened with the disappearance of the socialist bloc. A group of American leaders from the ultra-right began to work towards intensifying the blockade. First was the Torichelli law and then more recently there was the Helms Burton law. In the midst of this situation, we couldn’t continue with the same rhythm of life and the economy. As we reorganise our economy, we have been forced to reinsert ourselves into an international market that is dominated by imperialism. Before there were two markets. Now there is only one. We don’t have any alternative. But the blockade is trying to avoid that we are able to enter that market. The international financial institutions, which are dominated by the US, don’t give us credit. We don’t have any credit from the IMF or the World Bank, nor from the international economic organisations. Therefore, in the middle of this critical situation, we have had to begin to struggle to find who would be interested in investing in our country. That is why we carried out a reform of the investment law, in order to amplify those possibilities of investing in our country. That doesn’t change the socialist essence of our thinking, of our political thought and of our economy. Because we continue to be the owners of the resources of the country. We continue to be the owners of our industries, of the hotels, of everything. Right now there are people that have the opportunity of sharing in some of the sectors. But they are just businesses. In those businesses, the foreign investors participate. But the revolutionary Cuban government also participates. That is the essence of the question.
And we understand that our friends might be a little worried. But we ask our friends to have trust in us. Because we are not trying to construct capitalism like in other places. What we are doing is to struggle to preserve power in order to continue building our socialism. Because if the economy of the country doesn’t receive oxygen, we would lose the influence that today we have amongst the masses of our people. This is politics. We would be contributing towards the political objectives of the United States. What they want to do with the blockade, is to try to make our masses rebel against the system and the revolutionary government. But the masses know very well why in our country there are difficulties, why in our country we have problems. If we didn’t have the blockade, we would see the levels our economy would reach. Even with the blockade, our economy has already started to grow again, slowly. We have had an average growth rate of 3,5% over the last three years.
Even in the situation of the blockade, not one Cuban child has stopped going to school. Because there are schools and teachers for everyone. There is not one sick person in Cuba that has not received medical attention because we have the doctors, we have the hospitals and it is all free. Not one worker that has reached the age of retirement has been without receiving their monthly payment. Not one person in Cuba has been without social protection. Everybody has had social benefits. We have had quite a lot of economic difficulties, but no-one goes to bed without eating in our country. Not one child lives in the streets. We don’t have luxury houses, but everybody sleeps under a roof.
Therefore, in the midst of all these difficulties, our people struggle and live. And they have not weakened. Their ideas have not weakened. Their revolutionary ideas have not weakened. Nor has their love for the revolution and independence been weakened. Because what we are defending is independence. What we are defending is the liberty of our country. And that is above socialism even, even though we cannot have socialism if we do not have liberty and independence. And, in order to have true independence and freedom, we must continue building socialism.
