Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, to the SACCAWU 7th National Congress 10 July, 2002

President Amos Mothapo
General Secretary Bones Skulu
Members of the National Executive Committee;
Comrade delegates and international guests

Revolutionary greetings to all of you dear comrades on this historic 7th National Congress of SACCAWU. We cannot over-emphasise the importance and significance of this conference, not only to you as delegates, but to your members, to other workers in your industry, to COSATU and the liberation movement as whole. I am greatly honoured to address you at this congress.

In my view, it is the most important since SACCAWU's inaugural conference. You are meeting against a backdrop of important organisational and political developments within your union and in our ongoing struggle for the NDR. For COSATU, one factor underlines the critical organisational challenges we face in this Congress:

For the first time ever, SACCAWU is 13 months in arrears on its affiliation fees. According to the COSATU constitution, a union that is six months in arrears ceases to be an affiliate of COSATU.

The inability to pay your affiliation fees reflects deeper and broader organisational problems. In the 7th National Congress of COSATU, the Secretariat Report fairly summarised the state of affairs in your union. The figures on membership of the union tell the story. It has largely remained between 91 000 and 103 000 since 1997.

Yet retail trade has one of the lowest levels of organisation in the economy, at only around 20 per cent of all workers. In contrast, union density in mining, government services and manufacturing is at least 50 per cent. The failure to grow the union in itself points to deep-seated problems.

In sum, this congress is not an ordinary congress. It faces the challenge of ensuring we find practical solutions to the problems SACCAWU and COSATU now face.

At the same time, the labour movement as a whole must deal with a deep-seated economic crisis, which appears above all the rise in unemployment and the decline in the quality of work even for employed workers. This situation has been compounded by stagnant pay increases and, in the past year, soaring food prices.

Unemployment is a crisis for all South Africans, with job losses in manufacturing and mining cutting into union membership. Preliminary COSATU figure show that between the Central Committee and the current period we have lost approximately 200 000 members. The Labour Force Survey indicates that unemployment has increased from 16 per cent in 1994 to 29,5 per cent in 2001.

The decline in employment presents particular challenges to your sector. Retail and wholesale trade provides almost a quarter of all jobs in the country. But about two fifths of employment in the sector is informal - that is, hawkers and spaza shops - compared to only about a fifth of all jobs.

And we know how bad pay is for informal workers. In 2000, government data showed that almost two thirds of all informal jobs paid less than R500 a month, compared to only about a tenth of formal jobs.

Even in the formal sector, the retail and hospitality industries have particular difficulties because of the shift to casual labour, which comes with lower pay and worse conditions and makes it harder to maintain strong organisation. According to Statistics South Africa, there were 104 000 casual workers in 1998 in the wholesale, retail and motor trade and hotels. In 2001 this figure increased to 182 000.

As a result, in three short years, the share of casual workers almost doubled, from 13 per cent in 1998 to 21 per cent in 2001. In the retail trade alone, casual workers rose from 91 000 in 1998 to 162 000 in 2001. This shows a massive increase in casualisation in your sector since 1997 - from one in five jobs in 1997 to almost one in three in 2001.

Clearly, this situation calls on us to develop new strategies both to drive recruitment of casual workers and to confront management about restructuring in the workplace.

Finally, at least half the workers in your sector are women. Many of them are pushed into the worst jobs, casual labour and the informal sector. That means SACCAWU has to take up the challenge of combating the persistent discrimination that faces women workers. At the same time, you must ensure that women are empowered in all structures of your union, from shop stewards to national office bearers.

The high levels of informal and casual employment in your sector make it harder to improve wages and conditions. In 2001, over half of workers in retail and wholesale trade earned under R1000 a month, compared to around 40 per cent of workers in the economy as a whole.

Certainly we have a long way to go - and need to ensure strong organisation and solidarity - to ensure a living wage for your members! Again, this situation underscores the importance of maintaining strong structures as well as driving recruitment to raise union membership in your sector.

Last year's Central Committee agreed that we cannot deal with the decline in employment just by strengthening our organisation and fighting restructuring in the workplace. We need to use sector job summits to end the job bloodbath. Your recent bargaining conference began to develop demands to take to the sector summit, demands which should increase employment in your sector, strengthen your bargaining structures and provide the basis for improving working conditions and pay for your members.

More broadly, COSATU has had to struggle for economic policies that will benefit our people by creating decent jobs as well as by improving basic services and welfare in our communities. A major challenge remains the privatisation of essential services, which continues despite major mobilisation against it by COSATU and the rest of civil society.

In February, in line with the broad mandate we received from our Central Committee, we suspended the strike action against privatisation. We are now debating whether we should not lift the suspension in light of the on-going privatisation at national, provincial and local level.

At the same time, SACCAWU and COSATU as a whole must deal with important new political challenges.

As we meet today, the launch of the African Union is being concluded in Durban. The continent is closing a chapter on the Organisation of African Unity, an organisation that counts many success as well as failures in its 38 years history.

Last week, we convened a meeting of the two continental labour organisations, the OATUU and ICFTU-AFRO, to ensure that the workers voice is heard as we move into this new era of continental politics. The meeting discussed NEPAD. We agreed that while we need a continental development initiative, the programmes in NEPAD need to be strengthened.

Above all, the proposals on governance must ensure participatory democracy, giving a voice to the majority, including organised labour. And the proposals on the economy must look at ways to empower workers and the poor, rather than looking just to facilitate private, foreign investment. At our meeting in Durban two weeks ago, President Mbeki responded to our concerns by agreeing to a process of engagement that, we hope, will overcome our concerns about the NEPAD's current programmes and establish strategies that will really benefit our people across the whole continent.

Another international event, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, is also approaching quickly. COSATU and the international labour movement plan a variety of events during the Summit. We are also working with the Alliance and with civil society as a whole to hold a massive demonstration against poverty. We expect SACCAWU to mobilise to help make our voices heard at this important international event.

At home, in the past year we have had to overcome critical political difficulties. Last year saw an unprecedented crisis for our revolutionary alliance. But in April, a largely successful Alliance Summit went a long way to re-establish trust and revived the spirit of comradeship and open, constructive but robust debates. We must maintain this spirit as we engage with the upcoming SACP Congress as well as the ANC's National Conference at the end of the year.

The Alliance Summit reached an important decision - to work together to resolve our disagreements on economic policy and come up with common proposals for the Growth and Development Strategy. We need to establish and implement a development strategy that will ensure that economic growth benefits all our people. In the next few months, we will be engaging in depth within the Alliance in order to lay a sound foundation for our engagement with capital and government at the Growth and Development Summit. In that context, our key claims revolve around:

· The need to shift investment to sectors that can create jobs and meet basic needs, including retail and hospitality. Sector summits are critical to achieve this aim.
· The transformation of the financial sector to ensure it supports developmental investment.
· Short-term measures to create jobs through public works and community service programmes as well as to hold down food prices and improve welfare grants. We need to campaign to ensure the extension of the child care grant to all eligible children, and ultimately to introduce the Basic Income Grant.

These are some of the challenges, these are some of the issues we must consider. I cannot deal with all of them in detail. But I would fail in my responsibilities if I do not explore some of the critical questions.

For SACCAWU today, the organisational issues are central. Your congress should spend most of your time addressing it. I want to again emphasize the following issues.

The critical challenge is to improve service to individual and collective members of the union. This is critical for recruitment, for maintaining solidarity and unity, and for strengthening worker control.

I know this challenge can be daunting. It can drain resources, it is complex and difficult to do. Yet we have no other choice but to confront the challenge and hold the bull by its horns. Too many workers in your industry are victims of management abuse, with little or sometimes no protection. Too many are losing hope in the unions because of their negative experiences with our organisations.

Too many phone in radio programmes and COSATU offices to outline their bitter experiences. Too many present themselves to COSATU, the department of labour offices and anywhere they believe they can get assistance - because they do not find it at home, in their union.

We recognise that SACCAWU organises in a difficult sector, with thousands of small employers and high levels of casualisation. The sector has a highly exploitative culture. While employment in your sector is relatively stable, that stability has come with massive casualisation, subcontracting and the use of temporary and foreign labour, including in some cases illegal immigrants.

The sector employs many women, whom capital thinks it can force to accept flexibility more easily because of their economic and social position. We have a choice in this congress, we can either be defensive about these challenges and adopt an ostrich approach or we can use it as a platform to seek genuine solutions. I am sure we will find the courage to take the latter path.

The critical issues we need to discuss here are:

· Improving service to members, which must start by improving support for shop stewards
· Improving SACCAWU's financial and personnel management. For this purpose, you can build on the Federation-wide Organisational Review Project agreed at COSATU's 2001 Central Committee.
· In that context undertaking a powerful recruitment drive which focuses in particular on casual workers
· Fighting for centralised bargaining and ensuring that the Sector Job Summit reverses the deterioration in employment conditions in your sector.

Comrades, I know that SACCAWU can face up to these tasks and manage them well. When I think about SACCAWU I remember your history. I remember the role you played to mould COSATU into the giant it is today. I remember the historic leadership you provided on such things as the living wage struggles at the early stages of our development. I remember the OK Bazaar strike, the Checkers Strike, the Pick 'n Pay strikes and countless other battles you fought, which inspired other COSATU members to do the same.

Your union has also taken a lead in transforming the administration of our pension funds. The establishment of an independent administrative body led the way for all our efforts to ensure that workers' money is used to create jobs and raise living standards, not just to build big office buildings and malls for the rich. This is also an achievement of which SACCAWU can be proud.

The setback in relation to the charges of corruption and wrong doing on the part of the principal officer should not deter us from moving down this path. I must congratulate your union for taking stern action against the individuals involved. Surely if we pride ourselves for a stronger stance against corruption in the private sector and in government, it is always appropriate that we act decisively against those found in the wrong side of our values and ethics.

I remember your deep commitment to the best traditions, cultures and principles that today are a foundation on which COSATU prides itself. I remember very vividly the culture of robust debates in your union.

But I remember too the ugly divisions that split the unions into two halves and the negative impact that this had on workers on the shop floor. This is your history, it's a history of COSATU too! The challenge we face is to ensure that we replicate the best of our past in order to confront our daunting challenges of the 21st century.

Your responsibility is to your members who are looking to this congress to address their problems.

Finally, as we gather here, in this town as well throughout the breath and length of our country, municipal workers are involved in a bitter battle for a living wage in line with our policies. Local government workers have had to confront the employer's refusal to continue negotiations and persistent police harassment.

The challenge mapped here are not to instil gloom and despair but to call you comrade to action. You dare not fail in executing this historic mandate. I wish you congress all the success and hope you emerge more determined to meet these challenges.

Amandla!
Viva SACCAWU

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