Address by COSATU Deputy General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, at the Parktonian Hotel CEPPWAWU Congress,06 August, 2002

Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, at the

Parktonian Hotel- CEPPWAWU Congress

06 August, 2002

Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary, COSATU Address to the 1st CEPPWAWU Congress - 06 August 2002

Comrades and friends,
I am honoured to be invited to speak to this historic first Congress of CEPPWAWU since the merger between PPWAWU and CWIU.

COSATU wants to congratulate your leadership, shopstewards and members on your great achievement in ensuring that the union sticks together for three years since your inaugural congress held in February 1999. This reflects the quality of your cadre, who recognise the critical importance of ensuring the solidarity of all workers.

We know how difficult mergers are - and the CEPPWAWU process has been a shining example for all of us. No one has backed off or split from the union, despite the massive challenges we have faced in the past three years. We recognise that you still need to ensure all your members fully support the current leadership, but we are sure you will manage that task.
Comrades,

The union movement is facing some of the sharpest political and economic challenges since the transition to democracy in 1994. Your Congress will have to reflect on how we engage in these difficult circumstances.
The economic context poses great challenges to the labour movement. We have seen massive job losses in the past fifteen years, while unemployment has risen from 16% to almost 30% in the past seven years alone. Manufacturing has suffered particularly in the past four or five years, losing more than one job in ten.

The huge job losses of the past ten years have swamped government efforts to overcome poverty. As a result, South Africa still has amongst the most unequal distribution of income in the world. One in five of our children shows signs of malnutrition.
The massive increase in food prices, especially for maize, has worsened the poverty levels. Maize prices have doubled in the past year. As a result, the inflation level for most workers is now over 10 per cent. That is well over the headline CPI that we usually use in wage negotiations. It means that unless workers get an increase of around 2 above the CPI, they will be facing a real cut in their pay and living standards.

The problems that lie behind rising joblessness, poverty and soaring food prices is the continued domination of our economy by a few huge companies, which exploit our country and our people at will. Our government's attempts to restructure the economy and deal with some of its structural problems have not succeeded. The GEAR strategy, which business demanded, has failed in every respect. Since 1994, we have seen only painfully slow growth, averaging around 2% a year, and unacceptably low investment.

At the same time, we have seen a massive capital outflow, as companies move abroad or shift capital onto foreign markets. Indeed, some of the capital they shift comes from our own pension funds - something we need to end as soon as possible.
The evil system of capitalism is in place and being consolidated. This system as we have said over and over again has no potential of addressing the needs of the majority.

Politically, the supremacy of the ANC is unchallenged. The Democratic Party and the other opposition parties are in disarray. There is no question that the ANC will continue to win a clear majority in elections for the foreseeable future. But the meaning of that supremacy for workers is not always clear.

Within South Africa, the democratic movement first won a democratic system and then won the elections within that system. That represents two huge victories, which have already led to significant improvements in government services for the majority of our people. But we need to evaluate soberly how it has changed the nature of class power in our society.

Yes, the democratic movement took political power. But that in itself did change the domination of the economy by a few huge mining and financial groups. That democratic breakthrough did not change the reality that our economy remains under the control and domination of the white minority. The capital's integration to the world has meant movement abroad of our largest mining and financial business. Investment has tended to undermine local ownership and production in manufacturing and infrastructure. In pharmaceuticals, for instance, we have seen some cuts in local production because multinationals decided to import from affiliates overseas.

Increasing foreign economic involvement has been associated with growing pressure to privatise state assets, which ultimately strengthens the power of big business at the cost of the poor.

We have achieved real gains - the substantial improvement in labour rights, the change in the mineral rights regime under the new Minerals and Petroleum Development Act, some land reform and support for small and micro enterprise, and the improvement in infrastructure and services for the poor. But important as they are, these victories have not tilted the balance to change the people's lack of economic power.

The democratic movement and the working class in particular has not achieved hegemony over the society. The state bureaucracy, the security services, media, consultants, judiciary and universities remain largely untransformed.
Even in the democratic movement, the left hegemony imposed through decades of struggle is being contested. Every day we hear voices downplaying the leading role of the working class in the NDR, calling capital a motive force, and saying the NDR should aim first to build a non-racial capitalism. The push from the right appears even more brutally in the clamour from some quarters to smash strikes, privatise, cut taxes and weaken popular organisations.

The debates in the Alliance are aggravated by the lack of capacity of all parties to take forward our agreements. The recent Alliance Summit demonstrated the problem. We were able to reaffirm our basic agreement about basic social, economic and political strategies. But we have been unable to take forward the programme of action we agreed upon there. In these circumstances, disagreements on government policy cannot easily be resolved.
In this situation, the struggle continues.

Comrades,

Where does this leave us in terms of our key tasks for the coming year?
For COSATU, this is the Year of the Member. We have dedicated this year to improving service for our members and to recruitment. Clearly, these two tasks are interlinked - we cannot hope to organise the unorganised if our current members do not feel satisfied with our work.

We need to reflect carefully on what our members expect from us in 2002. According to our Organisational Review Report, which was presented to the Central Committee last year, service to members includes

Ensuring real worker control of the union

Negotiating for decent wages and conditions of services

Protecting our members in grievance procedures and disputes

Managing processes of restructuring in the workplace and in companies

Empowering our members through educational programmes and campaigns, and

Ensuring national policies benefit workers and the poor in general.

The Organisational Review Report concluded that we have done well in negotiations for wages and conditions. There is no question that a union member enjoys higher pay and better benefits than a worker who has not joined a union. In this context, we must congratulate CEPPWAWU on its progress toward centralised bargaining.

But how well have we done in taking advantage of the new laws governing disputes and unfair labour practices? How well have we reinforced workers' control and true union democracy? Have we managed workplace and industry level restructuring processes well? Have we ensured that our policy positions bring real benefits to our people?

This Congress should make a start in reflecting on these issues, identifying shortcomings and finding a way forward. It should lay the basis for the organisational review process that we have agreed on for COSATU and for each affiliate. In that process, we will think about how we can build even stronger unions for the future. We are asking each of our affiliates to identify as honestly as possible their strengths and weaknesses, and find ways to improve their work in the future. We welcome the decision to discuss a proposal on organisational review at this Congress. Only strong and united unions can protect the interests of workers in these difficult times!

The Central Committee also resolved that we have to take a hard look at our recruitment campaigns. The fact is that, with the loss of formal sector jobs, our unions are shrinking. Manufacturing has been hardest hit, and CEPPWAWU is no exception. This process has been going on since the job losses deepened in 1997. It was masked by the increase in membership in the public sector, which was not allowed to organise until 1994. But that easy source of recruitment is now reaching its limits.

As a result, COSATU itself has been losing members for the first time in its history. We have shrunk by 200 000 members in the past year.
Comrades, this situation represents an unacceptable weakening of the working class. It has not led to lower union density. In contrast to allegations in the City Press, this fact suggests the main problem is not that workers no longer want to be union members. Rather, the main problem is that we are losing members in our traditional strongholds, and have not found ways to recruit in new companies and new types of workers - in the informal sector, amongst casual workers, amongst women and young people in very small employers.

This situation poses a special challenge for CEPPWAWU. In manufacturing as a whole, half of all workers belong to unions. In the chemical sector, only one in seven is in a union. We know you are strong, very strong, in some subsectors such as petroleum. But we also know that there are a host of small companies where workers face the harshest exploitation. The fire in Lenasia that killed 12 workers shows what happens when chemical workers are not organised.

With the on-going job losses in our traditional centres, we now have to find ways to organise in new areas. For CEPPWAWU, there is huge scope for growth. We need to develop clear plans for on-going recruitment and service to new members in order to take advantage of these possibilities. Because there is no doubt: if we, as COSATU, do not put more energy, capacity and resources into organising the unorganised, we cannot hope to maintain our strength to protect our members.

A second challenge for CEPPWAWU, as for all our unions, is to ensure the development of sectoral policies that will create more jobs. That is the only long-term solution to rising poverty and unemployment.
CEPPWAWU has been working toward summits in pharmaceuticals, basic chemicals and wood and paper. These require that you commit expertise, resources and time at all levels, in order to ensure clear demands that will generate quality employment and meet the needs of all our people. In this context, we need to emphasise the importance of pushing for local production of AIDS drugs as part of your demands. That will have a huge impact on the lives and health, not only of all South Africans, but also of Africans across the entire continent. And at the same time, it will create local jobs and expertise.

Of course, as we all know, CEPPWAWU faces the particular challenge of resisting and reversing the new regulations on plastic bags. COSATU has been supporting you in your Section 77 at NEDLAC. We demand a campaign to end litter from plastic bags, while creating jobs, through a concerted effort at recycling. That would be cheaper and more effective than the proposed regulations. We all hope for a negotiated solution. But we also know that you can't win in the boardroom what you can't win on the streets - and we know you are ready for action if necessary.

Comrades, by now you know that COSATU Exco called for a general strike for jobs and against privatisation and poverty on October 1 and 2. We had hoped that the Alliance Summit in April would resolve our differences with government, but that process has not been implemented. Meanwhile government Ministers continue to make speeches that ignore the agreements between ourselves, the ANC and the SACP.

Our key demands are:

An end to privatisation, which raises the cost of basic services to the poor and weakens the democratic state

Measures to address the hardships caused by poverty and soaring food prices, including a qualitative improvement in welfare measures, a 95% windfall profits tax on maize and job creation through public works on a massive scale

The redirection of government economic policies to create jobs and meet the needs of our people.

We are also going to negotiate these demands at NEDLAC. But should we fail, we need an even more impressive turnout than in last year's strike. Only our solidarity and unity can win a better life for all our people!
Finally, I want to speak to the important challenge of preserving unity and cohesion of CEPPWAWU and the federation.
COSATU and its affiliates have since 1991 boasted of long spells of unity and cohesion and coherence of our policies and policies. This unity has been one of our main sources of strengths. Our foes and friends alike have admired how we have managed to keep our movement vibrant, democratic and most active social force in our new-found democracy. For this we have won admiration at the home front and abroad.

Every trade union movement across the world has been queuing up to learn from us in order to develop the same strengths. But our enemies have been equally hard at work. These enemies of the working class have developed a justified fear of our strengths. Indeed, the most frequent visitor to the COSATU home page or website is the CIA.

Our unity and cohesion is now being contested. In some unions there now exist factions that are in permanent revolution against each other. It is these factions that feed negative stories about their unions to the real enemies of the working class and some sections of the media. Unfortunately some in the media have wittingly or unwittingly became part of these factions as they continue to print unverified insinuations and innuendos meant to undermine the standing of the trade unions in the society and make communities angry at our leadership.

In all these factions and infighting, you cannot miss the fact that these problems are being engineered from somewhere. Time and again we have stumbled upon what seems to be the work of intelligence operatives manipulating and sowing divisions, peddling untruthful rumours and targeting some leaders for character assassination with the intention of reducing their standing in the unions and eventually destroying them. All this, comrades, is being orchestrated somewhere not in the interest of workers but for the enemies of the working class. We are going to ask our lawyers to request information on this type of activity under the Promotion of Access to Information Act.

I am compelled to raise this in this congress - the first of CEPPWAWU - to warn you not to be complacent about unity. Do not take your unity gains for granted. Your challenge is to preserve and consolidated the merger process.
Comrades,
This Congress must tackle serious questions and challenges. We know that you will deal with the issues systematically and thoughtfully, as required by our revolutionary traditions and spirit. We know that you will find solutions that take the working class forward.