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Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi,the SADTU Congress - Durban09 September, 2002 |
Zwelinzima Vavi Address to the SADTU Congress - Durban, 9th September 2002
Comrades and friends,
It is a great pleasure to have this opportunity to make an input to this historic 5th National Congress of SADTU. In the 12 years since SADTU was formed, it has grown into the biggest educator union, and one of the biggest unions overall. It has played a key role in the transformation of the public service and the education sector, helping to ensure all our people have access to quality education.
Your Congress follows hard on the heels of COSATU's special Central Executive Committee, which we held on Thursday last week. The CEC was attended by virtually all affiliates, including your own General Secretary, Vice President and President. It responded to the onslaught on the labour movement in the media - an onslaught which this past weekend unfortunately extended to SADTU.
The media onslaught has two main thrusts: to accuse our leadership of corruption and abuse of workers' resources, and to claim that political and personal divisions are getting worse. Without denying that there are any problems, the fact remains - as the CEC said - that these reports are overwhelmingly false and biased.
Factions within individual unions, who hope to gain public support in their internal power struggles, have often fuelled the attacks on labour in the media. But those who run to the press should realise that their course will be equally damaged if the trade union movement ceases to be what it is today - the moral barometer of our society.
It's easy to destroy but to rebuild its always difficult. One-sided, negative, unfair reporting - even where based in real problems - can damage the morale and image of the labour movement as a whole.
The media attacks play into hands of those who want us to stick to narrow issues of gumboots and overalls. The CEC argued that it is no accident that the current wave of attacks emerged at this time, when we have just announced plans for a general strike against privatisation, poverty and joblessness on October 1st and 2nd.Similar attacks were heard following last year's strike against privatisation.
The CEC resolved on three strategies to counter the attacks on the labour movement.
First, we need to accelerate and strengthen the organisational review process that we agreed on at our first Central Committee in November last year. That process should help all our unions improve worker control, service to members and financial management. Only strong and democratic unions can survive the vicious attacks we now face. I hope this Congress will begin to define how SADTU can take this process forward.
Second, the CEC reaffirmed all affiliates' support for the general strike against privatisation and poverty and for job creation on October 1 and 2. This strike seeks to turn back trends that place growing burdens on our members and the working class as a whole.
Our demands include an end to private provision of basic services, which has seen massive job losses and rising costs of basic services, including education as well as water, electricity, telecommunications and health care. Already, the commercialisation and privatisation of electricity, water and telecommunications have led to mass cut offs, while the semi-privatisation of education and the health sector has meant that the inequalities inherited from apartheid persist.
Our strike will also demand measures to control the soaring price of food, which has caused tremendous hardship in this past year. In particular, we have called for a windfall profits tax on maize producers and traders, as well as improved welfare measures, including the immediate extension of the child grant to all eligible children. In the longer run, government must commit to a basic income grant to ensure that no South African faces absolute poverty.
Finally, we demand urgent strategies to create jobs, including community service and public works programmes on a large scale. In the past decade, the unemployment rose from around 15% to almost 30% of the labour force - far higher than in any equally advanced economy. This scourge is devastating our communities, and - as educators know only too well - particularly our youth. We need much more decisive steps to address it.
In this past week, attempts to resolve our disputes on these issues with government and business at NEDLAC largely failed. In particular, government refused to halt or review its policy on privatisation. As a result, we have officially deadlocked on this issue.
We realise that once-off strikes will not in themselves bring about the necessary changes in business or government policies. We need to see this strike as part of a broad, long-term campaign to transform the economy and public services. As part of that process, we have agreed with government and within the Alliance to hold a Growth and Development Summit as well as sector summits in the coming year. But you won't win in the boardroom what you can't win in the streets. Only if we can make the October strike a massive success can we ensure that business and government take the steps we need for a better life for all.
Finally, last week's special CEC agreed on special measures to support NEHAWU, which has been facing internal difficulties that have resulted in particularly negative press coverage. We agreed to establish a commission consisting of COSATU National Office Bearers and President of the NUM and SACTWU General Secretary. As public servants, we also expect SADTU members at all levels to support NEHAWU in this difficult period. All workers, but especially those in the public service, will be weaker if NEHAWU is weakened; but all of organised labour will benefit if our measures to manage this crisis strengthen NEHAWU.
What is the role of educators' unions in this difficult period?
SADTU's history reflects the critical role of educators in society. Teachers are responsible for educating our young people; and they are one of the most educated sections of the working class. In both these roles, you are central in shaping the culture and values of all our people, as well as influencing our country's developmental potential and social and economic equality.
Educators have always been a key source of intellectual capacity for the working class, playing a leading role in community struggles as well as in the labour movement. As we face increasingly complex challenges around policy issues and in maintaining working-class traditions, we need to use this potential better.
More broadly, teachers must play a central role in building working-class values and attitudes amongst our youth. We face an onslaught from capitalist values - in television and radio shows, in advertising and in the press - which emphasise consumerism, self-interest, prejudices and opportunism. The schools must help maintain the culture developed over many years by the democratic movement, which emphasised solidarity, sacrifice, service and struggle.
At the same time, the schools are central in ensuring that our people have access to the skills and competencies we were so long denied. Only improved education for all can ensure durable equality and improved living standards for working people.
Finally, educators are the largest occupation in the public sector, accounting for a third of all public servants. That means you also have a central responsibility for strengthening the state so that it can play a leading role in reconstructing our society and the economy.
What challenges do you face in these areas?
In the labour movement, we look to SADTU to deepen our conceptual and strategic discussions, and assist in educating all our members. COSATU is about to launch a massive educational campaign for our locals. We expect all SADTU members to play an active role in this process. Talking to each other is how we can best learn from one another and evaluate the many challenges that workers face. We hope this Congress will define ways educators can assist in this important task of union education.
In the schools, there are still many major obstacles to quality education for all learners. The main problems remain massive inequalities in resourcing between schools and regions. Unfair differences between schools have been deepened and sustained by the effective privatisation of education through the fees system. Today, a learner's education depends largely on how much her or his parents can pay - and most black people, especially in rural areas, still cannot afford the best schools.
The fee system means that schools in rich areas can continue to outpace those in our own communities. Think about it: a school with a thousand pupils that can charge R3000 a year will get almost R3 million a year more than a rural school that cannot impose any large fees. No wonder that around one in seven educators is now employed directly by rich state schools! This inequality in income builds on and reinforces the backlogs left from apartheid, which left schools in historically white communities with far better infrastructure and equipment than those in black neighbourhoods.
These inequalities have a devastating impact on our people, depriving millions of the education they need to participate effectively in the economy and in our democratic system. For this reason, we in COSATU have made ending the effective privatisation of education one of our main demands in our campaign against privatisation, poverty and joblessness.
In the public service, educators also have a special role to play in helping to drive transformation. Transformation must ensure that the state serves the majority of our people, overcoming the apartheid history of exclusion and privilege. That requires both new policies and the more equitable allocation of resources between communities. But it also means reforming management to be less oppressive and hierarchical, so that ordinary public servants - including educators - are empowered in their workplaces.
We know that SADTU has played a leading role in ensuring equity through its commitment to redeployment and curriculum redress. But we must still do more. We have to fight for a public service that truly serves the people, and help government to play a leading role in transforming society to empower our people. That means every worker in the public sector must show dedication in their work, and fight against corruption and abuse of power.
At the same time, we need to struggle for workers' rights. SADTU has a proud tradition of solidarity with lower-level public servants, who face the brunt of anti-labour practices such as outsourcing and downsizing. We must ensure that restructuring the public service is truly geared to meeting the needs of our people, and not driven by unnecessarily harsh budget cuts. In this context, this Congress could reflect on how SADTU can do more to support non-educators in the education sector.
Comrades and friends,
Your Congress takes place at a critical time for the labour movement. We have the potential to ensure that our country takes a path of development that will benefit all our people. But we also face vicious attacks, which seek to ensure that we can only defend our members in the workplace. Yet given continued mass poverty and rising unemployment, sticking to narrow economic issues would be organisational suicide.
In this context, I am sure your Congress will review your progress but also the challenges we still face. As the special CEC resolved, it is particularly important that we both mobilise for the upcoming general strike and that we kickstart the organisational review process. At the same time, SADTU, like the other public service unions, must determine strategies to build the unity of public servants while improving services for our people.
We wish you the greatest possible success in your deliberations, which are important not jut for educators, but for the working class and indeed the country as a whole.
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