Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, to the 9th National Congress of SACTWU, 17 September - 2004

 

Input to SACTWU 9th National Congress, September 2004

Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary, COSATU Congress theme – “Keeping jobs in fashion”

First, let me thank SACTWU for the invitation to come and speak here. It is indeed an honour to address your Congress.

COSATU is particularly proud of SACTWU because it provides an example of how a manufacturing union can face up to the many challenges brought by globalisation and joblessness. SACTWU has taken a lead in fighting back both in the workplace and by engaging around key economic policies that affect the sector. In very difficult times, it has demonstrated that an activist stance based on strong organisation can bring major gains for workers.

Comrades and friends,
In the past twelve months, COSATU experienced two overwhelming events: the Eighth National Congress and the national elections campaign. Both reflected the strength of our movement and our growing ability to define strategic interventions.

At the Eighth Congress, SACTWU demonstrated its support for the Federation by allowing us to elect Violet Siboni as Second Deputy President. We are as always grateful for unions that delegate strong cadre to build the Federation, and appreciate the many sacrifices SACTWU makes in this regard.
A central resolution from the Congress was the adoption of our programme toward 2015.

This programme aims to define a strategic path for the Federation in terms of organisational development, the Alliance, and policy engagement. It should help all of us direct our efforts to the priority problems faced by the working class as a whole.

As soon as we came out of Congress we had to work on the national elections campaign. The campaign resulted in a massive victory for the progressive forced led by the Alliance.

COSATU is pleased with its crucial contribution to this victory. Many of you spent weeks away from our homes and offices, and our shopstewards and activists played a critical role in mobilising communities. Our contribution to the Alliance elections victory provides a basis for pursuing workers’ policy demands even more strongly than in the past.
COSATU has noted repeatedly that elections campaigns build the unity of the Alliance. In the past, however, that unity has not survived long into the post-elections period before serious differences on economic and social policy emerged and grassroots mobilisation subsided.

The challenge now is to ensure that we break this cycle by strengthening the Alliance and building the People’s Contract to Create Jobs and Fight Poverty. To this end, each of us must work to implement our 2015 Programme, which calls on workers to become more active in Alliance work. Unless we vigorously implement our programme in a systematic and coherent manner, our Alliance risks functioning more like election machinery than like a mass movement to drive the NDR.
Government’s shift toward more developmental policies even before the elections provides a stronger basis for building the Alliance. This shift was captured in the Growth and Development Summit, and lays the basis for the People’s Contract.

As COSATU, we are proud that we helped bring about the new realism in government strategies. We realise, however, that government still faces huge amounts of pressure from big business and international powers to revert to a more conservative approach.
This pressure underlies the obvious inconsistencies especially in economic policy. It means that COSATU must continue to engage vigorously to ensure policies that favour workers and the poor in general.

Our biggest concern will be consistent government inaction in the face of deepening unemployment crisis. COSATU pointed out to government more than a year ago that the strength of our currency and the high levels of interest rates were going to have a devastating impact on our economy and jobs. Only when the impact was so severe, with tens of thousands of jobs lost, did we hear some government leaders suggesting that our currency strength was indeed harmful to our developmental needs.

From the beginning of our integration to the world economy we pointed out to government that reducing the levels of tariffs even faster than required by the WTO would kill most of the manufacturing sector. Some in government wrongly accused us of being protectionist, and they marched on ignoring our calls. Today the devastation of accelerated tariffs reduction is felt by all.

Recently the COSATU CEC called for the moratorium on bilateral negotiations and pointed out that in particular the bilaterals with China would be harmful to our industries. Already South Africa has a huge trade deficit with China. In 2001 50% of all clothes imported by South Africa were from China, in the first three months of 2004 this figure was at 75%. We have never had a positive trade balance with China, and the deficit soared to R9.9 billion in 2003. This happened side by side with the job loss blood bath in the manufacturing sector and in the economy in general.

We reiterate our call on the government and the Minister of Trade and Industry to suspend the bilateral trade negotiations until such a time a comprehensive study has been conducted to evaluate the impact of such agreements would have on our economy.
Again this call is rejected out of hand by our Minister as being unrealistic. A question arises – how realistic is pursuance of a policy that will

deepen the unemployment crisis even further? The destruction of quality jobs in manufacturing and their replacement by insecure and casual forms of employment flies in the face of government stated aims of halving poverty by 2014.
We call for a major mind shift in the government thinking on this matter. Unless this happens we must kiss good-bye the ANC’s promise to halve unemployment and poverty by 2014.

Important as they are, the public works programmes are not a long-run solution to unemployment. We need an industrial policy that forms part of a strategy to restructure our economy to create jobs and ensure growth and equity. Without restructuring the economy the dream of building a better life for all will increasingly be discredited as nothing but an empty slogan to maximise voters’ support during elections period – nothing more.

For these reasons, COSATU is reviving the Jobs and Poverty Campaign. The march to the banks later today forms an integral part of this campaign. The revitalisation of the Proudly South Africa campaign and the pressure to the retailers refusing to co-operate with the objectives of the campaign is also a critical component of the campaign.

I look forward to this SACTWU congress coming out with concrete measurers to take the campaign forward.
Our programme toward 2015 focuses heavily on organisational development in our Federation, especially by improving service to members and enhancing recruitment. A cornerstone of these efforts is the living wage campaign.

In all of the areas identified by the 2015 programme, SACTWU has made major contributions. In particular, it has led the Federation in work on recruitment and HIV. Indeed, the Federation’s resolutions on recruitment at Congress were modelled very largely on SACTWU’s innovative efforts in this area.

As SACTWU recognised early on, the loss of jobs in manufacturing and the restructuring of larger employers makes recruitment a central challenge. Unions that do not drive recruitment will end up shrinking quickly in both size and power.
SACTWU itself has maintained its strength through its recruitment effort despite the hard blows taken by the clothing and textiles industry in the past decade or so. Its experience is an important lesson for all our affiliates, as reflected in the Congress resolution on recruitment.
COSATU will launch recruitment as a core COSATU campaign for next year, when we celebrate COSATU’s 20th Anniversary. To guide the campaign, we have translated the Congress resolution on recruitment into a plan that was adopted at CEC.

In line with this plan, COSATU will increase targets for recruitment from 3% next year to 10% a year from 2006. Overall, the 2015 plan calls on COSATU to increase membership to four million by 2009.
Our recruitment plan foresees more consistent efforts to link recruitment to service delivery. It also includes development of new strategies for hard-to-organise sectors – notably domestic work, agriculture, construction and retail.

SACTWU has also led the way on HIV. This is a critical part of the living wage campaign. Unions must take up struggle in workplace, ensuring the employers play their part in ending stigmatisation and discrimination, supporting education, prevention and testing as well as treatment provision.
But we also need to explore alternative ways of providing healthcare and advice more broadly. In this regard, the SACTWU clinic system provides a model that the union movement as a whole must study.

In addition to these organisational issues, SACTWU has spearheaded the Federation in key policy engagements. We are, as always, grateful to SACTWU for letting its General Secretary act as Labour Convenor in NEDLAC – a position that requires huge amounts of time as well as great skills. In addition, SACTWU has led the Federation in contesting the overvaluation of the rand, support the local procurement campaign and trade negotiations.

Comrades and friends,

I now want to turn to a new issue, an issue where we need a debate across the democratic movement. I hope this SACTWU Congress will help us launch this discussion.

The liberation movement of South Africa is the oldest and the most progressive in the whole continent. It has through decades produced revolutionaries respected and revered the world over. It has developed deep-rooted cultures and traditions that must be protected all the time as the new challenges brought about by new conditions created by the very struggle.

I am talking here about the culture of solidarity, selflessness and putting our people first. I am talking about the traditions of understanding that our individual concerns and sacrifices come second to the concerns of the masses of the people. I talk here about the deep culture of service to our people even at the expense of individual suffering.

COSATU has noted with deep concern the story printed by the Mail & Guardian two weeks ago suggesting that listed Members of Parliament did not disclose business interests in the register of members interest, as required by the Parliamentary code of ethics. Coming hot on the heels of the Parliamentary travel voucher scandal, this runs the serious risk of undermining the credibility of our parliament in the eyes of ordinary people.

The matter of the travel vouchers is sub judice, and we therefore will not comment on the detail of the allegations. Still, it is accepted, including by Parliament, that serious fraud has been perpetrated, with the collusion of at least some MPs.

A few weeks ago the media carried another story claiming that one of our struggle icons received a “gift” house of R1, 6 million and a car worth R320 000 from a company of which he is a “non executive chair.”
Unless Parliament and the ANC act proactively to deal with these matters, good and ethical MPs and other political leaders will be tainted with the same brush.

Madiba recently pointed to the need to overcome this crass materialism, which is replacing the solidarity that historically informed our struggle. President Thabo Mbeki has repeatedly called on those who joined the ANC for material gains instead of serving our people to leave the movement.

The media has over the years printed stories – all too often were not contested by those accused – suggesting that some of our leaders and often their spouses earn huge sums outside their official position. This is largely through directorships of many companies, including through empowerment stakes.

Sometime you wonder how a provincial or national government leader or member of parliament can in short of period of time manage to buy farms worth millions, although their official salaries can never be adequate to finance such an opulent life style.
This suggests that the movement must conduct a broader investigation into how our political leaders are accumulating wealth. I am raising this matter sensitive as it now instead of later. Because later, a finger that is raised in protest may be chopped and later the necks would be chopped as well. At that time our universal slogan an injury to one is an injury to all would be replaced by capital’s slogan an injury to one is the opportunity to the other!

Certainly the transition to democracy brings a host of new economic as well as social and political opportunities for our people. The question is how we manage these opportunities to ensure a positive outcome for society as a whole.
International experience shows the risks as well as some success stories. We do not want to end up with the sort of short-sighted, selfish predator state we have seen in some parts of Latin America and Africa – and which indeed seems to have emerged today in the United States, with the close ties between the Bush Administration and big oil companies. Those who missed the special assignment by Bush must watch it this Sunday to see how the real rural elite collude and use political leaders in pursuance of their greed and drive for profits.

A number of questions arise for thorough discussion within COSATU, the Alliance, and the broader democratic movement. These are:

• How can we end competition amongst our leaders around consumption – who has the biggest house, car or vacation - and return to competition around service, solidarity and activism? How do we put an end to this big hurry to get rich faster and quickly? How do we stop use of political office to pursue wealth and opulence? How can we stop discrediting of politics in the eye of ordinary people if political office translate into living way beyond the people that put us in the office in the first class.
• Corruption will soon become endemic unless we drive active campaign against it. Yet we know too often that the media and the opposition dramatise stories that are proven later to have been incorrect. But we know where there is smoke there is often fire. Corruption would only be ended by creation of strong ANC, SACP, COSATU and organ of people’s power. Only ordinary people can make a difference. The challenge is how do we empower ordinary people to fight corruption.
• At a practical level, if an individual has substantial private business interests, can she or he realistically carry out full-time service obligations in government or in unions? There is a problem where people are simply distracted from their core work by their investments.
  
• Finally, and most fundamentally, how do new opportunities for ownership affect the class position and interests of our leaders? Class position is not defined only by ownership. Rather, it relates to the entire complex of economic interests and integration into social groups. Above all, then, how can we ensure that our leaders in the unions, government, service organisation and other structures maintain organic links to workers and the poor, even if they no longer share workers’ economic and social conditions in the townships, informal settlements, villages and farms? At what point and how does investment in private enterprise change the class interest of those involved?
  
• Another fundamental question arises. Are the salaries the society pays to its public representatives not adequate? If they are adequate why then it seem that it is becoming a norm that public representatives also have all manner of activities to earn more money? COSATU has longed argued that our public representatives are remunerated adequately.

The answers to these questions should underpin a discussion on whether there are fair and viable limits to entrepreneurial activity by people in service or leadership positions. Moreover, they should help evaluate and concretise proposals around mechanisms to maintain our leaders’ integration into working class, such as imbizos, door-to-door mobilisation, and participation in to local meetings, or establishment of ANC and SACP units in government departments.

COSATU hopes to work with the Alliance to launch a discussion that reaches down to all our local structures. To support this discussion, we will draft a discussion document. We hope that deliberations at this Congress will contribute to that document. We don’t have all the answers. But the challenges are certainly clear enough.

Whilst that discussion ranges on l want to make the following calls:

• I call on communists and trade unionists within and outside government that have substantial business interests to consider resigning their positions in the SACP and in the trade union movement. No one can serve the lion and the sheep at the same time. You cannot be a working class hero during the day and a brutal exploiter of workers when sun set. Broadly you cannot be the champion of the poor interests whilst your own material conditions is of such opulence and you generally leave the same life style as the ruling elite whose ideology keep the huge divide between the rich and the poor. Working class cannot continue to be dubbed through empty slogan whilst some in their leaders have long abandoned fighting for genuine equity and real redistribution in favour of self-enrichment.
  
• Parliament and the ANC must act decisively against those who have developed amnesia about the business interests they have. Claiming to have forgotten serious business interests suggest a degree of dishonesty, further it implies that those involved are hiding something.
  
• COSATU and its affiliates must move even faster to ensure that our leaders do not benefit unduly from our investment companies, and that our investments do more to support development rather than just enriching investment managers. The Pensions Conference at the end of the year must include development of a model mandate for investment managers to achieve this aim.

Comrades and friends, let me close by wishing you all the best for this important Congress. We know you will succeed in defining strategies to maintain SACTWU’s strong organisation and effective policy engagement. This Congress will certainly help ensure that SACTWU continues to play a leading role in our Federation and our country.

Amandla!
An injury to one is an injury to All
One country one federation – one federation one country
One industry one union – one union one industry