Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, Address to the National Union of Mineworkers Central Committee - 12 May 2005

 

Comrades and friends,

No experience is more gratifying than giving a former member who has grown into another challenge the chance to return and address his union. There can be no greater honour than to talk to your comrades who were shaft stewards alongside you. Thanks very much for the opportunity.

The timing of the Central Committee could have not have been better. We are celebrating the 20th anniversary of COSATU and the 50th anniversary of SACTU and the Freedom Charter. We are celebrating ten years of the enactment of the new Labour Relations Act. It is also a decade since the passing of Joe Slovo - that visionary former General Secretary of the SACP. A few weeks ago, too, we were celebrating the start of the second decade of our freedom and democracy. We are emerging from successful May Day celebrations.

I was extremely happy that COSATU organised a very fitting rally to commemorate the death of Elijah Barayi and salute his contribution. As part of the same programme I am happy to inform you that on the 21 May 2005 we shall commemorate the death of Moses Kotane at Mogwasi stadium in Rustenburg. Moses Kotane was a unionist but also a leader of ANC, SACP and MK who died on the 21 May in 1978 in Moscow. We rely on the Rustenburg region of the NUM to pull this one and ensure we correctly honour his memory. All these activities form part of celebrating our anniversary.

Last, and by no means least, we are bracing ourselves for the mother of all battles with the bosses on the issue of job losses.

Last year we played no small part in the massively successful elections campaign, which finally brought the ANC to power in every province in our country and increased its support to 70%.

Our effort in the elections reaffirmed once again our recognition of the gains workers have made since 1994. Above all, we have won our rights as members of society and as workers. On that basis, we can work to ensure that government and business improve the position of our people.

In economic terms, however, business, not workers, has won the most since 1994. This is reflected in the fact that profits have risen as a share of the national income, while wages have fallen. The share of workers in the national income has declined from around 52% in 1994 to 46% today.

The challenges for the working class are reflected in soaring joblessness, with 40% of our people now unable to find work. Most of the jobless are relatively well educated young Africans who have never had a job.

In addition, the use of casual labour continues to rise at an alarming rate.

A few weeks ago I visited Khuthala Colliery Mine. That colliery represents the textbook example of the use of the system of subcontractors to sideline the gains we have made over years. Moreover, racism is so rife that Khuthala can only be compared with the neighbouring farms, where relations are still defined as in the colonial and apartheid heydays where a master was a master and a slave a slave.

Racism is so rife in that mine that you can't miss the fact that the management remain trapped in the past, unable to move with the times.

This problem reflects the broader failure of many bosses to ensure greater opportunities for workers. The Employment Equity Commission reports indicate that most companies have done little to meet employment equity targets. Skills development for workers is also moving at a snail's pace, with most employers still not giving workers time off for training.

We are particularly concerned about the renewed wave of retrenchments in the past six months. Mining has been hard hit, losing about half its jobs. In part, this situation reflects the overvaluation of the rand. But it also arises because business and government are still not addressing the unemployment crisis as the biggest problem facing our people.

At the Growth and Development Summit last year, we reached agreement that business could no longer act simply in terms of its short-term profits. Rather, we must work together to grow the economy in ways that will also benefit all our people. We need to ensure higher investment that leads to rising employment and living standards for all.

In contrast to these commitments, business has reacted to the economic problems caused by the overvalued rand by packing up and moving out - leaving thousands of people jobless in the process. COSATU has joined NUM in a dispute at NEDLAC under Section 77 of the LRA to try and ensure more serious engagement. COSATU has also entered into a dispute with the clothing retailers on their failure to help deal with the jobs crisis.

So far, we are deadlocked: business is not prepared to use this opportunity to seek alternatives to retrenchment. We have no option but to mobilise for mass action.

As for government, in the past five years we have seen some movement to address workers' issues. This follows the disaster of the GEAR policies, which led to cuts in government services and investment, a slow-down in the economy, and worsening conditions for the poor.

In contrast, since 2000, government has increased its spending. That has ensured improvements in services for our communities and faster economic growth. The state has committed to using the parastatals to build the economy, and generally aims to play a more active role in driving development.

Still, government is not doing enough to make job creation and equity the main aim and objective of all its policies. We can see this above all in its refusal to deal with the overvalued rand. Our export industries are dying around us, while imports are quickly displacing local products. Government documents repeatedly note that the high rand is undermining the core of the economy. Yet we do not see strong action to deal with the problem.

The recent Alliance Summit reached important agreements for dealing with these problems both in the short and long term. We agreed to take urgent action to address retrenchments and to ensure a more competitive rand. We are faced, however, with the need to ensure that these commitments are implemented and taken forward with real urgency. We don't have time to negotiate details - we need consistent action. Indeed, if the comrades in government don't act to take forward to these measures, we will have little motivation to take Alliance processes seriously.

Comrades,

All our engagements to save jobs and improve conditions for workers hinge on the strength of our organisation. Here, the labour movement faces huge challenges. The fact is that, after growing steadily and rapidly through the 1990s, COSATU as a federation is now losing members. There are several reasons for this situation.

First, the restructuring of the economy is taking away jobs in mining and manufacturing, where unions are strong. Employment is growing in retail and construction, where it is very hard to organise. Moreover, jobs are being outsourced and shifted to smaller companies, which are difficult to organise and service.

Second, unions have permitted a weakening of worker control and service to members. In part, this is because it is harder to serve members in the current conditions. Faced with retrenchments, legal disputes and the move to smaller employers, we need new organising strategies and tactics. We also need more financial, educational and legal resources to back up our shop stewards and organisers.

For NUM, these challenges have emerged in both mining and construction.

The mines are a bastion of worker power in South Africa. The miners won rights through their unity and solidarity long before 1994, in the face of the worst oppression and intimidation. Today, the vast majority of miners belong to the union, and they have shown their ability to back up their demands with power.

Here, at this important meeting, we must assess the new organisational challenges arising in the mining sector. In particular, how effective are the unions' strategies in dealing with retrenchments, HIV/AIDS and outsourcing? These new challenges hit at the heart of our organisation. We must ensure our response is adequate.

In construction, the problems are even greater. Construction now has the fastest growth in employment of any industry, and employs more workers than all of mining. But the jobs are usually temporary, lasting only for specific projects. Most employers are small, and many are informal. Two thirds of workers are in companies with less than 20 employees.

These factors make it very hard to organise workers in the sector. Overall, government data say that only one construction workers in seven belongs to a union. That is far too low, especially in a sector where employment is rising quickly.

This situation sets a challenge for NUM, a challenge we know you can meet. We need innovative organising strategies to overcome the problem of recruiting and serving construction workers. Instead of the large employers found on the mines, we need to reach workers in small employers, whose jobs are insecure and temporary. That means we need more organisers and better resources for shaft stewards. Organising the construction sector requires more resources, both people and funding.

In the long run, we must find innovative ways to ensure more secure employment for construction workers. For instance, can we ensure that workers are just laid off between jobs, rather than being dismissed?

NUMSA negotiated a framework agreement in the auto industry that provides for lay-offs of up to two years. This ensures a continuous legal relationship between the worker and the employer. It improves both job security and relationships to the union.

In response to the organisational threats to the labour movement, COSATU has called for four campaigns.

First, we must redouble our efforts to improve service to members. The labour movement will remain strong only if members are happy with the protection they receive from the unions through their shop stewards, union officials and their union comrades in general. We will remain powerful only if we maintain worker control of all our activities.

Keystones of this effort are improving support for shaft stewards and organisers, including training and resourcing. All our unions must put more resources into this effort. Shaft stewards remain the cornerstone of our movement, the element that makes everything else work. At the same time, we must strengthen unions' internal democracy and improve our management systems.

Again, this is a challenge to every COSATU member, shaft steward and organiser. We don't want COSATU to be on the wrong side of history by failing to adapt and to provide members with more reasons why they belong to unions!

Second, we must do more to ensure that the rights we have won in the law books translate into real rights in the workplace. On February 22, we launched a campaign with the Department of Labour to "pick up our gains." Through this campaign, we must empower, educate and generally assist members and shaft stewards to take advantage of the new labour laws.

Third, a central challenge for all COSATU affiliates is to organise the unorganised. Every worker in every workplace must be a COSATU member. We must reach workers wherever they are found, from the biggest industrial complexes to the small sweatshops, from the mines, schools and hospitals to department stores and building sites, from railroads and busses to farms and taxis.

We must organise workers who are vulnerable or unlikely otherwise to join a union - women, casual and temporary workers, farm workers, white workers and other groups who have historically been outside our ranks.

This campaign can work only if every union member becomes a recruiter. Every shaft steward and organiser must reach out to new members. We must develop new structures and put greater efforts into poorly organised sectors like construction, agricultural and retail sectors. We know recruitment is difficult and takes time - but we have to take action for the future of the labour movement and the working class.

To us any worker not organised by a COSATU union is unorganised. Guided by the historic slogan Organise or Starve! we must ensure that by 2009 we reach our target of organising four million workers. Our long-term goal is to attain our dream of One Union - One Industry and One Country - One Federation. The 2015 plan we adopted in our Eighth National Congress gives us with the strategies to attain these goals.

Finally, we cannot achieve any of our organisational goals when our members are being retrenched in their thousands. Unemployment is clearly the number one problem for workers and our economy. We need to take forward the Section 77 dispute and if necessary take action to stop the job-loss bloodbath.

Comrades,

This Central Committee gives us a chance to begin a painful process: the process of saying farewell to Comrade Gwede Mantashe, who has said he will not stand for re-election as the General Secretary of the union next year.

Gwede is for me a very close comrade and a friend. He got me into COSATU in the first place, convincing me to stand for election for the then Western Transvaal (now North West Province) Regional Secretary in 1988. He used his typical creative combination of encouragement, threats and blackmail. In 1993, he was one of many who supported me for the Deputy General Secretary of COSATU and for General Secretary in 1999.

I will always remember what he told me when I first became a Regional Secretary in COSATU.

He said that when you run a race, the most important parts is at the start, when you must set a pace higher than your predecessors but not too high for your capabilities, and not so high that you burn out along the way. He told me to start correctly and maintain that pace consistently throughout the race. Those coming after you would then be challenged to at least maintain the same pace or improve on it. That's how we strengthen our organisations and keep them going stronger in the future.

I took that advice very seriously. In fact, in my induction of all COSATU Regional Secretaries and staff I have quoted Gwede over and over again, although I don't always say where I got the advice in the first place.

I believe that Gwede wasn't teaching me something he was not himself prepared to do. The NUM has moved from the strength to strength during his tenure as its General Secretary. It regained its respect and its position as an indisputable leader of COSATU. It did so, not because of numbers, but because its organisational power and militancy as well as its theoretical clarity and consistency in advancing the course of labour and the working class.

Since I have been General Secretary of COSATU, we have had countless occasions to be grateful to NUM and specifically to Comrade Gwede. When times have been tough, he has been one of the first to defend the federation. Believe me or not, for the sake of the movement, we can adapt a Rambo-mambo, careless and tough attitude in public, often in the face of personalized attacks and insults. But in the evening when we are alone we also need support. Gwede played that role as a cushion, not only to me but to countless others facing difficult times. He has ensured unity and strength across the labour movement.

Comrade Gwede is one of our most clear-sighted comrades and leaders. Above all, his instincts will always place him at the side of the working class, letting him guide strategy and tactics consistently in the workers' interest. Over the years, thanks to his capacity for studying and learning difficult subjects, he has grown from an abrasive trade unionist to one of our greatest organic intellectuals - still very tough when it's necessary.

Believe me that we have not always agreed on everything. In fact the very last telephone conversation I had with him was not pleasant. He phoned me on Monday whilst I was in Norway to debate with me two issues that we still have to resolve. He is brutally frank, honest and sometimes abrasive - which as you know is the exact style of Zwelinzima Vavi. I guess it's the NUM tradition. Arrogance is the deep tradition of the union I believe learnt from the first General Secretary, Cyril Ramaphosa.

Correct levels of arrogance is sign of growing confidence and no leader can survive in the tough real world without a dose of arrogance. We represent a class that is under siege. Gwede Mantashe taught us to stand firm in the face of consistent and systematic attacks from our class enemies and their cronies.

But there is one thing I have never doubted: Gwede is a comrade in whose presence I sleep comfortably, assured that no enemy of the workers will be able to take advantage. There is no one I have trusted as a comrade better than him.

It is hard to say goodbye to this comrade, whose strengths have built the labour movement over many years. We know as a trade union we are a political school that continues to make an immense contribution to our society by providing it with the best-trained cadres.

But we cannot afford to really say good-bye to Gwede. We are not ready to let go of his immense skills and experience. He belongs to us - the workers and the working class. I cannot imagine him playing any other role except the brave defender of workers and working class interests. He must remain in the broader movement of the working class playing a different role.

We are in discussion with him to find that appropriate role. Nonetheless, we wish him all the luck in his future career. We know that his work will still go to strengthen the working class and the labour movement in the years to come.

Our biggest challenge is produce more Mantashes through our education and training programme so that we don't have to hold to their jackets forever in fear of what may happen to our movement in the future without them in the forefront.

On behalf of the COSATU Central Executive Committee and the entire membership of the federation, I wish this Central Committee best of luck. I know you cannot fail the memory of Elijah Barayi, Selby Mayise and countless activists killed in skirmishes with the apartheid police since the 1946 strike.

Thank you