Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, Input to NEHAWU 18th Anniversary Rally

 

Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary, COSATU

Dear comrades and friends,

It is a great joy to be participating in this event. NEHAWU forms a critical part of our labour movement – one of the largest unions in the country and especially in the public service, a source of political leadership and strength.

This rally takes places on the eve of the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Charter. The Charter inspired the struggle against apartheid and today underlies our demands for labour rights, economic justice, and an open and democratic public service. For fifty years, South African patriots and revolutionaries have fought under the banner of the Freedom Charter. Today, we must take this tradition forward.

Finally, it is also the eve of COSATU’s mass action to demand an end to job losses and mass unemployment, and an end to poverty. It is imperative that every union activist, every worker, every member of our communities joins in the action. It is time that we claim back the victory we won with the defeat of apartheid. We must ensure that our struggle for freedom indeed leads to a better life for all.
No one can deny that since 1994, our people have made impressive gains. We have established democratic institutions, extended basic services, and improved peace and security in our communities.

But recognising our gains does not mean we can afford to deny areas where we have made less progress. The fact is that our democratic South Africa has not overcome another key legacy of apartheid – that is, mass unemployment and poverty. Our mass action aims to ensure that business and government do more to address these critical challenges.

The fact is that ten years after we defeated apartheid, two out of every five workers cannot find paid employment. Most of the unemployed are young people who have been jobless since they left school.
Given this extraordinarily high level of unemployment, every worker supports five to ten other people – children, grandparents, unemployed relatives. That means job losses have a devastating effect.

As you know, the public service has seen massive downsizing in the past ten years. Since 1994, the public service has lost one job in every ten. This in itself has contributed to higher unemployment. In recent years, government has recognised the need to create more jobs for nurses, teachers and police. But the hiring processes have been delayed, while pressure remains to retrench public servants in the agricultural and public works departments.

In mining and parts of manufacturing, the past six months have seen a wave of retrenchments. In the next few weeks alone, Harmony Gold plans to lay off 12 000 miners. The clothing industry has suffered a series of factory closures.
The immediate cause of this disastrous trend has been the overvaluation of the rand in the past two years. But it reflects a deeper problem: the lack of a strong development strategy to restructure the economy to benefit our people, especially by creating decent jobs for all. As a result, business continues to treat workers as a commodity it can discard whenever it wants, no matter what the suffering for the workers, their families and our communities.

This situation is reflected, not only in retrenchments, but also in continued poor conditions at work for many workers. Even in the formal sector, one in four workers earns less than R1000 a month, while the majority of domestic, farm and informal workers earn very little. Many workers still don’t get paid leave or overtime, despite the BCEA.

Even in the public service, racism still appears in the workplace. Just a few weeks ago, we had to hold a sit in at a public hospital because of racism by the management. Apartheid may have ended in the newspapers and on television, but sometimes it is alive and well where we work.
All of these conditions add up to a problematic conclusion: that while workers have gained in political and social terms over the past ten years, the main winners in the economy have been business. This is shown clearly by one more depressing statistic: the share of wages in the national income has declined since 1994, while the share of profits has risen. Together with mass unemployment, this points to deepening economic inequalities.

There no doubt that the democratic ANC-led government has registered progress in laying the basis for non-racial, non-sexist democratic South Africa as envisaged in the Freedom Charter. However, the task is far from over – political transformation has not been matched by substantial transformation of economic power.

Poverty and inequalities were the key feature of the apartheid system. The danger is that these inequities become a permanent feature of the new South Africa.

Two days from now, workers will be gathering in every major city to protest these conditions. Many will go on strike. Again, most healthworkers will face difficulties because the health unions have not signed minimum service agreements, making strikes difficult for health workers. We must ensure that this problem is dealt with by the end of the year, so that health workers can participate fully in the coming rolling mass action.

Our demands are first aimed at business. We demand that business make much more serious efforts to avoid job losses. Retrenchment and closure should be the last step taken, since they destroy economic capabilities as well as worsening poverty and inequality. Mining companies must do more to develop South African industry, rather than focusing on foreign mining opportunities. And retailers must stock 75% local goods, cutting back on imports.

From government, we want strong measures to ensure a more competitive exchange rate, including a reduction in the real interest rate and a consistent stance on the part of government spokespeople. The overvaluation of the rand in the past two years has led to a flood of imports and undermined the profitability of the mining industry. In real terms, imports rose 25% between 2002 and the last quarter of 2004, while the volume of exports increased only 5%. The Alliance commitment to a competitive exchange rate has already helped, but must be taken forward more vigorously and consistently.

In addition, government at all levels should strongly pursue local procurement policies. It must do more to assist businesses to avoid job losses and to help workers confronted by retrenchment. We appreciate the prioritisation of employment creation in government policy documents; now we must see more consistent action to put that commitment into action.

Finally, the government must review its trade strategy to ensure that it stops destroying jobs. The WTO provides for special safeguard measures to protect industries under threat from Chinese imports. These measures must be applied urgently to save the clothing industry. Government must itself initiate safeguard measures to protect vulnerable industries, or as a minimum allow unions to apply for them, rather than business alone.

In addition to these core concerns, the Jobs and Poverty Campaign supports additional demands from affiliates that relate to employment and workers' conditions. In particular, COSATU demands:

a. That local authorities immediately stop privatisation of basic services, which often leads to job losses as well as reduced and more expensive essential services for the poor.
b. That SEIFSA immediately desists from insisting that NUMSA agree up-front to exclude SMMEs from agreements reached in the current round of wage negotiations. We demand an immediate end to the intransigence of SEIFSA in the wage negotiations. We reject the peanuts they have offered to the metal workers and join NUMSA in demanding a living wage for its members.
c. Employers have sidestepped labour rights through casualisation and subcontracting, which let the actual employer avoid legal obligations.

COSATU demands amendments to the LRA that will compel the workplace employer to negotiate with subcontracted workers on any measures that could cause them to lose jobs, and ensure that temporary workers have the same rights and benefits as permanent workers. We demand that the principle of equal pay for work of equal value be enshrined in the law as part of a deliberate strategy to end the exploitation of casualised workers.
d. We demand an end to racism and apartheid style practices at the workplace. We want stronger actions for human resource development strategies and training as well as full compliance with the provisions of the Employment Equity law to reverse racial practices of the apartheid era. We demand stronger actions to promote blacks, women and people living with disabilities.

Comrades and friends,

We expect to see all of you at the rallies on Monday. We cannot afford to let business and government take workers for granted. We cannot afford to leave workers without a voice or strength to back up their demands. We must make a statement to protest job losses and poverty that no one can ignore.