Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, Input to CEPPWAWU Congress, 11 August 2005, Braamfontein

 

Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary, COSATU

First, let me thank CEPPWAWU for the invitation to come and speak at this critical congress. It is indeed an honour to address this important meeting. The chemical and paper workers have always counted amongst the pillars of our movement. CEPPWAWU remains a critical source of organisational strength and activists for our movement.

The task facing this Congress is to ensure that CEPPWAWU will continue to play this role in the future. We need to use this time to reflect on both policy and organisational challenges. This is a time of great potential for the labour movement, but also one of risks. Here, at your Congress, as well as at COSATU's Central Committee next week, we must use the time well to chart a path forward for the working class.

Comrades and friends,

This Congress is taking place in a significant year - the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Charter and the 20th Anniversary of COSATU. We must ensure it also forms a turning point in our history: the point when we take back our liberation. In our judgment, the first decade of liberation benefited capital most in economic terms. The second decade must now belong to us, the working class and the poor.

For our Central Committee next week, the COSATU Secretariat has prepared a political report reviewing developments since our Eighth Congress almost two years ago. Two conclusions stand out. First, national subordination no longer defines our political reality or the policy of the state. Second, the combination of national, race and gender oppression remains basic to the economy and our society as a whole.

Today, the market has replaced the law in determining who has access to better education and health and who lives in well-off communities with quality public services, decent jobs and cultural opportunities. Private wealth has become the locomotive to access all that is best in our society. But that private wealth was created through apartheid and remains divided largely on racial lines.

This situation means that most of our people, who are mostly black and disproportionately women, are still trapped in apartheid ghettoes facing joblessness and poverty. Poverty is particularly severe in the former Bantustans where almost half of all Africans still live.

In political and social terms, the working class is right to celebrate ten years of freedom and democracy. It has won many of its historic political and social demands, including the right to vote, better services in black communities, and strong labour laws.

Yet still, in economic terms, white and foreign capital has gained most. The economy has come back into global markets, and the powerful have made huge amounts out of this chance.

There are four reasons why we think capital won the most from the economic growth since 1994.

First, business gained high profits in the past ten years largely because of rising productivity and access to new markets. Between 1993 and 2004, workers' share in the national income dropped, while the share of profits rose.

Second, the apartheid wage regime hasn't changed much, with a widening gap between the minimum wage and the vast returns enjoyed by managers. Today, one formal-sector worker out of every four still earns under R1000 a month. Some 40% of union members earn less than R2500 a month. In your own sectors, workers in sawmilling, forestry and plastics are still very poorly paid.

Meanwhile, the bosses of the banks, mines and factories earn millions, even tens of millions. Packages for leaders in the public sector have also grown rapidly, reaching well over a million in government, and over ten million in the big parastatals.

In many cases, employers have undermined the quality of work through outsourcing and by casualising jobs. They have three main aims. First, they want to hold down wages and conditions. Secondly they hope to sidestep their responsibilities to their employees. Lastly, they want to weaken workers' organisation by moving workers outside the bargaining unit.

The third reason to conclude that capital gained most from the first decade of democracy lies in the figures for unemployment. Today, two out of five workers who want paid jobs can't find one. This is a far higher figure than any other comparable country.

Unemployment, casualisation and stagnant pay have hit African women hardest. Most remain trapped in poverty, with access only to poorly paid and insecure jobs. Domestic work is still the largest single source of jobs for black women.

Finally, the fourth reason we see employers as the main winners from the economy is that economic policy has not fundamentally challenged the position of white capital. Yet our people continue to suffer poverty, joblessness and oppression. For much of the 1990s, government's main aim seemed to be to drive exports, and to deregulate, commercialise and privatise the economy as a whole.

Never in its wildest dreams did capital think things would go so much in its favour in the new South Africa. After all, the Freedom Charter calls for the wealth of the country to be shared. It explicitly commits us to fight for nationalisation of the mineral wealth and banks.

The arrogance of business grew quickly once it realised nothing of the kind was going to happen. Government leaders sought reconciliation at all costs and quickly adopted the international wave of liberal economic thinking. The property clause in the Constitution protected the wealth of the rich over the landless and impoverished.

This situation is not sustainable in political, social or economic terms. Many people in our communities are losing their patience with slow delivery around employment, wages and basic services. The budget cuts in the late 1990s, which slowed down improvements in black communities, hit women hardest because they still bear most of the burden of fetching water and wood, cooking over fires, and caring for people with AIDS.

In many communities the very ANC members and leaders have burned tyres and blockaded highways in protest. It is quite clear that in most cases the demands of our people are genuine. They highlight the continued use of the bucket systems, amatyotyombe, etc. The only solution is political engagement and stronger efforts to address the problems still facing our communities.

It is not surprising that the militancy of our members has also grown. We have seen the massive response to our strike for jobs and against poverty on July 27 this year. We have experienced a strike wave unprecedented since before 1994.

Workers are saying: Enough! We will not sit by any longer while the bosses take home millions, yet we go home with the same trivial wage and our children face a future of joblessness and grinding poverty.

Where do we see the Alliance and government in this contestation? This is no longer a simple question.

Our 2015 Plan, adopted at our Eighth National Congress, concluded that the ANC and the Alliance remain the most important progressive force in our society. For that very reason, they are subject to contestation by capital, which wants to gain control of our movement.

The ANC is still a people's movement, with robust internal democracy and a bias toward workers. That emerged clearly from the Stellenbosch Conference as well as from the National General Council last month. But we cannot take it for granted. We workers must build the ANC and the Alliance if we want to maintain the historic working-class hegemony in the democratic movement.

Even more than the ANC itself, the government is subject to lobbying by big business at home and abroad. That lobbying appears in threats of capital flight as well as wining and dining and trips to the golf course. It is reinforced by reliance on outside consultants to write key policies, from broad-based BEE to the co-ops act.

We can only counter the power of capital if we ourselves have power through our unity and our capacity to engage. In the past five years, we have made considerable progress in reversing the GEAR policies that saw budget cuts, the reckless opening to imports, and wholesale privatisation and commercialisation. But our progress remains limited and can still be reversed. We have to maintain our power in order to ensure South Africa remains ever more firmly on the path toward economic strategies that will genuinely benefit workers and the poor. Our Central Committee is charged in part with strengthening our claims for progressive, mass-based economic policies.

Comrades and friends,

We can only win our country back from capital if we have strong organisations. That is why COSATU's 2015 Plan, adopted at our Eighth National Congress, emphasises the need for organisational renewal. Core elements are to improve service to members with greater support for shop stewards and organisers, and a recruitment campaign that can take our membership to new heights.

It is no secret that CEPPWAWU in particular has had to deal with divisive tendencies. Yet the only strength workers have is in their unity. That is the basis of the union movement: the realisation that every individual worker is weak, and only in unity is our strength. It was our unity that forced the bosses to recognise our unions even when they were banned under apartheid. It was our unity that protected our members against employers even before we had the Constitution and the new labour laws on our side. And it is our unity that brought about the end of apartheid.

It is harder to maintain unity in the face of the new, complex challenges that we face today. But it is no less important than before. If this coming decade is to be the decade of workers and the poor, then we must build unity across the labour movement as well as in our communities.

Against this background, we need to assess our main strengths and weaknesses. COSATU and each of our unions must be judged only by the high standards we have set in the twenty years of COSATU's existence. To respond to weaknesses by pointing out problems in other organisations is a guarantee that we won't celebrate another twenty years.

COSATU and CEPPWAWU must only compete against their own history and the best of our traditions. No other organisations can compete with these traditions, and we would move backward if we measured ourselves against any others.

This year, I visited six of the nine provinces and presented a report to the May 2005 Central Executive Committee. A major concern arose over the many complaints workers made about service from their unions, including in some cases CEPPWAWU.

Poor service to members is unacceptable. It can make unions lose favour with workers and ultimately shrivel the union's power and size. We cannot hope for a successful recruitment drive if our current members feel disempowered and disappointed.

Symptoms of poor service to members include:

• failure to attend to worker's grievances;
• failure to put improve their wages and conditions of employment;
• failure to stop managers from exploiting workers with impunity;
• failure to respond strongly to retrenchments and dismissals;
• failure to use legal framework to tilt the balance at the workplace in favour of workers
• failure to develop systems to run unions more efficiently so that they can be more responsive whilst eliminating dead wood at all levels;
• failure to keep a dynamic contact with members

My visits to workers' forums and workplaces showed that COSATU itself remains very popular. Indeed, some workers want to join COSATU and not any of our unions. But even this popularity will fade unless COSATU is seen to champion service to the workers' cause and to act decisively against unions failing to take up their issues.

The causes of poor service vary by union. At this Congress, you need to identify the problems specific to CEPPWAWU, and find ways to address them. We can identify some factors that face most COSATU unions.

First, the restructuring of employment across the economy means that unions have lost members in large companies while new jobs have been in smaller enterprises, and often outsourced or casual. In the chemicals sector, growth has occurred largely in plastics and other small producers, even sweatshops. In forestry, privatisation has led to massive job losses, outsourcing, and supply problems for some sawmills.

Economic restructuring means that unions have to rethink their organising and recruitment strategies. In particular, the shift to smaller employers means unions must put more people and money into organisational work than in the past.

Serving members in smaller companies is more labour intensive. We need more organisers per member to manage negotiations as well as grievances. Recruiting workers in small enterprise also requires more shop stewards and organisers just to reach the workers. How many unions have reviewed their staffing levels to take into account changes in their sectors over the past ten years?

Organisers need more resources for transport and communications when they have to serve a lot of smaller enterprises. They also need far more training on issues than before.

Yet during a provincial visit, I met one organiser who had no transport allowance to visit workplaces at all, while the amount allocated for his cell phone was wholly inadequate.

Second, shop stewards need more support than in the past. They face far more complex tasks, ranging from workplace re-organisation to having to comprehend the new labour laws. Many shop stewards do not get full-time status. Those in smaller companies cannot develop shared expertise like that found in the shop stewards' councils in large companies. Yet the challenges are often the same.

Some unions must still diversify their membership base. CWU provides a classic example of a union that concentrated on two big employers - Telkom and the Post Office. When these employers started to retrench, the union's membership plummeted. Yet smaller, private companies in the industry, including the cellphone companies, Postnet and advertising agencies, remain almost entirely outside the union.

Third, we need to upgrade the management skills of union leadership. Office bearers are elected, not because they are good managers, but because they have political and organisational skills. That means that the induction for NOBs must ensure a better understanding of financial and personnel management.

This problem has especially pressing because unions have grown so quickly a result of the massive expansion in the 1980s and 1990s as well as mergers. Management skills that were sufficient for a union in a few workplaces with several thousand members cannot manage a union with tens of thousands of members spread across the length and breadth of the country.

Success in the recruitment campaign will make all these challenges much greater. Hopefully we will bring in millions of new members, requiring thousands of shop stewards and organisers.

Finally, many unions have not embarked on organisational development processes, despite the many changes in the environment and internally. COSATU placed the issue on the agenda through the September Commission in 1997 and through the Organisational Review Commission after 2000. But many unions have not followed up, and COSATU itself failed to drive the OD project consistently and systematically.

Comrades and friends,

CEPPWAWU activists are lucky. You have this Congress to reflect on your challenges define strategies to take the union forward to new heights. Then next week you can attend COSATU's Central Committee, which will also review organisational and political demands as well as refining our claims on industrial strategy.

We know you will take the opportunities seriously. We know you will engage and robustly debate both the issues facing your union and the challenging documents prepared for our Central Committee. This is a unique chance to define the future of our movement in taking forward our 2015 Plan. We look forward to strong debates and a bright future.

Thank you for listening