Address by Bheki Ntshalintshali, COSATU Deputy General Secretary, at Chris Hani wreath laying, Thomas Nkobi Cemetery Boksburg, 10 April 2012
I am deeply humbled by your kind invitation to speak today as we commemorate the nineteenth anniversary of the cruel assassination of our beloved leader, comrade and friend, Chris Hani, on the 10th April 1993.
I bring the greetings of the National Office Bearers, Central Executive Committee and over two million COSATU members.
Though Comrade Chris Hani was brutally taken from us by an assassin's bullet, he remains alive in our hearts and minds. From here in his grave he can still teach us vital lessons on how to serve the people and take the national democratic revolution forward. He continues to inspire new generations of revolutionaries.
He remains a role model of a revolutionary leader, personifying the finest traditions and noblest principles and of our liberation and socialist movement.
He was already demonstrating these qualities when in exile, where he was a courageous military who led the joint MK/ZIPRA 1967 Wankie campaign in the then Rhodesia, but also a committed and thoughtful communist.
Using his advantage of being a law graduate to represent those who shared the trenches with him - the workers and the poor. The SACP's popular saying - "For the workers and the poor", was not just a slogan but a call to action.
Back in South Africa he crisscrossed the country using his oratorical brilliance at rallies and meetings to inspire millions.
How would Chris Hani view today's South Africa?
If he had been on the streets of more than 30 towns and cities on 7th March he could not have failed to see the strength of workers' opposition to labour brokers. Over two million workers stayed off work and hundreds of thousands demonstrated against this modern-day from of slavery.
He would surely back COSATU's demand that labour brokers must be completely banned! They are nothing more than human traffickers, making huge profits by hiring out workers to their client companies as if we are no more than commodities like furniture or stationery.
About 3,9m people, 30% of the workforce, now works under fixed-term contracts, or for labour brokers and part-time employees. Of these, about 1 million are employed through labour brokers. They are paid lower wages and get fewer benefits like medical aid and provident funds and no job security at all. They can be hired and fired at any time by a phone call from the client company to the labour broker. They can never plan their lives more than a week or two ahead. They find it difficult and sometimes impossible to exercise their organisational rights to strike or to participate in union activities. If they do they are often then singled out by the client and find themselves out of a job.
Often they are then told that they are not "dismissed" but will be placed in a new position at some time in the future, with no right to a retrenchment package, just a name on a data-base.
As President Zuma said in his State of the Nation address, abusive practices are inherent in labour broking. Yet unfortunately the government's labour law bills now before Parliament, do not outlaw it.
We welcome the government's acceptance of the principle of equal pay for work of equal value - that when low-earning employees are supplied by a labour broker or who are on a fixed-term contract for more than six months, they must be treated no less favourably than a permanent employee performing similar work, unless there is a difference in their seniority, experience or length of service, merit, or the quality or quantity of work performed - but we demand that this principle should now apply to all employees whether permanent or atypical.
COSATU is convinced that regulation of labour brokers will not work, since its whole reason for existence is that it provides a way for companies to avoid regulations and bargaining agreements.
That is why South African companies currently employ 2, 9 million "in-house temps". Whereas permanent workers mostly work Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, most of these ‘temps' are employed at night or over weekends, especially in the retail sector, where they make up 43% of all employees.
This is largely so that employers can avoid paying overtime rates to permanent employees, in line with negotiated union agreements, and they are not going to give up this right to exploit such workers without a fight.
We see a ban on labour brokers as the only effective way to give effect to the ANC's manifesto commitment - to address "the problem of labour brokers", and of achieve the clear manifesto commitment to create decent work.
That is why COSATU is fighting to put a stop to this human trafficking and to defend workers' right to be treated with respect and dignity.
We urge the SACP to join the task team in which COSATU and the ANC are trying to amend the bills currently before parliament to find ways to put an end to labour brokering. Comrade Chris's vanguard party of the working class cannot stand on the sidelines when such a crucial struggle for workers' rights is being waged
Chris Hani would surely have been at the front of the campaign against corruption, challenging the notion that public office is a route to personal wealth by stealing public resources.
He was not unfamiliar with the problem. When still in exile he co-authored the "Hani memorandum", which bemoaned the lack of accountability of the ANC leadership, draconian discipline, nepotism and corruption, for which he was detained by his own movement.
He was aware of allegations of ANC leaders materially benefiting from the struggle against apartheid by receiving large sums of money from international donors and agencies or by running private business whilst in exile.
Of particular relevance today, he stood firm against the gathering tide of opportunism and careerism. When many exiled returnees were buying suits, expecting to be appointed as ministers, Chris Hani agreed to be elected General Secretary of the SACP, which was certainly not a cushy job.
Reacting to the shock of others at his decision to accept this position instead of angling to be a Minister, he said: "The perks of a new government are not really appealing to me. Everybody would like to have a good job, a good salary... The real problems of the country are not whether one is in Cabinet ...but what we do for social upliftment of the working masses of our country."
Comrade Chris would have been the first to lament the tendency for the politics of principle to be replaced by a politics based on narrow personal ambition and accumulation, creating a poisoned atmosphere of divisions and fast-forming cliques and cabals, pigeonholing of unsuspecting individuals, innuendos, gossip, backstabbing, and character assassination, political and even physical assassinations.
Some comrades are looking to beef up their personal security, not for fear of being assassinated like Chris by the right wing, but because of the seeds of mistrust that are now blossoming amongst us as comrades.
We can be certain that these tendencies will become even more pronounced in the run up to the ANC's 53rd National Conference in Mangaung, where Comrade Chris's presence could have been so valuable.
Being a staunch believer in the dictum that the masses are the makers of history, Chris Hani would warn that without mass power, we must all forget about liberating ourselves from the shackles of capitalism. As he said:
"Socialism is not about big concepts and heavy theory. Socialism is about decent shelter for those who are homeless. It is about water for those who have no safe drinking water. It is about health care, it is about a life of dignity for the old. It is about overcoming the huge divide between urban and rural areas. It is about a decent education for all our people. Socialism is about rolling back the tyranny of the market. As long as the economy is dominated by an unelected, privileged few, the case for socialism will exist."
We won't let Comrade Chris Hani die; he lives on within each one of us!
Issued by COSATU, April 10 2012
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