Zwelinzima Vavi's address to COSATU KZN Provincial Congress, Pietermaritzburg, July 2 2012
Provincial Office Bearers
Leaders of affiliated unions
Leaders of our Alliance partners
Congress delegates
Comrades and friends
I bring greetings and best wishes for a successful congress from the COSATU National Office Bearers and our more than two million members.
2012 is a historic year for COSATU, its allies and all South Africans. The ANC is celebrating 100 years of struggle and all three alliance partners are holding their national congresses or conferences.
If ever there was a time to grab our destiny by the scruff of its neck and make a decisive breakthrough in the struggle for total liberation, it is this year of 2012. Let us make sure that we do not let the opportunity slip through our fingers, and in particular use our provincial and national congresses to forge policies and programmes of action which will arm us for the battles ahead.
The federation is now only three years away from 2015, when the ambitious targets we set ourselves in the 2015 Plan are due to be achieved. This year we must make a frank assessment of how far we have moved and how much more we need to do.
The CEC agreed that the main Congress theme will be ‘Strengthen COSATU for total emancipation', with two subsidiary themes: ‘Celebrating working class contribution to the liberation struggle: celebrating the ANC centenary' and ‘Deepening unity of the leading detachment of the working class and confronting the triple challenges'.
A key discussion will be to assess progress towards the implementation of the document "Consolidating Working Class Power for Quality Jobs - Towards 2015", popularly referred to as the 2015 Plan, which was adopted by the 8th COSATU National Congress in October 2003.
To prepare for our 11th National Congress we have organised three policy conferences: on Gender and Women Empowerment in Particular, International issues and Education and Skills. We will hold provincial congresses in all 9 provinces of COSATU.
We are putting together yet another ‘state of the unions' survey so that we look at our unions strengths and weaknesses as we assess our 2015 Plan. We have commissioned a survey of our members so that we better understand their priorities. Another survey of the shop stewards will be conducted soon.
We have developed a programme to mobilise all our members on the issues so that they are better prepared to confront our challenges. We publish special Bulletins to help guide discussion in the following worker forums: -
- Special general worker forums convened by COSATU locals (Provinces to ask locals to convene three of these between the beginning of July and the beginning of September)
- Weekly COSATU shop stewards council meetings
- Socialist Forums where they exist
- Affiliates' shop steward council meetings
- Affiliate company general meetings, including in wage mandating meetings (especially on issues relating to Congress debates on collective bargaining, wage levels, minimum wages, youth wage subsidy, labour brokers etc)
We are asking members to adopt this programme as one of the resolutions of this Congress so that we empower workers to input into the formal mandating processes of their own unions and the COSATU Provinces. The discussions will also serve the purpose of providing learning and information.
What is that we are facing? Why are we restless and at times seeming very angry and frustrated? This is what the congress has to focus on and nothing else!
1. The crisis of Colonialism of a Special Type has not abated, and instead it has deepened. Unemployment among Africans was estimated to be 38% in 1995 and it stood at 45% in 2005. Overall, the unemployment rate in the South African economy was 31% in 1995 and increased to 39% in 2005. As of 2009, the rate of participation of Africans in the labour force was 52% and for whites it was 68%. Because of the continued structures of domination and exclusion, it will not be wrong to conclude that most Africans do not participate in the labour force because they are the least absorbed in employment. Among Africans of working age (between 15-64 years), only 36% are absorbed into employment whilst on the other hand, 65% of whites of working age are absorbed into employment. Among emerging markets, South Africa has the lowest labour force participation rate.
2. Poverty incidence remains high. There is no official poverty line for South Africa. Yet, based on measures that are sensitive to household size, one study found that 57% of individuals in South Africa were living below the income poverty line in 2001, and this remained unchanged from 1996. But measures that assume individuals need R322 a month to survive show that individual poverty has declined from 52.5% to 48%. This decline is said to be driven by an increase in the number of beneficiaries from government's grant system from 2.5 million in 1999 to 12 million in 2007. This means that 25% of South Africa's population lives on grants, and it is evidence of the anti-working class character of the post-1994 growth path. The economy reproduces poverty, and the state throws money at this problem, without intervening to change its structure.
3. Redistribution of income has worsened against the working class. Besides the decline in the real incomes of African households between 1995 and 2005, income inequality has increased across the board. In 1995, the Gini coefficient stood at 0.64 but it increased to 0.68 in 2008. The share of employees in national income was 56% in 1995 but it had declined to 51% in 2009, i.e. there has been reverse redistribution from the poor to the rich. The top 10% of the rich accounted for 33 times the income earned by the bottom 10% in 2000. This gap is likely to have worsened, given the fall in the share of employees in national income and the global economic crisis of 2008. Approximately 20% of South Africans earned less than R800 a month in 2002, the situation is worse for Africans. By 2007, approximately 71% of African female-headed households earned less than R800 a month and 59% of these had no income; 58% of African male-headed households earn less than R800 a month and 48% had no income.
4. In 2008 the top 20 directors of JSE-listed companies, the overwhelming majority of whom are still white males, earned an average of R59 million per annum each, whilst in 2009 the average earnings of an employee in the South African economy was R34 000. On average, each of the top 20 paid directors in JSE-listed companies earned 1728 times the average income of a South African worker. On average, between 2007 and 2008, these directors experienced 124% increase in their earnings, compared to below 10% settlements that ordinary workers tend to settle at. Hefty increases were also seen in state-owned enterprises. Directors in state-owned enterprises also experienced the same rate of increase their earnings, thereby contributing to income disparities in the economy. The top 20 directors in SOE's experienced a 59% increase in their earnings, collectively raking in R132 223 million. This amounts to R6.6 million per director, which is 194 times the average income of the South African worker.
5. Income inequality is still racialised, and has deepened within racial groups. An average African man earns in the region of R2 400 per month, whilst an average white man earns around R19 000 per month. The racial income gap is therefore roughly R16 800 among males. Black women are yet to be liberated from the triple oppression. Most white women earn in the region of R9 600 per month, whereas most African women earn R1 200 per month. The racial income gap in monthly incomes among women is therefore R8 400. The race gap is therefore overwhelmingly severe among males. The gap in monthly income between African men and White women is R7 200. In addition, 56% of Whites earn no less than R6 000 per month whereas 81% of Africans earn no more than R6 000 per month. These income disparities are deeply connected to the social relations of production at the factory floor and other places of work, and macro-policies that violate the historical commitment to redistribution. Inequality has increased the most among the Coloured population, by 9 percentage points, whereas among Africans it has increased by 1 percentage point between 1995 and 2008.
6. The means of production remain concentrated in white capitalist hands: Estimates of black ownership of JSE-listed companies range between 1.6%and 4.6%. The JSE is still dominated by few large firms; 50% of JSE is account for by 6 companies and more than 80% is accounted for by large banks and companies engaged in the core of the minerals-energy-complex. Crucial sectors in the economy continue to be dominated by a few large conglomerates with cross directorships. These conglomerates are vertically integrated and therefore limit entry into the economy by smaller firms. In addition, there has been a rapid increase in foreign ownership of these conglomerates. This has served to consolidate their domestic power through their global networks. Traditional South African conglomerates, such as Anglo-American have undergone significant restructuring, encouraged by opportunities to globally diversify their operations, thanks to GEAR's neo-liberal financial liberalization. In addition, little by way of black ownership and worker control has been achieved over the past 18 years. Almost all the top 20 paid directors in JSE listed companies are white males.
7. Imperialist domination has deepened over the past 18 years and the ownership patterns have moved further away from domestic ownership, especially by the black working class. The financial sector is dominated by the banking sector, which has 4 large privately owned banks (ABSA, Nedbank, FNB and Standard Bank), two of which have significant foreign ownership. ABSA is 56% foreign-owned whilst Standard Bank is at least 40% foreign owned. The wholesale and retail trade sector is dominated by two firms: Shoprite and Pick ‘n Pay, which constitute 66% of the markets share. The entry of Walmart will change the picture on foreign ownership. Even before Walmart's entry, Massmart was 60% foreign-owned, Shoprite is 35% foreign-owned, Truworths is 50% foreign-owned, Foschini is 40% foreign owned, JD Group is 40% foreign-owned, Lewis is 30% foreign-owned, Pick ‘n Pay has less than 10% foreign-ownership, Spar under 20% and Mr Price and Woolworths 20%. Manufacturing is dominated by two sectors: petro-chemicals and basic iron and steel, which are dominated by SASOL and Arcelor-Mittal, which have significant foreign-ownership. SASOL is about 30% foreign-owned and Arcelor-Mittal is 65% foreign owned. More than 80% of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is account for by the large banks and the few companies in the traditional sectors: mining and energy. All these companies are white, private, capitalist-owned and they are increasingly being foreign-owned. The Second Transition will be a hollow slogan if it does not address these fundamental patterns in favour of the revolutionary class forces. Malaysia ignored such patterns, only to be woken up by race riots in 1969.
8. The structure of the economy remains mineral-dependent and is now finance-led: The economy is still very much reliant on mineral exports for foreign exchange earnings. Although some have found that manufacturing exports have increased, surpassing minerals, such exports remain driven predominantly by the core minerals-energy-complex. Petrochemicals, mining and Basic Iron and Steel make up 69% of total exports, and are highly capital and energy intensive. Many studies have found that the manufacturing sector has rapidly increased exports, attributing this to trade liberalization, which is said to have increased productivity and competitiveness. This is misleading, because the so-called manufacturing that has increased exports, especially basic iron and steel and petro-chemicals, constitute the key pillars of the minerals-energy-complex, and is heavily monopolised.
9. In fact, over a long-haul the structure of exports has failed to break the dominance of core minerals-energy-complex sectors, and imports continue to be made up of sophisticated manufactured items such as machinery and equipment. Between 2003 and 2008 manufacturing imports rose by almost 10 percentage points, thereby contributing problems in the external balance. Since 1975 the financial sector outperformed the non-financial sector in terms of growth performance. By 2005, the financial sector was growing almost twice the growth rate of the non-financial sector. A combination of the increase in finance and the capital-intensive MEC core puts further limits to job creation.
10. In terms of social development, the crisis of Colonialism of a Special Type has not abated, despite valiant efforts to deliver services. The health profile of the population has deteriorated: In 2006, a black female South African was expected to live 12 years shorter than a white male, and an average male in Sweden expected to live 30 years more than an average black South African female. The life expectancy of South Africans was the highest in 1992, at 62 years. Ever since then life expectancy fell to 50 years in 2006. The life expectancy of a white South African now stands at 71 years and that of a black South African stands at 48 years, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations Survey (2009). Whites therefore expect to live 23 years more than blacks according to the study.
11. The crisis in education persists and the quality of education is declining: The poor's children remain trapped in inferior education with wholly inadequate infrastructure. Indeed according to OECD research, "70% of (matriculation) exam passes are accounted for by just 11% of schools, the former white, coloured, and Asian schools". What is of major concern is that 12-year olds in South Africa perform three times less than 11-year olds in Russia when it comes to reading and 16-year olds in South Africa perform three times less than 14-year olds in Cyprus when it comes to mathematics. However, white learners perform in line with the international average in both science and mathematics, which is twice the score of African learners.
12. Furthermore it is estimated only 3% of the children who enter the schooling system eventually complete with higher grade mathematics, 15% of grade 3 learners pass both numeracy and literacy, 70% of our schools do not have libraries and 60% do not have laboratories, 60% of children are pushed out of the schooling system before they reach grade 12. In 1997, approximately 1.4 million learners entered the system in Grade 1. The matriculation pass figure of 334,718 learners in 2009 means that 24% were able to complete matriculation in the minimum of 12 years. Lastly, 55% of educators would leave the profession if they had an opportunity to do so. This is symptomatic of an ineffective and dysfunctional education system.
13. The housing challenge is still persistent: There has been progress in the provision of housing; 74% of South African households live in brick structures, flats and townhouses. Nevertheless there remain 15% of households who live in shacks, which amounts to 1.875 million households. Despite the progress that has been made in the provision of decent human settlements, the quality of housing remains a major challenge; 46% of South African households live in dwellings with no more than 3 rooms, 17% of households live in 1-room dwellings. Among Africans 55% live in dwellings with less than 3 rooms and 21% live in 1-room dwellings, whereas at least 50% of White households lives in dwellings with no less than 4 rooms. These disparities in the conditions of living are a direct consequence of the legacy of Colonialism of a Special Type, and the capitalist relations of production that underpin it.
14. Progress has been registered in meeting basic needs but affordability remains a problem: Significant progress has been made in the provision of basic needs in the past 18 years. Households with no access to water infrastructure fell from 36% in 1994 to 4% in 2009. Access to sanitation also dramatically improved over the same period, from 50% to 77%. Access to electricity also improved from 51% to 73%. Nevertheless, in the light of high unemployment, low-paying and precarious work affordability is a problem. As a result, a number of communities have engaged in service-delivery protests, partly inspired by the low quality of services, partly by lack of services and general government neglect, and partly because of cut-offs, which have been informed by the notorious cost-recovery policy on basic services. Between 2009 and 2011, there was on average 10 service delivery protests a month in South Africa, which means that there are, on average, 120 service delivery protests a year! These protests are increasingly becoming violent, with 64% of these protests ending up violently in 2010. The main cause, of course, is lack of accountability and poor service delivery.
It is precisely because of this situation that the CEC had decided that the forthcoming 11th National Congress must preoccupy itself with this reality under inspired by the theme: ‘Strengthen COSATU for total emancipation'.
In 2005 when we celebrated the first decade of democracy, COSATU and the SACP made a conclusion that in economic terms; it was capital that has more reason to celebrate than working class, which was in the front rows of our struggle for freedom. As a result of this we took a decision that the second decade our democracy must be declared a workers decade.
We are going to the 11th National Congress with quite a number of impressive victories under our belt! Amongst these is the A New Growth Path with its weaknesses and IPAP 2. We have signed four accords on Basic Education, National Skills, Local Procurement and Green Economy.
Finally we have adopted an Alliance Programme of Action, which theorises the National Democratic Revolution:
1. The Alliance and the mass democratic movement agree that the NDR has as its primary task the defeat of three interrelated and antagonistic contradictions of national oppression, class super-exploitation and gender triple oppression. In simple terms, black people's oppression was not only based on their colour, but was equally a function of the inherent exploitation of a special colonial capitalist system.
2. African women faced triple oppression in their homes, in society and in the workplace. The NDR therefore seeks to resolve the marginalisation of women, especially Black and African women in particular. In that sense it aims to reconstruct the relationship between men and women on a more equal basis in the household and in the public sphere. Central to the programme of the alliance is building a more egalitarian society, where the gap between the various strata in society is not wide as is currently, a situation the movement inherited from the apartheid system.
3. The Freedom Charter is a vision to reconfigure society on a more equal basis, and this requires radical changes in society. The Charter envisioned a politically and economically inclusive society for all. We cannot be content with the transfer of political power from the minority to the majority. State and mass political power must be used to advance the social and economic transformation of our society.
The ANC strategy and tactics had this to say about the nature of our revolution:
"... it is inconceivable for the liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole. It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal political democracy. To allow the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the root of racial supremacy and does not represent even the shadow of liberation.....Our drive towards national emancipation is therefore in a very real way bound up with economic emancipation. We have suffered more than just national humiliation. Our people are deprived of their due in the country's wealth; their skills have been suppressed and poverty and starvation has been their life experience. The correction of these centuries-old economic injustices lies at the very core of our national aspirations. We do not understand the complexities which will face a people's government during the transformation period nor the enormity of the problems of meeting economic needs of the mass of the oppressed people. But one thing is certain - in our land this cannot be effectively tackled unless the basic wealth and the basic resources are at the disposal of the people as a whole and are not manipulated by sections or individuals be they white or black".
Finally, we have a government and ruling party who recognise that we are indeed facing a national crisis, a welcome move from the denialism of a few years ago, when we had to argue that there was a national crisis, against those who believed that the revolution was on course and that the benefits of economic growth supposedly produced by GEAR would soon be ‘trickling down' to the poor and the workers.
We now know how false that argument was and the debate has now shifted from whether there is a national crisis to how we can solve it. This is the basis for the ANC's discussion paper on strategy and tactics.
In our response to this we stressed the need not to quibble over words - "Second Phase of the Transition", "Second Transition", "Second Decade for the Workers and the Poor", etc, but to get to the real underlying issue - the need for a radical "shift to the left", on to a path to economic and social emancipation for the poor majority who have not benefitted economically from the first 18 years of our freedom.
Despite conceptual problems and self-contradictions, the ANC paper acknowledged that there were failures and blunders after 1994. This gives us the chance to assess the class and ideological basis of these errors and to position the movement to avoid the same mistakes in the future and chart a new course to overcome the legacy of apartheid oppression and Colonialism of a Special Type.
All alliance components agree that we must do something extra ordinary to move out of the current situation. We are moving to COSATU congress therefore to answer one central and practical question - what should be the content of the change we seek to achieve?
COSATU will continue to argue and campaign for a thoroughgoing economic transformation, to escape from the straitjacket we, and other African countries, inherited from colonialism and apartheid, which was an economy over-dependent on the export of raw materials, extracted by cheap labour to the developed, industrialised world.
But we cannot achieve any of these goals unless we succeed to unite our organisation behind a new progressive agenda and campaigns. We cannot succeed unless we rebuild the engines our movement. This is that not only the ANC must take forward. It is a task that the whole alliance must confront including COSATU.
As part of our responses to the ANC organisational renewal, we pointed out that the biggest challenge facing the ANC and the rest of the democratic forces is not a lack of ideas but our failure to implement what has been agreed and to have the political will to implement what we know is politically and morally correct.
The ANC, its allies and the rest of the democratic forces have for many years been pointing out the current weaknesses and have taken bold resolutions on what is to be done. Yet our track record in doing anything about the identified weaknesses leaves much to be desired. This has not been a problem of leadership alone but a problem of both those who lead and those who are led. We lack political will to implement our own decisions, in particular when those decisions are against powerful interests in the organisation.
Let us emphasize it is not only the ANC that must embrace a new mindset change. We can't go to this historic congress again to sound like a broken record and merely repeat what we have said over and over again without embracing a new sense that there is urgency and without a mindset change we will soon find ourselves in the dustbin of history.
COSATU must itself rediscover its purpose of existence. In addressing these challenges we must avoid sounding like a breaking record - repeating the same things we have said over and over again.
For example the 52nd National Conference noted, "we have also seen foreign tendencies such as ghost membership, rent-a-member, winner-takes-all, unceasing lobbying, howling and heckling, pigeon-holing of comrades, the launch of branches solely for congress purposes, criminalisation of dissent, blind loyalty to individuals and factions, abuse of organisational symbols and cultures for factional lobbying and campaigning and sometimes bloody violence in ANC conferences."[1]
Our problem is not that we have not identified these problems but a refusal sometimes to do what we know is correct and desist from doing what we know will not build unity and take our organisation forward.
We cannot succeed in taking forward our revolution unless we combine both the need to renew our organisations and the need to speed up our total transformation. We insist there will be no economic transformation led by a divided and factionalised organisations.
Our biggest challenge is that we won't listen! There more we speak against the dangers of factionalising our organisation, there more we do just that.
Let us briefly speak about some of the challenges we face today. On 7 March 2012 we led over 4 million in one of the biggest national strikes we have seen in the recent past with hundreds of thousands occupying the streets of our cities and towns across the length and breadth of our country.
We demanded that the labour brokers be banned without any further delay. We demanded that the whole idea of erecting inner city e-tolls be scrapped. We united with range social forces and were joined by the vanguard of the working class in this battle.
It is only fair we tell you where things are in both of them. Our movement, the ANC, approached us for discussion on both these issues. Thanks to your power we agreed that the implementation date for e-tolls be postponed whilst we looking at alternative funding models. We agreed that the challenge we face is to build a reliable, safe, affordable and accessible public transport system and not mega elite projects such as Gautrain, e-tolls and or proposed high-speed train between Durban and Johannesburg.
On our demand on labour brokers we have only one area standing between us and full agreement with the ANC. We want a total ban of labour brokers whilst the ANC want us to agree that we allow triangular relationship, which will guarantee space for labour brokers in the relationship that should exist between the workers and their employers in the first six months of employment.
COSATU argues that one day under the enslaving and super exploitative labour brokering is a day too long. We have an agreement on all other matters, including the critical principle on ‘equal pay for work of equal value'.
All the anti-worker proposals have been withdrawn including the suggestion to make teaching an essential services, forcing only workers involved in the dispute with the employers to join pickets, forcing unions to ballot member before any strike action and introducing a long cooling-off period before workers are allowed to strike.
In the recent past the matter of the extraordinary crisis of youth unemployment has been used by anti-worker forces to attempt to drive a wedge between employed and unemployed workers and between younger and older workers.
We are now being told that the youth unemployment is caused by high wages or ‘inflexible' labour laws. We have been told that youth wage subsidy is working perfectly all over the world. So we decided to study more closely the Treasury literature and discovered that in fact their own study leans towards the COSATU position.
There is no empirical evidence that this policy has worked anywhere in the world. The ILO (2011) reports that "research in various countries has shown that wage subsidies lead to combined deadweight and substitution effects of the order of 70-90% of the number of jobs created". The estimate by National Treasury puts the deadweight loss alone to be 58%, i.e. 58% of the promised jobs from the subsidy would have been created without the subsidy (that is, if we believe National Treasury's estimates!).
The youth wage subsidy will have significant substitution effects. Firms will have an incentive to let go of existing workers in order to employ subsidised ones. We are told that this can't happen since we have strong unions and strong government. Yet only 29% of the workforce is unionised in South Africa, which opens up the rest, 71%, to abuse. In addition, the existence of labour brokers who screen and manage workers for employers also makes it easy to fire existing workers and get "good ones" on a subsidised basis.
The third reason why we oppose the youth wage subsidy is that it does not guarantee that training and skills development will take place in the workplace, less so in the sectors where job-creation is likely to be created: wholesale and retail trade, personal services and construction.
The fourth reason why we oppose the youth wage subsidy is that it will lead to the recycling of young people without training. In the literature they say young people will be fired once the subsidy ends.
The fifth reason why we oppose the youth wage subsidy is that with major substitution and increased vulnerability of the workforce, there will be downward pressure on wages. Inequality will worsen as low wage workers replace those who have managed to capture non-wage benefits in their compensation.
The sixth reason why we oppose the subsidy is that there is an underlying assumption that there is a gap between entry-level wages and productivity among young workers. Treasury and the DA argue that youth wage rates are too high.
However the National Treasury document fails to compute this gap between the wage and productivity. With an average wage of R940 for those that fit the characteristics of at least 60% of the unemployed, it would be interesting to know what is expensive about this average monthly wage.
In fact, our estimation suggests that young people are paid roughly 23% less than their productivity. We thus argue that the youth wage subsidy proposal has no empirical basis in South Africa. The youth wage subsidy also has no empirical basis internationally, as demonstrated by the literature that National Treasury (and the DA) use to support the subsidy.
The seventh reason why we oppose the youth wage subsidy is that National Treasury (and the Democratic Alliance) incorrectly assumes that the wage is the major constraint to job-creation. The emphasis on the empirically unsubstantiated gap of an entry-level, or minimum wage, that is above productivity lies at the heart of National Treasury (and the Democratic Alliance's) standpoint. In the first instance, the vast majority of young workers who fit the characteristics of many of the unemployed do not enjoy the statutory minimum wage.
In other words, the minimum wage is not a binding constraint. Secondly there is no empirical basis to create a causal link between the extent of coverage by collective bargaining agreements and youth unemployment. Countries with high union and bargaining coverage do not necessarily exhibit high youth unemployment rates; the issue has more to do with economic structure and the role of the state in the economy.
The eighth reason why we oppose the youth wage subsidy is that it will simply increase the mark-up of firms without increasing employment. There is no firm that employs workers for charity or out of a good heart. The law of the profit reigns supreme at all times, not social and political considerations.
The ninth reason why we oppose the youth wage subsidy is that it does not contribute in addressing the underlying causes of the youth unemployment problem. In fact the youth wage subsidy may exacerbate the triple crisis of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
The proponents of the youth wage subsidy are quick to ask what are the alternatives. Let us answer them and say amongst others our position uses the National Skills Development Strategy III as a point of departure, by calling for expansion of the FET sector to accept 1 million learners per annum by 2014, compared to the current 400 000 per annum. This will in turn reduce the youth labour force, by extending their stay in the education and training system, so that they acquire basic and high-level cognitive skills (as the Germans and now the Australians are doing). We argue that a big number of young people who are unemployed should be in school in the first place acquiring skills they will need in the labour marker to improve their employability.
Even though it's true that unemployment affects more young people, women, black people and Africans in particular, as well as people from the rural areas, let us point out that you cannot address unemployment as a sectoral issue only. It is a national challenge not only for youth, women or blacks, even though it affects them more. We need to address the root causes of unemployment, which is the fact that our economy is designed by our colonial masters to extract minerals and send it to the nearest harbour for their export to the imperialist's head quarters.
We are arguing that we must train and expose the young people to the world of work through internships for youth in the public and the private sector. We return to the proposals that we have not effectively implemented such as introducing youth brigades through a public sector programme, covering at least a health brigade (to address community education on HIV and a healthy lifestyle), a rural brigade, a literacy brigade and a green brigade (energy saving measures, awareness of climate change).
Businesses should be requested to set a target of youth placement that they will fill in addition to existing workforce. Where specific incentives may be required including to address additional costs for the employment of young people (such as training, counselling, supervision), a Youth Employment Committee, set up by Nedlac and involving union representatives, should consider specific requests. These should satisfy the criteria that existing workers should not be displaced by the programme nor should the scheme be based on profiteering from private businesses.
We want a national youth cooperative scheme to be developed, with funding to set up youth controlled cooperatives, with set-asides of public sector contracts for solar water heater installations to be given to youth cooperatives. This could be complemented by special measures to promote youth-owned small businesses.
We will look at any genuine proposal to make it easier for young workers to find employment, but will oppose bogus schemes like the DA's Youth Wage Subsidy, which is nothing more than a tax-payers' hand-out to employers to bribe them to create subsidised jobs for youth, with nothing to stop them retrenching an equal number of older workers and nothing to compel them to give those young workers any training.
We congratulate the ANC Policy Conference on throwing out this idea yet again, even though there is no confusion about what the ANC Policy Conference was on the matter, and will look closely and sympathetically at their alternative idea of a Job Seekers' Grant, to assist the young jobless to find work.
The Living Wage Campaign must be the cornerstone of the work of the trade union movement, to mobilise workers to fight poverty, close the apartheid wage gap and address broader inequalities in our society.
As part of the campaign, we have opened up a debate within the federation around a discussion paper, ‘Towards new collective bargaining, wage and social protection strategies', which will be on the agenda of the National Congress. Among the many issues we shall be discussing are:
- A legislated minimum wage across the board to set the minimum living standards
- Regulation of executive pay to close the apartheid and gender pay gaps.
- Disclosure of company profits, executive pay and bonuses
- Guaranteed decent employment by the state
- Improved collective bargaining arrangements
The Living Wage Campaign must also look at the social wage, to fight for decent and affordable housing and access to land, quality healthcare through the National Health Insurance scheme, free, universal and quality public education until university level, cheap and efficient public transport and affordable basic services.
The campaign must also target changes in labour legislation so that maternity and paternity leave are fully paid and that workers are not disempowered and denied the right to strike because they belong to "essential services", defined in a way that could cover all public service staff.
But the most urgent part of the campaign must be to achieve the banning of labour brokers and an end to the casualisation of labour. We are continuing to argue at Nedlac and must be ready to take to the streets again. We will never give up on this fight to put a stop to human trafficking and modern-day slavery.
Another key campaign in 2012 is the fight to eradicate corruption, incompetence and waste. Unless this is stamped out, it will continue to sabotage all our struggles for a better life for workers and the poor. We desperately need a mindset change, throughout society but particularly in our revolutionary movement.
The ANC document on Organisational Renewal identifies dangerous tendencies, which include "the influence and use of money as part of the lobbying for organisational position", "Inability to conduct ANC meetings in an orderly and peaceful manner", and "winner takes all or clean slate phenomena, fuelling and breeding factionalism".
"These tendencies," says the paper, "have become so persistent and widespread that they in fact represent a shadow culture or parallel culture which co-exists alongside the movement's own organisational culture".
We echoed this concern in the COSATU response to the paper: "The main reason why leadership has been weakened is that almost every leader today in the movement is a product of slate politics, divisions and factionalism. In some cases leadership that emerged from a divided congress finds it very difficult to outgrow the factional past and dissolve factions they led and or belonged to before the last congress".
These tendencies reflect the invasion of a capitalist culture of selfishness and greed, ‘me-first' and ‘survival of the fittest' into our movement. It leads to comrades from our own movement abandoning the ANC tradition of service to our country and community, with no thought of personal reward in favour of one of self-enrichment.
The problem is at its worst when the private and public sectors become entangled, when public officials or their family members are themselves running businesses, manipulating tenders and looting state resources. That is why we keep insisting that our representatives have to choose either to be public servants or private business people, but never both at the same time.
A devastating example of this problem was the non-delivery of Limpopo school textbooks. A combination of gross incompetence by elected representatives and officials, and greedy private companies scrambling for tenders, led to the future prospects of thousands of learners being jeopardised. We must keep repeating our call for heads to roll when there is such clear evidence of incompetence or corruption.
We also must keep up the pressure on public representatives who face charges of serious offences to voluntarily step down from office until their case has come to court, and if they refuse, to be suspended.
What we can't afford is more promises of tough action that does not materialise, or a promise that come period after Mangaung ‘people will see a sea change'. We want that demonstration now! That is why we saying those who are facing allegation must be held to account now, not later. The damaging effect of all of these allegations to our movement demands that we clarify if these allegations are true or not. For example (just to mention a few) in the recent past we have seen following allegations gaining prominence in the media.
1. We welcomed the Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe's statement calling for the Public Protector to investigate allegations that Ms Gugu Mtshali solicited a bribe in exchange for government facilitation of a business deal to sell helicopters to Iran. We demand that the Public Protector should publish her findings without any further delay.
2. City Press, 15 April 2012, produced written evidence to support its earlier allegations that Police Minister, Nathi Mthethwa used R195 581, 45 of public money, from a secret slush fund run by the Crime Intelligence Unit, to pay for the upgrading of his private residence in KwaZulu-Natal. They allege that the Crime Intelligence Unit has also used these funds to buy a holiday resort on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast for the exclusive use of the unit's top officers and to rent a townhouse at Gordon's Bay, near Cape Town for crime intelligence unit head Lieutenant-General Richard Mdluli. We have welcomed Minister's denial of these allegations and a call he made that they be investigated. COSATU has called on the Public Protector to investigate these investigations and we want answers without any further delay.
3. The Sunday Times alleged that millions of rands in sponsorship fees, which the minister had persuaded Telkom, MTN and Vodacom to contribute towards the cost this month's high-profile ICT Indaba, were drawn from the account of a company called Carol Bouwer Designs to whom the department had outsourced the organisation of the Indaba.
4. In KwaZulu Natal a full forensic audit was conducted in the Department of Education which pointed fingers at certain personalities - where are those fingered by that audit?
5. Recently we were told that the Minister of Communications outsourced certain responsibility to host the recent held ICT Indaba to Carol Bouwer then hired a company called Khemano, to handle the "event management" part of the Indaba. That company is owned by Phosane Mngqibisa, who is alleged to be romantically linked to the minister.
What is disappointing is that the ANC and the government never ever say a word about these allegations and hope that ‘our people' will forget about them in no time. This is a mistake!
We must however not fool ourselves into thinking that the trade unions are immune from these corrupting tendencies. Our provincial and national congresses must ask searching questions about whether any of our leaders or officials are accepting money from employers in return for favours, or looting provident or investment funds. The survey by our members reveals that our member's perception of extent of corruption within the unions is at its highest ever!
We must have a policy of zero-tolerance to any such practices. It is not only wrong in principle, but also, just as in the public service, it invariably leads to poor service to members, low levels of recruitment, a reluctance to fight with employers and potentially destroys our credibility and capacity to defend our members.
Our focus must be on the targets for 2015 - how to expand our membership, especially in badly organised sectors like agriculture, tourism, call centres and domestic workers, how to deliver better services to our members and how to play a fuller part in the swelling of the ranks of our Alliance partners, the ANC and SACP.
Finally we must not neglect our responsibility to support the struggles of our fellow-workers around the world.
The global crisis, which erupted in 2008, has changed the world's economic and political landscape. Although it was centred around the world's advanced capitalist countries in the North, it also had devastating effects on poorer nations' economies and workers' living standards.
It is very encouraging to witness the development of progressive popular movements and uprisings in Middle East and North African countries, and left governments being elected in Latin America, and even protests in Europe and in the Occupy Wall Street movement
We must fight to use this crisis to lay the foundation for a stronger international workers' movement in both the North and South based on economic alternatives to neo-liberalism.
Trade unions have to invent new and creative strategies to respond to the changing terrain of struggle. Independent, worker controlled and democratic unions are one of the key weapons in the class struggle. The crisis has deepened the attacks on workers in the South whilst its adverse impact on workers in advanced capitalist countries has planted serious radicalism in amongst workers in the North. This has provided some real foundations for much greater workers' unity.
I hope you have a very fruitful congress and I look forward to seeing many of you again in Midrand on 17 - 20 September 2012.
Issued by COSATU, June 2 2012
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