The Congress of South African Trade Unions is deeply concerned at remarks made on 11 June 2009 at the World Economic Forum (WEF) by Trevor Manuel, head of the National Planning Commission in the Presidency.
He suggested that trade unions were exacerbating the global economic crisis by going out on strike at this time, and accused them of abusing their right to call socio-economic strikes under Section 77 of the Labour Relations Act. He told business leaders they were ‘cowardly' for not standing up to unions more.
Contrary to Manuel's insinuation, COSATU has not recently called any strikes under Section 77. The relatively small number of strikes that have taken place recently have been called by affiliated unions over very specific, legitimate grievances over pay and working conditions, unrelated to the global economic crisis. There is not a ‘strike wave' or a ‘strike season', as the media keep misinforming us.
While COSATU supported these justifiable strikes, the federation's priority is always to seek to resolve disputes without strikes, and indeed the vast majority are settled through negotiation.
Section 77 is also a mechanism for resolving disputes over socio-economic issues, such as electricity tariff increases or opposition to privatisation, through a process of negotiations at Nedlac. It involves a long procedure to ensure that the matter is fully considered and to try to reach agreement through consensus. Only after a failure to agree has been formally registered by Nedlac, can the unions embark on lawful protest action.
The business leaders whom Manuel accuses of being ‘cowards' are overwhelmingly supportive of this procedure, as it channels workers' anger into a constructive negotiating process which makes strike less, rather than more likely to take place. Without Section 77, workers would no longer be able to express their anger legally, and would be more likely to engage in uncontrolled strike action. An attack on Section 77 is an invitation to social and industrial chaos.
COSATU was therefore shocked to hear that such an attack had been made at the WEF by a Minister of the government that we helped to get elected. His remarks came shortly after the Minister for Public Enterprises, BarbaraoganH Hogan, was rightly called to order by the ANC for suggesting that the government should sell off certain state assets.
She was told that this is not ANC policy and that she is charged with implementing the ANC's developmental agenda, under which state-owned enterprises must be properly managed and used to improve the lives of the people, not handed away to asset-strippers. The ANC and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee were therefore right to caution her.
The remarks of Minister Manuel were if anything even more at variance with ANC policy than hers. There is nothing in any conference resolution or manifesto commitment to the effect that the ANC believes unions are abusing their rights under Section 77 or that business should be ‘standing up to the unions'.
On the contrary ANC policy is firmly in support of trade union and workers' rights under the labour laws. So why has he not therefore been similarly castigated for expounding policies that have never been agreed by the party which has deployed him to government?
We urge both Manuel and Hogan publically to withdraw their remarks, and to return to the job they were deployed to do - implement the rapid socio-economic development of South Africa for the benefit of all its citizens, blacks in general, and Africans in particular.
The government was elected with a mandate to implement ANC policies and COSATU fully supports actions taken by its ally to make sure that ministers are in fact doing so.
The City Press, on 14 June raised a totally spurious scare around the question: "Who is running the country?" It suggests that the ANC and its allies are taking decisions on government policy. But that is democracy in practice. It is a refreshing change from the former government's top-down approach. Government has now to listen to the voices of the people who put them in power and be obliged to stick to the promises on which they were elected.
The Sunday Times on 14 June 2009 reported President Zuma's remarks at the closing session of the WEF, in a way that implied he was endorsing Manuel's accusations, when he posed the question to labour: "Can you, while you have this economic crisis, then find an opportunity to have more strikes? Are they not exacerbating the situation?" Significantly even the reporter conceded that the President only "appeared to build pressure on COSATU to be more supportive of his government".
COSATU's answer is clear: No, we do not want to find opportunities to have more strikes. We want to defend our members' interests but find ways to do so through negotiation and avoid having strikes. COSATU's view is thus in line with the President's - that there is no virtue in having strikes for the sake of having strikes.
Even if the President may have been echoing Manuel's concerns, his solution was diametrically different from his minister's, and in line with COSATU's. He saw the way to respond to the financial crisis as implementing the Framework for South Africa's Response to the International Economic Crisis that was agreed between government, labour, business and civil society at Nedlac in December 2008.
But this agreement is an example of precisely the kind of ‘Section 77' collaboration that Manuel is opposing, where government, business and labour work together to seek solutions to massive economic problems which have the potential, if not handled carefully, to lead to social explosions.
COSATU is pleased that the President, having highlighted this document during his State of the Nation speech, is using every opportunity to underline the urgency of putting this Framework agreement into practice. We shall do everything in our power to assist in this.
Statement issued by Patrick Craven, COSATU national spokesperson, June 15 2009
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