COSATU statement on the recently held successful 12^th National Congress

The 12^th COSATU National Congress that was convened last week heralded the new beginning for our 30 year old giant federation of workers. It also represents the opening of a new page that will be characterised by organisational renewal. The 2500 delegates, who attended the congress and participated in the vigorous, forthright and fruitful discussions that took place over four days, made it abundantly clear to both friends and doubters alike that the federation is still very much alive

We are emerging from the 12^th National Congress more united and with a very clear and crucial mandate from the workers. They want a united federation that will focus on shop floor issues and defend them against the brazen arrogance of monopoly capital.

Workers are clear that their federation should remain rooted and dedicated to its founding principles. They want a strong shop floor organisation; with the ability to wage militant struggles in defence of worker rights, collective bargaining and political activism.

Going forward, COSATU will continue to be a class oriented worker’s federation that is not neutral in class battles. We remain totally committed to the total emancipation of workers in particular and the working class in general from the shackles of exploitation and poverty.

The 12^th National Congress proved that we remain a democratic and transparent organisation controlled by workers. We pride ourselves to be one of the few organisations to convene every congress, even in a period of internal turmoil. Workers continue to believe in us because we do not claim easy victories and we do not mask any difficulties. This is what makes us strong and reliable in the eyes of the workers.

Organisationally

The mandate was clear from the workers on organisational matters. They expect us to put divisions behind us and to confront our real class enemies, monopoly capital; in particular the mining and banking oligarchy that still has the stranglehold over our economy. We are expected to unite workers and heighten our struggles on all fronts and advance and defend the interests and aspirations of the working class.

We have a mandate to organise the overwhelming majority of workers, who remain unorganised, especially in the private sector. Some of these workers are the most vulnerable and exploited workers because their wages and conditions of work are solely determined by their employers. They include young workers, community care workers, domestic workers and all the vulnerable sections of the labour force. We will also be developing programmes to improve our presence in sectors, such as catering, wholesale, hotel, cleaning and private security.

After this congress the “buzzwords” for all our unions should be recruitment and membership service. The congress has directed all affiliates to develop and implement programmes, targeted at increasing membership and improving service to members. We will be aggressively campaigning for the abolition of an apartheid wage structure and the introduction of a national minimum wage.

We have noted that the 12^th National Congress generated some overstated headlines around the issues of labour brokers. As COSATU, we want to make it clear that we will intensify our campaign against outsourcing and labour broking. The federation has a standing position on this matter, as per the binding decisions of its constitutional structures. We will be engaging with the Minister of Labour to find out the basis for her allegations. She needs to substantiate her allegations and if they are proven to be true, we will act to ensure that such levels of hypocrisy are decimated within our ranks.

To consolidate our organisational power, we shall be working hard to implement our resolutions on mergers and on the building of super-unions. Congress told us to reduce the backward practice of COSATU unions competing with each other, instead of practising solidarity.

As part of our Back to Basic Campaign, we will initiate a process of deeply looking at ourselves. We will study how affiliates and COSATU structures operate in practice and review the effectiveness of our existing organisational machinery at all levels. We shall ensure that COSATU Locals remain basic structures that are closest to members and that they are vital organs in the mobilisation of members and in implementing the federation’s campaigns.

This congress has set the tone that we must continue with the tradition of robust and frank engagement; regarding our organisation and the struggles of the working class, and that we need to do so using the platforms provided by our constitutional structures and also within the parameters of our constitution.

We have a mandate to fight the scourge of business unionism. We were instructed to systematically develop binding policy frameworks, which must address challenges arising from our investment arms, union-linked retirement funds, procurement of goods and services and fund raising.

Politically

The congress reaffirmed that the Alliance remains the only vehicle available to the workers to advance a second more radical phase of our transition.

Congress has made it clear that we need a reconfigured Alliance, which will be at the centre of driving the National Democratic Revolution. We want an Alliance that will collectively develop policy in line with our vision, as located in the Freedom charter. We want an Alliance, which will collectively monitor the implementation of policy and decide on deployment, and which can also call ministers to account. We want an Alliance where all partners are treated as equals.

The alliance should also understand that the strategic objectives of the National Democratic Revolution is to resolve three interrelated contradictions of racial domination , gender oppression and class exploitation It also has to understand that the primary task in this phase of our transition is to achieve radical economic transformation.

The message from the congress is that we should contest the content of the radical second phase on class content and not on personalities. We are clear that most of the battles in this terrain will be won on the streets through our organisational strength.

We shall ensure that Alliance resolutions that advance the interests of the working class do not gather dust and only exist on paper. We shall campaign to make sure that they are translated into government funded programmes.

Going forward, we shall wage campaigns on the ground and work with the Alliance partners, to strengthen and reconfigure the Alliance in order to drive the National Democratic Revolution. We will strengthen the socialist axis under the leadership of the SACP to advance in a programmatic way the struggle for socialism. This will also include participating in the SACP processes, towards a decision on how it will relate to electoral politics in the future; we will be guided by our 9^th Congress resolution and the SACPs 12^th National Congress and its Special National Congress resolution in this regard.

As part of the task to develop political consciousness, we will run joint programmes with the SACP focusing on ideological training of our leaders and members. We will make resources available to mobilise for the overwhelming victory of the ANC in the forthcoming local government election

As the organised detachment of the working class, located strategically at the point of production, we shall act to ensure that these battles are won on the ground through visible campaigns, based on our political and Socio- Economic demands. We will continue to be a campaigning federation of workers.

Campaigns

Although, we have taken a position to break ranks with Corruption Watch, we will not stop our fight against corruption in our ranks and in the broader society. We will continue with our campaign of exposing corruption in both the private and public sectors and will continue to demand decisive punitive action against perpetrators.

We expect our members to continue exposing corruption at the workplace level and they should also act against racism in the workplace.

The current anti-corruption legal framework is not hard hitting enough against offenders in the private sector. It allows businesses to pay their way out and get away with some heinous and unethical conduct, as evidenced by cases of collusion that were exposed by the competition commission. We shall demand the strengthening of the legal framework so that responsible company executives are also prosecuted.

We are going to intensify our focus on women’s struggles in the workplace and shall also ensure that our progressive labour laws deliver for the workers.

We will defend our hard-won labour rights by rolling out campaigns that will push back against any attempts to threaten our right to strike. We will defend our right to collective bargaining and also demand expansion of centralised bargaining across all sectors.

We plan to launch a massive campaign to demand the withdrawal of the Taxation Amendment Act of 2013 ,which is aimed at taking away the right of workers to decide on how to spend their deferred salaries.

We shall launch a campaign demanding the implementation of the National Health Insurance with immediate effect.

We shall campaign for the transformation of our education system and will also work hard to strengthen the student worker-alliance at universities and colleges. Going forward, we plan to strengthen and heighten the campaign to reject the Annual National Assessments (ANA) in their current form, because they are not in the best interests of learners and will do nothing to improve the quality of education. At the centre of this campaign shall be to force employers to respect collective bargaining.  The Department of Basic Education has joined the national treasury in the art of displaying arrogance against workers demands and to undermine existing collection agreements.

The congress has mandated us to roll out a campaign against police killings. We shall demand that government tightens the Criminal Procedures Act and SAPS Act in order to defend SAPS personnel. The bail conditions and sentences of persons, who attack and kill SAPS members, must be very stiff.

The Fire Arms Act must be made tighter in order to reduce the amount of fire arms in South Africa. This campaign will also include the transformation of the criminal justice system. It will focus on the entire value chain of the criminal justice system, which includes investigation, prosecution; conviction and correctional services. The systems remain littered with the Apartheid personnel and police force tendencies that are not in line with the post 1994 democratic principles of a police service.

Socio-economic

The 12^th National Congress was very clear that it is totally unacceptable that after 21 years of freedom, there are still high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality in the country. This is more so because these socio-economic ills affect mainly the black majority. The message from the workers is that an unemployment rate of more than 7.6 million people constitutes a crisis.

For this, we blame the South African economic policy, which is based on the neo-liberal paradigm. The neo-liberal economic principles and philosophies that are based on a belief that growth must occur first, and then employment and redistribution will follow are not only ridiculous but have been discredited.

The congress made it clear that these policies are unacceptable and they fail to address the colonial and apartheid fundamental contradictions, that resulted in white monopoly capital taking charge and ownership of the economic levers of powers.

Our congress rejected the situation, where the black majority remains enslaved in waged labour, while our economy remains highly monopolised and foreign owned and also at the hands of a white minority.

Going forward, we will launch a radical campaign against privatisation which goes beyond section 77 based protests but which will include the rolling mass action. We are currently calling for the convening of an Alliance Economic Summit to discuss issues relating to policy differences in the Alliance; including on the concerns we raised with the SACP on the economic and labour Market sections in the NDP.

We shall be demanding the following amongst the others issues, as mandated by the congress:

- The transformation of the colonial and apartheid structure of the South African economy through an industrialisation-led economic growth path.

- Decisive interventions to stem the unfolding de-industrialisation and ongoing job losses.

- Introduction of capital controls to stem the tide of capital flight, including the rejection of the SABMiller-AB Inbev merger.

- Implementation of the Alliance summit decision calling for the redrafting and fundamental overhaul of the core economic and labour chapter of the NDP.

- Review and withdrawal of the Employment Incentive Tax Act.

- Lifting of a moratorium on the freezing of vacant posts in the public service.

- Abolition of e-tolls and labour brokers.

- The implementation and adoption of the principle of Equal pay for work of equal value.

- Abolition of Apartheid wage structure.

- Reversal of the decision to introduce the preservation of provident funds.

- SOEs must stop outsourcing, labour broking, retrenchments and other unfair labour practises.

- Government must intervene to end such abuses at SOEs.

- Treasury must ensure that the SOEs are properly funded to fulfil their developmental and decent work agenda.

- Government must intervene to ensure that the SETAs deliver upon their mandates and spend their budgets to ensure that workers receive the necessary training to help them find decent employment.

- SETAs programs must be geared towards meeting the skills gap and supporting the industrialisation of the economy.

The congress has also resolved that we need to file a Section 77 Notice and mobilise our members around the following issues:

- The neo-liberal macroeconomic policies that undermine industrialisation and job-creation.

- Retrenchments, outsourcing and casualization.

- Immediate engagement on a comprehensive social security system.

- Imposition wealth tax.

- Introduction of minimum wage.

- Banning of labour broking.

- Affordable, reliable, accessible and safe public transport and a stop to the expansion of the Gautrain service. This includes the scrapping of e-tolls.

We expect each of our affiliates to commit to deploy resources, time and energy towards the implementation of these resolutions and decisions. These declaration and the resolutions taken by this 12^thsession of the workers parliament, shall remain the compass and a guide to action for every affiliate, every shop steward, every organiser and every member in every workplace

Internationally

On the international front, we shall work to strengthen the South to South relations; especially with BRICS countries. We also plan to call for a trade union Summit of these countries. We shall develop a program to deal with the arrival of refugees that will assist refugees because most of them are part of the working class. We will improve our program of action on the Swaziland, Palestine and Western Sahara campaigns

The congress mandated us to undertake a study tour to understand current developments in Cuba. Currently, we welcome the improvement in the diplomatic relations between USA and Cuba, but this remains meaningless in the context of the continuing economic blockade by the USA. We call on the USA to stop this inhumane act against the Cuban people.

30^th Anniversary

The federation of Elijah Bharayi, Chris Dlamini and John Gomomo is turning 30 years old tomorrow, the 1^st of December 2015. This is a big milestone for the South African workers and the entire working class. We shall be celebrating this historical anniversary of the federation in Durban, at the weekend, where we will hold a rally on the 5^th of December at Curries Fountain Stadium.

We will use this occasion to trace our footsteps back to the early days of this federation. We shall reflect on the vital historical moments and learn from the glorious victories that were secured by workers over the last thirty years. We will remember the role of the federation, working with the Mass Democratic Movement, under the leadership of the United Democratic Front (UDF), where it waged relentless struggles in the fight against the apartheid regime.

We will reflect on the baptismal of fire that confronted the federation during the period of its birth in 1985, where an unprecedented 1.3-million working hours were lost to strike action. In response to this birth of a giant federation, the apartheid government applied a state of emergency between July 1985 and March 1986, in many parts of the country.

These battles resulted in the withdrawal of the requirement to carry passbooks on the 23^rd of July 1986, by the apartheid regime, and the formal removal from the statute books the pass laws on the 13^thNovember1986.

During those early years, COSATU had already shown its fighting capacity. In 1988, millions of workers stayed away from work to demand the reversal of the changes in the Labour Relations Act, despite the consistent threat of dismissals by employers. In 1990, the regime agreed to COSATU’s proposed amendments to the LRA.

We will be revisiting these battles and victories not because, we idealise the past but because we honour it, as we imagine the future. We have a lot of history to learn from as we chart the new path that will keep this federation standing for another 30 years.

Issued by Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 30 November 2015