NEHAWU CEC STATEMENT
NEHAWU convened the second Central Executive Committee of the 10th national congress on the 08-09 of December 2014 to assess the performance of the organisation in implementing its resolutions and its adopted organisational,socioeconomic and political tasks. The CEC was addressed by the COSATU President, Cde S'dumo Dlamini, a shop-steward of NEHAWU, who cut his teeth from our own ranks. Amongst others, the President called upon the union to unwaveringly fight for the interests of our members, including in the current public service wage negotiations.
The CEC acknowledged that both our union and the federation are passing through a special period, which demands extraordinary dedication and urgency on the part of all our structures and leadership collectives in defence of our union and federation. As we bring the year 2014 to a close, we emerge from this difficult year emboldened and confident as we head towards the 30th anniversary and the 12th congress of COSATU, as well as the public service wage negotiations.
The CEC noted that the global economy is still in the midst of the multiple and systemic crises of capitalism that erupted in 2008. Global capitalism is still in the clutches of these crises, which has resulted in widespread austerity attacks on public sector unions, especially in the global-north where recently there have been reported pockets of economic growth.
Whatever economic recovery or "greenshoots" there may be, only the bourgeoisie and its top 1% benefits from it, whilst the average wage levels are declining as underscored by the recently released ILO's 2014/15 Global Wage Report, which starkly shows that "global wage growth has stagnated and lags behind the pre-crisis rates".
The economic situation in the European Union and Japan in particular bear testimony to the fact that the system remains fragile and that this reported growth is taking place on the back of mass retrenchments, wage freezes, privatisation and other draconian Neoliberal measures.
Political
NEHAWU, as a principled affiliate of COSATU, is committed to adhering to resolutions passed by workers at congresses, including the 11th congress of the federation. We are proud of our contribution in support of the ANC elections campaign which culminated in an overwhelming victory for the ANC on the 7th May 2014.
We believe that this victory dumbfounded the self-deluded detractors of our movement and their narrative of the elections as a "game-changer", and this includes some within the fold of our federation. We believe that this overwhelming victory is a potential bridgehead towards a radical second phase of our democratic transition, provided that the ANC acts decisively in implementing its manifesto and in dealing with the ongoing havoc of the EFF-DA alliance in the National Assembly.
In our analysis, the convergence within the ANC-led Alliance around the need for fundamental transformation in the second phase remains largely at the level of intent and objectives rather than on the content of what needs to be done in concrete and practical terms. Amongst others, this is underscored by the recent policy pronouncements, especially the provocative MTBPS in which the Treasury undertook to cancel all vacant posts in the public service, to privatise some "non-strategic" state's assets and to raise wage levels of public service workers by no more than 6,6%.
This once again reinforces our perspective ,that unless the working class raises itself to a hegemonic position in key sites of power, including within the progressive coalition of class forces that is the ANC, this envisaged radical second phase of our transition is at risk of being diluted or at worst being derailed.
Unfortunately, the organised workers' component {Cosatu} of the working class is at the moment organisationally and politically at its weakest point and in disarray. We are convinced that a united force of class-conscious organised workers cannot afford the luxury of isolating itself by standing on a self-indulgent high-moral ground, merely satisfied with militant sounding slogans and ideological purity when other class forces are shaping the future of our country.
The material conditions of this conjuncture indicate that we cannot escape the heavy duty of building working class power in the work place, communities and all other strategic centres of power including the ANC. This we shall continue to strive for as part of our federation's political and strategic orientation, whilst recognising the impact of monopoly capital and the sharpening fundamental contradiction in our society, i.e. class contradiction, on the political landscape.
In turn, this sharpening class contradictions find expression within the ANC itself in the contestation on the content of what must become the radical second phase of our transition. The CEC directed the national union to organise a national political school, meetings of the national and provincial political commissions and classes to engage with the SACP's discussion document, Going to the Roots, as part of preparations for the SACP's Special Congress, as well as to prepare for the ANC NGC and COSATU 12th congress.
Whatever, the dominant narrative in the media and what the detractors of the ANC have to say, we are convinced that the ANC remains the leader of our society and continues to spearhead the national democratic revolution.
Cosatu
"Unity must be won, and only the workers, the class-conscious workers themselves can win it - by stubborn and persistent effort." Lenin
The NEHAWU CEC is convinced that under the circumstances, the bitter and agonising decision that COSATU took to expel NUMSA was a correct one, notwithstanding the fact that one of our federation's cherished goals is to unite the overwhelming majority of the South African workers informed by our founding principle, "One union - one industry, one country - one federation". However, the unity and cohesion for which we stand in our federation is a principled one, which includes an unwavering adherence to the founding principles and policies of COSATU.
We seek to realise this mission not for its own sake, but because we know that when workers are united, they can never be defeated. This is the basis of our solidarity that is informed by our battle cry "an injury to one, is an injury to all", which recently has been disgracefully undermined by NUMSA's competitiveness against other progressive unions.
We wish to let all Cosatu unions ,and the rank and file membership, to know that we are ready and keen to engage in the ANC facilitated process towards the attainment of a principled unity and cohesion within the federation. We close this year of the 20th anniversary of our bloody, bitterly and hard won democracy and freedom hoping that, we can rebuild our federation and stop its slide to political irrelevance.
Socio-economic
The CEC welcomes the decision of the ANC NEC, calling for the release of the NHI White Paper, and reaffirm our commitment to the federation's campaigns against the etolls, labour broking, for a minimum wage and other pressing socioeconomic issues. As NEHAWU, we believe that at the heart of the drive to forge a radical second phase of the transition must be a shift away from the current macroeconomic framework derived from the fourth administration.
We pledge to continue engaging the Public Service Commission on its discussion document on the developmental state, which must be linked to the research that the PSCBC is initiating on PPP's, outsourcing and agencification, as well as the outcomes of the Public Service Summit of 2010. NEHAWU is concerned about the continuing load-shedding that is currently taking place in the country, which undermines the growth potential of the economy and threatens jobs. We call on government and Eskom to step up their work towards resolving this crisis.
We are appalled at the reported corruption in the roll-out of infrastructure projects at the costs of 5% of allocations,irregular state expenditure that is skyrocketing as reported by the Auditor General and the excessive reliance on private sector consultancies. Hence, we reject out of hand the offer tabled by the employer at the PSCBC, including the 6,6% increase announced in Parliament.
In the first place, we demand the speedy resolution of the outstanding issues from the 2010 bargaining round, including the government employee housing scheme ,which must be carried out by a state agency and financially underpinned by GEPF. In addition to this pervasive fruitless and wasteful expenditure within the state, the Economist reports that the South African lawmakers, per capita are earn better than their counterparts in Italy, India, USA, Australia, Germany and other countries. Thus, we expect the employer to meet the wage and other demands of our members.
International
We pledge solidarity with the Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa, in particular with the health workers ,who face the full brunt of the disease, and we also pay tribute to the courageous health workers, from the western countries and around the world, who are making their own sterling contributions there in the spirit of solidarity. Above all, we salute Cuba and its distinguished internationalist cadre of health workers that have been selflessly mobilised in the fight against Ebola.
We undertake to make our own input in support of South Africa's contribution in the fight against this scourge, whilst we recognise that even more people are dying from AIDS and malaria on our continent, and that all of these diseases could be better resisted if governments mustered the courage to build strong public health systems.
Within our region, we welcome the sustained popularity of the liberation movements as underscored by overwhelming electoral victories in 2014 scored by the ANC, SWAPO and FRELIMO. NEHAWU reiterates its condemnation in strongest terms the recent banning of trade unions in Swaziland and therefore call on SADC and AU to isolate the Tinkundla regime. We shall continue with our own solidarity campaign, which we shall escalate by exposing South African capital that has vested interests in Swaziland and the ongoing construction of a military-intelligence complex by the USA in that country.
We pledge our solidarity with the national liberation struggle of the Palestinian people against the Zionist state of Israel, with the gallant internationalist Cuban revolution against the Yankee blockade and the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi, Kurdish and Basque peoples.
NEHAWU pledges to continue to take up our campaign for the release of the Cuban Five, and to work towards ensuring that our ideological and political education project with Cuba grows from strength to strengthen and institutionalised, so that in time it yields an expanding layer of cadreship not only within NEHAWU but across the federation. We shall support the international legal review on the Cuban 5 case, to be held in South Africa in July 2015.
Statement issued by Bereng Soke, NEHAWU General Secretary, December 11 2014
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