NEHAWU December 2019 CEC statement
9 December 2019
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] on the 7th – 8th December 2019 convened its third Central Executive Committee [CEC] meeting of its 11th National Congress.
The CEC received reports covering all four pillars of the union which includes international, political, socioeconomic and organizational assessments and also assessed progress in the implementation of the 2019 programme of action and adopted a 2020 programme of action.
The CEC meeting took place while we are in the middle of the campaign on 16 days of activism for no violence against women and children. The campaign this year coincides with the 80th anniversary of the death of Comrade Charlotte Maxeke who dedicated her life to championing the struggle for women’s and workers’ emancipation during the dark era of the apartheid regime. The meeting noted with anger the perpetual and persistent rise in cases of violence directed at women and children, rape and femicide. As NEHAWU, we pledge to deepen our level of consciousness and activism in gender and women’s emancipation struggles and we will intensify the campaign to extend the 16 days of activism against women and children from 16 days to 365 days.
The General Secretary of NEHAWU, Cde Zola Saphetha, was congratulated for being elected as the General Secretary of the World Federations of Trade Unions [WFTU] Trade Union International of Public Services and Allied [TUI-PS&A]. He was elected at the 13th Congress held in Larnaca, Cyprus in November 2019 under the theme “Join the struggles against privatisation – defend workers’ rights”. The CEC wishes Cde Saphetha well in his new responsibility and made a commitment that the national union will play an active role in assisting him to strengthen the Trade Union International [TUI] of Public and Allied workers and continue to contribute in the important task of building WFTU on the African continent.
The CEC took a decision to convene a national bargaining and organising conference next year as a platform to prepare for the next round of collective bargaining in the public service. We are also looking forward to making immense contributions at the COSATU National Bargaining and Organising Conference also scheduled for next year.
International
The CEC meeting strongly condemned the imperialist-driven coup in the Plurinational State of Bolivia. For us, the coup and the forceful removal of the democratically elected President, Comrade Evo Morales, represents the suppression of the Bolivian people’s right to national sovereignty and self-determination. Furthermore, this demonstrates the United States of America’s insatiable need to meddle in other countries affairs with the aim of furthering its imperialist agenda and the plundering of natural resources of the targeted countries.
The national union will pay more attention to both Cuba and Venezuela including the unfolding sanctions led by the USA. As NEHAWU, we are heartened by the steadfast resistance by Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua where counterrevolutionary plots led by the CIA have repeatedly been resisted and defeated. We call on all peace loving people across the world to condemn the USA and the silence of the United Nations [UN]. In this regard, NEHAWU will be organising a series of pickets across the country to highlight and bring back sharp focus into Latin American anti-imperialist campaigning politics.
The CEC expresses solidarity with the peoples struggles directed against reactionary anti-worker policies in Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Brazil, Greece, Philippines, France, Germany, Spain, Iraq and others. We remain in solidarity support with Swaziland, Cuba, Venezuela, Western Sahara, Palestine, Kurdish people and the Basque Country in the struggles to restore their rights.
The meeting noted the dire situation in Zimbabwe especially for workers and the trade union movement. NEHAWU commits itself to help trade unions in that country especially public sector union and will organise bilateral meetings with a view to sign memorandums of understanding including establishing joint programmes of action. We shall step up our solidarity campaign in support of the militant upsurge of the struggling people of Swaziland led by our allies NAPSAWU and TUCOSWA, including putting pressure on SADC around our demands of the unconditional release of Cde Amos Mbedzi and all political prisoners, the unbanning of all political organizations, and an end to restrictions imposed on trade unions and other civic organizations.
Political Situation
The CEC meeting took place two days before the commencement of the 4th Special Congress of the South African Communist Party [SACP] which is scheduled to take place from the 9th to the 12th December 2019 under the theme “Rebuild our movement, socialism is the future; build it now”. As NEHAWU, we will partake in the Congress and we are guaranteed that it will be characterised by robust debates on how to advance and deepen the struggle towards the attainment of socialism and the total obliteration of the capitalist mode of production.
The national union supports the building of the Left Popular Front, the struggle to end austerity measures by Treasury, and to fight for a more radical second phase of our transition. In this regard, we call on our vanguard party to mobilise society at large against the austerity measures by Treasury, popular demands of building a developmental state, including the full implementation of the National Health Insurance [NHI], change of the mandate of the Reserve Bank and land reform.
As NEHAWU, we support efforts to build a united Ramaphosa-led African National Congress [ANC]. In our view, the unity of the ANC is more important more than ever considering the material conditions we are facing both as a movement and country. Unity must drive and refocus the National Democratic Revolution [NDR] in order to decisively deal with the triple challenges of abject poverty, rising unemployment and deepening inequalities.
Factionalism and individual interests stands to annihilate the movement of Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela if they are not uprooted sooner. In order to defend the gains made in the past 25 years the ANC must be seen fully implementing promises made in the 2019 National General Elections manifesto and at the 107 anniversary rally held in Durban in January 2019.
The national union looks forward to the 108th anniversary of the ANC to be convened in January 2020 in Kimberley, Northern Cape. We wish the ANC well as it prepares to celebrate this important milestone and we shall mobilise all our members and workers to attend the festivities in numbers.
NEHAWU will continue to support its federation the Congress of South African Trade Unions [COSATU] in its efforts to unite all her affiliates because we strongly believe that the unity and cohesion of the federation is sacrosanct in building working class power. The national union will also continue to support the efforts to address competition amongst affiliates and challenges on overlapping scopes.
Socio-economic Situation
The South African economy continues to remain stagnant with no prospect of registering growth in the foreseeable future. Unemployment continues to grow at an alarming rate with the overall unemployment rate currently standing at 29%. Young people especially those between the ages of 15 to 24 years are the most vulnerable in the South African labour market as the unemployment rate among this age group is currently standing at 55, 2% in the 1st quarter of 2019.
According to Statistics South Africa just above half of the population [55%] live in poverty with the rural provinces of Eastern Cape and Limpopo having the most population affected while Gauteng has the less population affected. Racially, 9 out of 10 black people are poor, whilst amongst whites poverty is as low as just 1%. This further buttresses the point that the majority black people especially those in rural areas will continue to be confined to abject poverty while the economy is still in the hands of the minority class which is predominately white. This paints a bleak picture for the movement which has made a commitment to create a better life for all regardless of race or gender.
The CEC is convinced that the immediate challenge facing the country is not the public service wage bill and thus we reiterate that austerity measures are not a solution, in fact they are counterproductive economically, socially and politically. We therefore strongly reject the ongoing running commentaries by Treasury on the freezing of the public service pay. As NEHAWU, on the contrary we believe that our country is faced with a national economic emergency to arrest and turn-around the expanding rate of unemployment, inequalities and poverty. This is worsened by the fact that the popular national aspiration of the radical second phase, a perspective shared by all Alliance components is at risk of being discarded and substituted with a Neoliberal economic strategy advanced by the Treasury - in cahoots with western imperialist institutions and monopoly capital.
NEHAWU strongly rejects the Treasury’s Neoliberal economic discussion document and therefore call on the coming Alliance Political Council to reject it too. Instead, we insist that the ANC manifesto as well as the key resolutions from previous conferences since Polokwane must be the basis of developing an appropriate economic strategy that can pull the country out of the unfolding socioeconomic crises.
The national union believes that we urgently need a change in the leadership of both Treasury and the Reserve Bank. NEHAWU continues to be extremely worried about the conduct of Cde Tito Mboweni and the fact that the ANC has done nothing to reprimand him for undermining the revolutionary alliance and the commitments made in the manifesto used by the ANC to garner votes.
Health
The national union remains steadfast in its support for the full implementation of the National Health Insurance towards the realisation of universal health coverage and the total transformation of the healthcare sector which continues to treat people based on the size of their pockets and not based on their illnesses. NEHAWU will redouble its efforts in mobilising society behind the ideals of the NHI including waging a relentless war against the rising cost in private healthcare by profit seeking service providers.
Next year, we shall step up our NHI education programme across the country and participate in the public hearings nationally and in provinces when the NHI Bill is considered by the National Council of Provinces. This shall go hand in hand with our ongoing public health programme and our fight against monopoly profiteering in the private health industry
Education
The CEC noted the intention by Treasury to cut funding to the National Students Financial Aid Scheme [NSFAS] and institutions of higher learning. In terms of the Budget presented in Parliament in February, Treasury would be reducing allocations to the TVET colleges by R384.4 million over the next three years. Treasury’s proposed austerity measures in the post-schooling system will amount to R18 billion withdrawal from the NSFAS allocation affecting access to both university and TVET colleges. This will obviously undermine the National Developmental Plan [NDP] goal of expanding the capacity of the higher education to achieve 70% increase in the population’s university participation rate.
The NDP set the objective of increasing the population’s university participation rate at least by 70% in 2030, with enrolment increasing to 1.62 million. However, this will not be realised as Treasury is hell-bent on denying deserving students especially those from poor background an opportunity to access higher education and training. NEHAWU will convene a meeting with both the South African Students Congress [SASCO] and the Young Communist League of South Africa [YCLSA] to develop a comprehensive plan to fight the austerity measures by Treasury.
Issued by Khaya Xaba, National Spokesperson, NEHAWU, 9 December 2019
