NEHAWU NEC WORKSHOP STATEMENT
NEHAWU, a revolutionary and transformative trade union convened an extended three day national executive committee workshop between the 17-19th of June 2011 in Johannesburg. The aim was to discuss the key socio-economic issues especially focusing on health, education and preparations for the COSATU central committee as instructed by the national executive committee of April 2011.
The national executive committee workshop initiative forms part of the union's ongoing education and discussion programme intended to set off an intensified engagement amongst members by deepening their understanding of the current political and socio-economic challenges facing the workers and the working class in general.
This crucial event received presentations from an august panel from the academic, political and civic society sectors. They all offered valuable critique, analysis and foresight on a range of issues that were identified by the organisation as the most crucial that the union needs to tackle in its quest to transform its organising scope and also to improve the lives of the working class. The discussions were designed to aid the union to regain its mantle as a leading force in the tertiary education, health care and public service transformation landscapes.
The union was not just merely engaging in this discussion for its own sake but the goal was to make sure that the theoretical discussions act as a guide and also inform our programme of action. The union has therefore concluded that the key and overriding task of the moment is one of building and consolidating working class power, beginning with our own organisational machinery.
Following extensive deliberations the special NEHAWU NEC workshop has come to the following conclusions:
Politically, there is a worrying and visible regression in the unity and cohesion of the Alliance and also the emergence of a rightwing, populist demagogic tendency within our movement that is hell bent on using all backward and reactionary methods to break the Alliance and derail our non sexist and non racial project.
This tendency is motivated by nothing more than gluttony and unprincipled personal ambitions and their corrosive posture has threatened not only to isolate the working class but also to reverse the gains brought by the Polokwane watershed. After analysing the situation the union concluded that its immediate tactical role is to work with progressives to dislodge this tendency before anarchy is unleashed on the working class and the nation.
The union also called on the movement and government leadership to remember the mandate given to them in Polokwane and work hard to ensure that they expedite service delivery to the poor communities. The failure to do so will create a fertile environment for populist rightwing demagogues to capitalise by using genuine service delivery issues of the poor to whip the masses into a hysterical frenzy.
That although this current government is an outcome of our own struggles and therefore our central task is to defend and support it there is still a difficult task of implementing the ANC manifesto at the technical and managerial levels of the state apparatus because there are still remnants of the 1996 Class Project. There is a need for strategic leadership and cohesion in the state and we need a leadership that will be bold enough to ensure that a democratic state pursue a developmental agenda.
The NEC workshop resolved to demand that all government departments prioritise the five identified ANC priorities in their programmes, i.e. decent work, education, health, crime, rural development and land reform. Also as a principled socialist organisation we support the Nationalisation of all strategic sectors of our economy and any programme that champions the distribution of resources as a basis to change the structural base of our economy and society, and therefore to impact on the balance of class forces and social relations in favour of the working class.
NEHAWU NEC workshop has acknowledged the ideological ascent of Neoliberalism and that despite its failure as evidenced by the 2008 world economic crisis its hegemony remains intact and unchallenged. This workshop took place at a time of the Great Recession caused by the capitalist engineered financial crisis that destroyed the livelihoods of millions of poor people around the world including South Africa. The union is therefore convinced and adamant that the time has come for our government to boldly consider a revolutionary alternative economic system that takes into consideration peoples social needs.
Our organisation believes that there are some alternative economic models that can be studied by our government including the Brazil model under its former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. We feel strongly that an economic model that feeds the elite minority and sidelines the poor majority is unsustainable
The union has resolved that as a disciplined force of the left we are going to work with all progressive formations to campaign and agitate for the total overhaul of the capitalist system because its faulty systemic orientation means that it will continue to reproduce these cyclical episodes of boom and bust that do not benefit the working class.
There is a need for radical steps in dealing with the transformation of health to reverse the current crisis situation. The glaring challenges like the appalling hygienic conditions in many of our hospitals, the on-going shortages in medicine and the necessary medical equipments, as well as the unfilled vacancies are demoralising to the health workers.
The ill-conceived and poorly implemented policy of privatisation and outsourcing of the support functions in the health sector coupled with the culture of appointing unsuitably qualified managers has left our hospitals in a state of disarray. The union resolved to intensely focus its attention to the transformation of healthcare by supporting the government's endeavour to introduce the National Health Insurance {NHI} scheme but remain fiercely opposed to the use of Public-Private-Partnerships.
The union is calling for the immediate improvement of all sites of service delivery in the health sector in preparation for the implementation of the NHI.
The perilous state of our post school education and training is unacceptable and has resulted in the levels of frustration for poor students reaching alarming levels.NEHAWU remains resolute in fighting all forms of maladministration and corruption and also supports the efforts of the minister to transform higher education. The union though demands a shift from the skills development strategy that is informed by the narrow traits of human capital theory that sees human beings as nothing more than instruments of production. We want an education strategy that is informed by the slogan ‘people's education for people's power".
We have noted and are aware that the transformation project of post school education and training will meet resistance because it tempers with the powerful vested interests of the skills tenderpreneurs as evidenced by an anti transformation liberal offensive that is trying to defend and maintain the status quo in the SETAS and Universities in particular. But we remain resolute to mobilize the working class to fight for a total transformation of the higher education sector.
The union wants the number of Setas to be reduced and that all board members of the Setas serve without receiving any compensation or privileges since what they are doing is civic duty.
Our organisation has committed itself to work with all progressive activists, intellectuals and academics to work on an alternative intellectual project.
The revolutions that have taken place in North Africa are a welcome development that needs to be supported by the progressive forces in order to assist the working class in those countries to ensure that the capitalists do not hijack the revolution and sell it to imperialist.
The union has committed itself to work with unions and civic society in those countries in order to ensure that there is socialist orientation and a leftward shift in the political balance of forces in North Africa and the Middle East and will also continue to have on-going discussions in our union to shape our perspective and also grasp the essence of this emerging political context.
Statement issued by NEHAWU Communications Department, June 20 2011
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