Briefing to SACTWU on the COSATU Collective Bargaining Conference 2 March 2013 by Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions
Thank you comrades for the invitation to brief you on the background and content of the forthcoming COSATU Collective Bargaining Conference in ten days' time.
We have to deliver on wages and working conditions for two good reasons. The first is that COSATU members have already told us in the Naledi Workers' Survey conducted in 2012 that this is one of the two most important reasons why they have joined a COSATU affiliate. The other reason they have given us, by the way, is to be protected against unfair discipline. Only 3% of our members have said that they join our unions mainly because of benefits.
The second reason that we have to deliver on wages and working conditions is that this is the best way to build workers' power to transform our industries and society as a whole. This is our interpretation of decent work agenda. Let me repeat a quote from Jim Hightower that I learnt from NUM General Secretary, comrade Frans Baleni. "The up-issue is not just jobs - even slaves had jobs - the issue is wages". This is the only way we can be liberated from poverty, and a new incomes policy is what we need to end deepening inequalities.
Thank you for demonstrating at the UCT's Centre for Social Science Research which claims that workers earning R278 a week in Newcastle must accept that as a living wage. You have set an excellent precedent for all is us once more in that in future, and now, we must consider doing the same. The first target must be that man called Loane Sharp of Adcorp who, week in and week, out attacks the working class with his ideology of a quarter loaf is better than none. Yet he will never agree to earn R278 a week.
If we can't stand together in our individual unions and in the Federation as a whole to demand - and win - significant improvements for our members, then we will not be able to stand together to win other social demands.
2012 was an extremely tough year for all of us in the working class. We bore the brunt of a society and economy under extreme strain, in the context of a global capitalist crisis. Capitalist crises always produce bosses who scramble to restore their profitability at the expense of workers. No wonder we are now fed donkeys, giraffe and buffalo. Some people obviously have no problem in eating cats and monkeys. We however object if these are labelled as beef. Minister Rob Davies must get to the bottom of this. The greedy capitalists behind this scam must face the full might of the law!
We have analysed our situation over and over again. Going forward let's leave endless analysis to the philosophers. Our task as revolutionary COSATU is to embark on a campaign that is capable of uniting all workers irrespective of their narrow differences and combine their strength with marginalised communities to change our situation. We have to learn from our mistakes, identifying our weaknesses, and, most importantly of all, make sure we are in touch with workers, members or not.
There are some critical challenges that the Federation faces in organising, collective bargaining and servicing which I would like to highlight. These are shared challenges faced by all of our affiliates, and it is hoped that SACTWU will also give active input into the COSATU Organising, Collective Bargaining and Minimum Wage Conference which is taking place in ten days time.
Let me spell out some of the challenges:-
The first challenge is trade union membership and density
While the Federation has grown enormously over the years to reach 2.2 million members, we are still a long way off our 2015 target of 4 million members. South Africa has a trade union density rate of 30%. That means two out of every three workers are not organised! We have a huge task ahead as a Federation, especially amongst the most vulnerable and exploited workers.
Despite the enormous challenges that SACTWU has faced in the past decade, with your sectors shrinking as a result of the absence of protection against cheap imports, you managed to maintain your membership at 85,000 between 2009 and 2012. This is presumably because you have devised an innovative programme of employing "growth organisers". But there are still thousands of workers eligible for SACTWU membership who are either not unionised, or are in other unions. In particular you have the challenge of organising the thousands of workers who are now outsourced home-based workers. So SACTWU cannot relax! Above this, SACTWU must vigorously pursue a merger with SACCAWU. This is the decision of both unions which has been allowed to fizzle out.
The Federation needs SACTWU to help recruit workers into other affiliates. Without strength in numbers across all sectors we are not going to succeed in our task of improving wages and working conditions. Your union has already led the way and thrown a challenge to the rest of the affiliates of COSATU in making a very generous pledge to FAWU of R1 million towards organising farm workers.
The second challenge is service to our members
Our members have told us in the Naledi Workers' Survey that the most important reason for joining a COSATU union was for protection against dismissal and unfair discipline (38% of our members), followed by improving wages, benefits and working conditions (33% of our members). The remaining 29% of members told us that they joined the union to change society (9%), or because of peer pressure or a closed shop (5%) or because of union benefits (3%).
The Survey results for SACTWU are interesting - 28% said protection against dismissal was the most important reason for joining the union, and 31% said improved wages and conditions was tops. This is a slight reversal of the overall picture within COSATU, where protection from dismissal comes up highest. The percentage saying benefits was the most important reason for belonging to the union was 11% in SACTWU - much higher than for any other union.
Even if there is a slight variation between the SACTWU picture and the overall COSATU picture, the statistics still tell us clearly that we have to put our efforts first and foremost into successfully defending workers in disciplinary cases and into wage bargaining. And yet the statistics we have from the CCMA show us that only 46% of cases referred by COSATU affiliates to arbitration were won in favour of workers. It would be interesting to know what the case statistics for SACTWU members who fall under bargaining councils are.
Our members have indicated that they are reasonably happy with the way in which unions are taking up disciplinary cases, health and safety issues, retrenchments, racism, discrimination against women, and supporting people living with HIV and AIDS.
But our members are not satisfied with the outcomes of wage negotiations. Only 40% are satisfied across COSATU and 41% in SACTWU. Workers are also not very satisfied with our achievements in skills development (only 51% satisfied), or our support for temporary and casual workers (50% satisfied), or with our fight for better child care (48%). And they've given us the real thumbs down on how we are taking up public transport (31% satisfied). What our members are telling us is that we have to pull up our socks in all areas of service.
The third challenge is that of trade union representation and democracy
We had a lot of good news from the Naledi survey of COSATU members but also some not so good news. On the one hand it was encouraging that almost three quarters of members felt they could influence their shop stewards to act on their behalf. But only 33% felt they had a lot of influence. In the case of SACTWU, 35% said they have a lot of influence over shop stewards.
This means that many members feel disempowered. It is this disempowerment, combined with dissatisfaction with service, that creates conditions for worker to follow opportunistic individuals. We have so much work to do to reverse the tide of tiny powerless unions springing up all over the place. There are presently 193 registered unions in South Africa, with multiple unions mostly in the sectors that are the least organised.
So we have to step up our shop stewards' and membership education programmes. SACTWU has reported that in 2011 it provided training of one kind or another to a phenomenal 117,000 members. No other COSATU affiliate comes anywhere close to this really remarkable figure. But if the reporting was accurate, SACTWU hasn't targeted shop stewards for training.
Another worrying indicator is that 35% of our members have told us that there has not been a shop stewards election in their workplace in the past four years. The SACTWU figure is roughly the same at 36%.
Perhaps the most serious indicator of a problem in systems of representation and democracy is that one third of our members have told us that they have not attended a union meeting in the past year. SACTWU members I'm afraid paint the worst picture amongst affiliates, with 60% reporting that they haven't attended a meeting in the past year. We should be having general meetings in all work places at least once a month.
The general meeting lies at the heart of our mandating and report-back processes. These general meetings should not just take place during wage negotiations - they should take place on a consistent basis. There will always be plenty to fill an agenda - whether its developments in skills, collective grievances, health and safety, or whatever. In big workplaces, it is a good idea to break the regular general meetings into smaller sectional meetings, giving workers the opportunity to air their views. General meetings should never be a one way street of reporting by shop stewards.
Our next challenge is corruption
Before addressing this challenge I must tell you I am not disturbed by the faceless and spineless people who, under the cover of being media sources, are running a media campaign that suggests that the recent CEC decided that I should be investigated for financial impropriety. They allege that I or my family benefited in the sale and the purchase of the COSATU buildings. I have issued a challenge to these forces of darkness whose agenda is so blatant, that they must bring forward to COSATU or the police or CorruptionWatch evidence to back up these allegations.
I have offered that should there be such evidence I will immediately resign and save COSATU from an embarrassment. But if they can't produce this evidence then they must accept that I was elected at the congress by workers and that this must be accepted as a reality.
I know the real reason why these faceless individuals are attempting to tarnish my image in the newspapers and through whispering campaigns. All of them have a reason to hate me so intensively all of a sudden. The interest of the sources peddling lies is that we must all look the same and that all must say a stone is bread and bread is cheese. I would rather leave a life of a street beggar than to lose my integrity and in the process condemn workers into a deep dark hole.
Corruption in our ranks is something that we don't really want to talk about. But our members have spoken through the Naledi survey, and we have an obligation to tackle it. "Corruption" for our members can mean many things, from selling out to management without any financial exchange, through to the abuse of union funds, creating privilege for leaders, and being bribed by management.
It is of huge concern that one third of our members across all affiliates allege that there is corruption in their union, and 12% say they have actually personally seen it. The figures for SACTWU are roughly the same, with 11% saying they have seen it, and 31% saying they believe it exists.
Now whether or not this statistic is a reflection of reality is not the point. If such high numbers of members think that there is corruption, then we must be worried about trust. And we must leave no stone unturned to find out the truth in every instance where an allegation is made. We cannot be calling on government to take action against corruption and then sweep it under the carpet in our own house.
We must accept that where trust is low, relationships in the organisation, and the organisation itself, becomes unstable. Transparency in all matters of money in our affiliates is a must.
But getting back to the agenda of the day, that is collective bargaining, we face a number of socio-economic challenges that we have to tackle, partly through our collective bargaining strategies.
On low pay and minimum wages
The spotlight has been on low pay in the past year like no time before.
You know about low pay in your own sectors and have been talking in your Commissions about strategies to reverse this. But I want to direct your attention to low pay in other sectors too.
While the minimum rate for farm workers has now been raised by 52% to R11.66 per hour (or R525 a week or R2274.82 a month) this is still way below a Living Wage. Independent research conducted by the University of Stellenbosch for the parties in the farm worker negotiations has shown that for a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 children) needs to spend R2307.96 a month on food if it is to have a reasonably balanced diet and a reasonable (though still insufficient) intake of energy.
Instead poor families are forced to live on a diet of maize porridge, bread, sugar, tea and milk in order to meet their other basic living costs. The research shows that even if the demand of R150 a day was met, workers would still be in poverty and unable to afford a balanced diet.
The recent increase in the minimum wage of farm workers brings it up to more or less the same level as the minimums for wholesale and retail workers, taxi workers, hospitality workers, security workers and contract cleaning workers. However, domestic workers have been left behind with a minimum wage of R8.95 an hour (or R402.96 a week) in the metros and bigger towns, and R7.65 an hour in other areas. Wages in your own sectors are of course similarly low.
We have to beat poverty through decent pay for all workers. Low pay is not helpful to an economy. As the research on food requirements shows, workers who are paid starvation wages do not buy. And if millions of workers have no purchasing power, then production suffers. If production suffers, then jobs are not created.
So we have to use our collective strength as a Federation to persuade our government that a radical shift in wage policy is needed. We have an excellent example to draw on in the form of Brazil, where radical increases in minimum wages have resulted in job creation. Of course we have to link our demand for a radical shift in minimum pay to the demand for support for local production and protection against cheap imports. SACTWU is absolutely spot-on in targeting SARS and the Department of Trade and Industry in your campaign for local jobs.
The issue of dramatically raising low pay is one of the key things we will be discussing at the COSATU Collective Bargaining Conference in ten days' time.
We also face a huge challenge in wage gaps
Not only does South Africa have the title of most unequal society i.e. between the richest and poorest, which I talked about in the beginning, but we also have other serious gaps to contend with.
We have a gap between minimum wages set by Sectoral Determinations, and those agreed on through collectively bargaining. The average negotiated minimum in 2011 across sectors was R3405 a month, whereas for Sectoral Determinations it was R2118.
In most sectors we have big gaps between the lowest paid in the bargaining unit and the highest paid in the bargaining unit
Our strategy of going for annual percentage increases across the board has increased these gaps, to the serious detriment of lower paid workers. It is time we consider strategies to close these gaps, including making across the board Rands demands, which are also easily understood by workers. The 11th National Congress already has told us that we should no longer demand percentages but rands and cents.
Finally (for today at least!) we face a challenge of there being insufficient centralised bargaining
The number of workers covered by bargaining council agreements has been reducing. Only 2.4 million of the workforce is covered by bargaining councils, and many of these councils are not national. More workers are covered by Sectoral Determinations than by bargaining council agreements, i.e. 3.5 million workers.
There is also an ongoing battle with government to get bargaining council agreements to cover non-parties.
Of course your sectors are mostly covered by centralised bargaining, but the fact that some sister unions, such as SACCAWU still have to battle in an environment where 96% of workers are not covered by centralised bargaining, is a challenge for the Federation as a whole.
We therefore need to campaign for compulsory, wall-to-wall centralised bargaining in all of our sectors. This is another issue up for discussion at the COSATU Conference in March. But of course centralisation must be accompanied by the democratic processes that I spoke of earlier.
To end, let me give you the details of the COSATU Organising, Collective Bargaining, and Minimum Wage Conference. The dates are 12th to 15th March and the Conference is to be held in Boksburg. There will be around 600 delegates, including some non-affiliates, representatives of our allies, labour service organisations, and international guests. Based on your membership, you will be entitled to 20 delegates, as least half of whom must be workers, and one third women. You should also make sure that you have fair representation of all of your sectors.
We will be using the conference as a platform to reflect on our strengths and weaknesses in recruitment, organising, servicing, and collective bargaining. We hope to use it to begin to develop best practice in recruitment and collective bargaining, based on shared ideas and experiences, and to identify the key tasks in building a culture of solidarity across the Federation.
And as important as any one of the other aims, we hope that the conference will give all delegates an opportunity to participate and have their voices heard. I really look forward to having SACTWU's input at the COSATU Conference, based in large part on your deliberations over your own two days' Conference. We dare not fail in our obligation to meet our members' expectations of us.
Comrades, I want to thank your office bearers for inviting me to this very important event. I wish you well in your remaining deliberations.
VIVA SACTWU! VIVA COSATU!
Issued by COSATU, March 2 2013
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