Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, to the NUMSA Job Security Conference, 12 March 2009

It is always an honour to be invited to address a conference of NUMSA, the union of John Gomomo, Vuyisile Mini, Jabulile Ndlovu, Sam Ntuli, Phenius Sibiya, and in particular that gallant fighter Mbuyiselo Ngwenda, who passed away ten years ago this week.

They, and thousands of other unsung heroes and heroines, struggled and sacrificed to make your union a stronghold for the workers, a mighty force to defend and improve the lives of your members. We must honour their memory by building on the foundations they laid to build an even stronger metalworkers' union.

This has never been more necessary than in these difficult times for all workers, including many of your members, in the context of the world economic meltdown. It threatens millions of jobs around the globe and has already led to hundreds of retrenchments being announced in our auto, components and engineering sectors.

That is why we simply cannot believe the latest employment statistics from Stats SA, showing a drop in unemployment in the last quarter of 2008, a quarter in which GDP fell by 1.8% and by a massive 21.8% drop in the manufacturing sector.  We have always argued that this ‘official' level of unemployment - which excludes those deemed to have given up looking for work - seriously underestimates the real levels of joblessness and poverty.

That view is strengthened by these latest figures that are simply unbelievable. All the evidence from our affiliates points in the opposite direction - that unemployment is on the rise, and from a level which was already far too high before the latest crisis. To confirm this we have commissioned NALEDI to do a detailed audit of all the retrenchments our affiliates know about.

We are well aware however that thousands more jobs are disappearing without trace, as a result of the growing number of permanent jobs which have been casualised or outsourced to labour brokers, sectors in which it is virtually impossible to track the number of jobs which are disappearing.

This scourge of casualisation and labour-broking is undermining workers' living standards and job security and threatening union organisation. It is a huge challenge for the entire trade union movement.

It is for this reason that we strongly support the ANC election manifesto's statement that "decent work is the foundation of the fight against poverty and inequality and its promotion should be the cornerstone of all our efforts. Decent work embraces both the need for more jobs and for better quality jobs"

The ANC has further made a commitment that "In order to avoid exploitation of workers and ensure decent work for all workers as well as to protect the employment relationship, introduce laws to regulate contract work, subcontracting and outsourcing, address the problem of labour broking and prohibit certain abusive practices. Provisions will be introduced to facilitate unionisation of workers and conclusion of sectoral collective agreements to cover vulnerable workers in these different legal relationships and ensure the right to permanent employment for affected workers."

COSATU has also warmly welcomed the ANC's pledge to "intervene to ensure that Government, together with labour, business and other sectors work together to develop practical solutions that will ensure that in the short, medium and long term South Africa's economic prospects continue to improve and that jobs losses are avoided or minimised."

We are absolutely delighted that even before the election we have begun to implement this manifesto pledge, through the framework for South Africa's response to the international economic crisis, agreed by government, business, labour and community organisations at the Joint Presidential Working Group.

This is a most significant example, probably unique in the world, of the main role players in the economy coming together jointly to produce a strategy to deal with the impact of the economic crisis and protect jobs and livelihoods. We fully support the agreement that "retaining and increasing employment will be at the centre of our coordination and efforts in the period ahead", and the commitment by all parties "to increase the level of employment as well as improve the quality of jobs".

But however good an agreement is on paper, it still has to be implemented in practice. Business leaders must now convince all their CEOs to abide by the letter and spirit of this plan. We urge NUMSA and every other union to monitor the undertaking from organised business "to urge and encourage CEOs of companies to do everything in their power to avoid retrenchments as a result of the global economic crisis" and to make sure they are abiding by it.

COSATU is now heavily involved with the five task teams, which are hard at work ensuring that the framework plan is implemented. In these five task teams our top leadership, at the level of union general secretaries, represents us. We appeal on the government to reciprocate this level of seniority. We want to deal with people who have political authority to take decisions on the spot.

The support staff of the presidency is important, but when the crises engulfing our country threatens all gains registered in the past 15 years we need direct involvement of the President and his Ministers to drive this process forward.  We must strive to minimise the impact of the crisis and emerge from it with a stronger economy, more quality jobs and significant reductions in poverty and inequality.

Never has it been more necessary to unite as a nation to protect and create employment in our manufacturing industry by buying local. We must break the traditional cycle of exporting our raw materials, allowing them to be converted into manufactured goods overseas and then imported back at a huge profit to foreign companies. We must seize the opportunity to build and strengthen our manufacturing sector, something that NUMSA has been arguing for over many years.

Comrades

Since the ANC Polokwane Conference in 2007 we have been even more certain that the ANC is the only party in South Africa today that can speak for the workers and the poor majority of South Africans. Polokwane, the Policy Conference that preceded it, and the Alliance Summits that followed it May and October 2008, have resulted in a clear shift towards pro-worker and pro-poor policies, which have been incorporated into the ANC's excellent 2009 manifesto.

This will commit the next ANC Government to undo the damage caused by mistaken market-driven policies like GEAR and start to bring down the levels of unemployment and poverty. The manifesto reflects the aspirations of the poor, the workers and the majority of our population.

Of course manifestos do not change lives, and after the election the struggle will continue to make sure that every pledge in the manifesto is implemented with immediate effect. COSATU will never stop campaigning for policies to address all the problems the ANC has identified, especially the high levels of joblessness, the casualisation of labour and the declining quality of jobs.

We shall not rest until we have eradicated poverty and the deep inequalities that blight the lives of so many of our people. We shall continue to demand the expansion of public services for the poor, strongly oppose privatisation and commodification, including pre-paid electricity meters that place huge burdens on the poor, and keep fighting for honest, accountable government, and the end of corruption and the use of state institutions for self enrichment.

We will not however succeed in implementing these policies unless we unite our movement. Without a strong and united alliance we are doomed. Then we must build strong organisations, starting with trade union, ANC and SACP branches up to the provincial and national levels, so they can more effectively pursue the all-important task of mobilising our people. We also need internal organisational democracy in the movement, and guard against the culture of suppressing debates and autocratic, hierarchical leadership.

At the same time we must never take the ANC's electoral support for granted and have to defend our movement from the ragbag coalition of anti-ANC forces.

This year, in addition to the usual collection of pro-business parties, we face a new opposition party led by the losers of Polokwane. The mission of these refugees from democracy is to divide and weaken the trade union movement. They are irresponsibly trying to stoke divisions and are even talking of setting up a federation to oppose COSATU.

They say COSATU is too involved in politics, and would love to break the historic alliance between COSATU, the SACP and the ANC. Of course we know we will not take the newly found political advice. We know too well that if we had confined ourselves to the workplace barracks our freedom could have been delayed by many years. We know if we had not formed part of the revolutionary alliance our constitution would have not included the workers' rights. The progressive labour legislation that followed the adoption of the constitution would have not been possible.

The manifesto of the ANC that is undoubtedly pro-worker and pro-poor! This victory did not fall like manna from the heavens! Sorry to our former leaders now all of them wealthy business men; we won't go against what you taught us when you led us so brilliantly in the past.

Our task is to ensure that the voters are not diverted by the empty rhetoric of pro-business opposition parties. While fully sympathising with the plight of many of the poorest communities over continuing poverty and lack of service delivery, we have to counter the false arguments that "nothing has changed in 15 years" and list the many achievements since 1994 under ANC governments.

Then after the elections we have to campaign just as hard to ensure that the progressive policies of the Alliance that are now incorporated into the ANC election manifesto are all speedily implemented by the new ANC government led by Comrade Jacob Zuma. It will open up the next phase of the national democratic revolution and create a better life for all South Africans, especially the workers and the poor.

The people united shall never be defeated!

I wish you a very successful conference.

Issued by COSATU March 12 2009

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