Nine COSATU Affiliated Unions on Special COSATU Central Executiv
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Speech by Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), to mark the 40th anniversary of the South African Labour Bulletin
November 21, 2014 -- COSATU, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- First let me say congratulations to the South African Labour Bulletin on its remarkable achievement of 40 years of uninterrupted critical publishing. Thank you for the honour of this invitation. For 40 years you have provided a voice to the voiceless; you exposed the brutality of the capitalist system that continue to brutally exploit workers; you have created space for policy debates that shaped the policies not only of trade unions but of the liberation movement as a whole.
The question posed to me today on the face of it is very easy to answer. I could simply say yes and sit down, because of course all of us in this room know that the future of COSATU is currently on a knife edge, and that whatever happens to the federation will have a massive impact on the labour movement as a whole. So yes, labour is at a turning point.
The big question is -- which way will it turn?
But before I talk about the current crisis, and the possible scenarios going forward, I should share with you my analysis of the root cause of the current divisions in COSATU.
The root cause does not lie, as many shallow commentators would have it, in personal differences between the President of COSATU and me. Neither does it lie in the outcome of an alleged discussion between President Zuma and Irvin Jim and Cedric Gina about my future – a discussion by the way, of which I have absolutely no knowledge.
The underlying differences within the federation revolve primarily around two distinct views on the ANC government’s economic agenda and what this has meant to workers’ demands enshrined in the Freedom Charter.
The first view, as expressed through adopted resolutions in every National Congress and Central Committee since 1997, is that our government has pursued a neoliberal economic agenda at the expense of the working class, and that this should continue to be vigorously challenged by COSATU. The opposing view is that this criticism is too harsh and the federation should take a “nuanced” view. In the past two and a half years the latter view has found expression in the public arena.
What was our track record on economic policy before the current crisis? And what tensions has this generated both within the Federation and between the federation and its Alliance partners? [The Tripartite Alliance is primarily the ruling African National Congress (ANC), COSATU and the South African Communist Party (SACP).]
The early 1990s and running up to the first democratic election, COSATU advocated a Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), based on a radical transformation agenda. The idea gained wide support within the Alliance and was formally adopted as a key policy. We celebrated as our founding general secretary [Jay Naidoo] was appointed as the RDP minister. But the ministry was to be allocated almost no budget and it was to be isolated from other ministries, which were packed with World Bank advisors. And after just over a year in power, in 1995 the ANC government unilaterally announced the Growth, Employment and Reconstruction macroeconomic program (GEAR). Practically, this meant the announcement of a neoliberal program of privatisation of major state enterprises, the adoption of conservative policies on exchange control and inflation, and a rapid reduction of protective trade tariffs to below even what the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was demanding at the time.
While COSATU succeeded in stopping the privatisation of most major state owned enterprises, massive privatisation at municipal level proceeded. This was part of a project to promote the interests of both existing and emerging capital. While new small businesses were emerging, big business was restructuring and rationalising in order to maximise profits.
This led to the restructuring of the working class itself that saw a direct attack on decent jobs leading to massive casualisation and introduction of the concept of labour brokering. This, together with the rapid lowering of trade tariffs, resulted in an unbelievable loss of 1 million, largely private sector jobs in the period 1996 to 1999.
The political project underpinning this economic project was to convert the ANC from being a mass-based movement into a political party whose members had almost no access to decision making and who were to become a significant force only at election times.
The combined economic and political project was described by COSATU as “the 1996 Class Project”, with the then deputy president Thabo Mbeki personifying it.
COSATU called its first post-1994 major general strike in May 1999 in protest against these policies and their impact on workers and the working class in general. This produced tensions with the ANC, with some leaders labelling COSATU populist, economistic, ultra-left, or agents of imperialism. But a united COSATU was able to win some concessions. There was some loosening of the conservative macro-economic policies, and alleviating poverty (though not inequality) was put at the centre of the 2004 ANC Manifesto.
While COSATU’s opposition to the 1996 Class Project was consolidating, other interests in the Alliance were starting to share an opposition to the leadership of President Mbeki, albeit for very different reasons. The 52nd conference of the ANC at Polokwane in 2009 produced what I called at that time a “coalition of the walking wounded” to remove President Mbeki from the presidency of the ANC and replace him with comrade Jacob Zuma. This succeeded, but more importantly a number of resolutions were adopted which COSATU believed would chart the way forward to a new radical economic agenda.
The Polokwane resolutions were never really to see the light of day however. By 2010 the COSATU CEC observed that there was a paralysis in government caused by policy zigzags, the rise of tenderpreneurship and lack of decisive leadership. In this CEC paper we complained that the macroeconomic policies of GEAR were still in place. Concerns were raised that the progressive elements of the "National Growth Path" document were being ignored by the ANC government, and that little was being done to resource and vigorously implement the industrial policy action plan or restructure the colonial and apartheid economy. At the same time a criticism was raised against the general secretary of the SACP, Blade Nzimande, for taking up a position in cabinet, and thereby diluting the independence of the SACP.
The leaderships of the ANC and the SACP did not take kindly to the criticisms of the COSATU CEC. Nevertheless at the ANC NGC of 2010 the Polokwane resolutions were reaffirmed.
It was at this point that differences within COSATU started to emerge, initially expressed in a debate on the National Democratic Revolution in the Central Committee in 2011. Agreement was eventually reached. But differences emerged on issues such as e-tolls, the Protection of Information Bill and on the appointment of Mogoeng Mogoeng as head of the Constitutional Court. In each of these cases the differences were expressed only after the SACP had taken a contrary position to that taken by the COSATU CEC.
The political report to the 11th Congress in 2012 was consistent with COSATU’s long-standing critique of the 1996 Class Project and advanced the view that a radical break with the past was required in order to propel South Africa into a “Lula Moment” where poverty, inequality and unemployment were addressed head-on. Despite having been endorsed by the CEC, the report was brutally attacked by the leadership of some affiliates when it reached the congress floor. The report was said to be too critical of the ANC government and too candid about COSATU’s internal weaknesses. Both the ANC and the SACP waded in to support this view.
The 11th Congress ended with an uneasy truce, but in the February 2013 CEC the leadership of the three biggest public sector unions accused the general secretary of being “the elephant in the room” who was dividing the federation from the SACP and the ANC. Unfounded allegations were also made that he benefitted on the sale and purchase of the COSATU buildings. A demand was put to establish a commission of enquiry into the general secretary. This was defeated in favour of the establishment of a facilitated process to engage on the political, ideological, organisational and administrative differences within the federation.
What unfolded after this is well known: the failure of the facilitated process, the demand made by nine affiliates for a Special National Congress to resolve the areas of difference, the seven-month suspension of the general secretary, the appointment of an ANC Task Team, the expulsion of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) on November 7-8, and the events of this week. Seven unions announced that they are suspending their participation in the CEC in protest to the dismissal of NUMSA. The extent to which this period has seen an organisational paralysis is also widely understood.
It is no accident that one of the central (though not exclusive) fault lines has been that of the public sector unions versus private sector unions. Workers in the manufacturing and services sectors have borne the brunt of capital’s brutality and government’s conservative economic policies. They have suffered job cuts and fragmentation through outsourcing and sub contracting. On the other hand their comrades in the public sector have seen relative employment stability.
This is not to say that life has been cushy for public sector workers –- far from it. But their slightly different perspective on the world of work has made it not that difficult for some of their leadership to be persuaded that the state is an eternal ally, and that any class-based opposition to the state's neoliberal policies is counter revolutionary. This perspective shows up one of our own internal weaknesses -– that we have paid insufficient attention to building class solidarity around concrete issues both within and beyond the federation.
So where do we go from here?
The easy option might appear to be to simply walk away from it all by announcing a split and the formation of a new federation, forged around a radical economic agenda combined with a determination to start afresh to entrench accountability and workers’ control. I know to many of you in this room this sounds like a good option. But this is not as easy or desirable as it might sound. In a context in which temperatures are running high, and fierce loyalties are felt in one direction or another, any split will produce multiple conflicts at every level.
We have 230 COSATU shop stewards locals across the country, which bring together shop stewards from all affiliates. There is likely to be a tussle in every one of those, as shop stewards argue with one another about which faction to follow. We have 18 affiliates, each of which also has multiple structures, from company shop stewards committees upwards. Workers in these structures will also argue about which direction to move. Some of their arguments will result in an escalation of the purging phenomenon we have already seen in some of our unions over the past few years.
Other arguments will spill over into violent confrontations. Rational discussion about the underlying differences might just go out the window. Questions such as: Should we re-organise ourselves along different demarcation lines? How do we advance broader trade union unity? How do we build class solidarity? Should we stay in the Alliance? are unlikely to come to the fore in these multiple conflicts. For those of us who lived through the wars on the ground in both Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal in the 1980s this is not an attractive thought.
The first prize then has got to be maintaining the unity of COSATU. At the same time we have to ensure that the space is opened to engage on the underlying differences that have emerged. That space can only exist if agreement is reached on a number of immediate and pressing issues. The first has got to be NUMSA’s reinstatement in the federation followed by the informal discussions among leaders as announced yesterday in a CEC press conference and the second is the holding of a Special National Congress sooner rather than later to honestly debate and resolve on the areas of difference. At the same time the federation and its affiliates will have to pay very special attention to work place organisation as part of reducing the distance between leadership and the rank and file that we already identified in our 2012 Congress. Such a focus will be critical in rebuilding unity from the bottom up.
There is also a need to agree on what we mean by trade union independence. Some quarters have already described the whole idea as some sort of liberal notion, which is not class based. Others believe trade union independence is a prerequisite for asserting a working-class specific agenda. There are many comrades who have noted the danger of transforming COSATU into a labour desk of the ruling party as a tendency that needs to be challenged and completely rejected. There are others who see the insistence on trade union independence as a threat that will undermine the Alliance.
Certainly in the context of the Alliance, and relations with government, there is a need to explain that worker-controlled organisations cannot be subjected to the imposition of policies from other quarters. Workers' control means that unions and federation must be given space to discuss all manner of issues, and must be able, and especially within their own democratic constitutions, make decisions and push for changes that they believe will move the working class forward.
The reactions to the NUMSA Congress decisions of December 2013 are a case in point. The amount of time and energy that has been spent attempting to prove that NUMSA is being divisive and anti-ANC and anti-Alliance shows how far we have to go to reassert the right of unions to decide their own policies. In raising this principle, I am not in any way endorsing or passing a judgment on NUMSA Special Congress resolutions. I am asserting the right of all workers to assemble, think, analyse their situation and take resolutions.
My argument is that workers' control and trade union independence are two sides of the same coin of workers’ power. One without the other means that we have no currency to negotiate or campaign.
Let us remind ourselves that workers’ power is based on the ability to forge unity around class-based demands, and then to be able to mobilise our members to take them forward. But if those demands are not forged at the base of our organisations, and reflect the real and pressing needs of the working class, borne from their own day to day experience, then it will be impossible for workers to have ownership of the demands, and a willingness to fight for them.
This then poses the absolute necessity of trade union democracy. Whatever happens over the next few months inside COSATU, the issue of reasserting trade union democracy and accountability within COSATU affiliates needs urgent and careful attention.
The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) held a successful two-day National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting from Thursday 20 November until late on Friday 21 November at DENOSA head office in Pretoria ...
... DENOSA position on the latest developments in the federation
The NEC reflected frankly on the latest developments within COSATU in relation to the call for a Special National Congress (SNC) as called for by a third of COSATU affiliates, and the expulsion of National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) from the federation on the morning of the 8th of November. The NEC resolved on the following:
The SNC is long-overdue, and as DENOSA we call upon the federation to finalise the date of the SNC as a matter of urgency. DENOSA reaffirms its position that its call for a SNC is the only democratic avenue to not only unite the federation, but also revive and implement its 11th Congress resolutions on behalf of workers than the current situation where it is besieged by unending internal fracas.
In light of recent expulsion of NUMSA, DENOSA strongly believes this decision is going against the spirit of achieving unity which we believe the SNC must achieve. For this, DENOSA calls for the reinstatement of NUMSA back to the federation as a matter of urgency and before the SNC because it is important that the SNC is inclusive of all affiliates of the federation including NUMSA. DENOSA strongly believes talking unity when NUMSA is out of the federation will be tantamount to cosmetic unity, and not real unity, as COSATU voice will be without metalworkers of this country.
DENOSA puts it categorically clear that its call for NUMSA reinstatement is based on the principle of unity in COSATU.
DENOSA reaffirms its position that there is only one federation that can unite workers, which is COSATU and that its existence must be for real unity of workers and their interests on the shop floor. To this end, the NEC resolved to continue to engage inside and outside COSATU to find a speedy resolve to the challenges...
The recent Special CEC developments, decisions and subsequent press briefings and press statements if anything once again demonstrate the failure of the current leadership at the head of COSATU to unite and lead workers in implementing COSATU resolutions of the 11th National Congress. It is precisely for such reasons that we have suspended our participation in the CEC. What at this point is required from the leadership is to rise above factional politics and pursue a course for building workers unity based on our resolutions and campaigns. In this regard the current leadership has completely failed and instead of steering a course away from the decisive path, they have once again squarely placed themselves behind a faction in COSATU, both within COSATU structures and in their public utterances. Thus the decisions of the CEC and the subsequent press briefing, unfortunately fall far short from what this moment demand and merely deepen the crisis. For this reason our demands; for a Special National Congress, the reversal of the expulsion of NUMSA and the cessation of the ongoing witch-hunt against Comrade Vavi remain as urgent as it was on the first day we raised it. These demands is at the heart of a process that will return the Federation to her rightful owners, it's members, the workers. We insist no amount of boardroom decisions can address this crisis and paralysis. What this moment demand from leadership is clear campaigns and struggles that will unite workers and defend workers against the capitalist onslaught workers face daily. The machinations of the current leadership makes a mockery our commitment to reverse the high levels of unemployment, inequality and poverty and unfortunately the recent decisions and press briefing once again fail the workers.
The continued denialism which engulfs the current majority of collective of the National Office Bearers of COSATU, which is better explained in press conferences than the traditional organisational channels of communication of legitimate nature that are constitutionally empowered to recapture the federation from the class onslaught engineered by renewed class project ably resourced through democratic state which seeks to retain the capitalist economic policies, is to some extent worrying.
Statement issued by the COSATU National Office Bearers on the 14 November 2014
This rather wasteful manner of federation’s and state’s resources to convene meaningless press conferences within seven days to reinstate what we view somewhat, as what is not news worthy projected outcomes of endless Special CEC which is schedule for the entire season to force down the throat of ordinary members of the federation and the broader working class than to accept that under the current presidency the federation is going down the history book as a leader who donated with the sole of the working class to the democratic state and fossil capital.
The unconstitutional grip/clench of Losi to the position of presidency
The latest and sustained constitutional violations by National Office Bearers with a factional desire, about the status of the 2nd Deputy President, who must at all cost now, have to go. In order to justify the continuation of the position held by the 2nd Deputy President, Zingiswa Losi reference is made to a so-called precedent involving Comrade George Nkadimeng who remained as the Deputy President of COSATU after shifting jobs from being a shopstewards of NUM to NUMSA. However this resulted in a subsequent Congress rectifying this ambiguity to avoid future recurrences. It was for this reason that when Comrade Joyce Pekane of CEPPWAWU faced a similar situation she failed to qualify for election at a subsequent Congress.
It is in this context therefore that the Seven Unions now deem it appropriate to demand Comrade Zingiswa Losi who was once a NUMSA shop steward must immediately resign. Her continuing presence in the NOB team is in clear contradiction to the COSATU Constitution, and the fact that she continues in her position brings into disrepute the decisions of the CEC and indeed all structures where she has unconstitutionally played a role. Her continued presence and participation is an affront to workers control and accountability and she must be removed.
6th Central Committee
The much expressed view that the organisation is in paralysis is better explained in that “the CEC agreed not to proceed with the 6th Central Committee scheduled for 24-26 November, as it will be counter-productive in the current state of affairs” as but one demonstration of such a state. This is branded to be possible could be divisive unless the report and agenda is managed in a particular way and should not be called if this is not the case. To suggest otherwise as the faction of Sdumo has done is to both undermine the COSATU Constitution, and the Independence of the Federation. We respectfully suggest therefore that the Cde Sdumo must refrain from interfering in matters that are governed by the Constitution.
Calling for calm
That the COSATU National Office Bearers’ statement, 14 November 2014 The National Office Bearers of the Congress of South African Trade Unions wish to inform COSATU members, members of the Allied formations, friends in the civil society, all South Africans and indeed our sister Federations across the globe that we, the six National Office Bearers of the Federation, have been holding crucial discussions amongst ourselves since Monday 10 November 2014.
This is rather far truth and we suspect that the intention of this misleading statement is distanced to spread more lies to the mind of the unsuspecting members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, members of the Allied formations, friends in the civil society, all South Africans and indeed our sister Federations across the globe, of what we could merely reduce to mean one thing only that, of the much talked about press conference of the 14th November 2014, wherein further lies were engineered but failed to find expression in the public discourse.
The truth is how can we be told to be calm when NUMSA is unconstitutional expelled from the federation they created to serve their ideological master Blade Nzimande who referred to the NUMSA as rotting and stinking corpse. We wish to place on record our uttermost distaste at the language that was used by a prominent politician and an avowed defender of the working class at the weekend in Durban.
We may have our political differences with Comrade Blade Nzimande but his comments at the KZN Shop Stewards Council on Sunday 16th November require an immediate response.
Speaking as the General Secretary of the SACP, his contribution to the meeting on the crisis in COSATU included a description of NUMSA as a ‘rotting corpse’ that must be disposed of.
We are all in favour of a robust discussion and we must all at times plead guilty of using terms that inflame rather than explain our differences. However, the use of this particularly term at this time is especially offensive, verges on hate-speak, and cannot be allowed to pass without a public rebuke.
Not only is this a wholly inappropriate term for an avowed defender of the working class, a leading communist, a leader of the Alliance, a member of the ANC leadership and a Cabinet Minister of Higher Education to use to describe a democratic and peaceful Union of more than 350,000 workers, it is also extremely offensive.
Firstly to the families of those lost in Lagos. Secondly to those thousands of workers who have built NUMSA and COSATU as a bastion of the working class. Thirdly to those in the Alliance who are trying to build unity. Fourthly to the South African public who deserve more than this from elected representatives those who are supposed to protect their interests. Finally, to those comrades he addressed in Durban last week-end, in the hope that his example will not be emulated.
We expect in return a pattern of insults and accusations that has sadly become a norm, and that has thwarted and replaced genuine attempts at a clarifying engagement. So be it. Our main audience for this statement is actually not those who are named, important though they are, but the hundreds of thousands of workers who are trying to make sense out of the current crisis. In reaching out from the Boardrooms to them we pledge ourselves wholeheartedly to the following actions:
Legitimacy of today’s CEC which is dominated faction
It is apparent that, despite the historical political role championed by this body, but, with the current composition which proved to be infiltrated by forces who are enemies of the working class who are creature from outer space class formations. It (CEC) has degenerated to a point where we and the working class formation at large now are convinced that, this body must be overhauled to matching set the purpose and find relevance in the unfolding political and ideological moment. This could only be achieved if we reconnect with the founding principles of the federation to strengthen trade unions towards being decisively strong, worker controlled, democratic and independent transformatory organs of worker power into the future. The balance of class forces in our country and continent demand nothing less, as the workers movement continues to be treated as little more than a rubber stamp for austerity policies that undermine further the living standards of the working class and the poor.
Therefore, the state of paralysis at the level of the Federation’s CEC still needs to be addressed, despite the interventions of a range of external and internal players. In our view, the basis of the divisions, which is manifested in a destructive factionalism, is rooted in an unwillingness to accept and address the reality of the failure of transformation, and especially at the level of the economy, and the current formation and composition of the CEC can not mitigate politically and ideologically. At no stage in history wherein the democratic organisation, where you will find minority is place to the same artificial parity with the majority, as it is the case of the current formulae of representation. This is couple with some affiliates within that CEC of COSATU speaking without mandate on core constitutional limitations, yet participate and take far reaching decisions.
It is in this context, we painfully with determination will campaign for a rather new structural outlook, with composition that become conscious and appreciate the centrality of majority rule in its true classical form.
For more details of the programme of action of the Unions signing this Press Statement, please contact the General Secretary of the Union Concerned, or Comrade Katishe Masemola, the General Secretary of FAWU on 0824672509
Issued by the Nine COSATU Affiliated Unions
Mike Abrahams
media@saccawu.org.za