Shopsteward Volume 22 No. 3 - Congress of South African Trade

june/july 2013 www.cosatu.org.zapage 1

The official magazine of The congress of souTh african Trade unions

The shopsteward


EDITORIAL POLICY

Circulation Frequency Language

23 000 Bi - Monthly English

Cosatu House 3rd floor, 110 Jorissen Street,

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Johannesburg 2000Tel: +27 (0)11 339 4911

Fax: +27 (0)11 339 6940/5080/ 4060

www.cosatu.org.za

Editor in chief: Zwelinzima Vavi

Editor: Vusumuzi [email protected]

Advertising: Nthabiseng Makhajane

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the Shopsteward

For more information on articles and contributions to The Shopsteward magazine Vusumuzi Bhengu - 011 339 4911 / [email protected]

Our pledgeThe Shopsteward - a bi-monthly COSATU magazine - is unique in many respects. Most newspapers and magazines are owned by millionaires and reflect the outlook of the rich and powerful. The Shopsteward magazine is unique in that it is produced by South Africa’s biggest trade union federation and gives a working class perspective on the big issues in the workplace, community, politics and the world. It also con-tains regular features such as letters to the editor, commentary and a variety of other exciting features on gender struggles, the economy and poetry, cartoons and book reviews.

Guidelines for Submission of Articles

I. Style and Length

The length for feature articles is 1200-1800 words. Letters to the editor must not exceed 300 words and opinion pieces must not exceed 800 words. Articles must be written in plain and simple English. Articles may contain words in other South African languages, with the English meaning bracketed. Articles must be relevant to workers and the working class in general, exciting and solicit debate and discussion. Articles about recent events or contemporary issues in South Africa and the world will be given preference for publication.

II. Due Date

The Shopsteward is published bi-monthly (six issues per annum). The due date for the submission of articles is the 01st - 08th of every month. Late submissions will not be considered.

III. Originality The Shopsteward publishes original articles. We are therefore less likely to publish articles which have appeared else-where in whole or in part. Should you feel that republishing an article would be beneficial to The Shopsteward readership and that the article will reach a broader readership through The Shopsteward than the medium that first published it, then you need to bring this to the attention of the Editor. All sources cited in the articles must be referenced.

IV. ThemesDifferent issues of The Shopsteward have specific themes (Freedom Month, Youth Month, Women’s Month, COSATU anniversaries etc) therefore some articles must be tailored to suit the specific theme.

V. Article Review Process

The Shopsteward is particularly interested in fostering a culture of writing amongst workers; therefore, articles written by workers will be given special consideration. Articles will normally go through a review process, after which we will inform the contributor whether the article will be published or not. The review process largely depends on the adherence to deadlines provided by the Editor.


vol 22 No.3 June/July 2013

editor iN CHieF: zwelinzima Vavi editor: Vusumuzi Bhengu layout aNd desigN: nthabiseng makhajane editorial Board : zwelinzima Vavi, Bheki ntshalintshali, Patrick craven, zakhele cele, Vusumuzi Bhengu, nthabiseng makhajane suBsCriptioN & distriButioN : nthabiseng makhajane priNters : shereno Printers advertisiNg sales: nthabiseng makhajane Tel: +27 (0)11 339 4911 fax: +27 (0)11 531 5080 email: [email protected] Jorissen & simmonds street , Braamfontein, 2001 Po Box 1019, Johannesburg 2000 Tel: +27 (0)11 339 4911 fax: +27 (0)11 339 5080/6940 www.cosatu.org.za© copyright 2009. all rights reserved.

In this issueIn this issueEditor’s note 7 Letters to the Editor

Worker Issues8 Bring back Freeways9 Shopstewards are important pillars of Trade Unions10 Unearthing diamonds - SAFPU12 Why jobs and livelihoods matter 13 Q & A with the COSATU General Secretary14 COSATU Mpumalanga unleashes worker’s education 15 COSATU leadership visits the WFTU central offices 16 Why double digit pay rises are justified 17 COSATU supports job creation, but not slavery

The Economy 18 National Development Plan- Devil in the details23 The informal sector is a catalyst of job creation 26 The DA supportss slavery27 More & more people, fewer & fewer jobs

Gender Agenda

28 Women across Labour Federations unite for a new campaign

Youth Issues30 DENOSA health games promote wellness in KZN32 In conversation with soccer players33 Ten reasons why COSATU opposes the Youth Wage Subsidy36 Zwelinzima Vavi’s address to the COSATU Limpopo Young Workers Forum

Community40 The psychology of corruption41 The history of the Freedom Charter

International 42 Secret files expose offshore’s global impact43 Burma: The struggle for independence45 Big labor’s tool of empire47 Swiss referendums on top salaries & minimum pay48 How to listen to the voice of the streets & minimum pay

Afilliates 49 Roundup

Commentary

Book Review


On the 16th of June 2013, South Africans and the world commemorated the horrific carnage against de-

fenceless youth, whose only crime was to demand better and quality educa-tion. On the 16th June 1976, thousands of young people peacefully marched down the streets of Soweto but were met by an army of soldiers and pan-demonium broke lose almost immedi-ately.

The students were led by the Sowe-to Students Representative Council (SSRC) which had drawn a memo-randum of demands which was to be submitted to the department of Bantu

Education. The role of this depart-ment was to compile a curriculum that matched the “nature and requirement of the black people. The creator of the legislation, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd (then Minister of Native Affairs, later Prime Minister), stated: “ Natives (blacks) must be taught from an early age that equality with Europeans (whites) is not for them.”

Black people were not to receive an education that would lead them to as-pire to positions they wouldn’t be al-lowed to hold in society. Instead they were to receive education designed to provide them with skills to serve their own people in the homelands or to

work in labouring jobs under whites.

Students were aware of such, hence the memorandum of the SSRC clearly stated that students “shall reject the whole system of Bantu education whose aim is to reduce us, mentally and physi-cally, into hewers of wood and drawers of water.”

Underpinning the struggle against

the introduction of Afrikaans was the struggle against an education system that did not grant people any power at all. The student’s battle cry therefore became “People’s education for People’s power”.

Editorial note

Zwelinzima Vavi - Editor in Chief

People’s education for people’s power.


They said so, understanding very well that education is embedded in class relations and reflects, reinforces and replicates the tendency of capital to reproduce and reproduce inequality. Which is why the architects of Apart-heid had to provide the black major-ity with an inferior education so as to maintain separate development where the black majority are “reduced into hewers of wood and drawers of water” and the white minority would remain the ruling class.

Only reformists could refute that,

left to itself, the system unavoidably reproduces the fundamental class (and associated racial, gender and other) inequalities that embody all national capitalist economic systems including the apartheid system.

Paulo Freire correctly puts this in his famous book, The Pedagogy of The Oppressed: “Education either func-tions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”

Even today, South Africa is no excep-

tion in spite of all the advances we have made since 1994. From the provision of free education in some parts of the country to the creation of the National Students Financial Aid scheme. Here, as elsewhere in the global capitalist sys-tem, a sector such as education is tight-ly controlled in the interest of capital,

despite the resistant and counter-hege-monic efforts of student’s organisation ,teacher unions and communities.

The two tier system of education that we still have in South Africa and the annual matric carnage of the children of the urban and rural poor, among many other things, are a clear proof of the correctness of this assertion.

On hand we have an education sys-

tem in which 70% of matric passes are accounted for by only 11% of former model C schools. While on the other hand, 70% of our schools do not have libraries; 60% do not have laboratories; 60% of children are pushed out of the schooling system before they reach grade 12. Millions of young people are still excluded from accessing education beyond secondary school.

This essentially leaves the black ma-jority unable to aspire to position that had previously been reserved for white people under apartheid, and thus ren-dering people powerless.

The fundamental question that we have to ask ourselves is how can we use an essentially conservative social re-productive process such as the school-ing system in order to empower work-ing class communities and working class youth, particularly in the context of national and global capitalist system that is characterised by the most brutal forms of exploitation and inequality, justified in terms of hegemony of the economic orthodoxy today.

The answer lies in creating people’s education for people’s power. This form of education will:1. abolish capitalist customs of rivalry,

egoism, and diminutive Intellectual growth and promote collective input and active contribution by all. as well as invigorating crucial thinking and analysis;

2. eradicate illiteracy, unawareness and subjugation of any person by anoth-er;

3. train and prepare all sectors of our people to participate vigorously and creatively in the struggle to attain people’s power in order to establish an egalitarian South Africa;

4. allows learners, parents, teachers and workers to be mobilized into prop-er organisational structures which make it possible for them to enhance the struggle for people’s power and to actively participate in the instigation and management of people’s educa-tion;

5. enables workers to oppose exploita-tion and tyranny at their work place.

We further need spotlight the neces-sity of creating local education com-mittees all over the country as instru-ments of people’s education for people’s power.

The only principal Achilles’ heel in our struggles to radically change education has been the extensive de-mobilization of our communities in participating and taking forward our education outlines as set out in the Freedom Charter . The key challenge consequently is the remobilisation of our communities behind the agenda of transforming our education system.


Word from the Editor

Recent events in Egypt and the Arab world in general have falsified the notion that socialists could win elections and gradually remove

capitalism through legislation. This notion had become widespread within the socialist movement before the First World War. Even now, this idea is commonly accepted as true since we are brought up to believe that the “will of the people” can be expressed through democratic elections. When people don’t vote we are told they are lethargic, thick or apathetic.

Indeed the people of Egypt, after ousting Mubarak in a revolution that swept across Arab lands causing dictatorial dominos to fall one after the other, voted for “democratic government” led by Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, but after more than one year with the Muslim Brotherhood in power it is dawning on most Egyptians that nothing fundamental has changed in society.

The undemocratic nature of the regime continues. The old state apparatus remains firmly in place and those responsible for the deaths of the hundreds of martyrs of the revolution have not been brought to trial. Corruption and nepotism thrives – although it is now to the advantage of the more bearded part of the ruling class.

Karl Marx correctly called this

‘Bonapartism’, a term that has been used to describe a government that forms when class rule is not secure and a military, police, and state bureaucracy intervenes to establish order.

The period between our last issue and this one has been an interesting one. We commemorated the 37th anniversary of the carnage levelled against defenceless young people in what became known as Soweto Uprising.

In commemorating this historical day we called upon young people to rededicate themselves to service to the community, so that the youth of tomorrow can inherit the better life for all our people, for which the youth of yesterday fought and died. In the midst this commemoration, we were shocked to the core by the onslaught that the Democratic Alliance levelled against workers of this country through their draconian proposal amendments to the Labour Relations Act that was under review in parliament.

Patrick Phelane writes an article disproving the lies that DA peddles about COSATU’s submission to the labour portfolio committee on the said labour act. He correctly says that The DA’s assault on COSATU that the latter’s vehement defence of Section 26 of the LRA undermines the conciliatory nature of collective bargaining and alienates non

unionised workers, minority unions thereby denying them a negotiating platform.

Neil Coleman writes an interesting article on the lack of detail on the contentious National Development Plan as says that the key to the NDP’s ‘employment strategy’ which was in significant part driven by Treasury-aligned technocrats, lies in the old Treasury agenda of deregulating labour markets and thus will not be able to meet its owns job creation targets.

On the International front, a crucial meeting between the COSATU leadership and WFTU Secretariat was held on 12 June 2013 in very positive and fraternal mood during a two-days visit of the South African delegation in Athens, Greece. We bring you the brief outline of what went down in the hinterlands of Greece.

There is also an interesting piece written by our comrades from the CENTRAL ÚNICA DOS TRABALHADORES (CUT) (the biggest trade union federation in Brazil of which COSATU has strong relations with) on the recent mass action against price hikes and corruption.

Enjoy!


Your letters...

Dear Mbali

Thanks for raising your concerns about COSATU’s opposition to the Youth Wage Subsidy. We understand your frustrations due to not being employed even though you are qualified as you have stated. However we feel that we must explain why we oppose the Youth Wage subsidy since some of the points you raise are entirely not true.

Firstly, the reason why we oppose the youth wage subsidy is that it will lead to substitution of older workers with young vulnerable workers. With major substitution and increased vulnerability of the workforce, there will be downward pressure on wages. Inequality will worsen as low wage workers replace those that have managed to capture non-wage benefits in their compensation. It can be shown that the increase in the mark-up due to the subsidy will raise the profit-share at the expense of the labour share. This therefore will not take us forward with the triple challenges. Indeed jobs would be created, but at the level of poverty wages. In addition poverty is likely to rise, because employed workers with relatively higher wages will be replaced by many vulnerable low wage workers. This subsidy does not contribute in addressing the underlying causes of the youth unemployment problem. In fact the youth wage subsidy may exacerbate the triple crisis of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

Another reason why we oppose the youth wage subsidy is that it does not guarantee that training and skills development will take place in the workplace, less so in the sectors where job-creation is likely to be created: wholesale and retail trade, personal services and construction. As we have noted from the Commission on Equity and Empowerment, little training is dedicated to black people, less so to the skilled segment of the workforce. The situation is worse for the unskilled, who are likely to be outsourced, casualised and employed through labour brokers.

Regards, Editor

Dear Editor When I first heard about private and public institutions being subsidized for employing the youth I was ecstatic. This was an answer to my prayers , that eventually the Government was assisting us in getting employed. I have a national diploma in Public Management and up to two years experience.

I get seriously emotional when I hear that COSATU is against this move from the Government. I feel that it’s a tactic to retain its membership and truly unfair on the country’s future which is in the Youth. We want jobs, we are hungry, we have families and responsibilities. A lot of money and sacrifice went into our education so we can build our families.

As COSATU you should start thinking of the future and not trample on it. The Youth Accord as proposed by COSATU is not what the youth need. We are grateful for the experience which comes with being part of a learnership or internship but this is for a fixed period and it leaves us unemployed once again. Instead of trying to retain membership COSATU should focus on the future. Remember we have responsibilities and are looking for stability and security.

Kind RegardsMbalenhle Shozi

Write to us and tell us what is happening in and around your workplace, community, schools , etc,

and what stories you want us to cover. send your comments and suggestions to:

[email protected]

You can also post your letters to:

CoNgress oF soutH aFriCaN uNioNs (Cosatu)

po Box 1019, Johannesburg,

2000, south africa


COSATU members continued to implement the 12th Na-tional Congress taken in 2012, to reject the e-tolling system in

Gauteng. Underlying all the opposition is the principle that e-tolls are a form of pri-vatisation of a basic public asset. Recently COSATU flooded streets to vent worker’s anger over the privatization of public roads.

COSATU affiliated union members ar-gued that e-tolls essentially mean ‘turning a public service into a commodity which will be on sale to those with money, while those without will have to battle with ter-rible pot-holed side roads or board the moving coffins of minibus taxis’ as one of the marchers said.

E-tolling will not just affect the people of Gauteng, as the government has now conceded that e-tolling will replace the existing toll-gates throughout the country. Tolls will also put an indirect burden on

the poor of the whole of South Africa, by adding to the cost of transporting goods within and to and from our industrial heartland. This will have a negative effect on food prices.

Negative impact on the downtrodden and the poor

At the provincial march held on the 24th and 31st of May COSATU affiliated union members vowed to continue to fight against e-tolling, which will impose a big additional financial burden on motorists.SANRAL and the Department of trans-port organized ‘public hearings’ around Gauteng, in Kempton Park, Sandton and Pretoria, yet the authorities failed to re-port that the public rejected the system.

Many participants argued that ‘toll-ing will put a direct burden on the poor, who will have to pay to travel on highways which had previously been free of direct charges, and which they had paid for ev-ery year through income, road, fuel, VAT, motor vehicle and other taxes’.

The extra cost will be coupled with con-stant fuel price increase and Eskom’s 8% electricity tariff increase (more if munici-palities add on their percentage increase) and the 15% rise in the fuel levy as an-nounced in the Budget speech.Conditions to campaign

The e-tolls system matter became a mat-ter of contention in the courts. The South Gauteng High Court presided on the mat-ter after Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Mu-nicipality and the Metro Police reneged to provide permission for a slow-drive.

However, municipal officials were left with an egg on their faces when the court ruled against the decision of the municipality to stop the protest from tak-ing place. The Applicant, COSATU was granted permission to proceed with the gathering on the 31st of May 2013. Mak-ing his ruling, the judge said ‘The decision by the second Respondent to prohibit the Applicant’s gathering on the 31st May is declared unlawful and set aside’, and the

Worker Issues Worker Issues

Bring Back Freeways! – cOsaTU


second Respondent-Ekurhuleni Metro Police was ordered to pay the applicant’s legal fees.

The judgement further stipulated that:• The Applicant is granted permission

under specific condition. The Order must be read to all participants on the procession

• The Applicant’s Participants may notstop or alight from vehicles causing ob-struction or endanger other road users

• TheApplicant’sParticipantsprocessionmay be limited to a maximum of 120 se-dan vehicles

• TheApplicant’sParticipantsvehiclesarelimited to use the far left hand lane of

the road • TheApplicant’sParticipantsmaycom-

mence at 09h00 and terminate the pro-cession at 15h00

‘Opposition to tolls has become a badge of civic virtue, said Professor Friedman. ‘It would be tempting to see this failure purely as a symptom of the government’s inability to handle the e-tolling issue stra-tegically. It never seems to have seriously tried to win the middle class or business over to the tolls. Nor did it bother to out-flank them by mobilising the poor in its support. But the problem runs deeper than ineptitude: a government in touch with the poor (who mostly vote for the governing party) would have known long

ago that they were a potential source of support’, said Professor Friedman, Direc-tor of the Centre for the Study of Democ-racy

“For all these reasons, COSATU continued and intensified its campaign of mass ac-tion against the e-tolls, which has already seen big marches and drive-slow protests on Gauteng highways’, said COSATU Gau-teng Provincial Secretary, Cde Dumisane Dakile.

He further said ‘we shall continue to urge motorists not to register not to buy e-tags and to make the system of collection un-workable’.

We are just half way into the year 2013, and as DENOSA we still have challenges to deal with. Strengthening our

organisation is the most important. It is now time to look back and ask ourselves: What does the sweat and hard work of the past year mean to us? Have we all played our different roles to

ensure growth to our beloved union? This is a question to all shop stewards and worker lead-ers. Another question would be: why did we ac-cept to serve the union as shop stewards? Obvi-ously the response would be to lead and serve our members. But is that really happening? Representing workers especially nurses with diverse needs is like a tall order. We just need

to soldier on and do what is best to lift the im-age of our union. If as shop stewards we have members coming to us with their work-related or even personal problems, then we need to of-fer them an ear. In any form of communication, listening is key to gaining the trust and co-op-eration of the other party. Sometimes our nega-tive attitudes and that “don’t bother me body language” are the ones driving members away from the union. It is true that sometimes there may not be enough resources from the union to service our members and that may lead to shop stewards sacrificing their own - even fam-ily time. Having said that, we must not forget that one determined shop steward in any work-place can make a significant contribution, and in turn a determined group of members can as well bring forth growth to the union.

If as a member or shop steward you don’t like where you are, then change it. We are not trees that just stand there motionless. If we want to see positive change in the union, then let us all be the change agents towards progress. With the recruitment campaign currently un-derway, each and every shop steward must get involved to ensure that by end of the year we get to 90 000 and 100 000 members by 2014. We dare not rest until we have recruited all those nurses outside DENOSA, especially the pri-vate institutions wherein we still need to have a measurable impact. Let us all rally behind “Op-

eration Buyele’khaya” Recruitment Campaign. Do what you say you are going to do! Rise to your potential!

ON UNION EDUCATION: The union has invested so much in shop

steward training over the years, but it is strange and disappointing when some comrades dis-appear without trace, only to re-surface when they want to be nominated at congresses. This is typical of shop stewards who have no intention of assisting the members and the union, but ex-ist only for their own interests and aspirations. It is absolutely unnecessary for institutional shop stewards to call the union office which is +/- 300 kilometres away and expect union of-ficials to drive all the way to represent members in minor workplace matters. This might be caused by several factors, however I believe that we must learn so that we can be able to sort out internal workplace matter and only call out for help when matter are beyond our understand-ing. It would be a good idea that when union officials (Prov. secretaries, organisers, P.O.B.’s and full time shop stewards) go out to represent members in your workplace, avail yourself as a local shop steward to observe how processes unfold. Listen attentively to investigation re-ports and handling of evidence led. This would be beneficial for shop stewards to be exposed in situations that will at the end render them competent enough to take up on any task.

Worker Issues

shop stewards are important pillars of Trade UnionsBy Tebogo motseki from ritvlei district hospital, umzimkulu


Worker Issues

The South African Football Play-ers Union recently held its 4th National Congress on the 31st May 2013. The congress was

marked by robust debate on South African football and the conditions that players work under. Among other guests who addressed the congress were Bob King who is the cur-rent President of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) as well as famous actor and labour activist Danny Glover who showed a short presence before the SAFPU congress continued. They demonstrated their solidarity with South African workers and highlighted the urgent need for inter-national worker solidarity to fight against the dominance of global capital. Bob King spoke of the current crisis in the United States with regards to the Nissan workers who are not allowed to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.

The two guests briefly addressed issues on what Mr King called “one of the basic human rights” of collective bargaining and the right to form a union emphasising the need for a global labour movement “be-cause workers around the world face issues that impact on their daily lives as employed workers in a capitalist centred world and industries.”

The general discourse that circulated in the discussions was that soccer players and associated members within SAFPU play an important role as a union in South Africa despite the fact that it is dominated by a young and vibrant group and is one of the smallest compared to other unions and that SAFPU is a union that can teach others in the typical working environment more lessons about organizing in volatile environments.

Addressing the congress, COSATU Gen-eral Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi emphasised the need to push aside what he called the ‘mickey-mouse’ image that soccer players are given concerning the ‘wealth’ of players and highlighted the need to recognise soc-cer as the biggest sporting code in South Africa and the world. “This is because it has unprecedented potential to unite a country like South Africa against all divi-sions of race, class and gender which are societal issues that are deeply ingrained in South Africa owing largely to its Apartheid legacy.” He said

“The 1996 victory of the national team Bafana Bafana of the African Cup of Na-tions [AFCON] as well as the euphoria, unity and patriotism around the FIFA World Cup in 2010 showed a unified na-tion and also set an unprecedented trend of

patriotism which rubbed off on others” “The FIFA 2010 World Cup illustrates

the huge potential of a sporting code such as soccer to bring together a nation and the world. However, in 2013, just three years after the world cup, South Africa has not come close to using soccer, which is one of its biggest sports to date, to unite the na-tion and develop this and other sports from school level upwards” He added

He also said that COSATU has urged SAFA to develop a 10 year plan to do this. When this is done, it should be a process that involves all in society to ensure an ef-fective plan that the minister of sport and SAFA as well as the public, should agree on. “In recognising this, soccer can play a meaningful role in uniting and educating South Africa, so it is important to leave di-vision within SAFA leadership out and in-stead the focus should be on the lower level which is schools to dig out the very raw tal-ent that exists.” He concluded

Unearthing the diamondsOne of the characteristics of our beloved

soccer game is that a professional career is not a typical one in comparison to other in-dustries and lasts for a maximum of up to 15 years, and as a way of moving and fur-thering this passion that many players have, they must attach themselves to schools to coach and assist young boys and girls in de-

Unearthing DiamonDs- SAFPU 4th National Congress

By Thandi Tshablala

Delegates listening attentively during the congress


Worker Issues

veloping their skills. A touching but very rel-

evant example that we can learn from is well-known soccer star Leonel Messi of Barcelona FC who was scouted in school from the age of 10 by the team which saw potential in him, devel-oped, encouraged and sup-ported him until now.

This is not to paint a utopian image that every 10 year old boy or girl in South Africa can be treated or made a star in the same way but it is from this ex-ample that we should learn that players careers can go beyond the pitch and towards time invested in young players, developing less developed areas with soccer pitches as well as educating about the sport. It also shows that soccer repre-

sents the true meaning of the working class and does not allow room for individuality as well as solidarity which also highlights

the importance of internal communication.

SAFPU Unite!

A union like SAFPU, as it was stressed dur-ing the congress, needs to have members that feel as though they own the union and are not just members of it. This also means that players and coaches must unite which the General Secretary called “the need for associate membership”. Soccer players are plagued by a life of poverty and as this is their passion; it should be their ladder out of it. They have to be fairly paid as a way of also providing an escape out of poverty with their families

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130603cosatu.pdf 1 2013/06/10 2:28 PM

Thandi Tshabalala sharing a light moment with one of the delegates.


Worker Issues

With the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals approaching, Aure-lio Parisotto, ILO Senior

Economist, explains why jobs and liveli-hoods should be at the centre of a post-2015 development agenda. As we approach the 2015 deadline for the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we have a golden opportunity to put jobs and liveli-hoods at the top of the international devel-opment agenda. This is not simply according to the ILO. The first results of the UN ‘My World’ global survey, which asked people in 190 countries for their priorities for a post-2015 development agenda, show that “jobs are a high priority everywhere.”

From Albania and Jordan to Vietnam and Zambia, the call for more and better job op-portunities was also made loud and clear in online discussions and national consul-tations organized by the UN. In Uganda, of the 17,000 people consulted, about half said that getting a job was their top priority. Many participants in the consultations also mentioned the need for better social protec-tion, especially in informal sectors where economic and social insecurity is high. These demands are not surprising given the current global labour market situation.

The scale of the challengeToday, there are over 200 million unem-

ployed people worldwide, almost 73 mil-lion of whom are young people. Beyond the sheer number of additional jobs needed, the quality of employment also requires urgent attention. One in every three workers in the world is living with their families below the US$2 poverty line. They work as paid em-ployees, own-account workers or unpaid family labour, but remain trapped in pov-erty. Looking ahead, some 470 million new jobs will be needed in the fifteen years from 2015 to 2030, just to keep up with the growth of the world’s working age population. More

will also have to be done to ensure those jobs are decent, offering people a true opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty. This implies concert-ed action to address persistent economic volatility and widening income inequalities, which are weakening the social and political fabric of our societies.

An action-oriented agendaSimply put, we need policies that gener-

ate decent jobs. The countries that have gone down this road for instance in Latin America and Asia – first addressed the structural fac-tors underlying poverty and underemploy-ment. They focused on making economic growth more inclusive by combining poli-cies to foster investment and enterprise cre-ation with measures to extend social protec-tion and strengthen labour markets. Other core elements of success included stable and sound government institutions committed to the rule of law, human rights, property rights and a suitable environment for start-ing and growing businesses. Labour market policies and institutions such as minimum wages and employment protection legisla-tion also played a role.

A globally agreed agenda to improve the quality and quantity of employment would stimulate countries to focus policy attention and resources on critical aspects that were not sufficiently addressed in the MDGs.

But ultimately it will be national action that will determine the success of the new development framework. Individual coun-tries will need some flexibility to set their own targets and take up the main responsi-bility of achieving them in line with national circumstances and needs.

Designing policy and monitoring progress

International support for countries to improve the collection and availability of statistics should be a key element of the new

development framework. Many developing countries already have

the basic indicators for monitoring im-provements in jobs and livelihoods. How-ever, information gaps remain on the quality of jobs, particularly for people at the bottom end of the economy. A small, internation-ally coordinated investment in the quantity and quality of labour market statistics could make an important difference.

Ensuring that the private sector, trade unions and civil society are engaged will also be critical. Experience shows that dis-cussions of labour and social issues benefit from the participation of different minis-tries and technical agencies. International assistance can play a role in facilitating those interactions.

We must meet the challengeAccess to safe, productive and fairly remu-

nerated work is not just about earning an in-come. It is an important means for individu-als and families to gain self-esteem, a sense of belonging to a community and a way to make a productive contribution. A shift to inclusive and sustainable development will not be possible if millions of people are de-nied the opportunity to earn their living in conditions of equity and dignity.

Where jobs are scarce or available liveli-hoods leave households in poverty there is less growth, less security and less human and economic development. There is no doubt-ing the scale of the challenge, which is why full and productive employment and decent work should be upgraded as a central goal of the post-2015 development agenda.

Why Jobs and livelihoods matter

ILO, 20 May 2013


Worker Issues

with cosaTu general secretary, zwelinzima Vavi

Q&aCosatu general secretary

Zwelinzima Vavi tells Gillian Jones what the state must do more to resolve mining

problems.

What happened at the meeting with the unions and labour minister Mildred Oliphant to return to peace in the mining industry?It was an absolutely difficult meeting. As we sat down we heard about two men shot at Marikana. One was killed and the other is fighting for his life. That bedevilled the whole spirit. There has been systematic killing of NUM members. Combined with a campaign to close [NUM] offices at Lonmin, it creates a difficult environment to engage.

Why is there no end to the violence at the Rustenburg mines?The state has simply failed us. There has not been a single conviction. Those initially arrested for the Marikana killings are roaming the streets. And it’s most devastating when the Farlam Commission rules that those arrested for violence shouldn’t be dealt with until the commission concludes. There is a sense that you can kill as much as you like. Police must do basic intelligence, to know who is armed and what is planned and they must arrest the perpetrators.

Are union leaders doing enough to stabilise the situation?Leaders have said everything they can, they have signed a comprehensive peace agreement. But there is intolerance to an

unbelievable degree. I have never seen workers striking not for better wages or improved working conditions but because they don’t like a union having offices next door. Amcu members sing about how they can kill the NUM. When you have that as an environment you have to expect violence.

Does it undermine Cosatu that ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe says the ANC will talk directly to unions?That would be welcomed. We need pressure on all unions from all fronts: government, churches, and leaders. Any person’s contribution is welcome.

This article first appeared on Financial Mail


Worker Issues

The Congress of South African Trade Unions in Mpumalanga un-

leashed a vigorous worker’s education plan geared to develop and expand a pool of Trade Union Educators in the province on the 23rd May 2013 at eMalahleni.

The provincial secretary, Cde Fidel Mlomo empha-sised that ‘the unity of the federation is more important and worker education must be the tool we use to have a well-grounded shopstew-ard, whose preoccupation must be about galvanizing the working class to reclaim their labour power’.

COSATU National Edu-cation Department made a presentation and highlighted the real meaning of nurturing a holistic and well-grounded shopsteward at all workplac-es where the federation and its affiliates organizes.

The attributes of a shop-steward were presented. Amongst others; a worker

representative becoming an organizer, educator, a unifier, a collective leader, a campaigner, a Marxist-Leninist scholar, a politi-cal activist, a workers’ ad-vocate, a communicator, and a negotiator, which are outcomes also enshrined in the national certificate on trade union practice by the South African qualifi-cation authority (SAQA).

Many comrades as elect-ed must be afforded an opportunity to learn new ideas on how to lead and manage diverse organiza-tions like trade unions. ‘All comrades who attended any course as facilitators must be utilized to enlarge the current pool of shop-steward’, said Mlombo.

Affiliates which at-tended, amongst others, were POPCRU, SAMWU, FAWU, SAMWU and NUMSA.

cOsaTU Mpumalanga unleashes workers’ education Norman Mampane, COSATU Communication Officer

Attendees at the workers’ education forum at eMalahleni, Mpumalanga.


A c r u c i a l m e e t i n g b e t w e e n the CO-

SATU leadership and WFTU Secretariat was held on 12 June 2013 in very positive and fraternal mood dur-ing a two-days visit of the South African delegation in Athens, Greece.

Headed by the Gen-eral Secretary of CO-SATU, Zwelinzima Vavi the delegation of COSATU consisted of comrades Tyotyo James, 1st Deputy President, Simon Mo-fokeng, General Sec-retary of CEPPWAWU and President of TUI Energy, Mzwandile Michael Makway-iba, President of NE-HAWU and Vice-President of WFTU, Katishi Masemola,

FAWU General Secretary, Bones Skulu, SACCAWU General Secretary and Thandi Shimange, POPCRU 1st Dep-uty President.

The delegation meet with the WFTU General Secretary comrade George Mavrikos, the Deputy General Secretary comrade Swadesh Devroye, George Perros, member of the WFTU Presidential Coun-cil and Mohammed Iqnaibi, GUPW Palestine representa-tive in the WFTU.

During their visit the CO-SATU leadership addressed an open meeting of Greek trade unionists from PAME where comrade Vavi and comrade Masemola had the opportunity to present and analyze the situation in South Africa, the challenges and the struggles of the South African working class to combat the impacts of crisis, unemploy-ment and poverty.

cOsaTU Leadership

visits the wFTU Central Offices

Worker Issues

Attendees at the workers’ education forum at eMalahleni, Mpumalanga.


Worker Issues

The annual wage bargaining sea-son — erroneously labelled the “strike season” — is upon us. Workers around the country,

through their unions and in bargaining councils and bilateral negotiations with em-ployers, are determining wages and condi-tions for the coming year or more.

Employers in several sectors will be press-ing for multi-year agreements that tie their employees to set pay rises and improvements for two or even three years, something most unions will resist. The unions will do so be-cause they are only too aware of how rapidly economic conditions can change; that their wage rises over recent years, especially for the lower paid, have lagged well behind in-creases in the cost of living.

But this does not mean a pending strike wave: most negotiations — as happens every year — will be concluded without any industrial disruption. However, should high profile disputes, especially in critical sectors such as mining and engineering, turn into walkouts, this will dominate the headlines.

And if violence erupts, as it has done — again in a minority of cases — this will also become the focus for the media. At one level this is a bit like the old trope of dog bites man not being news while man bites dog makes the headlines.

However, the media is not entirely to blame since disputes in sectors such as min-ing or engineering are more critical to the country’s image and to the economy gener-ally than, perhaps, the retail sector. Levels of violence, of wanton vandalism and of the

looting of the goods of roadside hawkers also deserves exposure.

And the levels of murderous anarchy in parts of the platinum belt are also an aber-ration that deserves special attention. But all such events cry out for holistic analysis that is all too often missing. Instead there are series of media snapshots without ad-

equate or, in many cases, any context.

As a result, a series of perceptions gain credence, critical among them being the idea that unions and union members are violent, greedy and are harming the economy by demanding in-flationary pay increases. At the same time, there are ar-guments advanced that the mega millions in remunera-tion to many company direc-tors and chief executives is “market related” and not a measure of greed.

It is also widely argued that the increases to compa-

ny bosses that are well above inflation rates are “necessary”. Not so for the demands of workers, especially if they exceed even slightly, double digits. Yet the wage deals struck by most workers over the past five or six years, let alone over a longer period, re-veal that these workers have effectively be-come poorer; that their disposable income has bought less and less as each year went by.

Obviously there are some workers who have improved their economic positions in real terms, but they are a minority.

So what is the reality for most working people? Take, for example, a shop assistant who is someone not at the lowest level of the employment ladder and who has a per-manent job. The basic wage of a shop assist-ant in a major urban area in 2008 was R2 683.20.

In that year, this column assessed the cost of a shopping basket that included maize meal and samp, sugar, margarine, tinned fish, chicken and milk. The 11 items on this shopping list came to R83.37.

Today, that same shopping basket would cost R122.15 or nearly 47 per cent — more than 7 per cent per annum — more. But wage agreements over the same period came out at little less than 42 per cent, which

amounts to an effective 5 per cent pay cut before taking account of the increased cost of transport, paraffin and other essentials for the poorer households.

Horrendous at it sounds, bread and sugar water remain, for many families, something of a staple when money is tight. Yet the price of bread in the past six years has risen by some 80 per cent, sugar by about 85 per cent. The cheapest block of margazine that cost R5.35 in 2008 now sells at R13.89, a 139 per cent increase.

The mealie meal staple has, however, shown only a marginal price rise, from R4.45 to R5.65 (26 per cent) in six years. The products of two embattled local agri-cultural sectors, poultry and milk produc-tion, have shown only minimal increases, with milk costing barely 6 per cent more and whole chicken, at R27.95, roughly 16 per cent more.

But costs in these sectors have risen in the six years, especially in terms of feed, fuel, power and transport, to well beyond the rise in retail — and therefore, farm gate — pric-es. So these sectors, mainly poultry, which is faced with having to compete with cut-price imports from Brazil, are in a parlous state. This could mean further job losses with the result that more families would have no income to buy anything, let alone cheaper chicken. While it is difficult, if not impos-sible, to assess how much income is neces-sary to adequately feed an average family (however that is assessed) there seems to be consensus that a monthly income of R4 500 is the minimum required. Yet the majority of working people have yet to achieve that minimum.Take perhaps one of the most difficult and responsible of manual jobs outside of min-ing, that of a heavy duty truck driver. Driv-ers of 16-tonne plus vehicles, carry goods for retail outlets throughout the country. Unlike their road freight counterparts, they at least work regular hours. At the start of this year, the basic rate for a driver of one of these juggernauts in a major metropolitan area, was R3 825.61.Over the past six years, pay rises for these drivers have just kept pace with official infla-tion. Little wonder then that, at a time when fuel prices and taxi and rail rates are about to soar — again — that working people are demanding to have their heads kept above the waters of dire poverty. And that, in most cases, means pay rises in double digits.

Why doubledigit pay risesare Justified By Terry Bell


The article by M p u m e l e l o Mkhabela in The Sowetan,

27 June 2013, is an abuse of public space in an attempt to falsify COSATU’s views on the Youth Wage Subsidy (YWS), and also to portray workers as the cause of the high unemployment rate. He correctly says that CO-SATU rejects the YWS but does not even try to tell his readers why we reject this Scheme. Is this balanced journalism? COSATU’s position on the YWS is backed up by evidence from the National Treasury, who support this ill-conceived policy. It shows that there are no empirical grounds to justify it. International literature also shows that YWSs extremely costly and wasteful, as in Tur-key, where government ended up paying almost the entire wage of the young workers.

The ILO (2011) reported that “research in vari-ous countries has shown that wage subsidies lead to combined deadweight and substitution effects of the order of 70-90% of the number of jobs created”. The estimate by National Treas-ury puts the deadweight loss alone to be 58%, which means that 58% of the jobs that would have been created anyway, without the subsidy, will be subsidised by the tax-payers. Mkhabela goes on to say that “there’s a real possibility that the proposed scheme, which COSATU rejects, can give young people an opportunity to be survivors of the chemical warfare and to learn a skill or two in the workplace.” It will take place in the workplace, particularly in the sectors where job-creation is likely to be created: wholesale and retail trade, personal services and construction, and especially for the unskilled, whose jobs are likely to be outsourced, casualised or employed through labour brokers. What is even worse, the National Treasury does not want to insist on training, saying: “the design of any potential employment subsidy may not want to mandate training alongside the subsidy since additional administrative burdens on employers may dis-courage take up of the subsidy”. Treasury’s own literature says that these subsidies depend on training for success, yet Mkhabela concedes that “only companies run by foolish managers would spend money giving younger workers experi-ence.” In addition, the scheme will lead to the recycling of young people without training, as they can be fired once the subsidy ends. National

Treasury (and the Democratic Alliance) dismiss this on the grounds that “it’s lousy business to fire good workers”. But given that businesses have moved drastically towards outsourcing, labour broking and casualisation shows that it is good business to have a workforce that is vulnerable and flexible. The ‘goodness’ of a worker matters to business as long as that worker can be em-ployed on as low a wage as possible, to produce as much profit as possible. The goodness is thus subordinated to the greed for profit. Many good workers have been retrenched only to be hired under labour brokers, or as casuals.

Because National Treasury does not mandate that business be held accountable for ‘recycling’, and seeks to ensure that, during the subsidy pe-riod, these young people do not have recourse to labour protection, the proposed YWS will produce massive ‘destructive churning’. This has been a major problem in Australia and Co-lombia, hence the move away from subsidies towards formal training along German lines in Australia. Mkhabela says that “while workers from the region are taking up what COSATU sees as ‘indecent’ jobs, South Africans are jostling for space in the ever growing social grants queue.” By saying so, he is blackmailing workers to ac-cept labour brokers, lower wages and no hope of a secure job. Even slaves had a job, but that does not justify slavery! COSATU will not accept be-ing blackmailed into accepting that there should be any ‘indecent’ jobs . By decent jobs, we mean opportunities for productive work that delivers a fair income, security and social protection for families, prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom to organise and participate in the decisions that affect their lives, and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men. He further says that “it would be better if COSATU had an alternative”. This is shoddy journalism on his part. If he had done a little research, he would have noted that

organised labour was one of the signatories, with government and business, of the Youth Employ-ment Accord, which spells out many excellent, and genuine al-ternative solutions to the problem and specifically demands “sustain-able, decent work opportunities” and insists on avoiding “youth em-ployment schemes that simply dis-place older workers”, like the YWS. COSATU also says that instead of funnelling 400 000 young people every year into the labour market, government must expand the FET sector to accept 1 million learners

a year 2014, compared to the current 400 000. This will reduce the youth labour force, by ex-tending their stay in the education and training system, to acquire basic and high-level cognitive skills. But ultimately the crisis of unemployment is structural, and it does not only hit the youth. It is rooted in the economic fault lines we inher-ited from our colonial and apartheid past - weak infrastructure, monopolies and cartels, over-dependence on the export of raw materials, and dysfunctional education that sidelines millions and denies them the necessary skills. COSATU’s concern about the National Development Plan is that it fails to tackle this need for a fundamen-tal economic restructuring. It calls for a trade off, with young workers accepting lower wages at least until 2020, based on alleged international experience that wage improvement and em-ployment, will only be generated after economic growth accelerates and that in South Africa this would require low youth or new entrant wages first, followed at some unspecified later point by wage improvements.

Mkhabela concludes his shoddy article by ask-ing “on whose behalf do COSATU leaders speak when they protest against Obama’s visits, which is partly aimed at boosting economic ties be-tween the US and South Africa?” Our answer is: COSATU speaks on behalf of: • ThemillionsofPalestiniansdeniedtheright

to return to their native land that is occupied by the illegitimate Apartheid state of Israel with the military, political and financial as-sistance of the Obama administration which spends $8, 5 million a day in military aid.

• The Cuban people who continue to bewounded by the longest economic, financial and trade blockade ever imposed on a nation in history – 51 years. The millions of peo-ple who live under oppressive regimes that America continues to support.

cosaTu supports job creation, but not

slavery!Vusumuzi Bhengu, editor, cosatu’s

shopsteward magazine

Worker Issues


It’s the Economy Stupid! was Presi-dent Bill Clinton’s campaign man-tra, underlining that the core of all politics is in fact economics. This is

true too for the NDP- the failure to get the economics right will condemn the Plan to obscurity. So, much as there may be commendable elements of the Plan, its fundamentals rest on its economic strategy, whose basic flaws are fatal to its prospects of success. At the very least, the economic parts of the document need to be redrafted. It has become clear that the key areas of contestation on the NDP will be around economic & labour mar-ket policies. This is the area we focus on here.

We were involved in discussions at Man-gaung when the ANC proposed to en-dorse the ‘broad vision of the NDP’, and engage with the detail later. The failure of the Conference to interrogate the docu-ment, and address its serious inconsis-tencies with the policies of the move-ment, however, could prove to be a very costly decision. The delegates could not have intended to limit themselves to the Vision Statement of the NDP, which is re-ally a 10 page poem, talking in very lyri-cal terms about the future South Africa.

Problems in interpreting the NDPAspects of the Plan make it extremely difficult to interact with and interpret:• Its complexity and length- it runs to

484 pages, and is written in an often

highly inaccessible way;• The NDP speaks in code, requiring

painstaking analysis to uncover its un-derlying theoretical approach, and true character of its proposals, both in what it says, and omits to say;

• Because theNDPemanates fromaca-demics and experts coming from dif-ferent perspectives, it is inconsistent or contradictory in certain respects, and is dominated by perspectives of gov-ernment technocrats who drafted it.

• It selectively draws from certain gov-ernment policies and programmes and ignores others.

• ThePlanisriddledwithinconsistencesand errors, and selective or incorrect interpretations of key literature. It makes elementary mistakes and even confuses its own figures and projec-tions on poverty, employment etc. This is extremely shoddy for such a key document, and raises questions as to the basis of its policy conclusions

The decision of the ANC to go for a broad endorsement of the NDP, with-out engaging in the detail, has proven to be problematic for 2 reasons: This approach underestimated 1) the extent of contradictions between the NDP and ANC policy; and 2) the pressure which would come from the right in society, the movement, state and capital to align all other policies with NDP. Even before Mangaung, business, supported by the DA, had been strongly pushing for the

realignment of all government policies to the NDP, with specific focus on Ipap and the NGP.

Unfortunately there was no time in Mangaung for any substantive discus-sion of the document (certainly in the economic transformation commission, where I was present), but if delegates had engaged with the detail, a cursory ex-amination of the NDP’s economic vision, would have revealed serious problems which bedevil the entire Plan.

It initially appeared that government might follow this approach of paying lip service to the NDP as a long term broad vision. This was the posture of the Presi-dent in the State of the Nation address (SONA) in February, where he rather emphasised government policies such as Infrastructure development, Ipap, NGP etc. However, by his reply to the SONA debate, on 21 February, the President announced that all government policies would be realigned to the NDP. This re-alignment would be effected by the July 2013 Cabinet Lekgotla, to prepare gov-ernments 5 year medium term strategic framework (MTSF) for 2014-2019, as the programmatic mandate of the next ANC government.

What is the ‘broad vision of economic transformation’ in the NDP, which had been endorsed by the Conference? This is expressed in a key table on employ-ment targets, which sets out the goals the plan is striving for by 2030. At first glance, these targets seem positive, and

national Development Plan: The devil is in the economic detail The main source of revenue for the electricity sector is electricity tariffs. already south africa has seen The key to the NDP’s ‘employment strategy’ which was in significant part driven by Treasury-aligned technocrats, lies in the old Treasury agenda of deregulating labour markets. The Plan proposes a series of measures which, through legislation or social coercion, would have the effect of undermining existing worker rights, and promoting a new stratum of ultra-low paid first time workers, earning even less than low paid workers are currently earning, writes Neil Coleman, Cosatu strategies co-ordinator

The economy


ambitious. But closer scrutiny reveals that aspects of this economic vision are quite problematic:

The dramatic, positive, headline is the Plan proposes to create nearly 11 million jobs by 2030, and reduce the unemploy-ment rate to 6%. Further, it proposes a reduction of inequality, and elimination of poverty by 2030. On the face of it this picture looks very good. However, when we subject this vision to further scrutiny, serious problems emerge. As songwriter Tom Waits sang “the large print giveth

but the small print taketh away”…

There are six fundamental flaws in the NDPs vision, and economic strategy, meaning that it won’t achieve its own targets including…1. The NDP’s jobs plan is problematic &

unsustainable2. It fails to pursue the NGP/IPAP vision

of reindustrialising the economy3. The NDP is premised on undermining

worker rights, & a low wage strategy

4. The NDP proposes a business as usual macroeconomic stance

5. The NDP accepts the persistence of high levels of inequality

6. Its poverty and unemployment projec-tions are dubious

1. The NDP’s jobs plan is problematic and unsustainable:

Its success hinges on the creation of mostly low quality and precarious jobs based outside the core productive sectors of the economy. The target of 11 million

The economy


The economy

jobs by 2030, is based on a plan which is unsustainable, relying disproportionately on SMME jobs, as well as jobs in the ser-vice sector. The NDP makes the startling proposal that 90% of the jobs will be creat-ed in SMME’s, drawing on faulty analysis of recent SMME performance, and con-trary to statistical evidence that SMME’s have shown little increase in the share of employment over the last decade.

A recent study of a large sample of firms performance from 2005-11, by two UCT economists, and a Stats SA DDG, con-cludes that far from being major net job creators, job destruction was far higher in small firms, and that large firms have a higher rate of net job creation1.

They suggest that the NDP expecta-tion that 9,9 million jobs will come from SMME’s is highly unrealistic. If the plan is followed, it is highly likely that many of these jobs won’t materialise, and those that do materialise, will mostly be of low quality. The Plan concedes that it is based on the creation, particularly in the first 10 years of low paying jobs, as opposed to de-cent work.

The SMME-dominated, low wage em-ployment strategy is very different from the decent work policy mandate of the ANC & Alliance, as well as economic policy documents of government. The key to the NDP’s SMME focused ‘employment strategy’ which was in significant part driven by Treasury-aligned technocrats, lies in the old Treasury agenda of deregu-lating labour markets- see below.

2. The NDP fails to pursue the NGP/IPAP vision of reindustrialising the economy:

Central to this vision is the strategy of radically expanding the manufacturing sector as the economic engine. Manufac-turing is at the heart of the new growth path, not just because of the numbers em-ployed, but also because of its economic multipliers, critical to alter the trajectory of growth, & build a more equitable econ-omy. The new growth path aims to move away from a narrow consumption- led, financialised, & service driven economy, perched on an untransformed minerals

sector. The NDP fails to take this vision of industrialisation forward, but rather pro-poses strategies entrenching some of the worst features of the old growth path.

The Plan ignores recent consensus which has emerged around the need for a state-led industrial strategy, a strategy which has been successfully pursued by a number of our Brics partners. In 486 pag-es the NDP doesn’t mention the Industrial Policy Action Plan once! The Plan envis-ages the share of manufacturing in total jobs shrinking from around 12% in 2010, to 9.6% in 2030. On the other extreme, employment in all services increases by 5 million jobs, or up from 30% as a percent-age of employment to a whopping 40% in 2030. Of the 11 million new jobs envis-aged in the NDP, nearly two thirds will come from services, domestic work and the informal sector. Hardly an industriali-sation, or diversification strategy!

The NDP presents this approach as in-evitable (p112), and in line with compa-rable countries internationally. The im-plication is - manufacturing is marginal, services are central, & low paid work will dominate, until the NDP phase 3: building a ‘knowledge economy’. The NDP, unlike IPAP, doesn’t reflect on the fact that our growth path has mutated into this con-sumer-driven, service-centred economy, with disastrous economic & social con-sequences. To then reinforce it in our 20 year plan is the height of folly. The related implication drawn by the NDP, linked to this service-driven industrial strategy, is that we will have to come to terms with

the ‘international reality’ that atypical work now predominates, & therefore by implication we must adapt to the reality of insecure work, contracting out, labour broking etc.

Bizarrely, the NDP proposes to post-pone interventions which are already be-ing carried out in terms of the IPAP, NGP, & infrastructure programme, to the 2nd phase (2018–2023) of the Plan, includ-ing on: using the state’s economic levers to diversify the economic base; building capacities required to produce capital & intermediary goods for the infrastructure programme & sub-Saharan Africa; re-source-cluster development for the min-ing industry, production of capital goods, and beneficiation. NDP p157

The NDP substitutes the IPAP with a cluster strategy (see the COSATU critique p6-7 on agriculture, minerals and met-als, manufacturing, and the finance sec-tor), but because its drafters don’t believe in a state-led industrial strategy, it is half hearted, fails to propose serious measures to transform the structure of the economy, and is premised on the virtues of competi-tiveness, exports, & unleashing of market forces. While less blatant in its language, it takes us back to the ‘industrial strategy’ of Gear, which was premised on liber-alisation, deregulation & the cold wind of competition - a strategy which suc-ceeded in delivering deindustrialisation. The NDP even fails to clearly endorse moderate advances in government policies on using key levers to promote

1 Andrew Kerr et al “Who creates jobs, who destroys jobs? Small firms, large firms and labour market rigidity” http://www.econ3x3.org/node/135


industrialisation, including local procure-ment and beneficiation.

3. The NDP is premised on undermin-ing worker rights, and a low-wage strategy:

The key to the NDP’s ‘employment strat-egy’ which was in significant part driven by Treasury-aligned technocrats, lies in the old Treasury agenda of deregulating labour markets. The Plan proposes a series of measures which, through legislation or social coercion, would have the effect of undermining existing worker rights, and promoting a new stratum of ultra-low paid first time workers, earning even less than low paid workers are currently earning. This would be achieved inter alia through legislative measures aimed at making dismissals easier, allowing free reign to

labour brokers up to 6 months of employ-ment, reducing worker rights in SMME’s, and broadening the definition of essential services to prevent strikes in large parts of the public sector. This is combined with proposals to drive through agreements, and a social compact, providing for lower wages for first time entrants to the labour market, as the NDP’s key proposal for en-gineering wage repression, on top of wage moderation.

The NDP is based on the false assump-tion that by reducing wages employers will be more prepared to employ workers, particularly first time workers. However, stats show that while real median wages of low-skilled workers have fallen since the 1990’s, jobs for the low-skilled have shrunk by nearly a million. So low wages don’t create employment. On the other

hand 2.5 million jobs have been created for higher paid higher-skilled workers over the same period. The NDP further bases its proposal for a social accord on an equal myth, which assumes that if workers receive wage increases below the level of productivity growth (which in any event has been happening for many years), be-cause this raises the level of profit, employ-ers in return will deliver greater invest-ment in job creation. However the NDP then shatters its own assumption, citing a study by economists that “profit margins are already very high in South Africa... low profits may not actually be the reason for low levels of investment… Given deep inequalities, workers do not see why they should accept wage restraint”! Neverthe-less it insists that labour “has to recognise that some wage moderation is required...”

4. The NDP proposes a business as usual macro economic stance

Reading the NDP, one would get no sense that we have just gone through a massive global economic crisis, which has led to a fundamental revision of thinking on macro economic issues. Despite the shattering of economic orthodoxy by the global economic crisis, the NDP suggests an orthdodox business as usual macro eco-nomic strategy: fiscal restraint and budget surpluses; floating (market- driven) ex-change rates, and non-intervention in fi-nancial markets; a major focus on price stability, including inflation; cutting back of ‘consumption expenditure’, including implied cuts to public sector wages and the size of the public sector, as well as cap-ping the growth of social transfers: GDP.

There is no reflection in the NDP on

the failures of macro economic policy in SA so far, or what an alternative devel-opmental strategy would entail. The Plan is very vague on macro economic policy, and only devotes one page to this key is-sue. There is no talk of the need for an ag-gressive, systematic programme of macro-economic stimulus, despite the financial crisis. The NDP implies support for the emerging ultra-cautious line in the ANC for greater fiscal restraint, combined with limited monetary policy easing. The NDP does recognise that volatility, and over-valuation of currency, is a problem, but is against open intervention in the financial markets, and is unclear on how to combat these problems with the currency.

The NDP uses the old consumption vs investment paradigm in terms of state spending, suggesting that too much is be-ing spent on ‘consumption’. It is unclear how reducing spending on the poor as a proportion of GDP will enable the state to eliminate poverty. There is a major focus in the NDP on the need for greater invest-ment. But little role is given to the state in directing investment: either through DFI’s and parastatals; prescribed asset require-ments for retirement funds; action against speculative financial investment; or incen-tives for real economy investment.

The NDP wants conservative ‘NDP eco-nomics’ to be co-ordinated & imposed by the Presidency, on all Ministries, aiming in particular to rein in the Dti and EDD, and reverse the slipping grip by Treasury on economic policy- see p154.

The NDP contains an excessive focus on the rate of economic growth (rather than its composition), as the major solution to our challenges – projecting an average growth rate of 5,4% to 2030. These hopes for high growth rates, without major struc-tural transformation in the economy, par-ticularly in the current global economic climate, are unrealistic. The NDP ignores the need for major redistribution as a key driver of the new growth path. This con-tradicts ANC and Alliance positions.

5. The NDP vision is based on the ac-ceptance that high levels of inequality will persist until 2030, contrary to the policies of the movement that redistri-bution must form a critical basis of the new growth path.

The Plan proposes that the Gini coef-ficient, which measures income inequal-

The economy


The economy

ity, will only decrease slightly from its current world-beating level of 69% (or 0.69) to an excessively high 60% (or 0,6) by 2030. In terms of current measure-ments, 60% would still make our levels of inequality higher than any other major country in the world! This long-term tar-get (which Brazil has surpassed by far in less than 10 years) is an embarrassment for a country claiming to be serious about combating inequality. The average Gini for OECD countries, which by no means have low levels of inequality, is less than half of this- ie between 25-35% after taxes and transfers. Given that the Plan is pre-mised on a massive increase in low-wage jobs, and increased profits for employers, it stands to reason that levels of inequality between the top and the bottom will con-tinue at very high levels, and possibly even worsen. Linked to this, the NDP accepts that massively high levels of concentra-tion of wealth and poverty will still be in place by 2030. It proposes to increase the share of income going to the bottom 40% of income earners from the current 6% to a mere 10%. The ambition of the NDP is therefore that nearly half of our people should receive 10% of the wealth after 18 years of implementation of the national plan!

6. The NDP’s poverty & unemployment projections are dubious:

The NDP uses a very low poverty mea-sure of R418 per person, per month (2009 prices), suggesting that only those house-holds with an income of less than R2000 per month are living in poverty. It argues that 39% of South Africans in 2009 fell below this level, and that by 2030 no-one will fall below this level. But this is a false target to set, as there is no basis for this poverty measure. The Household Sub-sistence Level, and Supplemented Living Level, calculate the minimum income a family of five needed to afford basic neces-sities, as around R3500 per month in 2009, against the NPC figure of about R2000. In December 2012, in looking at minimum wages for farm workers, the Bureau for food and agricultural production, found that farm workers wouldn’t even be able to afford enough food to feed their fami-lies adequately, if they earned R2000 per month, let alone afford other basic neces-sities- therefore the R2000 figure was way below what could be regarded as a basic minimum income level. And roughly 50%

of South Africans lived below the R3500 level in 2009. There is therefore no scien-tific basis for the NDP measure, beyond the well-known drive of Treasury to keep poverty line calculations as low as possi-ble. A more realistic calculation of poverty levels, would require NDP projections to be adjusted in a way which would reveal the persistence of unacceptably high lev-els of poverty, even by 2030. This is clearly a result which the NDP authors realised would be unpalatable. The 6% target for unemployment is totally unrealistic: the NDP uses the official or limited definition of unemployment which excludes all dis-couraged workseekers (over 3 million un-employed workers are excluded from this definition). Its figure for unemployment is 25% for 2010, as opposed to the more realistic rate of over 36%. The 6% target therefore lacks all credibility, and would need to be recalculated to include all the unemployed excluded by the NPC defini-tion. Again, the NDP authors didn’t like the result this would have given them, and tortured the statistics into making a false confession!

Therefore the big picture vision of the Plan is based on dubious assumptions, and problematic strategies, which leave the highly unequal structure of our econ-omy, and economic marginalisation of the majority, essentially intact, with some tinkering around the edges. Contrary to the NDP marketing PR, the economic dimension of the Plan is not coherent or evidence-based, but highly ideological. It is based on faulty statistics, dubious eco-nomic assumptions and incoherent anal-ysis. This is not a vision therefore which can be embraced with any enthusiasm.

We need to engage with government and the ANC on the basis of the COSATU Congress Declaration, that the NDP, par-ticularly on the economy and labour mar-ket, needs to be realigned with the ANC and Alliance agreed position that the main content of this second phase of our transi-tion must be a radical economic shift. This radical shift needs to be reflected in our national Development Plan. Proposals in the NDP suggest a shift in the opposite direction.Neil Coleman Strategies Co-ordinator in the COSATU Secretariat

COSATU’s critique of the NDP, which was endorsed by the Political Commis-sion of the COSATU CEC on 6 June 2013,

is available at http://www.cosatu.org.za/docs/discussion/2013/NDPcritiquesum-mary.pdf

Statistical and factual errors on the economy

Some errors include-• Povertymeasure-inthechartonp118,

the NDP uses a poverty measure of R418 per day vs R418 per month in other places

• Labour force participation rate- thechart on p118 gives the target for 2030 as 65% but as 61% in the text.

• Employment scenarios:p121, table3.1incorrectly calculates the totals in the 3 employment scenarios, calculating the employment total in each scenario as 23,76 million, even though the subtotals for the sectors under each scenario dif-fer substantially from each other

• Financeandretailemploymentgrowth-claimed levels of employment growth in the financial sector are not supported by data; and claimed employment of 5 million in retail, is more than double the actual total.

• Averagewagefigures-onp132theNDPcites various ‘ wage averages’, but the fig-ures are actually wage medians, or other cutoff points between deciles and quar-ters.

• OntheratioofPublicservicewages:GDPthe NDP states that it is more than 12%. But a Treasury spokesperson at the end of last year stated that it was 11,5%

• TheGDPsize in2030,very importantfor the NDP, is never stated exactly, but is cited in different places as ‘more than twice’ the 2010 GDP, & also as ‘nearly 3 times’ the 2010 GDP. This is at best sloppy work, at worst the NDP hasn’t worked out its projections scientifically.

• Proportionof services inemployment:on p123 it wrongly cites table on sectoral employment %.s in different scenarios, stating that high level services increase from 15% to 22% in diversified sce-nario when they actually increase from 19% to 22%

• Public sector bargaining councils- onp133, the NDP calls for sectoral bar-gaining chambers in the bargaining councils, when these already exist.

This article was written for AIDC network of political economists, 15 June 2013


The informal sector is a catalyst of job creationzwelinzima Vavi,

cosaTu general secretary

The informal sector is growing around the world, as a direct consequence of the relentless rise of unemployment, and the

rapid casualisation of labour, which pose a massive challenge to the international workers’ movement.

It has left more and more workers at the mercy of ruthless employers who will drive down wages, hire and fire workers at will and flout laws to protect workers’ health and safety, and use the threat of retrenchment to enforce their will. The horrific tragedy which killed 1 127 clothing workers in the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh is the grotesque end result of a race to the bottom in wages and conditions. Workers were forced to work for the lowest wages in the world (as low as R350 a month!) in a building which was built illegally and had already been condemned as unsafe.

Faced with the grim choice of that kind of employment, or none at all, millions of workers have opted to take their chance in the informal economy. Respected labour analyst, Peter Waterman, estimated in 2012 that the traditional working class makes up only 15% of the global workforce, with the remaining 85% being part of the informal economy.In Africa, according to International Labour Organisation statistics, somewhere between 60% and 90% of the active population is employed in the informal economy. In sub-Saharan

Africa, if South Africa is excluded, the share of informal employment in non-agricultural employment is 78%. These millions of workers are an integral part of our class, and we must unite against those big business ‘experts’ who try to drive a wedge between workers in the formal and informal sectors. They claim that employed workers are an ‘elite’ who are the biggest threat to small businesses. On the contrary there is far more that unites us than divides us, and we need each other if we are to solve our many problems. We live in the most unequal country in the world. We both suffer from the two-tier service provision, where the mainly black poor majority have to endure pathetic levels of service in healthcare and education, housing and transport, while a still mainly white, rich minority can buy world-class private services. We also share a common foe: the highly monopolised big business cartels, like the big retail chains, which pay minimal prices to the farmers and producers but charge exorbitant prices to consumers. Meanwhile they ruthlessly exclude informal traders from the shopping malls. As we speak Checkers Shoprite, now in competition with Walmart are opening more shops in the townships, squeezing out of that space for small shop owners and informal traders. Our economy still suffers from concentration of the means of production and power in the hands of white capitalists. Direct Black ownership of the JSE listed companies remains

below 5%. The JSE is still dominated by a few very large firms. About 50% of JSE is accounted for by only 6 companies and more than 80% is accounted by large banks and companies engaged in the core of the minerals-energy complex. Crucial sectors of the economy continue to be dominated by a few large conglomerates with cross directorships. This is the common concern shared by labour, informal sectors workers and small and medium enterprises. So yes we should form tactical alliances with SMMES to fight against this domination.Other firms regularly get hauled before the Commission for price-fixing and/or collusion in the awarding of contacts, as in the recent case of 18 construction firms. Companies in the bread, dairy, milling and pharmaceutical industries have been convicted of price-fixing and investigations are pending into private healthcare the glass manufacturing industry. All these restrictive practices are designed to keep competitors out of the market place. The biggest obstacle to the growth of small business is big business, not the workers! While a tiny minority of enterprising informal workers go on to become successful entrepreneurs, for the vast majority the informal sector means grinding poverty. They generally have no contracts, no fixed hours, and no sick pay or maternity leave.

Yet although their individual incomes are low, cumulatively these informal workers contribute significantly to the economy.

The economy


The economy

The ILO has estimated that in 16 Sub-Saharan countries, on average, the informal sector contributed 41% to gross domestic product, ranging from 24% in Zambia to 58% in Ghana. The 2010 UN Congress on Trade and Development Report draws a clear connection between the growth of the informal sector in Africa, and the inability of African economies to develop manufacturing industry. It confirms what COSATU has been saying in relation to South Africa. The main reason why we have failed to create employment is that that we remain trapped in an economic structure which we inherited from the days of colonialism and apartheid, which is over-dependent on the export of raw materials, in South Africa’s case its gold, platinum, coal and diamonds.

That is why COSATU has been campaigning so strongly for a new developmental growth path to take us out of the economy we inherited from colonialism and apartheid and build one based on manufacturing, with a skilled labour force in sustainable well-paid jobs. That is the only way we can hope to achieve the government’s ambitious target of creating five million new jobs by 2020, a target which the latest employment statistics for the first quarter of 2013 suggests is drifting out of reach. Indeed if the current trend continues, we could end up with a net loss of jobs by 2020! We have made huge gains since 1994 in establishing democracy, entrenching human rights and extending social benefits. Over 3 million houses have been built, giving shelter to over 15 million people. Six million households have gained access to clean water since 1994 and electricity has been connected to nearly five million homes. 15 million people are receiving social grants. Of those, 9.5 million are children less than 14 years old, compared with 2.4 million in 1996.

On the economic front however, workers’ lives have not been fundamentally transformed; because of the massive levels of unemployment and the growth of the low-paid and insecure jobs, millions of South Africans in economic terms are no better off, or even worse off, than before 1994. Unemployment is still rising; the informal

sector is growing and more formal sector jobs are being ‘informalised’. Clothing factories are outsourcing production to ‘home-workers’; parts of the retail sector are being franchised; the public service is outsourcing work to ‘tenderpreneurs’.Some workers are formally self-employed and supposedly independent, but are also often exploited by suppliers, municipal authorities and others. Most are not organised in

unions, making them vulnerable to different kinds of exploitation and oppression.The existence of this growing army of unorganised workers inevitably impacts on the power and conditions of unions in the formal sector. It enables employers to reject wage demands by threatening to sack the workers, outsource their operations and hire other workers from labour brokers. A significant proportion of informal sector workers are immigrants, who have come here seeking work and economic opportunities. Many employers, particularly in construction, catering and farming, exploit this chance to employ vulnerable, sometimes illegal, immigrant workers and reduce their labour costs still further, as well as flouting labour standards.This can generate conflict between South African workers and immigrants, and fuel the kind of xenophobia which flared up exactly five years ago in South Africa, when

worker fought worker, African fought African, 60 were killed, dozens raped and over 100 000 displaced. We have to fight relentlessly against such attempts to shift the blame for poverty and unemployment on our fellow African workers and make them scapegoats. We must link these outrages to the underlying social crisis and turn people’s anger against their real enemy – the capitalist system of production, distribution

and exchange.

All this poses massive challenges to the trade union movement. We cannot dodge our responsibility to unite our two memberships into a force for change. In the words of the Belgian trade union federation, CGSLB: “Providing a trade union framework for informal economy workers is a challenge for every continent: it enables precarious and informal economy workers to have access to the trade unions, to be represented by them, supported and defended. “They have the greatest need to be defended, because they are not protected. They have the greatest need to be represented, because they are not recognised and above all not listened to.”Getting informal sector workers organised is the absolutely necessary first step in improving wages and conditions, but we appreciate that it is never easy to organise workers who often have no fixed employer or workplace, including those who are

nominally ‘self-employed’ but are often just as poor. We need to build alliances with civil society organisations working in the informal sector and organisations of informal-sector workers, with a view to understanding their concerns, how they organise and who they represent.

Back in 2005 COSATU held a workshop to confront this challenge. It identified some of the key problems:

The labour laws generally do not apply to •the self-employed, but regulate relations between employers and employees, which means there is no framework for bargaining and few minimum standards.

For the self-employed, negotiations must •focus on new issues, such as securing the right to trade from municipalities, obtaining cheaper inputs from suppliers,


The economy

and establishing collective benefit schemes.

The issue of scope becomes more •difficult, since membership is no longer defined by relations to an employer.

Some political problems may arise. Do •the self-employed invariably have the same interests as the employed workers? How do we ensure a stable progressive character for the proposed organisation?

The workshop came up with the following proposals:

1. All unions should organise the informal

sector within their scope, and report regularly on progress.

2. COSATU should set up a project to organise self-employed street vendors and producers, with the following guidelines:

The organisation would campaign, •amongst others, for the right to trade, for access to financial services, for government services such as identification papers, social grants and social insurance, and for formation of co-ops.

Collective bargaining by the organisation •would follow the norms of mandating and accountability. It would focus on

the identified campaigns plus other demands raised by members. It could work with SAMWU to negotiate with municipalities, and engage with the Employment Conditions Commission on minimum rights and standards, which do not currently apply to the self-employed.

To ensure the working-class character of •the project, only the self employed with no more than three “assistants” (but not employees) could join. There would be a set quota for women leadership.

The organisation would charge •subscription fees, and also try to get

government support.

Frankly, eight years later we have not done nearly enough to take these proposals forward. We must do better!COSATU must be a home for all working people, but especially for the most vulnerable layers. Sub-contracting, casualising and informalisation deny workers the human rights that our constitution and laws are supposed to guarantee them: the right to organise and to engage in collective bargaining, and to work in safe, healthy and decent conditions. That is why in March we organised a very successful Collective Bargaining, Organising and Campaigns Conference. Although it focussed primarily on the employed workers, we did not

ignore the plight of the unemployed and informal sector workers. The declaration reaffirmed our demand for comprehensive social security and a basic income grant, to ensure that no South African, whatever their employment status, will be living in poverty. Government also has a crucial role. The South African government has signed ILO conventions guaranteeing workers’ basic rights, but too many of the principles enshrined in these conventions, our constitution and labour laws are honoured in words but ignored in practice.It is worth going back to the Civil Society Conference which we organised in 2010, which declared that “South African citizens have

a constitution and laws which give better guarantees of social justice, human rights and equality than almost anywhere else in the world. Yet in practice millions are denied these rights, especially socio-economic rights.” To the individual worker, secure and well-paid employment not only brings an income but self-respect, self-confidence and personal dignity. To society, lower unemployment brings more people into the market economy, as they spend their

wages on goods and services, which in turn creates more new jobs to meet the growing demand and more business opportunities for those in the informal sector.

We can, and must transform the lives of workers in the informal economy but they will not be handed security and wealth on a silver platter. No real, lasting improvements in the lives of the poor will be won without a struggle for we know power concedes nothing without a struggle. We had to fight for our political emancipation in 1994. 19 years later we must revive those same traditions of selfless struggle to in our economic emancipation, justice and peace.

United we stand; divided we fall!


It is regrettable that the Democratic Alliance, a party whose ambition is to rule the country sometime in the future, had just begun to realise the importance

of a comprehensive collective bargaining arrangement in South Africa’s labour market. Cosatu trusts, less so, that the DA will not be opposed to its call for a nationally centralised bargaining system given the lapse in the state of our industrial relations system.

But that is beside the point; the aim here is to put matters in a correct perspective. The DA makes a correct observation, although without qualification, that ‘what is clear is that the current [industrial relations] framework is failing to create the orderly collective bargaining environment it sets out to achieve’. The calamities endured and the human tragedy that had befallen labour relations, the violence that accompanies industrial action and the semblance breakdown in the traditional institutions of collective bargaining are indicative of embedded cracks in the system and tend to signify that neither the inevitable sequel of great victories of many gallant struggles of workers nor legislated institutions have succeeded in fundamentally transforming the character of an apartheid- designed labour market. These aren’t due to ANC’s attempts to appease COSATU nor they are due to COSATU twisting the arm of the ANC.

ON Section 64 and Section 67 of the Labour Relations Act The DA makes feeble and unfounded insinuations that ‘union bosses intimidate workers into industrial action’ supposedly when the strike call is not supported by the majority of workers.

The requirement that unions undertake a ballot before calling on an industrial action, which requirement is provided for by S64 and S67 of LRA, has been the standard practice that unions have satisfied and met with earnestness. The labour constituency at NEDLAC, represented by the three Federations, namely, COSATU, FEDUSA and NACTU have reiterated that under no circumstances and not in a single instance had their unions sanctioned a strike action without conducting a ballot and/or without a mandate. There was no contest against this requirement except for the Government and Business imposed condition that ‘ balloting must be referred to a ‘supposedly’ independent and objective verifier ’. The labour constituency ,not only COSATU, unanimously opposed that motion as it is in their right and prerogative to verify the process. The DA further claims that ‘ the provision of Section 18 of the Labour Relations Act provision is open to abuse by dominant unions hoping to entrench their own positions by limiting the activities and membership of new or smaller players’ has led to intense rivalry between competing unions in the mining and other sectors. This insidious claim by the DA ignores the complicity of employers in subverting the legislated rules of bargaining by engaging with unrecognised minority unions after having strictly administered the rules for those that are recognised.

The DA’s assault on COSATU that the latter’s vehement defence of Section 26 of the LRA undermines the conciliatory nature of collective bargaining and alienates non unionised workers, minority unions thereby denying them a negotiating platform is at best

paltry as COSATU recognises the fact that there exists, in the current context of employment relationships, many people fully employed in unacceptable jobs - often in appalling working conditions without any form of representation and some workers are subjected to conditions not thought of as part of the modern world.

DA’s call for the repeal of Section 32 is nothing else than a blatant display of sheer hate for increased unionisation of the workforce. It does all this under the pretext of ‘democratising to create jobs’. COSATU believes that in order to explore the avenues necessary to address the complex and myriad characteristics assumed by various work /job arrangements a strong employment protection legislation, which far from being an obstacle to a dynamic labour market, must be extended to apply to all workers, men and women, salaried and self employed, in formal and informal sectors, in private and public enterprises and in all economic activities without causing harm to the economy. The DA needs to make correction of the perception that a low growth rate 0.9 is due to labour unrest and the crisis in the South African mining sector. It is banal knowledge by now that the world economy is on – albeit timid - a recovery gradient from the extent and depth of the crisis, leaving behind in its aftermath demonstrations and protests in several countries over economic and social insecurity. It must also note that the rate at which it (global economy) is shedding and degrading the quality of jobs is perturbing.

Firms in parts of South Africa, parts of Sub Saharan Africa, parts of the Euro zone, the US, the UK, Latin America, and Asia and in some emerging economies continue, unabated, to slash jobs at unprecedented

The Da supports slaveryThe apparent collapse of the traditional institutes of collective bargaining aren’t

due to anc’s attempts to appease cosaTu nor are they due to cosaTu

twisting the arm of the anc as the da claims but they are inherent cracks within

the capitalist system which seek to fragment the bargaining power of workers.

Writes patrick phelane, Cosatu labour Market policy co-ordinator

The economy


rates if not proliferating non standard forms of employment. The combined effects of job losses, precarious employment, premature retirement and rising numbers of discouraged job-seekers has converted millions of able bodied persons to lumpen scoundrels and millions more are still being reported to have

slid deeper into poverty and hang on the brink of dire extinction. Irrespective of paying lip service to the values of normative social justice and human equality, DA’s rant and rave is belied by their actions as their bent on defending and lending credence to a system that perpetuates a grotesque cycles of plenty begetting poverty

repeatedly. They are bent on an intent to bolster a system that enslave poor workers generation after generation unabated and unfettered. What could be the obstacles standing in the path of a nation’s creation? Among the plausible answers is “Greed, more greed, unbridled greed and bankruptcy of moral conscience ”.

The economy

In recent columns I have mentioned the frightening statistic from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that, on a global level, more than 120 million men

and women are now without work — and will probably never work again. This week, an updated figure arrived from the ILO: there are now more than 200 million people who are jobless and with little hope of their circumstances changing. This is particularly frightening in South Africa where we face the prospect of thousands of jobs about to be lost in the mining sector. Especially when the earnings of many of the migrant miners support ten and more family members mostly in already impoverished rural areas. It is, of course, all part of the current — and ongoing — economic crisis. Costs are rising, commodity prices — and rates of profit — are falling, so production must be cut, shafts mothballed and miners given the sack. Such is the nature of our system, one where more media space is devoted to the fall in the exchange rate and concerns about investor confidence than to the horrendous social consequences. However, as this column, echoing a minority within the labour movement, has regularly mentioned over the years, the roots of the present crisis can be found in the “micro-chip revolution”; in the fact that technological development has outstripped the ability of the economic and social system to cope. However, it is a revolution that governments, companies, corporations and most trade unions have failed to recognise, let alone come to terms with. In their frantic attempts to maintain profits, employers, such as those in the garment and footwear industries, scan the globe searching out ever cheaper labour, often contracted to produce for just a year at a time. This is the “race to the bottom” that so concerns the labour movement.

But the production of mines cannot generally

be moved from one locality to another. In the case of platinum group metals (pgms) this is especially so since South Africa effectively holds more than 70 per cent of known pgm reserves. The other major producer is Russia, which opens up the question about the possibility of inter-governmental co-operation to maintain market prices. Gold, unlike pgms, has little practical or envisaged practical uses and is, therefore, potentially

prone to much more volatility than other metals. And gold, in the South African context, is being mined at extraordinarily deep levels. The cost of mining at 3km or 4km below the earth’s crust is massively expensive. Refrigeration alone, to make the temperatures at such depths just bearable to humans, often cancels out the benefit of the higher grade ores found in ultra-deep seams.

Then there is the amount of unproductive time it takes to winch workers down to the lowest levels — and to bring them up again. Little wonder, therefore, that mining houses have, especially over the past decade, been researching methods of automation and planning for its introduction. The move to greater automation has been ratcheted up following the wage increases won in the wake of Marikana and the softening of pgm prices. There is also an awareness across the industrial divide, that demand — and prices — are unlikely to pick up as more recycled platinum and palladium comes on to the market at a time when vehicle manufacture is, at best, stagnant.

Hopes expressed by the Department of Trade and Industry that the development of hydrogen fuel cell technology will provide a boost, particularly for platinum, are probably well placed. But it will take years before the technology — again using platinum as a reusable catalyst — comes into widespread use. Throughout, the pressure on profits and the need to contain costs will dominate among the mining houses. And although the capital outlay for automation is huge, the benefits are many: machines do not go on strike, can work around the clock and in environments that humans would find intolerable. The maintenance and operation of such machinery requires a relatively small core of quite highly skilled workers whose costs would be far less than that of previously

employed miners. But, as several trade unionists have pointed out, there are other costs that affect the country. Since such machinery is invariably imported, these purchases add to the country’s already deeply worrying balance of payments deficit. The one union most acutely aware of this technological progression is the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) that is now claiming, with apparent justification, to be the biggest union in the land, with a membership of some 320 000. Numsa’s stronghold is in the automotive industry, a sector that provides one of the best examples of how robots have replaced thousands of workers. Numsa’s toehold, through metalworkers on the mines, has also now been increased to something of a foothold following the defection of thousands of former National Union of Mineworkers members either to other unions — mainly to the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union — or out of the organised labour movement. As a labour giant in such crucial areas of the economy, Numsa is in a position to exert considerable leverage on government and private sector employers. The union could hearken to voices on the fringes and campaign for a comprehensive industrial policy that might include the demand that, so far as possible, all machinery that replaces workers be manufactured locally and that retrenched workers be retrained to handle such manufacture and consequent maintenance. But the global problem of more people and less work remains. It is summed up on a T-shirt sent to me from London. It has on the front the bearded face of Karl Marx and, underneath this, just four words in bold type: I told you so. Whatever one may wish to argue about the philosophy of Marx and his collaborator, Frederich Engels those four words have resonance. Because they refer specifically to a line they penned in 1848: “In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production.”

Terry Bell is South Africa-based journalist commentator and author specialising in political and economic analysis and labour matters.

This article first appeared on the author’s personal blog: http://terrybellwrites.com

More & more people, fewer & fewer jobsBy Terry Bell


Gender Agenda

Women unite across labour Federations for

a New Campaign Labour Research Service (LRS),

project coordinator of the Labour Rights for

Women campaign on behalf of COSATU, FEDUSA,

NACTU and CONSAWU

A collective focus on gender based violence, sexual harassment, and support for domestic workers and maternity

protection is a priority, according to labour representatives who met on May 15 – 17 2013. Women from affiliates of all four labour federations, COSATU, FEDUSA, NACTU and CONSAWU, have agreed to work together on a new campaign that focuses on gender and work.

This was the decision reached after an intensive three-day national workshop in Johannesburg this month on strengthening collective bargaining demands and strategies towards gender equality.The new campaign of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is titled Labour Rights for Women (LRW), and is aimed at improving the lives and working conditions of women in 11 countries: South Africa, Egypt, Guatemala,

Pakistan, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Peru, Paraguay, India and Indonesia.

National leaders from all four federations addressed the workshop - COSATU – Zingiswa Losi (COSATU), Ma Edna Bokaba (FEDUSA), Maggie Makgoba (NACTU)

and Rene Govender (CONSAWU). All of the presentations noted the significance of bringing the four federations together into one room to share different views and experiences, and to collectively strengthen the struggle for labour rights for women.

“As women we have a lot of challenges in all the sectors we work in. We belong to different churches – and that is okay. So we need to teach each other that it is okay to be different. The more different we are, the more spice we can bring in,” said Maggie Makgoba (NACTU). Representatives from the American Centre for International Solidarity, the CCMA and the International Labour Organization assisted with presentations. The CCMA provided important practical tips on handling discrimination cases and in particular sexual harassment. Delegates discussed the role of the ILO

and the conventions relevant to creating gender equality, with a particular focus on Convention 183, the Maternity Protection convention. SADSAWU also presented their struggle to get the South African government to ratify Convention 189, on Decent Work and domestic workers.

The launch ended with the commitment to take following issues forward as part of the campaign:•Aprogrammeofeducationandawareness-

raising amongst union members who employ domestic workers – focused on the rights of domestic workers.

•Promotingtheunionisationofdomesticworkers – particularly by union members who are employers of domestic workers.

• Supporting trade unions andorganisations promoting the rights of domestic workers.

• Addressing sexual harassment throughcollective bargaining – by getting the issues in the code onto the bargaining agenda.

• Raising awareness on Convention 183(the Maternity Protection convention), and to advocate for ratification by the South African Government.

• Using the convention to strengthencollective bargaining strategies and to

AprIl/mAy 2013 www.cosatu.org.zapage 28

cosaTu gender co-ordinator getrude mtsweni


Gender Agenda

improve the basic provisions in the BCEA.

•Strengthening the campaignongenderbased violence

In all, close to 70 women from all four federations, including trade union gender co-ordinators and women negotiators, agreed that it was important to strengthen women’s leadership and participation in trade unions, and particularly in collective bargaining. Issues such as sexual harassment, violence against women in the workplace, discrimination, unfair treatment (particularly of vulnerable groups such as domestic workers) and unequal pay should and could be tackled by a united front of women in labour.delegates listening attentively to presentations.

Have your Saysend us your comments and suggestions to

[email protected]

You can also post your letters to:

CoNgress oF soutH aFriCaN uNioNs (Cosatu) po Box 1019,

Johannesburg, 2000 south africa


youth Issues

In commemoration of Youth Day this year, more than 350 young nurses staged the DENOSA Learn-er Movement Health Games and

dialogue in Durban’s North Beach on 15 June, in a campaign to stop alcohol a nd substance abuse among young people. The event targeted youth in areas where they will be in masses. Each province sent 40 students to the games, which were of-ficially opened by DENOSA President, Dorothy Matebeni.

In line with DENOSA’s Non-Commut-

able Diseases project, the young nurses from various nursing colleges, under the wing of DENOSA Learner Movement were dispatched to the Durban coast to

promote health and wellness. The Youth Games included sporting codes such as volleyball, beach soccer, and netball.

Just before the games, there was a dia-

logue between the students and the pan-elists comprising DENOSA President, the head of KZN Nursing College, Research Manager at DENOSA Professional Insti-tute, and a representative from South Af-rican Nursing Council at the Addington hospital hall, near the beach, where inter-action with young community members was held around substance and alcohol abuse. Facilitated by DENOSA General Secretary, Thembeka Gwagwa, the dia-logue allowed students to ask pertinent questions relating to nursing education,

training and practice.

“This is our contribution to the Youth Day celebration, by spreading the message of fighting alcohol and substance abuse by embarking on healthy lifestyle. Given that the June 16 fell on a long weekend, Dur-ban was the best place to be where we will spread the word,” says DENOSA Learner Movement Chairperson, Patrick Lekala.

Limpopo won the beach soccer compe-

tition, beating the Eastern Cape in the fi-nals, while Western Cape beat Gauteng in volleyball to take home the cup and gold medals. Gauteng won the beach netball fi-nal, beating Limpopo. Runners-up got sil-ver medals.

denosa health games promote wellness in Kzn


youth Issues


At the recent n a t i o n a l congress of the South

African Football Players Union (SAFPU) we caught up with some of the players and asked them on what it means to be a SAFPU member and a soccer player. Kgomotso Koena, 25, who plays for Dynamos FC.

Where did you grow up? “I grew up in the Free State in a place called Thabantshu”

And what led you to play soccer? “I grew up in a location where I was surrounded by soccer players from an early age. They showed me a different route other than staying home and getting up to no good which was common in my community”

Tshepo Mashego, 30, from Bushbuckridge in Mpumalanga with skills and talent for the game who plays for Sivuta Stars FC in the National First Division sat down with us to share some of his views:

Why did you join a soccer union?

“I joined a soccer

union to help with issues that we face as players such as financial issues concerning on time payment. Very often this goes without notice because the media hardly reports about.”

Mlungisi Masinga, 31, from Durban, Lindelani whose from a family of football players as his father was once a manager of the well-known soccer team Amazulu FC told us that he joined a soccer union because “they stand up for your rights, you feel protected and sometimes when players cannot approach their bosses, they can do this with the assistance of the union.”

Thabang Matuka, 24, from Bloemfontein whose talent was seen from high school as he went to the Harmony Sports academy because of his soccer skills and now plays for Maritzburg United FC said that some of the challenges that come with being a soccer player is the busy lifestyle, the fame. “One must always watch the ways in which they conduct themselves as soccer players are role models for others. “

We also asked the players what teams they aspire to play for and many of them stated that they were happy with where they were, and some stated that they would like to play for some of the bigger PSL teams such as Orlando Prirates FC while others expressed that they had the dream of playing for some of the international teams such as Manchester United.

The congress as well as the interviews with the players showed a general love for the game and also highlighted the fact that soccer plays an important role in many of the young men’s, and the lives of many South Africans.

in conversation with soccer playersBy Thandi Tshabalala

youth Issues


Reasons why COSATU opposes the Youth Wage Subsidy

youth Issues

http://www.zanews.co.za/wp-content/uploads/

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The National Treasury document relies on

international studies to justify its proposals on youth wage subsidies, or even employment subsi-dies. But careful reading of those studies reveals that they lean towards

the COSATU position. Based on Trea-sury’s own literature which they used to propose this ill-conceived policy, we have shown that there are no em-pirical grounds for this policy. The ir-relevance and the likely wasteful effects of this proposal have been amply dem-onstrated in many cases. International literature shows that the wage subsidy idea is extremely costly and wasteful, with massive deadweight losses. The ILO (2011) reports that “research in various countries has shown that wage subsidies lead to combined deadweight and substitution effects of the order of 70-90% of the number of jobs cre-ated”. The estimate by National Trea-sury puts the deadweight loss alone to be 58%, i.e. 58% of the promised jobs from the subsidy would have been cre-ated without the subsidy (that is, if we believe National Treasury’s estimates!).

The youth wage subsidy

will have signifi-cant substitution effects. Firms will have an incentive to let go of exist-ing workers in order to employ subsidised ones. The National Treasury document dismisses this concern on the basis of extremely weak arguments. National Treasury pretends as if it does not operate in South Africa, where the elementary rights of workers are vio-lated on a daily basis. For example, the vast majority of workers do not enjoy the minimum wage regulation. But also more pertinent is the fact that only 29% of the workforce is unionised in South Africa, which opens up the rest, 71%, to abuse. In addition, the existence of labour brokers who screen and man-age workers for employers also makes it easy to fire existing workers and get “good ones” on a subsidised basis.

The substitution effects are likely

to be widespread, especially with the existence of labour brokers. This sub-stitution will hit the

unskilled and semi-skilled parts of the workforce the most. By this criterion, and using the 2011 industry structure tables, we find that at least 3.7 million workers are vulnerable to substitu-tion in the South African economy. The tables also include a category of mid-level skilled workers, whose skills composition is difficult to ascertain. However, we can interpret the figure of 3.7 million as a minimum number of workers who are vulnerable to substitu-tion. The National Treasury document argues that the subsidy is introduced at the beginning of a recovery, so that substitution effects will be limited. But this argument is clearly not structural as it does not consider the skills com-position of the sectors involved.

Secondly, even if we concede that eco-nomic growth will limit substitution, what will happen is that deadweight costs would increase, because with economic growth would lessen the po-tential impact of the subsidy on firms’ employment. But we also know that economic growth is not necessarily going to rapidly increase job-creation because employers do not adequately reinvest the profits generated back into the economy and the structure of the economy remains problem-atic. Today employers are sitting on R600 billion which they are refusing to invest in the productive economy.

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youth Issues

It does not guar-antee that train-

ing and skills de-velopment will take place in the

workplace, less so in the sectors where job-creation is likely to be created: wholesale and retail trade, personal services and construction. As we have noted from the Commission on Eq-uity and Empowerment, little training is dedicated to black people, less so to the skilled segment of the workforce. The situation is worse for the unskilled, who are likely to be outsourced, casual-ised and employed through labour bro-kers. What is even worse, the National Treasury does not want to mandate training: “the design of any potential employment subsidy may not want to mandate training alongside the sub-sidy since additional administrative burdens on employers may discourage takeup of the subsidy”.

s This is indeed a problem, because Treasury’s own literature says that these subsidies depend on training for success. As van Reenen (2003) writes: “The success of the employ-ment subsidy option will also hinge on the extent to which the experience of work and training will raise productiv-ity, thereby enabling workers to keep their jobs when the subsidy runs out”. Without mandating training, which is currently very minimal, it is clear that National Treasury relies purely on the philanthropy of the private sector, an expectation which runs against the daily experience of the vast major-ity in the South African workforce.

It will lead to the recycling of young people without training. In the litera-

ture they say young people will be fired once the subsidy ends. National Trea-sury (and the Democratic Alliance) dis-miss this on the grounds that “it’s lousy business to fire good workers”. But the fact that businesses have moved drasti-cally towards outsourcing, labour brok-ing and casualisation (of good workers)

shows that it is good business to have a workforce that is vulner-able and flexible. The goodness of the worker is subordinate to the power profit.

Indeed there are many good workers that have been retrenched only to be hired under labour brokers, or as ca-suals. Because National Treasury does not mandate that business be held ac-countable for “recycling”, and seeks to ensure that, during the subsidy pe-riod, these young people do not have recourse to labour protection; the proposed youth wage subsidy will pro-duce massive “destructive churning”.

With major s u b s t i t u -

tion and increased vulnerability of the workforce, there will be downward pressure on wages.

Inequality will worsen as low wage workers replace those that have man-aged to capture non-wage benefits in their compensation. It can be shown that the increase in the mark-up due to the subsidy will raise the profit-share at the expense of the labour share. This therefore will not take us forward with

the triple challenges. Indeed jobs have been created, but at the level of poverty wages. In addition poverty is likely to rise, because employed workers with relatively higher wages will be replaced by many vulnerable low wage workers.

There is an u n d e r l y i n g

assumption that there is a gap be-tween entry-level wages and produc-tivity among young workers. Treasury and the Democratic Alliance argue that youth wage rates are too high. However the National Treasury document fails to compute this gap between the wage and productivity. With an average wage of R940 for those that fit the character-istics of at least 60% of the unemployed, it would be interesting to know what is expensive about this average monthly wage. In fact, our estimation suggests that young people are paid roughly 23% less than their productivity. We thus argue that the youth wage subsidy pro-posal has no empirical basis in South Africa. The youth wage subsidy also has no empirical basis internationally, as demonstrated by the literature that National Treasury (and the Democratic Alliance) use to support the subsidy.

National Trea-sury (and

the Democratic Alliance) incor-rectly assumes that the wage is the major constraint

to job-creation. The emphasis on the empirically unsubstantiated gap of an entry-level, or minimum wage, that is above productivity lies at the heart

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youth Issues

of National Treasury (and the Demo-cratic Alliance’s) standpoint. In the first instance, the vast majority of young workers who fit the characteristics of many of the unemployed do not en-joy the statutory minimum wage. In other words, the minimum wage is not a binding constraint. Secondly there is no empirical basis to create a causal link between the extent of coverage by collective bargaining agreements and youth unemployment. Countries with high union and bargaining coverage do not necessarily exhibit high youth un-employment rates, the issue has more to do with economic structure and the role of the state in the economy.

It will simply increase the mark-up of firms

without increasing employment. As we have argued above, the reasoning of National Treasury on the techni-cal aspects of the youth wage subsidy is partial and incorrect. Given

goods demand, it is clear that a wage cut for employers will simply raise the profit margin without increasing output. No firm will add labour sim-ply because the wage has been cut for

it, i.e. no firm will add labour beyond what is required to meet the demand for its goods at a given price. There is no firm that employs workers for char-ity or out of good heart. The law of the profit reigns supreme at all times, not social and political considerations.

It does not con-t r i b u t e

in addressing the underly-ing causes of the youth un-employment problem. In fact the youth wage subsidy

may exacerbate the triple crisis of pov-erty, unemployment and inequality. To think that our proposals are “long-term” in nature is to fail to understand their practical nature. The basic edu-cation system funnels 400 000 young people every year into the labour market. What is required is a national effort to drastically expand the educa-tion and training opportunities of these young people. The youth wage subsidy proposal is like taking out water from a highly leaky boat, using a small leaky bucket.

9 10 Write to us and tell what

your views are on the youth wage subsidy and

how you think it will impact on our economy positively or negatively.

Drop us an email [email protected]

You can also find us onTwitter -

@_Cosatu@COSATU2015


youth Issues

Thank you for inviting me to address this important meeting today. It is always a privilege to speak to the

future leaders of our great workers’ movement, about the challenges we face today and the challenges which, in the years to come we shall look to your generation to overcome.

Top of the list is the triple challenge of mass unemployment, widespread poverty and huge levels of inequality. Nobody has a greater interest in solving this crisis than the youth, who comprise over 70% of the unemployed and face a future of a life of poverty, hunger and despair unless we immediately begin to turn the situation around and prevent what we call the ticking time-bombs from exploding.

Many of you were not born when COSATU was founded in 1985, and so before returning to today’s problems, it is worthwhile to tell you something of our history.

Trade unions had of course been active long before 1985, especially in the great Durban strike wave of the early 1970s. The new COSATU inherited great traditions of workers’ struggles from the different unions and federations who came together. FOSATU brought the militant unions who cut their teeth in the

Durban strikes.

But one of the biggest influences was the banned South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), which had been forced by the apartheid regime to operate in exile, but continued to play a powerful role in educating our members and giving them an ideological grounding.

At the founding Congress, COSATU adopted five founding principles, which still guide us today and will do so in the future:

Non-racialism - COSATU rejects apartheid and racism in all its forms. We believe that all workers, regardless of race, should organise and unite. Now more than ever before we need to bury the apartheid legacy.

We must also confront the problem of xenophobia, which seeks to divert the blame for our economic problems from the employers and the capitalist system to our fellow workers from other countries who are struggling to scrape a living here

Worker control - COSATU believes that workers must control the structures and committees of the federation, to keep the organisation vibrant and dynamic, and to maintain close links with the shop floor.

That is why the federation has launched a ‘listening campaign’ to make sure we are hearing the views of our members, provide the services which they expect and fight for the demands they are making.

Paid-up membership - COSATU and its affiliated unions strive for self sufficiency. This means that while we receive money for specific projects from other trade unions, we remain able to take our decisions without interference from funders.

One industry, one union - one country, one federation - In order to unite workers across sectors, we have grouped our unions into industries.

Our 6th National Congress resolved to merge unions into cartels or broad sectors such as public sector and manufacturing. We also remain committed to unity with all unions and federations that are committed to, among others, these principles. Recent events have made this principle even more urgent to achieve. We have seen an outbreak of splinter unions, often in collusion with employers. This risks further weakening the workers’ defences.

International worker solidarity - the lifeblood of trade unionism - particularly in the era of multinational companies. COSATU maintains

cosaTu general secretary, zwelinzima Vavi’s address to the cosaTu

limpopo Young Workers forum


youth Issues

links with a range of national and international centres. The globalisation of the world economy makes this more important than ever.

Workers around the world are under attack in the aftermath of the 2008 world economic crisis through ruthless austerity measures, retrenchments and the casualisation of labour. We are committed to support workers in countries still suffering from national and class oppression, such as the people of Palestine, Swaziland and Western Sahara.

Underlying all these principles is the firm belief that trade union campaigns cannot be separated from the political battles. In 1985, at the height of the struggle against apartheid, it would have been unthinkable for unions to restrict their activity to the workplace problems, though these were never ignored.

That is why we forged the alliance with the still-banned ANC and SACP, to unite the working class with the mass national democratic movement. It was in this cauldron struggle that the ANC-COSATU-SACP Tripartite Alliance was forged, which led the successful battle to overthrow apartheid.

This was obviously a political fight, but was all the more successful because one of its leading bodies was at the same time fighting in the mines, factories and farms to defend workers and improve their wages and conditions and thus building a mass base for the revolutionary struggle.

That is why we opposed to what we term economism, workerism or populism, all of which in different ways seek to exclude workers from the mainstream of political struggle.

It is no accident that the outrageous

statement issued this week by the Democratic Alliance on labour law amendments, contained a threat “to ensure that no portion of the union membership fees collected under collective bargaining agreements may be used to pay for affiliation to a political party and that these funds may not be applied for any purpose other than the promotion and protection of the socio-economic welfare of employees.”

This is a blatant move by our enemies in the DA to undermine COSATU and its allies, the ANC and SACP, who have always insisted that workers have the right to support political struggles to improve the lives of their families and the broader society. The alliance remains central to the federation’s vision to transform our economy and society.

Ironically the DA’s intervention on labour laws highlights precisely why we need our alliance with the ANC. The ruling party, and its MPs, engaged extensively with COSATU around their original proposed labour law amendments, and ultimately we convinced them to drop most of their dangerous proposals which would have weakened trade unions.

Without these Alliance-level engagements, the original amendments would probably have been carried, and we would be facing a massive battle against them, but just imagine how much weaker we would be if the DA and other right-wing opposition parties had been in power. Our workers’ movement would have been shattered, though not of course without a big fight-back from the workers.

That is not going to happen soon, and we must do everything possible to make sure that it never happens. That is where the Alliance again has a key role to play. Our commitment

to support the ANC has never been based on giving them a blank cheque. The workers will never allow even their staunch allies to take them for granted.

We will always take our mandate from the membership, especially at our ‘Workers’ Parliament’ our three-yearly National Congress, whose resolutions and declarations are the basis for the federation for the next three years, and beyond if those policies are not changed by later congresses.

If those policies conflict with those of government and our ANC allies, we will not keep quiet, but argue, debate, and if all else fails take to the streets to mobilise the workers.

Far from being attacks on our allies, they are a way of bringing home to the ANC and government what the majority of the workers and the poor, who are after all overwhelmingly ANC-voters, think about current policies, and send a warning sign of potential dissatisfaction when unpopular policies are imposed.

A good example is the issue of labour brokers, the only important issue in the debate on labour law amendments where we failed to win the argument. Sadly the MPs, refused to ban labour brokers, who will be allowed to continue in operation for periods of three months, though even there the MPs voted for more regulation to prevent what they concede are abusive practices.

We oppose labour brokering in principle, because it treats workers as commodities, who can be traded to generate a profit. Labour brokers act as parasites in the employment relationship, who supply workers to do jobs that already exist, and which in many cases would previously have been permanent full-time jobs.


youth Issues

They negotiate a fee with the so-called ‘client’ firm for supplying stipulated labour services for a given period.

While they get rich through this trade in labour, the workers are exploited worse than ever. Most of the workers supplied and employed by the labour brokers earn low wages, do not enjoy any benefits, receive no training and have virtually no job security.

That is why we make no apology for calling it human trafficking and a modern form of slavery.

We cannot agree with government that increased regulation of the labour brokering industry will stop all its abuses. The Department of Labour can’t enforce current regulation of employment conditions and safety, let alone adding another area of enforcement.

But the main debate with the ANC, which we shall be resuming in two weeks time at an Alliance Economic Summit meeting, is on the broader issue of how we can transform our economy so that it provides more jobs, creates more wealth and distributes that wealth in a far more equitable fashion.

The last two ANC National Conferences at Polokwane and Mangaung passed some excellent resolutions, the most recent being the call for a “2nd Phase of the Transition”. This is closely in line with COSATU’s constant call for a massive transformation of our economy, to put us on a new growth path to prosperity and full employment.

Our argument has been based on the recognition that in the first 19 years of democracy we have made great advances in areas of human rights,

civil liberties and welfare payments, but have left our economy little changed. A small, ultra-rich, still mainly white and male elite, owns and controls all the most powerful industrial and financial companies, a growing number of which are now also controlled from overseas.

Consequently they run these enterprises, especially the mining and banking sectors, under the rules of the “‘free market economy”, where the sole goal is to maximise profits, rather than to develop the South African economy or help to create jobs.

The ANC and government have recognised this problem and as well as the Mangaung resolution, have adopted the Industrial Policy Action Plan, the Infrastructure Development Programme and at least part of the National Growth Path, all of which seek to set us on the new growth path

The big problem, which we shall be tackling together with the ANC, SACP and SANCO, is that these progressive policies are undermined by wrong macroeconomic policies by the Treasury and the Reserve Bank. Their priority is to attract more foreign investment, by convincing them that the privately-owned economy is in safe, capitalist hands and that the market economy is firmly entrenched.

To assist this they continue with policies of high interest rates and dismantling measures to protect vulnerable domestic manufacturing industry. They are using the discredited policies of the 1996 Class Project, which imposed strict free-market, neoliberal economic policies, which had a devastating effect on local manufacturing, affects which became even more disastrous after the 2008 world economic crisis.

We will always welcome foreign investment, but not at any price, and we will certainly not allow South Africa’s economic policies to be dictated by the interests of these investors, above those of the people in a sovereign democratic country.

I hope that we shall convince our allies to ignore these voices from the past, and vigorously pursue the ANC’s 2nd Phase of our Transition to a prosperous and more equal society which will give your generation hope and confidence that a better life is possible, and that you will to live to enjoy a transformed South Africa.

As I said earlier this year, in a tribute to Comrade Joe Slovo: “In his memory we must pursue a class struggle unapologetically and without seeking permission from others. Class struggle means struggling against unemployment, poverty and inequalities. This is the struggle against apartheid and colonial era fault lines – including the struggle for quality education and training, better health care, more and better houses and other services.

“These are the struggles that COSATU will wage throughout this year, without apologizing to anyone or seeking permission from anyone. This is struggle the whole alliance must pursue for the sake of the memory of Joe Slovo.”

This is a speech that was prepared for COSATU Limpopo Young Workers Forum, Polokwane, 22 June 2013


cOsaTU crossword puzzleacross

6. sda is short for skills development _ _ _(3)8. cosas stands for congress of south african________ (8)11. The _ _ _ _ _ _ uprising occurred on 16 June 1976. (6)12. After the first _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ elections, Workers Day became a recognised

public holiday. (10)14. sisulu The speaker of the south african Parliament is _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (3,6)17. down _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (9)18. for many years people struggled for a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ workday and better

working conditions (7)19. a fully integrated system is said to be _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (8)20. _____________ The first President of the democratic Republic of South Africa (6,7)21. congress of south african Trade unions (abbrev.) (6)

down

1. Workplace threats and challenges are risks to _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ human development (11)3. seTa stands for sector _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and Training authority (9)4. This is the _ _ _ _ _ _ democratic Parliament (6)5. memorandum of understanding (abbrev.) (3)7. __________ an organisation of workers formed for the purpose of advancing

their members’ interests (5,5)8. international Workers day marks the _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ between workers in the struggle for their rights universally. (10)9. all across the world______ (6)10. The general secretary of the sacP is dr _ _ _ _ _ nzimande (5)13. _ _ _ _ _ hours constitutes a legal workday. (5)15. _____________ is the President of cosaTu (6,7)16. Today, _ _ _ _ _ _ work is a key workplace concern. (6)18. seTas provide funds for _ _ _ _ _ _ training (6)


Community

It is said that everyone has their price, but what makes a cop accept a bribe, a procurement officer dish out a tender to his friend, or a school governing body cook the

institution’s books? Clinical psychologist Dr Giada Del Fabbro, criminologist Dr Elisabeth Grobler, and Rhodes University organisational psychology lecturer Alwyn Moerdyk examine the motivations that push people down this treacherous road. The triggers are many, it seems.

it’s your personalityIt is difficult and perhaps counter-intuitive to put people in boxes with neat little labels to explain their behaviour, but there are some personality traits that make the slide into corrupt behaviour easier. According to Del Fabbro, these characteristics include:

Impaired empathy – individuals •struggle to put themselves in the shoes of another or understand how their actions may affect the wellbeing of someone else;Self-centeredness – individuals •prioritise their own needs over those of others;Manipulation – individuals •deceptively influence systems or other people’s perceptions;Entitlement – individuals believe that •they deserve to succeed or have their needs met more than others and that they deserve special treatment; and,Tendency to project blame on to •others – individuals avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

•Moerdyk notes that other characteristics associated with corruption involve: thrill-seeking behaviour, social conformity, the need for instant gratification, risk-taking behaviour, and a strong need for power.

greed versus needIn her dissertation on public sector corruption,

Grobler notes that human beings are innately greedy. Some people can contain the urge for self-enrichment and instant gratification; others cannot. Those who constantly feel the need to accumulate wealth may take any opportunity to do so. When it comes to corrupt public officials, if there is a prospect for self-gratification, they are likely to grab it with both hands unless they are monitored closely. Grobler believes that there is a lack of monitoring and accountability in governments, opening up the potential for corruption.Yet she also points out that corruption is often committed to supplement an inadequate income, especially among lower paid public servants. The dichotomy is money-for-greed versus money-for-need.

sharing is caringThink corrupt individual, and labels like self-centred and financial motivation spring to mind. But security specialist Bruce Schneier, who’s written on the psychology of fraud, has a different view. He says some experts believe that people commit acts of corruption and fraud because humans like each other. Because we are fond of one another, especially of people with whom we can identify, goes the reasoning, we do not see our actions in this relationship as unethical. For example, a municipal procurement officer awards a tender to his friend – the officer and his friend like each other, they relate to one another, and on the basis of this friendship and loyalty, they do not see their actions as corrupt. It may seem a bit touchy-feely, but it explains the existence of webs of corrupt individuals bound together. It is never a lone person who benefits; there are always groups of people who gain. Moerdyk states that certain cultural values, such as the “need for sharing and caring”, may lead to pressure to behave corruptly. “The propensity of corruption may lie in the need of certain people to share and care (or perhaps more accurately, to be seen to share and care), as much as it may be traced to greed, a sense of entitlement and the need to be seen as successful,” he says.

Blame the parentsDel Fabbro notes that an individual’s morality and ethics are based on the process of socialisation as well as on modelling and education from parents or caregivers – in essence, we learn behaviour at the knee of our parents and teachers. The sentiment is echoed by the former chief psychologist in India’s public service commission, Dr NP Upadhyay. Corruption, Upadhyay says, is an anti-social activity learned through poor parenting. “Everyone’s personality is a creation of his or her family. Family provides a framework within which human beings may find roots, continuity and a sense of belonging. Parents serve as the first socialising agents. Especially, sound family environment always persists disciplines, moral and obedience lessons. Mainly, such diversified effective lessons impart good manners, corruption free minds, and an acquired integrated personality,” Upadhyay points out.

But he and Del Fabbro agree that a person’s moral and ethical development can be disturbed by dire social and economic circumstances in which personal survival is prioritised above everything else. And what of the attitudes of the public that allow corruption? The culture of corruption has had devastating effects on South Africa’s economy and has rattled public confidence in key institutions, but the worst effect will be on future generations who will grow up to believe that paying a bribe to a police officer is acceptable or that buying their driving licence is okay. Look out for the next article in this two-part series which will examine the culture of corruption in South Africa and whether it is just a case of a few rotten apples that spoil the rest, or a rotten environment that spoils the more susceptible apples.

This article first appeared on Corruption watch website, www.corruptionwatch.org.za

The Psychology of corruptionexperts agree that there are certain

personality traits that make corrupt

behaviour easier. photo: corruption WatchBy Kavisha Pillay


The history of the freedom charterOn the 26th June this year the National Liberation movement and South Africans in general, commemorated the 58th anniversary of the Freedom Charter. We bring to you the history of this guiding document.Retrieved from: http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/freedom-charter-1955 on Friday, July 05, 2013

Pamphlet used to popularise the Freedom Charter

As the struggle for freedom reached a new intensity in the early fifties, the ANC saw the need for a clear statement on the

future of South Africa. The idea of a Freedom Charter was born, and the Congress of the People Campaign was initiated. During this campaign the ANC and its allies invited the whole of South Africa to record their demands so that they could be incorporated in a common document. The document would be accepted at the Congress of the People and would become the Freedom Charter. Thousands of people participated in the campaign and sent in their demands for the kind of South Africa they wished to live in. These demands found final expression in the Freedom Charter. The campaign for the Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter united most of the liberation forces in South Africa. Nothing in the history of the liberation movement in South Africa quite caught the popular imagination as the Congress of the People campaign. It served to consolidate an alliance of the anti-apartheid forces of the 1950s composed of the African National Congress, the South African Indian Congress, the South African Coloured People’s Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) into a non-racial united front known as the Congress Alliance.It also served to sustain political activity after the curbing of the Defiance Campaign and to develop and strengthen political organisation by broadening the geographical and social

bases of the liberation movement and raising the political consciousness of the masses by offering a vision of an alternative social order. The Congress of the People gathered at Kliptown, outside Johannesburg on June 25 and 26, 1955. This was a large, colourful and exciting event. In 1950, 26 June had been

declared Freedom Day. In May 1950 the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) had called for a May Day strike to protest against the Unlawful Organisation Bill. The strike resulted in police violence, and the death of 18 people. On 20 June 1950 the CPSA was forced to dissolve, and the ANC took over the planning for a ‘Day of Mourning’ for those who died in the May Day strike. They also called for the day to be celebrated as Freedom

Day in the future. The three thousand delegates who gathered at Kliptown on 25 and 26 June 1955 were workers, peasants, intellectuals, women, youth and students of all races and colours. The Congress of the People constituted the most representative gathering in the history of South Africa. It adopted the Freedom Charter, a vision for a united, non-racial and democratic South Africa. Subsequently all the members of the Congress Alliance adopted the Freedom Charter in their national conferences as their official programme. Thus the Freedom Charter became the common programme enshrining the hopes and aspirations of all the progressive people of South Africa.

References• Dubow,S.TheAfricanNationalCongress.

Jonathan Ball. Johannesburg. 2000• Karis, T. and Carter, G.M. (eds). From

Protest to Challenge: Documents of African Politics in South Africa, 1882-1964. Volume 2. Hoover. Stanford. 1973

• Lodge, T. Black Politics in South Africasince 1945. Ravan. Johannesburg. 1983

• Luthuli, A. Let My People Go. Collins.Britain. 1978

• Meli,F.AHistoryoftheANC.SouthAfricabelongs to us. James Curry. Britain. 1989

• Suttner,R.andCronin, J.30Yearsof theFreedom Charter. Ravan. Johannesburg. 1986

• Vadi, I.TheCongress of the People andthe Freedom Charter Campaign. Sterling. New Delhi. 1995

Community


Burma: The struggle for independence

Written by David Kramer

Burma is a Southeast Asian coun-try of sixty million people that lies between Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand.

It was gradually colonised by the Brit-ish through three successive wars between 1824 and 1885. Under colonial rule Burma was a part of British colonial India until 1937 when it became a separate colony. By this time a strong anti-colonial movement had developed.

The anti-colonial movement was led by a young student of Rangoon University, Aung San, who later founded the Burmese Independence Army (BIA) and who is the father of Burma’s democracy icon and No-bel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. It was he who would lead Burma to freedom. Even his political nemesis Lord Mountbat-ten, Viceroy of India and Burma described him as a “true patriot of his people”. Today he is Burma’s national hero.

Another famous member of Burma’s anti-colonial struggle was U Thant who years later as UN Secretary-General inter alia established both the UN Development Programme the UN Environmental Pro-gramme, defused the Cuban Missile Crisis, ended the civil war in the Congo and is re-membered by South Africans for his role as a strong opponent of apartheid. It was under him that the UN Security Council passed its first resolution against Apart-heid South Africa following the Sharpeville Massacre.

Burma was a democracy from independ-ence in 1948 until 1962; albeit a fragile one fraught with instability. In 1962 a military coup overthrew the government. Under the coup leader General Ne Win Burma was closed off to the outside world, the econo-my was brought under the total control of the government. All elements of a free and democratic society were silenced. Trade

unions and the free press were shut down and independent political parties banned. Any dissent was ruthlessly suppressed. The economy nosedived. What was once Asia most promising economy and the world’s largest exporter of rice became a basket case. Burma was reduced to being ranked one of the world’s poorest countries with a healthcare system that would eventually be ranked the 2nd worst in the world. Ne Win himself earned a reputation as being one of the world’s most corrupt, brutal and paranoid dictators.

Burma remained like this until 1988 when the government’s policies created the final economic crisis that resulted in a pop-ular uprising of nonviolent protests known as the 8-8-88 uprising because of the na-tionwide protests that started on the 8th August. The protests were brutally crushed with an estimated three thousand killed. Thousands more students fled into exile or

Aung San Suu Kyi has become the very embodiment of Myanmar’s long struggle for democracy.

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to the border region where they formed an armed wing known as the All Burma Stu-dent Democratic Front (ABSDF). Howev-er; it was at this darkest moment in Burma’s history that the daughter of General Aung San, Aung San Suu Kyi stood up, as her fa-ther’s daughter, to challenge the authority of the military regime. The people rallied around her not only because of her status of General Aung San’s daughter but for the solidarity that she showed with their plight.

As a result of her stand against the mili-tary regime Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest in July 1989. This would last until 1995. She would again be detained from 2000 until 2002 and from 2003 until 2010, a cumulative 15 years of house arrest. A further example of her dedication to the struggle later occurred in 1999 when her Eng-lish husband dying of cancer in England was refused permission to visit her before he passed away. The re-gime seemingly very kindly suggested that she was free to travel to England to visit him. She realised that this was a trap designed to make her leave so they could close the door behind her. She made the very painful personal sacrifice to re-main in Burma with her people.

By 1990, the regime felt that it was once again in control and decided to hold elec-tions in order to legitimise it’s rule. To the regime’s surprise Aung San Suu Kyi’s party the National League for Democracy (NLD) won over 80 percent of the seats in parlia-ment. The regime simply ignored the re-sults. Many of the elected MPs who tried to convene a parliament or oppose the regime’s moves were imprisoned and tor-tured. Many more fled into exile where an exiled parliament was established. In 1991 Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Her example has been praised by Archbishop Tutu who has described her as “Asia’s Mandela”.

In 2007 following a sharp rise in fuel prices popular non-violent protests once again broke out in the streets of Burma. The protests were led by the country’s Bud-dhist monks and later joined by former student leaders of the 1988 protests who had already been imprisoned for their role in the 1988 protests. These protests were ruthlessly crushed too. Many of the leaders of the protests were given hefty sentences. A number of the activists were given sen-tences of 65 years. Please remember these were non-violent protests.

In 2008 the regime arranged a rigged ref-erendum to pass a new constitution. This was part of the regime’s so-called Road Map to Democracy. The constitution cre-ates a parliament where a quarter of the

seats are reserved for the military, where members of the military can-not be prosecuted by any civilian authority, the military can pass laws on its own and even has the right to take over the country, yes a constitutionally enshrined right of the military to carry out a coup.

In November 2010 Aung San Suu Kyi was re-leased from house

arrest and in April 2012 she and her party competed in by-elections for a select few seats. Again the NLD won by a landslide winning 43 out of 45 seats. This affirmed, beyond any doubt, the legitimacy of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party the NLD as the true representatives of Burma’s peoples. It also strongly suggests that when the next general elections are held in 2015 should the NLD do as well as it did in the by-elec-tions then any claim that it has left to rule Burma will have been demolished.

As part of the government’s attempts to boost its credentials many, but not all of the political prisoners have been released. However; many hundreds more remain.

Despite the various reforms carried out by the military regime, there remain many problems such as land confiscation and

Burma’s system of forced labour which the International Labour Organization (ILO) has been described as a crime against hu-manity. Many Burmese continue to be exploited as undocumented workers in neighbouring countries, notably Thailand. Burma has been described by Human Rights Watch as the worst country in terms of child soldiers.

The plight of Burma’s ethnic groups who make up one third of the population deserves special attention. They not only experience forced such abuses as forced la-bour and land confiscation but are further-more forced to flee their villages, becoming refugees or Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) or refugees. In the last two years alone over a quarter of a million people have been displaced. Women are extremely vulnerable to sexual violence.

The most oppressed of Burma’s peoples are the Rohingya who are denied the most basic rights including citizenship, access to education and healthcare. Burma’s former Consul-General in Hong Kong openly de-scribed them as being too dark to be Bur-mese. He has since been promoted, becom-ing the regime’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva. The situation for the Rohingya has deteriorated to such an ex-tent that the former chairperson of the In-ternational Association of Genocide Schol-ars has stated that the situation is becoming so serious that it wouldn’t be frivolous to use the term genocide.

Over the years there have been a number of reports from inter alia Amnesty Interna-tional and Harvard Law School which have argued there is a strong case for the United Nations Security Council to open an in-quiry on Burma with regard to referring the matter to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

On a similar note it must be pointed out that there has been a report issued by the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) which raises very serious questions about Burma’s current ambassador to South Afri-ca. It seems that he may be a former general linked to gross violations of human rights. Sadly our own government does not ap-pear interested in the matter.

Photo by: Associated Press

General Aung San


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Just before the April 14 Presidential elections in Venezuela, RT News reported on a Wikileaks Cable from 2006 in which, in the words

of RT, then “ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, outlines a comprehensive plan to infiltrate and destabilize former President Hugo Chavez’ government,” including through programs of the USAID and its Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI). On May Day, Bolivian President Evo Morales informed the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia that he wanted USAID to leave Bolivia because he (quite reasonably) suspected USAID of trying to subvert his own government as well.

The 2006 Wikileaks cable makes for fascinating reading. (1) In the cable, Ambassador Brownfield explains that, among its many goals, the destabilization “program fosters confusion within the Bolivarian ranks . . . .” And, he describes a key component of this program as follows:

OTI supports local NGOs who work in Chavista strongholds and with Chavista leaders, using those spaces to counter this [Chavista] rhetoric and promote alliances through working together on issues of importance to the entire community. OTI has directly reached approximately 238,000 adults through over 3000 forums, workshops and training sessions delivering alternative values and providing opportunities for opposition activists to interact with hard-core Chavistas, with the desired effect of pulling them slowly away from Chavismo. We have supported

this initiative with 50 grants totaling over $1.1 million.

Brownfield concludes the cable by stating: “Through carrying out positive activities, working in a non-partisan way across the ideological landscape, OTI has been able to achieve levels of success in carrying out the country team strategy in Venezuela. These successes have come with increasing opposition by different sectors of Venezuelan society and the Venezuelan government.”

One of the major recipients of USAID monies in the Andean Region, which includes Venezuela, is the AFL-CIO’s international wing, the Solidarity Center. The Solidarity Center was quite embarrassed in 2002 when the union it was working with and funding in Venezuela — the anti-Chavez CTV — actively participated in the coup against President Hugo Chavez. However, the Solidarity Center was not embarrassed enough to relent from continuing to support the CTV and to even support the management-led strike against the Venezuelan oil company (PDVSA) which greatly damaged the Venezuelan economy.

And, the Solidarity Center is still working in Venezuela, thanks to a recent grant of $3 million from the USAID for its work in both Venezuela and Colombia. While seemingly innocuous in isolation, the Solidarity Center’s own description of its work in Venezuela, when read in light of the above-described Wikileaks cable,

is revealing of the Solidarity Center’s imperial role.

Thus, the current description of this work on the Solidarity Center website is as follows:

Over the past 13 years, the Solidarity Center has worked with a broad range of national labor centers and unaffiliated worker organizations in Venezuela. . . . Given the political fragmentation and divisions between unions in Venezuela, Solidarity Center activities work to help unions from all political tendencies overcome their divisions in order to jointly advocate for and defend policies for increased protection of fundamental rights at the workplace and industry levels.

The Solidarity Center currently supports efforts to unite unions from diverse political orientations (including chavista and non-chavista, left and center) to promote fundamental labor rights in the face of anti-labor actions that threaten both pro-government unions and traditionally independent unions. This emphasis on core union rights such as freedom of association and collective bargaining helps unions transcend their political fissures to address the basic needs of working people in Venezuela. (2)

Sound familiar? The program of the Solidarity Center in Venezuela is exactly that of the U.S. State Department and USAID; that is, to bring Chavistas together with non-Chavistas into alliance over a common cause — a process which the U.S. hopes will dilute Chavismo, or, in the words of former Ambassador Brownfield, to have “the desired effect of pulling them [the Chavistas] slowly away from Chavismo.”

That the Solidarity Center is following the State Department and USAID program exactly should not be surprising given that the Solidarity Center receives nearly all its funding from the USAID and other funders directly linked to the State Department and U.S. foreign policy interests (e.g., the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)).

Big labor’s Tool of empire By Alberto c. ruiz


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In response to this assertion of mine, the folks of the Solidarity Center will undoubtedly engage in collective eye-rolling followed by passionate denials of the claim that they continue to serve as a tool of U.S. foreign policy in countries like Venezuela. The fact that they happen to receive funding from the USAID and the fact that their program matches perfectly with the USAID program to destabilize the Chavista government and movement in Venezuela are mere coincidences, they will claim.

Their defense will be that they do not possess the intent of subversion and regime change of their financial backers, and that they are not the same organization they once were which intentionally helped the CIA overthrow progressive governments abroad, such as that of President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 and President Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973.

The best analysis I have seen to rebut such Solidarity Center denials – if much rebutting is needed — is that set forth in the doctorate dissertation of George Bass which is making the rounds within the labor left in the U.S. (3) Bass’s thesis, and it is well-supported, is that, regardless of the Solidarity Center’s intentions, it continues to objectively serve the U.S. foreign policy interests which continue to fund its activities abroad. In a nutshell, Bass explains:

the evidence indicates continuity with past AFL-CIO foreign policy practices whereby the Solidarity Center follows the lead of the U.S. state.

It has been found that the patterns of NED funding indicate that the Solidarity Center closely tailors its operations abroad in areas of importance to the U.S. state, that it is heavily reliant on state funding via the NED for its operations, and that the Solidarity Center works closely with U.S. allies and coalitions in these regions.

In the case of Venezuela, which he analyses in detail, Bass explains that the Solidarity Center’s foray into Venezuela corresponded with the election of

Hugo Chavez to the Presidency and to the effort thereafter of the U.S. State Department and NED to destabilize Chavez.

Of course, according to the Solidarity Center’s own website, it has been working in Venezuela for the past 13 years – or, just after Chavez took office for the first time in 1999. And, it has been working there with NED funding – funding which, as Bass explains, ballooned for both the Solidarity Center, as well as other groups like the International Republic Institute, after Chavez was first elected — and with USAID funding. Moreover, the Solidarity Center has been partnering with unions, especially the CTV, which are openly anti-Chavez and which ultimately participated in the coup which briefly ousted Chavez from power.

As Bass astutely opines, whether or not the Solidarity Center (aka, “ACILS”) has actually possessed the intention to overthrow the Chavista government in Venezuela, the Solidarity Center has and continues to carry out activities which objectively serve the destabilization goals of the U.S. foreign policy interests which fund those activities. As Bass concludes, “it is clear that the ACILS activity in Venezuela was largely a product of the U.S. state, if not simply because of the sudden and drastic shift in funding flows, then by the choice of partnering with the CTV at the exclusion of other labor organizations even after the CTV leadership had clearly aligned with FEDECAMARAS [the business association] and engaged in strikes and lockouts aimed at destabilizing the Chavez regime.” The very same can be said of the Solidarity Center’s current program which aligns so perfectly with that of the State Department and USAID.

All of this is truly disturbing, and indeed, reprehensible.

The Venezuelan people, with the significant help of organized labor in Venezuela, have just elected a former union bus driver to the Presidency. The U.S. labor movement should

be supporting this new President, and indeed rejoicing in his election. Instead, the foreign policy wing of U.S. labor is engaged in conduct which is objectively undermining that President and the movement which brought him to power. This conduct must end.

The only redemption for the AFL-CIO, and its Solidarity Center, is to cease all activities in Venezuela immediately and refuse all funding for any of its program from U.S. foreign policy concerns. In addition, the Solidarity Center must make a public accounting of all of its crimes against Third World liberation movements and governments, as well as that of its predecessor AIFLD; apologize for those crimes; and make amends, through monetary compensation, to the literally hundreds of thousands of people in the Global South it has injured, and even killed, through its complicity with U.S. imperialism. This is the only way the AFL-CIO can hope to save its own soul.

Alberto C. Ruiz is a long-time labor activist and anti-imperialist.

Notes.

(1) http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=06CARACAS3356&version=1314919461

(2) http://www.solidaritycenter.org/content.asp?pl=422&sl=407&contentid=1487

(3) Bass, George Nelson III. 2012. “Organized Labor and US Foreign Policy: The Solidarity Center in Historical Context.” Department of Political Science, Florida International University. On-line (and free) at http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/752

This article first appeared on the CounterPuncha


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In the spirit of international solidarity, working class unity and trade union co-operation, the BRICS trade union movement gathered in Durban, South

Africa on 23rd-25th March, 2013 to reflect on the critical challenges facing the working class in today’s changing global political economy and how it impacts on workers’ rights, human dignity and sustainable development for all.

Gathered under the auspices of the BRICS Trade Union Forum, we sought to build on the foundations laid by the Moscow Declaration, which was adopted at the 1st BRICS Trade union Forum in Russia in December 2012. This declaration correctly located the cooperation resulting in the emergence of BRICS in the context of the historic prevailing global power relations which favours the interests of developed countries to the exclusion of the developing countries. We wish to express our profound solidarity and support to all workers involved in struggles in defence of their rights, dignity, health and safety, against poverty, inequalities, unemployment, environmental degradation and for a world based on peace, justice and gender equality. We affirm the right of all the peoples of the world to determine their own economic policies free from current imposition by the Bretton Woods institutions

Amongst others, we discussed the global capitalist crisis, which is increasing inequalities and underdevelopment in several parts of the developing world. Given the location of this year’s Summit, we paid special attention to the conditions facing the working people of Africa, who suffered colonial dehumanisation and still suffer extreme conditions of exploitation. This is a consequence of the persisting structures of neo-colonial patterns of accumulation, unfair trade and exclusion in global governance systems.

The significance and concrete meaning of BRICS to workers under the current global conditions should be positioned as an alternative model of inclusive development that serves the interests of the majority in society. In this regard, we emphasise in one voice the need for the effective and full participation of the working class in

all institutions of BRICS. Only in that way will BRICS be different from existing multilateral institutions. We identified and dealt with four thematic areas relating to the fast-paced developments in the BRICS bloc of countries and the importance of workers’ views on its meaning to the struggle for social justice and development for all.

1. On BRICS trade patterns and what they mean for working class solidarity today? Towards a just and fair world trade system

We note that trade within the BRICS countries is centred mainly on commodities and very little on value-added goods. We believe that trade policies within the BRICS countries should aim at supporting industrialisation. The key objective should be the realisation of mutually beneficial trade amongst BRICS countries and amongst all countries of the world to address the imbalances between the north and the south. In addition, BRICS countries should work with other developing countries towards the transformation of the world trade system.

2. On the development of alternative sources of Development Finance - Our perspective on the BRICS Development Bank

We acknowledge that we are in an era marked by the rise of the financialisation of the economy, which has resulted in the domination of finance capital in many developing countries and the rest of the world.

We cautiously welcome the proposal of a BRICS development bank. We strongly believe that this bank should take a different form from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It should primarily developmental in character.We envisage the BRICS development Bank solely owned by BRICS, publicly funded, taking all decisions on consensus, promoting trade based on own currencies of its member countries, with a core focus on infrastructure and development in consultation and approval by all stakeholders, inclusive of the

community and trade unions.

BRICS trade unions should be represented on the BRICS bank’s highest decision-making body and its various task teams.

3. Building working class power for workers’ rights and an end to inequalities, unemployment and poverty for decent work and inclusive development

We recognise that without a coordinated approach within the trade unions, workers’ interests may not be taken forward.

In defending and advancing workers rights, we commit to ensuring that all multinational companies comply with core labour standards, and do not exploit unequal conditions between countries, driving down wages and eroding workers rights by playing workers against one another. In addition, we recognise the importance of national and global tripartite dialogue structures, and pledge to defend these as a key site for advancing the decent work agenda and ensuring the protection of workers’ rights, particularly those of vulnerable and migrant workers. We will struggle to ensure that the BRICS agenda does not isolate regional and continental counterparts, and will work to advance the interests of the developing world in general.

4. On the position and role of BRICS trade unions in shaping the agenda in the interest of social justice and people-centred development

It is our considered view that the emergence of BRICS presents the potential to organise it into a progressive force around which various struggles can be coordinated. However, we continue to call for a further decisive shift in the current political and economic outlook of BRICS.

In order to enhance our co-operation, we will establish a coordinating mechanism consisting of representatives from all trade union federations based in each of the BRICS countries. The immediate task is to implement this and previous declarations, including preparations for the next Trade Union Forum in Brazil in 2014.

Declaration of the second Brics Trade Union Forum


On 2 March 2013 a referendum in Switzerland came out in favour of tougher rules on the setting of managers’ remuneration. 68% of

the voters wanted to put limits on “rip-offs” – in other words, the millions handed out in bonuses and severance payments (golden parachutes) to top managers. Coming up are further referendums on limiting top incomes and setting a legal minimum wage.

Since the turn of this century, remuneration packages for top managers in Switzerland have soared to several million francs. The CEOs and Chairmen of public companies, particularly the major banks and pharmaceuticals firms, have been pulling in sums that are really only comparable with those in the USA. Ten years ago, this was already causing strong public discussion. The debates grew even fiercer when the million-franc payouts continued through 2009, despite the financial crash and the collapse of previously good business results.

People’s Initiative against “rip-offs”[1]In this situation, a People’s Initiative

launched by small-scale entrepreneur Thomas Minder took on particular significance. It called for Swiss company law to be changed so that the power to set executive pay was transferred to shareholder meetings. And it advocated a ban on golden parachutes.

The majority of parties and business organisations, and consequently also parliament, rejected the Initiative and wanted to give the shareholder meetings purely consultative rights. The Left and the trade unions criticised the Initiative for aiming simply to transfer the decision-making powers to the shareholders. So the Left and the unions sought to have the highest incomes more heavily taxed, in order to make them less attractive to firms, but they did not secure a majority in parliament for this proposal either. Finally, in 2013, the People’s Initiative was put to a referendum. The campaign leading up to the vote was hard-

fought. The peak business councils spent millions of francs in a bid to get the Initiative rejected. They argued that it would put firms in a straitjacket and cause the delocalisation of company headquarters. Backing a “yes” vote were the initiator, the Social Democratic Party, the Greens and part of the trade union movement. The referendum result was an overwhelming 68% in favour. But if the great majority of the voters said “yes”, this was less about the new division of powers than about sending out a strong signal against “rip-offs”. And that signal was heard far beyond Switzerland’s borders.

Now, the Swiss Parliament will have to adopt the appropriate legal changes, which should come into force as early as 2014.

Further People’s InitiativesMeanwhile, another People’s Initiative on

the problem of the wage gap is soon to be put to a referendum. Drawn up and submitted by the Young Socialists of Switzerland, it stipulates that the highest remuneration within a firm should not be more than twelve times the lowest wages paid. So the thrust of this Initiative is towards a binding reduction of top pay and an increase in minimum wages.

This proposal is supported by the trade unions, the Left and the progressive Greens.

For the great majority of enterprises, the “1-to-12 rule” would mean no change at all. Almost all workplaces within the domestic economy have far smaller wage spreads than that. Until recently, the bosses of the big state enterprises (the railways, the post office, telecommunications) also earned less. In these sectors, it was not until privatisation that the brakes came off. However, for a few hundred firms, notably those that are export-oriented and quoted on the stock exchange, acceptance of this new pay ceiling would mean severe restrictions. The referendum on this Initiative will probably be held in September 2013.

Finally, preparations are under way for a vote on yet another People’s Initiative. This one is about the introduction of a legal minimum wage. It was launched by the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions, as collective agreement coverage in Switzerland has been stagnating at around 50% and some of the agreements do not even specify pay rates or minimum wages. The Initiative calls for a national minimum wage of SFr. 22, which is equivalent to 61% of the Swiss median wage. It also provides for cantons with above-average living costs to bring in supplements. The employers and the majority of the parties are against a legal minimum wage. They point to Switzerland’s tradition of collective agreements – but without addressing the issue of those agreements’ limited coverage. The referendum on this is like to be held in 2014.

[1] Note on People’s Initiatives: In Switzerland, 100,000 signatures (about 2% of citizens entitled to vote) are sufficient to demand a popular referendum on changing an article of the Constitution. If a majority of the votes cast is in favour, parliament is required to draw up the corresponding legislation.

Andreas Rieger is National Secretary of the Swiss trade union UNIA and member of the Executive Committee of the European Trade Union Confederation.

For more information see the following links. Please note that while all the websites are in German, they all have other language options. However, only the first one includes English in that list.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/politik_schweiz/Massives_Volksmehr_gegen_die_Abzockerei.html?cid=34694324

http://www.juso.ch/de/node/601

http://www.mindestlohn-initiative.ch/warum-mindestlohne/

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swiss referendums on Top salaries and minimum PayBy andreas rieger


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What had began with a fair and also progressive agenda from a political point of view, changed in the latest events –

at least while others are still to come - into a variety of multiple claims that the right-wing forces could identify as fertile ground for promoting the destabilization of the current federal government, perhaps even of the democratic regime.

Having as trigger the claim for a cancellation in the public transport fare increase - which proved a great symbolic success as it translates simply and strongly the popular dissatisfaction with the low quality of public services in general - large street demonstrations that took place recently in the country, with the natural predominance of young people in their ranks, from the beginning have received enthusiasm and sympathy from all those who actually advocate for a fairer society and the tackling down of inequality and the promotion of economic opportunity. Including CUT, a close partner, not coincidentally, of the Free Pass Movement (MPL), who called the first mobilizations.

The right-wing forces behaved between clever and clumsy. Military Police of São Paulo, led by PSDB, harshly repressed one of the demonstrations and ended up hitting its faithful squire, as professionals from large and traditional media were injured. This was the sign to the large television networks, radio stations and newspapers, which were condemning the demonstrations until then, to change sides. They embraced open and enthusiastically the following protest - something none of them had done since the 1980s, a time of struggle for the democratization of the country, when the press even supported it.

Besides the strength given by the media, especially TV, the understandable revolt of youth facing harsh police repression did then pop simultaneous demonstrations in hundreds of cities. Through social networks, the organizers were able to amplify other novelty brought by these mobilizations which is that they always occur in the early evening, when crowds are already free from work.

The organic right-wing, though never

identifying themselves through their political parties, quickly tried to control the meaning of the mobilizations. This combination of episodes showed once again the process of bureaucratization of the political parties and the need for the trade union movement to accelerate the process of improving youth organization and improving our communication policies. It has also shown the absolute need for democratization of the media in Brazil, where a small number of business groups and families have monopoly of the industry - which allows them to join according to their interests and use a unified discourse to maneuver public opinion, as has been made during these demonstrations.

In a scenario where at least for the past 10 years the traditional press and political analysts insist that the political class, and the political activity itself, are synonymous to corruption and inefficiency, the conditions of pressure and temperature were given to channel and blow this discouragement to public opinion (all done, it is true, with the help of a significant part of the political class).The demonstrations have as core nihilists slogans “all out” and “no party”, sang by young people, many of them, who hear negative things about politics for longer than half of their lives. This period corresponds, not surprisingly, to the presence of the PT in power. Thereafter, with the literal eviction of even the radical left movements, right-wing became prevalent among organized groups that influenced the others. There are even reports that many smashing were not work of vandals (buzzword in the media nowadays), but of organized groups. And as always in Brazil the legend that says that the federal government is responsible for everything, good or bad, made the association of the slogans “all out” and “non-party” with the PT a simple task.

And this obsession by the federal government was reflected even in those who were believed not to think so. Lethargy of progressive forces would only be broken with a movement of President Dilma Rousseff. Out of the five proposals submitted to society, especially the political reform must be highlighted.

Precisely this proposal has fueled the emergency of conservatives’ hypocrisy

without its traditional disguises. Media and various parties attack it. Those who incessantly criticize the Brazilian political system oppose the proposed reform, demonstrating special disregard for the idea of subjecting it to public consultation through a plebiscite, as proposed by the president. Among the opposition are leaders of the so called allied base, which points to a dramatic scenario and, in the view of some analysts, to a coup attempt. Maybe not in the old style of weapons and tanks in the street, but something more contemporary, as already tried in Venezuela and succeeded in Honduras and Paraguay.

At least one sure thing comes out of this rebellion from the allied base: the urgent need for political reform to minimize the current and absolute dependence on coalitions in order to survive to the moods of Parliament. Corruption, another recurring theme of the demonstrations, would also suffer a big blow with such a reform that would prohibit companies and banks from giving money to candidates.

Cornered between 2005 and 2006, former President Lula went on a tour around the country and to rallies and crowds, denouncing the nature of the attacks and increasing his supporters. He was heard. Dilma, so far, does not seem shaped for such a tactic.

It is still difficult to predict how the situation will evolve. CUT and other unions in Brazil, with the support of social movements, will call a National Day of Struggle on next July 11th, promoting the working class agenda in several cities. This might pull the atmosphere to the left.

However, depending on the response of the political class - for now, for a significant part of Congress, very bad, like a shrug of those who want to send the President of the Republic to the beasts - the street mobilizations must return.

Vagner Freitas João Antonio Felicio - President International Relations Secretary

Artur Henrique da Silva Santos Deputy International Relations Secretary

How to listen to the voice of the streets and Minimum PayAs the struggle against corruption, inflation and a sharp rise in bus fares continues, the leadership of the cenTral Única dos TraBalhadores (cuT) (the biggest trade union federation in Brazil of which cosaTu has strong relations with) wrote us this insight on what is happening curerently in Brazil.


Afilliates

‘nehaWu membership growth is unmatched’ says alliance leadersnorman mampane, COSATU Communications Officer

cde zingiwa losi, cosaTu 2nd deputy President

The largest public sector Trade Union, NEHAWU held its 10th National Congress

from the 26th-29th June 2013 at Birchwood Conference Centre, Benoni.

Since the 09th National Congress, NEHAWU membership grew from 249 408 to 275 627. This meant a grown by 26 219 members.The Congress was duly opened officially by NEHAWU President, Cde Mzwandile Makwayiba, who ‘appealed for nurturing of quality membership services for all workers’.

The previous Congress was held in September 2010 at the same venue and Alliance leaders, who spoke congratulated NEHAWU in respecting worker control and popularizing the slogan; An injury to one is an injury to all. Addressing the congress, ANC President, Cde Jacob Zuma said “The unity of COSATU as a federation is entirely dependent on the actions or non-actions of its individual affiliates…NEHAWU and all affiliates are duty bound to do everything in their power to defend the unity of COSATU.”

He further said ‘the huge reliance is on NEHAWU to nurture a good public service cadre and that includes naming, shaming and exposing corruption’.

‘White collar crime involving the corruption in government departments must be appreciated. In the few months, South Africa will celebrate twenty years of democracy. NEHAWU therefore becomes central to accelerate quality public service delivery’, said Zuma.

COSATU 2nd Deputy President spoke eloquently that ‘NEHAWU has a proud record of firmness and resolution in struggle’.

And she called on all delegates

‘to put uTaTa Madiba in their thoughts and prayers throughout the proceedings of their Congress’.

The General Secretary of the SACP, Cde Blade Nzimande made a call to all delegates that “it is very important that as revolutionaries strengthen what unite us in order to tackle the differences we have. What unites us is the programmatic perspective; second phase of the radical transition, geared towards intensifying a radical phase of the struggle. NEHAWU Congress must give meaning to this from the public sector Union’s perspective.”

He further argued that international capitalism has undermined humanity by collapsing itself to be demand ‘bail-out’, yet when huge surplus value were made, capitalist never ‘bail[ed]-out’ poverty, inequality and unemployed people’.

We must refuse the trajectory in the country of having workers building houses yet are unable to stay in beautiful houses; workers building aeroplanes yet workers are unable to board one; workers building cars yet they can’t afford to buy one-this trajectory must be challenged’.The 10th National Congress, a Workers’ Parliament was held under the Theme Build Strong Workplace


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SAMWU has been in negotiations on the main collective agreement with the employers the South African Local Government

Association (SALGA) to try and improve the working conditions of all municipal workers. Some issues (for example the wage curve agreement) have been on the table for nearly three years! SALGA is doing everything possible to undermine the negotiations.

SAMWU is now saying enough is enough! SAMWU has now declared a dispute with SALGA because the employers were not prepared to negotiate in good faith. Instead, they have tried to undermine our organising rights, and to limit the effectiveness of the Unions. They have created a situation where negotiations have broken down through time wasting, and by refusing to engage on the reasonable demands that SAMWU has put forward. SALGA are using the negotiations not to try and reach a settlement, but to undermine the power of SAMWU, and to weaken the terms and conditions of all municipal workers. Our Demands and SALGA’s response

Negotiations on the Main Collective Agreement have broken down because SALGA refuses to engage SAMWU on our reasonable and justified demands. Municipal workers have seen their standards of living deteriorate. Many of our members are faced with poverty at home, because their children cannot find jobs, and prices are rising all the time. SAMWU members must have their living standards restored. Over the last few weeks, the negotiations have focused on a range of issues including the following:

Home Owners Allowance: SALGA has refused to engage on our proposals for a Home Owners Allowance, which would give equal support to those who rent their homes, and those who are seeking to buy a home. SALGA says that municipalities cannot afford to meet this demand, and yet Municipal Managers are paid millionaire salaries, and millions are wasted through corruption. That’s why we say to SALGA, treat workers equally and stop creating division!

Scope of the Union: SALGA is challenging

who we organise by trying to limit the scope of representation that SAMWU provides. SALGA is trying to force SAMWU not to protect vulnerable workers. We say all municipal workers, including those not directly employed by the municipality must be given protection against exploitation. All workers deserve a decent standard of living, and we will not allow SALGA to undermine our existing terms and conditions. That’s why we say to SALGA, all municipal workers deserve protection by SAMWU, stop exploitation by tenderpreuners and outsourcing! Leave workers’ rights alone! Every worker deserves representation! Full Time Shop Steward Regulations: SALGA is trying to undermine our rights to have Full Time Shop Stewards, to weaken the Union and workers representation at shop floor level. They know that SAMWU shop stewards are brave fighters for workers’ rights, and have been in the forefront of the fight against corruption. SAMWU shop stewards play a vital role in making sure that our members are protected, and that local service delivery is effective. Our shop stewards are peace makers, and should be congratulated, not condemned!

Why municipal workers are gearing for a national strike action

Organization, Class Consciousness and Internationalism. To give meaning to this, the congress received messages of support from trade unions from other countries. ‘NEHAWU over the years has amplified the importance of solidarity amongst and within the working across man-made borders’, said World Federation of Trade Unions (WTFTU) Council Member, cde VENKATACHALAM

He further said that “as WFTU, we are happy that NEHAWU is playing a major role to build WFTU’.

And concluded by saying that ‘no one can deny that all countries are registering progress, however, these developments are not reaching all the

masses. Population of the world still sleep without food, with only 20% to be shared by ordinary masses. 2, 4 billion across all countries still remain poor, with food production sky-rocketing; no jobs; no access to sanitation; no safety for human and children-we must challenge this as the working classes.

M. Kadzimu, President of the Civil Service Employers Association said “We need to fight capitalism in all its forms across the globe. The capitalists are increasing their attack on the labour movement, especially the emerging capitalists in Africa as they continue to squeeze the worker dry.”

The congress elected the following leadership collective:

• PresidentCdeMichaelMakwayiba

• 1stDeputypresident,CdeJoeMpisi

• Second Deputy President ,CdeThozama Mantashe

• National Treasurer, Cde PulaneMogotsi

• GeneralSecretary,CdeFikileMajola

• DeputyGeneralSecretary,CdeBerengSoke


Afilliates

That is why we say to SALGA, hands off our Full Time Shop Stewards! Put your own house in order before trying to undermine ours!

Bringing Attorneys into Disciplinary Hearings: SALGA is trying to change how disciplinary hearings operate, by trying to introduce expensive attorneys into the system. Instead of building their own capacity as SAMWU has done, to manage disciplinary and other hearings fairly and effectively, they want to spend millions on legal fees and have attorneys do their work for them. This is not only a chronic waste of money, but it also shows how SALGA is trying to outsource their own responsibilities. They are hoping that attorneys will give them the power to defeat SAMWU in hearings, and prevent us from successfully defending our members. That’s why we say to SALGA, stop trying to cover up your own poor capacity by buying in attorneys to do your job! Stop wasting time and money on disciplining workers when you should be concentrating on service delivery, and tackling corruption!

The Wage Curve and Other Matters: SALGA have deliberately dragged their feet for years to avoid reaching an agreement on the Wage Curve and other matters. They have been back and forward to the courts, wasting tax payers money, and have lost the argument every time, but they still refuse to be sensible and come to the negotiating table and settle this long running dispute. That’s why we say to SALGA, stop trying to undermine what we have agreed in previous negotiations. Come to the table and treat negotiations with respect. Stop trying to avoid your responsibilities. Focus on what is good for local government not how to break SAMWU. We are also approaching our Tripartite Alliance partners to put pressure on SALGA to return to the negotiating table, or be ready for the consequences. SAMWU will not be bullied into submission! The Union will also continue to oppose key aspects of the Municipal Systems Amendment Act. This act undermines collective bargaining by giving the Minister of COGTA Richard Baloyi sweeping powers to determine what should actually be decided in negotiations. This is a direct attempt to erode our

rights and the gains we have made. We know that SALGA is watching developments very closely, and will do all that it can to undermine the confidence of our members. It is already trying to mislead the public, and project itself as the reasonable party. That is why we are writing to every member to tell them the truth. Don’t be fooled by SALGA! If our members believe that only industrial action will bring some sense to SALGA then so be it! We cannot stand by while SALGA behaves like a Pre-1994 employer, trampling on workers’ rights, exploiting workers and undermining past agreements. We cannot stand by while SALGA destroys the services that our people so desperately need.

SALGA hands off SAMWU! Respect Our Agreements! Defend Our Services! Fight Corruption! No Going Back to Pre 1994! Go Forward with SAMWU!

Tahir Sema SAMWU National Spokesperson 0829403403 [email protected]

National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) General Secretary Frans Baleni encouraged the 38 NUM Eskom Shop

Stewards who graduated with a two-year course in Introduction to Labour Law to go out and plough back and change the world. Addressing the graduates at the NUM’s College Elijah Barayi Memorial Training Centre (EBMTC) in Midrand, Baleni said the NUM is proud to be realising the dream of making a small contribution through the college. “It was a distant dream that we must have our own college,” he said. The NUM 1993 National Congress adopted a resolution to establish a training centre. By the end of 1993, the union’s goal was realised

when comrade Cyril Ramaphosa officially opened the centre on the 4th of December 1993. The centre is named after the first founding Deputy President of NUM and first President of Cosatu Elijah Barayi.

Baleni encouraged the graduates to plough back. “What you have learnt is claimed knowledge and until it is applied it becomes the real knowledge. Real knowledge develops on the basis of application and the more you can apply your knowledge and pass it on to others it becomes a skill, it becomes real knowledge not the claimed knowledge. When you are ploughing back you must never be selfish about education,” he said.

To those sceptics who always criticise the NUM he said: “We have told ourselves that people with no vision would always criticise those with vision. Pioneers are always criticised because they take initiatives, they get into untested terrain and ground and for us we must continue to stay focused and

Baleni encourages graduates to plough back and change the world By livhuwani mammburu


deliver in the best ability which we can and as the dust settles principles will always shine. The truth will always be there for people to see and not to be delayed by the truth,”

Mercy Sekano, the Executive Director of the Elijah Barayi Memorial Training Centre said he was thankful of the former NUM leaders who came with the concept of having their own institution.

“We are happy that we are making history for the first time the college will be producing its own first graduates. It is an exciting moment for us as the staff and the entire team of education. We also want to thank the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the NUM. When we presented

the proposal that we want to pilot this Introduction to Labour Law they never hesitated to agree with us. We want to thank them for the opportunity. We think that even the shop stewards of the NUM particularly coming from Eskom will also be happy. It is a step in the right direction and we believe strongly that the spirit of Elijah Barayi is with us,” Sekano said.

Sekano said the course was initiated in order to sharpen the Shop Stewards skills and knowledge within their fields which would in turn empower them to be solely capable of handling any challenges that their role entails as well as to create a platform for them to grow within their workplaces. He said since inception of EBMTC it has trained

42,500 union shop stewards in various courses including Communication and Information Management, Organisational Development, Gender and Development and Development Economics. “The EBMTC will continuously train Shop Stewards from the energy, construction and mining industry every three months. The EBMTC has partnered with Eskom who funded the Shop Stewards with accommodation and transport, Education Training and Development Sector (ETDP) who fund the students’ tuition and NUM who provide the students with the facilities and training through the EBMTC,” Sekano concluded

This article first appeared on NUM News

Twenty-two numsa shopstewards from the auto sector graduate at the nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan University

sactwu kicks Off 2013 Matric winter school

President of the National Union of

Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) paid special recognition to twenty-two (22)

Numsa shopstewards who, on Friday June 28, 2013 graduated at the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan University (NMMU), Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape province. Drawn from the automotive

sector, the 22 shopstewards completed in 2012 a 9-month rigorous Certificate Course in Labour in a Developing Economy that the union negotiated with NMMU’s Department of Development Studies. The graduation was not the first of its kind by Numsa, but a continuation of similar initiatives geared at empowering worker-leaders academically and critical skills. The union had agreements with different universities where doors of learning within these institutions are opened

to workers and shopstewards. “These workers have made Numsa proud. As a union we continue to plough enormous resources in trade union education”, said Numsa President Cedric Gina. “Along with recognising their achievements and academic excellence, it is the thirst by workers for knowledge that we will celebrate during graduation day”, said Gina. “Numsa is committed to produce worker intellectuals and organic critical thinkers within formations of the working class”, concluded Gina.

The Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) has launched its Matric Winter School

Programme for 2013, yesterday. This year’s programme started in the KZN Region and will continue until the 28th June 2013, rolled out to other parts of the country. The SACTWU Matric Winter School is offered to SACTWU members’ dependents who are currently in matric. Learners are tutored, by qualified teachers, in learning areas such as

English Home Language, Mathematics, Maths Literacy, Life Science, Physics and Accounting.

The programme has been designed to assist learners to prepare for the final matric examinations later this year. In Durban 112 matric learners are already attending their programme at the Centenary Secondary School and another 71 students are attending in Newcastle.

Winter school will start in other regions as well, the dates are as follows:

Western Cape Winter School Programme will start on 1st July 2013 until 11th July 2013.

Eastern Cape Winter School Programme will start on 8th July 2013 until 12th July 2013.This Winter School roll out is part of the union’s R25m commitments towards the implementation of the Youth Employment Accord, as announced by the SACTWU NEC on 13 June.

Afilliates


On June 19, the 100-year anniversary of the Native Land Act which limited black land ownership to

seven percent of the land, and led to forced removals, the National Union MetalWorkers South Africa (NUmsa) and the Food and Allied Workers Union of South Africa (Fawu) launched a campaign for land redistribution.

“It is on the day of enactment of the 1913 Native Land Act that Numsa (National Union of Metalworkers) and Fawu (Food and Allied Workers’ Union) decided to launch their ‘Campaign for Agrarian Transformation and Land Distribution in South Africa’,” Numsa president Cedric Sabelo Gina said.

The aim of the campaign is to put pressure on the state so it can fast-track agrarian transformation and land redistribution in South Africa. The unions said during the campaign workers would go to work wearing headbands with the slogans: “Lefatse” (‘Land’, in seSotho), “Ons Soek Dit” (‘We want it’ in Afrikaans) and “Mawubuye” (‘Let it return’ in Nguni languages).

Lunchtime pickets and meetings were held in factories. Rallies in Thokoza in Ekurhuleni, New Brighton in Port Elizabeth and in Braamfontein, Johannesburg were also held. A picket for food security held in front of Bloemfontein’s Pick ‘n Pay supermarket

in Benade Drive. Numsa and Fawu office bearers addressed these gatherings.

The two wanted section 25(2)(b) of the Constitution changed so courts were no longer the final arbiter on compensation for land. They believed the courts were not transformed enough to understand what “just and equitable” compensation was. “Because the kind of judges that we have in our country are not progressive enough as far as we are concerned,” Gina said.

He said it was Numsa’s position that land be expropriated without compensation.

The objectives of the campaign are:

• to put pressure on the state so thatthe latter can fast-track agrarian transformation and land redistribution in South Africa

• toengagetheownersoftheagricultureand food sectors with the aim of changing the exploitative agrarian social relations and concentrated patterns of ownership in the sector

• to make sure the implementation ofthe provisions of the Freedom Charter that says that “the land shall be shared by those who work it”

• to struggle for zero hunger and

food security in South Africa where nutritious food is available and accessible on a sustainable basis to all people in the country

• to build a strong and formidablemovement for agrarian transformation

• to supportmoves andmeasures thatare in line with aims of the Campaign for Agrarian Transformation and Land Distribution in South Africa.

Addressing one of the gatherings, Gina said most of the land redistributed so far was not being used productively. He complained that some farms were being used as holiday places.

The campaign would include a mock referendum in September on the proposed change to the Constitution. The two unions were working together because Fawu represented workers in the agricultural sector and Numsa represented workers in industries manufacturing agricultural equipment.

Afilliates

numsa and faWu launch a joint

campaign on land redistribution


Commentary

are there alternatives to neoliberalism?By Vusumuzi Bhengu

The Chris Hani Institute, COSATU in partnership with the Rosas Luxemburg foundation held a momentous

workshop of the futures commission on alternatives to neo-liberalism between 24 and 25 June 2013.

The workshop was a battlefield of ideas on the fundamental question that faces labour in the 21st century - what are the alternatives to neoliberalism? This workshop brought together leading left wing labour scholars with key union leaders from the global south to set the agenda and begin work on modelling an alternative economy, politics and society together with change strategies.

The workshop began the process of

formulating and building an alternative through open debate over a three year period. The practical agenda was grounded in a set of immediate, realizable demands, which begin a process of transformative economic change, thereby setting the stage for deeper transformations.

Addressing the workshop, Valter Pomar of the Sao Paolo Forum spoke on the prospects of 21st century socialism said “The international crisis continues partly due to the structural determinants of capitalism in this stage of financial imperialism.”

“Partly because the dominant classes in the United States and Europe are still committed to policies of a neoliberal nature, to extreme austerity measures, to policies based on the exploitation of their

peoples, on plunder of and war against the so-called peripheries of the world, and also to standing up against countries, small or big, that decide to build alternatives to neoliberalism, to imperialism, to the forces that are still hegemonic

across the planet.” He addedThere was a strong consensus on the

need for a new global movement to combat the rising hegemony of capitalism through the exportation of capital to low capital consuming countries. The new anti-capitalism will emerge hand in hand with the return of revolution to the stage of history and in the midst of an economic crisis that has exposed capitalism as not merely a nasty system but an unstable one.

Explaining how capitalism rises under neoliberalism, Rob Lambert, the coordinator of the Southern Initiative on Globalization & Trade union Rights (Sigtur) said that capitalism rises on two dimentions: • Proletarian subjects: Those who are

dispossessed of the fruits of their creative powers in a labour process under the command of capital.

• Workers in factories and mines havebeen the priority to organize.

In response to the rise of capitalism


Commentary

under neoliberalism, he said that “there is an need to organize workers in factorties and mines as their work in common spaces facilitated the rise in class consciousness and the organization of collective action. However, limiting organization and struggle to these workers is too restricted and mind not broaden the struggle.”

The crisis we faceZwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary

of Cosatu addressing the workshop, said “There is overwhelming evidence that, five years down the line, we are still trapped in the world economic crisis which erupted in 2008, and that the blame for this must be laid firmly at the door of the neoliberal, `free-market` ideologues.”

He further said that in Cosatu’s analysis it was pointed out that the global crisis exposed structural imbalances in Northern economies and saw the balance of economic power shifting to the South. Governments of the North became “effectively bankrupt” while many in South ran surpluses, reduced public debt and were lending to the North. “In the fifth year of the crisis we are all now witnesses to its

devastating impact on the workers and the poor. We have record levels of high unemployment across the globe with 64 million people pushed into poverty. The youth and women have been on the receiving end of the crisis.” He said

How would a labour friendly world look like?

Rob O’Brien, a professor of Political Science at McMaster University in Canada delivered a paper titled “Organized labour and the global political economy: What would a labour friendly new world order look like?” wherein he provided a detailed account of the economic structure and security arrangements of the international system that have had a profound impact on the daily lives of many workers since the early 1500s.

He argued that “The violent reordering of production systems into international circuits and the deployment of large scale organized violence have taken a heavy toll on the peoples of the world.”

He made reference to the decimation of native American populations, the forcible incorporation of Africans in the transatlantic slave trade, the destruction

of the Indian textile industry, flooding of opium into China; the migration of millions of European workers and settler colonies in the Americas and the Pacific.

He concluded by saying that a more organised friendly world order would be one in which corporations were held

accountable for their actions domestically and internationally, capital was curbed and guided toward developmental goals, multiple national developmental and economic strategies were facilitated, international organizations provided advice rather than conditionality. This would not be a world transformer, but it can relieve some of the pressure on labour and facilitate the building of an alternative structure.

In agreement with Rob, Seeraj Mohamed from the Wits University said that there is a need for domestic and national regulation of financial institutions and instruments that dramatically reduce the size and influence of financial institutions, particularly banks; Regulate cross-border capital flows, curb speculation in currency markets

and trading of derivatives and an ensure the rights of communities, trade unions and other stakeholders in the decision-making of corporations.


Commentary

Tuesday,4 June (2013) marks the seventh anniversary of the death of the African National Congress (ANC) stalwart and

trade unionist, Mokebe Uriah Maleka.

Maleka was born on December 21, 1923 at Ga-Marishane village in Sekhukhuneland in the then Middelburg district of the eastern Transvaal. The area now falls under Limpopo province.

He went to school at Marishane Primary School up to Standard Five ( Now Grade 7).His principal was Cedric Namedi Phatudi who later became the Chief Minister of the Lebowa bantustan

from 1973 to 1987. He then went to Johanneburg where he attented the Methodist Church school at Albert street where he completed Standard Six (now Grade 8).After that , he proceeded to the later famous Madibane High School in Soweto where he completed Standard 8 (now Grade 10 – the then Junior Certificate – JC).

It was at this stage that Maleka became involved in the liberation struggle that he could not continue with schooling.In his words, “I became too engaged in politics and stopped schooling”.He joined the ANC in 1945. In 1946, he was employed by a mining company and later

participated in the 1946 mineworkers strike.The strike was organized by the African Mineworkers Union led by among others, J.B Marks.

In 1950 he participated in the May Day and the June 26 stay-at –home campaigns.In 1952 , he was employed in a furniture shop in Johannesburg.In the same year, he was elected the secretary of the ANC Mzimhlophe branch in Soweto.He met a fellow employee, Don Nkadimeng with whom he organized the activities of the ANC Youth League in the country.He also participated in the 1952 Defiance campaign in which Nelson Mandela was the volunteer-in-chief.He

sacTu and anc Veteran rememberedBy Kgoputjo Morewane


Commentary

was sentenced and jailed for this activity. In 1954 Maleka was elected secretary of the African Furniture, Mattress and Bedding Workers Union until 1964 when he left the country for exile.He was active in the trade union movement - particularly in the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) – and as a result he was dismissed from his job.

He then devoted all his time to the labour movement as a full-time official – secretary of the SACTU-affiliated African Furniture, Mattress and Bedding Workers Union until 1964 when he went into exile.In 1959 he was elected chairman of the ANC Mzimhlophe branch. His branch was very active in ANC campaigns - including the anti-pass campaign.

In 1960, Maleka was arrested for organizing mineworkers into a trade union.He was charged with instigating workers and sentenced to three months imprisonment.He appealed and later left the country in 1964 for exile while the appeal was still pending.

After the banning of the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) on 8 April 1960,he participated in the formation of uMkhonto we Sizwe - the military wing of the ANC – in 1961, and carried out a number of operations inside the country.He was arrested and detained thrice under the 90 days detention law.

While in Johannesburg,he had met his homeboy from Sekhukhuneland, Elias Mathope Motswaledi - who later became a Rivonia treason trialist with Nelson Mandela among others, with whom they founded uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the then military wing of the ANC and later became a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP).

He met and worked with ANC leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and the late Walter Sisulu. He was heavily involved in MK activities against the apartheid government and they targeted various government installations in the country.After the bombing of the Phomolong post office in Soweto and the Auckland Park

power station in Johannesburg, he went into exile.

He first went to Botswana and then to Zambia.From Zambia he moved to Tanzania.After a brief stay in Tanzania, he and other MK cadres were taken to Odessa,in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) , where he underwent military training.He specialized in Detachment Commander’s course for ten months.

He was in the same camp as cadres from Congo and Angola.Whilst in the Soviet Union,Che Guevara, the legendary Cuban revolutionary , visited their camp and addressed them.After completing his military training , he returned to an ANC camp in Kongwa , Tanzania.He later left Tanzania and returned to Zambia.

Maleka was later drafted into MK’s Luthuli detachment that went into a joint operation with the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (Zipra) forces, at Wankie/Sipolilo – in 1967/8 – in the then Rhodesia.The purpose of the operation was a plan by both the ANC and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) of Joshua Nkomo to topple Ian Smith’s Rhodesian regime.

During the Wankie/Sipolilo campaign, Maleka was given a mission to infiltrate South Africa as part of the Luthuli detachment.He then escaped and ended up in Botswana with other guerillas.The Botswana authorities arrested them.He was sentenced to three years and six months imprisonment in Botswana for importing weapons and entering the country illegally. Chris Hani, the slain SACP secretary-general was also among the prisoners of war with Maleka.While gaoled in Botswana, the United Nations intervened on their behalf and they were released after serving a year.

He was then deported to Zambia.While in Zambia; he was appointed a regional political commissar of MK. He also worked in the Ordinance Department of the ANC - smuggling weapons into South Africa “for the escalation of the armed struggle” he said.

In 1981 Maleka was appointed ANC

chief representative in Angola until 1989.While in Angola, he was “responsible for the bombing of Koeberg and Sasol” oil refinery in the country.As a result of an agreement between South Africa, Angola and Cuba – following the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in which South Africa was defeated – MK guerillas were moved to Zambia and Uganda.He stayed in Zambia until the unbanning of the libearation movements on February 2, 1990, by the then state president F W de Klerk.

In 1990 he was appointed a head of a transit camp of new MK recruits and for those who were going for military training and to school until 1991 when he was repatriated to South Africa.

Maleka worked in the ANC’s Department of Social Welfare after his return from exile.The department was responsible for the repatriation of refugees and the exiles.He suffered a stroke and retired from the department. He suffered another stroke in May 2006 and died on June 4 of the same year at the South-Rand hospital in Johannesburg.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela said - at the funeral of Maleka on Saturday ,June 10, 2006 at Ga-Marishane in Sekhukhuneland – that “I was recruited by this man (Maleka) to join MK”.

Maleka’s first wife Martha died in 1965.Three of his children were active in the liberation struggle, with one – Tito – being a former Robben Island prisoner where he shared cells with, among others, Herman Andima Toivo Ja Toivo , a Swapo (South West Africa Peope’s Organisation) leader from Namibia.

A book on Maleka is being written.

*Kgoputjo Morewane is a freelance journalist and researcher.

This commemorative feature article on Maleka was written to coincide with the 7th anniversary of his death – on 4 June 2013


Commentary

sa Varsities failing the Youth There are no research institutes within south african universities that are dedicated to proving how

nationalisation of mines or a radical form of land redistribution can be carried out efficiently in order

for the majority in the country to realise economic freedom in their lifetime,

writes Lukhona Afika Mnguni

The South African society is committing a grave offence towards the youth by neglecting the realm of Institutions of Higher Learning,

especially the public institutions such as Universities and Universities of Technology. When we scan civil society, we almost find no voices that play an activist role in regulating and holding the higher education sector accountable. Unlike with basic education where we see a plethora of organisations and voices, the higher education sector is left to its own devices.

This creates an impression that the higher education sector must self-regulate as does the media. Thus, we trust bodies such as the Council of Higher Education and Higher Education South Africa to play a role that holds not only the Minister of Higher Education accountable but also the various institutions in our country. However, this neglect by society is very dangerous for the development of our country. Perhaps, many amongst us citizens believe that they are unworthy to hold such institutions accountable – we perceive them as the epitome guardians of knowledge in our society – they intimidate us. If one is not a retired Professor, they feel there is little they can say that would be taken seriously about those who run these institutions. This evokes the centuries old question, “Who guards the guardians?” The role of formal education is also a centuries old inquiry of philosophical minds, whereby different theorists have framed their views on education in opposing narratives. Some believe that formal education is where the innocence, creativity and innovativeness of fresh minds gets killed; whilst others find it a necessary institutionalisation to nurture, organise and equip the mind with sufficient intellectual tools that complement the naturally endowed faculties of the mind. However, despite the disagreement, there is consensus

that education is political and has potential as Naom Chomsky puts it, to be used as a tool of indoctrination. Formal education will be aligned to the prevailing political economy order and whilst it might teach dissenting text, it does so for intellectual seduction and fascination – it hardly teaches rebellion against the status quo as a modus operandi. Formal education sings and preaches the gospel of capitalism’s resilience, the inevitability of the free market economy and the alarmism necessary whenever leaders in the developing countries evoke notions of self-reliance by rebranding concepts such as Pan-Africanism and radical socialism. The end of Cold War is sold as the ultimate defeat of an ideological orientation that differed with capitalism and thus all forms of alternatives to this capitalist economic order that creates evident wealth and well-being disparities are discredited. Of course, countries that faced the yoke of colonialism and apartheid in some cases like South Africa yearn for true economic freedom where the natural resources of these countries would truly benefit the local people. This remains a pipe dream for as long as the institutions of higher learning in such countries are rooted in Western knowledge without pursuing a paradigm shift.

There are no research institutes within South African universities that are dedicated to proving how nationalisation of mines or a radical form of land redistribution can be carried out efficiently in order for the majority in the country to realise economic freedom in their lifetime. Many institutions research on how to remodel capitalism to work better, on how to achieve efficient governance enough to attract better Foreign Direct Investments in order for the pillage of our resources to continue. Even the concepts of democracy that are championed by many research institutes carry the ideals and aspirations of the elite, with no inclination to be pro poor – because the poor do not have a stake

in those institutes. Can we then claim to be free when our institutions do not reflect a sense of being free from intellectual imperialism? Who is out there in our society fighting for Intellectual Freedom as the basis of all freedoms? There are radical research topics that students propose, which are often turned down by supervisors who are academics gatekeeping for the current political economy order.

The lack of civil society activism in the higher education sector means that there will never be a call for our universities to re-orientate their curriculum to address the needs of the South Africa we are building. Universities will continue to teach development, economics, anthropology with textbooks that are published in London and New York, devoid of context that is immersed in our realities, cultures and ways of life. We will continue to see the marginalisation of herbal medication as Western knowledge relies on laboratory tested medication and thus teaches only this in our medical schools.

As we commemorate June 16, 1976, which was an outcome of a process to resist a further oppression of black people through education, we are also reminded that it was 60 years ago that the apartheid government enacted the Bantu Education Act. The content of our education in institutions of higher learning continues to oppress the black majority as it suppresses research and protestant discourse that is aimed at advancing ways to realise the Freedom of black South Africans. Society must stand up and fight for emancipating education content in institutions of higher learning or else universities will be where our freedom as a nation is dealt a death blow – as majority of the educated and influential black South Africans will speak against notions of radical economic redistribution and land redistribution

This article first appeared on The Sowetan, 19 June 2013


“no, you can’t honour obama!” - says coalitiona coalition of civil society formations

led by cosaTu and the Boycott,

disinvestments and sanctions

movement held a massive protest

against the visit to south africa by the

President of the united states, President Barack obama.

thandi tshabalala, a Wits university Honours student for whom this was her first ever participation in a protest, give us firsthand account of the protest action.

Commentary

Friday, 28 June 2013, the people of Pretoria were greeted by placards bearing words such as “Obama, guilty

of war crimes”, “Close GITMO” which stands for the infamous Guantanamo Bay, “100 years of genocide in 100 countries, Rogue State”, “no oil here!” “America’s democracy stinks of hypocrisy” and T-shirts reading “No Obama you can’t! Listen to our conversations”.

As South Africa prepared for the arrival of the United States President, President Obama in the midst of former president Nelson Mandela’s ‘critical but stable’ condition at a Pretoria clinic, protestors from all walks of life including students, workers unions, Muslim communities as well as children and the unemployed were preparing to send a message to the US president who arrived later on the day in South Africa during his 3-day stay

as part of his Africa-tour.

As I was participating in the ‘No Obama’ March organised by the NoObama coalition against the Statesman’s visit to the Republic, I realised I found myself outside of my comfort zone as I was not too familiar with many of the songs they sang, many of the terms they used, and many of the problems they faced with those they were showing solidarity with across the world.

I found myself enjoying the experience as a way to learn more in a different manner, as I realised that these are real problems, affecting real people, real issues we have to face from the top political spaces right down to the grassroots level. My realisation came with a real bond and connection to the people striving for real change, thanks to COSATU, I have stepped out of my shoes and into another’s on

this historic day!

The coalition against the holding of the ‘Cuban 5’ in US prisons, US Foreign policy, and usage of drones; wars believed to be based on US national interest as well as the Israel-Palestine conflict among other issues, were what the words on the pickets and banners they held up were what continued to resonate through the songs that were sung and set the mood for the entire afternoon.

Soldiering through the blazing hot sun with no food and water provided (but lucky were those with money on them to stop by a local petrol station for food and water); the marchers were covered by the media from China’s CCTV to France TV right to our very own ETV from the start of the protest right through to the end.

While many welcomed the arrival of


Commentary

US President Obama, the No Obama coalition march demonstrated that it is not all who are pleased by his presence. Determined to have their our voices heard, demonstrators were symbolic in that the black cloths over their heads with orange overalls and ‘CLOSE GITMO’ on their backs and chests represented the controversial issue surrounding what was supposed to have been the closing down of the prison when President Obama came into office.

The black cloths and orange attire has become a symbol of the US run prison-throughout the world to change the conditions of the prison and subsequently have it shut down because of the human rights and justice issues surrounding the people held at the prison as every protest pertaining to the US around the world is greeted by these same symbolic images and demonstrations which illustrated South Africa’s commitment to global solidarity.

As we marched we held hands in solidarity to show that this was not a march to put forward different agendas and divided interests, but to show that these are demands that we all had in common in the interests of the working class. This is because of all types of groups that were present from Congolese groups to Cuban to Muslim groups, showing that although the issues we were addressing differed with experience,

we were all there for the same cause. We stopped, sang and walked again which became the trend every few minutes during the demonstration. The street was filled with dancing, chanting while interviews were taking place, while we stopped traffic in our white t-shirts reading “No Obama, you can’t! Listen to our conversations” and we were also greeted and supported by local residents from the area-their gestures and smiles indicated this.

The mood began to elevate as we approached medi-clinic where Former Presidents Nelson Mandela was being nursed back to health. “Our former President Nelson Mandela lies in good hands at the medi-clinic” one speaker shouted and the crowd began singing the famous “Nelson Mandela, there’s no one like him” song as we passed the clinic “we wish you a speedy-recovery Tata” one speaker chanted showing the unprecedented love and support all have for the international iconic hero.

During the march, I got the chance to meet students, workers, unemployed people as well as those opposing the Israeli/Palestine conflict in which they argued that the US continued to give arms to the on-going conflict. The atmosphere illustrated how real lives have been affected from the grassroots level and because their voices are not heard (one can argue) in the mainstream media, this demonstration was a good way for their messages to be heard.

This demonstration is a microcosm of the growing trend of marginalisation in South Africa of the poor and those whose lives can be changed. This march also illustrated the growing solidarity of civil society around the world-oil, drones, Guantanamo Bay, unfair trade practises and most importantly the Israeli/Palestine conflict.

Marching on, we passed the Somali, Algerian and Indian embassy as the atmosphere began to thicken as we got nearer as we approached the US embassy-a white blocked compound with satellites, diplomatic cars and high-tech security-the only embassy may I add made of concrete-one can argue that these are the implications of an insecure state even a peace-loving country such as ours-although with problems of our own, surely we’re not a threat.

As we walked towards the embassy we began to slow down and sing, the crowd spread onto the embassy turf as we were preparing for the next move towards the front of the embassy. The speaker directed us the right way; waves of singing graced the street, dancing from a few and holding hands as we moved forward.

The diverse crowd began to show itself as the Muslim community was given their time to pray for a few minutes in front of the embassy parking as we waited for the reading of the memorandum by the speakers who were also guests from all around the world. Upon their completion of their prayer, the Muslim community joined the rest of the crowd to listen to the reading of the memorandum and brief presentations by the guests.

Ironically during the guest speaking, the Congolese speakers were followed by the French speakers, observant of the context I thought back to colonialism and found that I never realised that all would come together in solidarity for one cause at some point. Arguably, the most symbolic part of the demonstration during the reading of the memorandum was the burning of the US flag which interrupted the reading for a moment.

However, this speaks to the nature of US power around the world where in many other demonstrations like ours, protestors take to the destruction of the superpowers flag. Perhaps we need to start interrogating the power, North-South relations, top-down approach, VETO system of the UN and call for more multilateralism and cooperation from all countries around the world, we know it can happen, we just need to make it happen, in solidarity… we can!


“labour Brokering is slavery.”- says workers By tsidie Nene

Commentary

On the 04 July 2013 Thursday morning, a group of workers from 3D Marketing Company, a labour brokering company

that supplies workers for major retail outlets. The workers sung struggle songs marching under heavy police presence, from their company to the offices of the department of Labour in Braamfontein.One of the marching workers said that “the company does not treat the workers equally and there is discrimination against female workers”.

They carried placards that read ‘Stop giving us peanuts’ and ‘down with R180 down, we are tired’.

One of the worker s that we interviewed, Jabulani Thomo said that he has been working for 3D marketing company for 11years and gets a mere R2800 before deductions. Fumingly he said “

I am struggling to pay my accounts and school fees for my children ; I demand an increase in my salary!” He also stated that the company does not give benefits,

they are told to buy uniform with the little wages that they receive. He requested that the owner, Mr Van Der Wall must be fired with immediate effect.

They handed over their memorandum of demands to the labour offices and peacefully dispersed. They futher demanded that 3D marketing answers to their demands with immediate effect or else they vowed to stop working until their demands met.

report CorruptionWebsite: www.corruptionwatch.org.za

sms: the word BriBe to 45142Phone: 011 447 1472

email: [email protected]


On the eve of the natural assembly’s sitting that was to amend the contentious labour reactions Act.

COSATU held a press conference that was addressed by workers that are employed in labour brokers.

Addressing the conference, COSATU second deputy president, comrade Zingiswa Losi clearly articulated COSATU’s longstanding resolution that “COSATU will continue to fight for the total banning of labour brokering, in a campaign which began back in 1999 when it was adopted at the launch of the federation’s ‘Job and Poverty’ campaign.” She further said “ our opposition to labour brokering is that it treats workers as commodities, who can be traded to generate a profit. That is why we make no apology for calling it human trafficking and a modern form of slavery.”

Workers also addressed the press and pleaded with the parliamentarians to make the right decision – ban labour brokers!

Feleni Vala who has worked for Gold Investment Corporation (GIC) in Sandton , employed through a labour broker called Energy at work said that the company she works for does not hire any workers on full time basis and the contract signed says that she can be dismissed any time. She further said the commission that was due to her was not paid, when she questioned the broker the reply was “ monies went to telephone bills.”

One teary eyed Palesa Mogotsi who is working for United Pharmaceutical Distributers (UPD) in Lea Glen Florida Employed through Vikela. She started working in 2008 in the Warehouse, she works night shift and hours of work are until the job is complete she exclaimed

that you do not leave until the job is finished.

Comrade Zingi concluded by sending out a very strong message that the struggle for a total ban goes on and “we shall mobilise even greater numbers on the streets until we put an end to this barbarous practice of labour brokering.”

Instead there would be a process of “relationship-building” between workers and management at the Legacy Resort near Sun City, Congress of SA Trade Unions’ North West secretary Solly Phetoe said in a statement.

This process would be facilitated by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration, it was agreed at a meeting on Wednesday.

Over 100 workers were charged with absenteeism when they attended a May Day rally in Moruleng last year. They also allegedly tampered with electrical connections at the resort.

Charges against North West hotel workers who attended a May Day rally last year have been dropped

Cosatu, the North West Tourism Board, and the SA Commercial, Catering, and Allied Workers’ Union intervened to

resolve the dispute.Phetoe described Wednesday’s meeting

between all the parties as successful.“Cosatu is happy that the parties were

able to resolve the impasse in an amicable way. For us this is a good starting point to build sound employer-employee

relations,” he said.Phetoe said that during the meeting,

Legacy Resorts said it planned to employ more people and play its role in helping eradicate poverty in the Moses Kotane municipality.

news in Brief

Bad news The wapping dispute

author: John land & graham dodkins isBn: 9780851247960 Publisher: spokesmanfirst Published: 2012 www.wellredbooks.net

‘We demand a total ban’ – says workers By tsidie Nene

chargers against resort workers dropped


Book Reviewpolitics/hiv/aids /the state

It was pleasing to read a book about the thousands of print workers who in the mid 1980s resisted Rupert Murdoch’s attacks on their jobs,

wages, working conditions and trade union bargaining rights. The miners’ strike of 1984-85 was still fresh in people’s minds when Murdoch moved against his London Fleet Street employees at the Times, Sunday Times, News of the World and the Sun. His motivation was simple - to maximise his profits.

The man who loved Maggie Thatcher prepared the ground well. Hiding exactly why he had purchased a new building at Wapping. Then installing and testing, with the assistance of - to their eternal shame the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union - new machinery to ensure he could keep publishing when his employees were left with no alternative except to take strike action to defend themselves. Within minutes of doing so, on January 24th 1986, Murdoch had sacked all 5,500 of them including the Bad News authors. John Lang and Graham Dodkins were amongst 600 clerical workers dismissed, half of whom were women. The pair, using interviews they conducted during the industrial dispute that raged for the following 13 months, have done an excellent job in bringing to life the courage and dogged determination of those who fought for their jobs and trade union rights. Doing so meant putting a picket on the Wapping plant. The hope

was that those inside would join them once they’d heard how their actions were damaging fellow workers and their families. No one thought it was going to be easy. But what most hadn’t considered was just how hard the Metropolitan Police, with Thatcher’s full support, would make it and the book recalls how many print workers and their supporter’s were harassed, attacked and criminalised. As Tony Benn writes in the foreword “I saw the police in action in a way that was violent and unjustified.”

The courts too were used against the strikers when their union, SOGAT [1], had its assets sequestrated. Funds for strike pay and campaigning activities were lost. Disturbingly too, in an industry where trade unionists at rival newspapers had historically shown solid support for one another this time there proved little appetite for a fight. Striker’s attempts to get their union to organise solidarity action failed. Meanwhile millions continued to buy Murdoch’s papers, a fact that often produced dismay when strikers’ saw someone reading a copy of the Sun.

At times it seemed that everything was against them, but the formation of dozens of support groups across Britain, thousands of invitations to speak at trade union meetings, huge collections and massive rallies that frequently hampered operations at Wapping showed that as long as the print workers’ battled on then there would

be plenty to give them their unqualified support. In the end it wasn’t enough. Redundancy money did little to cushion the blow, trade unions were wiped out at Wapping - even the EETPU’s scabbing didn’t get them a recognition agreement - and plenty hardly worked again. One local young lad was crushed to death under the wheels of a TNT lorry racing to deliver papers. No one was ever charged. This then is no story with a happy ending. Yet even at the end the majority of striking clerical workers couldn’t support a vote to call off the dispute with vast numbers abstaining. [2] And whilst no one liked losing there wasn’t anyone who regretted fighting for what should be everyone’s right - namely a decent paid job in a workplace where workers can join and be represented by a trade union. “This is a book that should be very widely read as it is relevant to those in current struggle.” Tony Benn.

[1] SOGAT is now part of the Graphical, Paper and Media industrial sector inside UNITE.

[2] When members of the TNL/NGN clerical chapels met on February 9th 1987 the vote to ‘consider the dispute at an end’ was accepted by 30 to 3 with an estimated two to three hundred abstaining.

Bad news The wapping dispute

author: John land & graham dodkins isBn: 9780851247960 Publisher: spokesmanfirst Published: 2012 www.wellredbooks.net


gallery

Pictures taken during the 10th neHawU national congress held at the Birchwood Hotel on 26th-29th June 2013


UnarMeD TrUTH

We have to transform the money to food bank

We have to transform the money to water bank

We have to transform the money to shelter bank

Until we recognise our abundance of natural and social resources

The artificial scarcities are used as baits for commercialisation and privatisation

Money is equal to debts

Why there’s unemployment, in a country of house shortage

There’s lot of crime, employ more people!

There is a lot of pollution, employ more people!

There is a need of more schools, employ more people!

What kind of country that has work but is jobless?

Work we have is only related to satisfying the profit needs of business.

As long employment is tied to somebody else’s profits, the work will not get done.

Maximisations of profits are forged regardless of the social and environmental cost.

The world monopoly is not based on human life, but based on money power.

Who profit from the profits?

We are working for; the (SBs) Shark Banks, loans with huge interests

Who are our masters, the corporations, the owners and controllers of our resources?

Who is our tax man, the government, still struggling for social distribution?

Sovereignty has been strangled

The debt is used to enslave society, economic warfare, Invisible war against the population,

Monetary system, policies are not design to serve the wellbeing of the people

Instead of weapons of mass destruction, we need weapons of mass construction

Unarmed truth and unconditional will of world in reality

Written Wordexpression/Freedom/Speech

Thobile Maso


GautengDumisani Dakile - Provincial [email protected]

Matserane Wa Mapena - Educator / [email protected]

Nomthunzi Mothapo - [email protected]

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Kopano Konopi - Educator / [email protected]

Ruth Mosiane - [email protected] O Box 11909Klerksdorp 2580 2nd Floor, NBS Building Cnr Church & Boom Street Klerksdorp Tel: 018 462 2406 / 465-3806Fax: 018 462 3993

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P O Box 471Salt River 2nd Floor , Community house41 Salt River RoadSalt River7925 Tel: 021 448-0045 /6Fax: 021 448-0047

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The shopsteward

Shopsteward Volume 22 No. 3 - Congress of South African Trade

Documents

Transcript of Shopsteward Volume 22 No. 3 - Congress of South African Trade