Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi always gets a standing ovation when he talks to metalworkers, and it was no different when he addressed Numsa’s national bargaining conference.
The applause was understandable, as Vavi struck the same chords as the giant union on a number of issues, such as fierce opposition to the National Development Plan (NDP) and the demand for the implementation of the economic clauses of the Freedom Charter.
He also sang from the same hymn sheet on minimum and living wages as well as state intervention in the economy through nationalisation of strategic sectors; job creation; decent work; a 40-hour working week; a ban on labour broking; and access to free quality education and healthcare.
He likened the bargaining conference to a conference of Cosatu that took place a few months ago and complimented delegates for attending to workers’ and community grievances in addition to developing “revolutionary programmes” and answering critics who have accused unions of not servicing their members.
In fact, from the conferences one can tell that workers have had enough. “The main message from our members is crystal-clear: workers have had enough of poverty wages, retrenchments, labour brokers, obscene levels of inequality and arrogant bosses,” he said.
To put an end to this sad chapter, Vavi proposed a “complete transformation of the economy and the labour market to drastically alter the power relations between workers and employers, in favour of the workers”.
State intervention in strategic sectors
Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim had said that states that had survived the recession, such as Germany and South Korea, were interventionist states with strong manufacturing industries.
Vavi agreed: “At the heart of these demands is our call for the radical restructuring of our economy, to create one based on manufacturing industry. The Industrial Policy Action Plan, the infrastructure development programme, and at least parts of the New Growth Path plan, if fully implemented, will put us on the road to the second phase of our transition,” he said.
“(But) we reject [the NDP’s] major economic and labour market proposals, which contradict other progressive government programmes such as the Industrial Policy Action Plan and which aim to entrench and further promote a multi-tier labour market and the downward variation of minimum standards of employment, and we will resist these anti-worker proposals from being implemented by government and the employers.
“The NDP’s economic and labour market proposals constitute a serious assault on workers. Cosatu will not support them, and in fact the very campaign we have launched to engineer our own Lula moment from below is actually a struggle against the current inappropriate growth path that reproduces unemployment poverty and inequalities. Implementation of those proposals, now or in the future, will constitute a biggest setback to our struggle for a better life for all.
“It is simply unfair for anyone, in particular our ally the ANC, to ask us to cooperate in our own oppression and exploitation, which is what the NDP’s major proposals are. The NDP represent a typical example of the chicken and a pig partnership in which the chicken offers to lay eggs for breakfast but asks the pig to donate bacon.”
He said Cosatu did not agree with false claims by bourgeois “experts” that minimum wages led to unemployment because most firms could not afford them. This was contradicted by international experience, and Cosatu will campaign for government to legislate minimum wages in 2014.”
In keeping with the heroes’ and heroine’s month, Vavi saluted Numsa’s “hall of fame”: Vuyisile Mini, Jabulile Ndlovu, Sam Ntuli, Phineas Sibiya, Simon Ngubane, Florence Mnikathi, Mbuyiselo Ngwenda, John Gomomo and Mthuthuzeli Tom.
Unmasking anonymous sources
“Sources: they are the deep, dark secret of the power of the press. Much of this power is exercised not by news institutions themselves but by the sources that feed them information,” writes media scholar Michael Schudson.
What if these sources were unmasked? Would they retain the same power or would they run to some dark corner whimpering, their tails between their legs?
After listening to Vavi’s speech, it seemed that the unmasking of media sources that have kept Cosatu in the headlines for weeks may happen soon.
Speaking about strengthening the federation, he said one of the ways to do this was to deal with the federation’s internal weaknesses while building on its strengths. What better place to start than dealing with the insiders who have been leaking confidential documents to the media?
He said the national bargaining conference was meeting at a time when the labour movement was facing serious internal and external challenges.
“Some are self-inflicted, while others are being pursued by our class enemies, who are trying to fatally weaken us.
That is why we condemn in the strongest possible terms the tendency of anonymous individuals within the federation to ‘leak’ to the media distorted and false information about decisions made in constitutional structures.”
Smash snake’s head
Vavi said the sources were especially targeting him. “The mandate of the sources is very clear: target the general secretary and smear him continuously in the newspapers until workers lose trust in him. After all, they know the only way to kill a snake is to smash its head. At this stage I am of the view that there will be no common ground [between Cosatu] with those leaders, whoever they may be.”
“Either they succeed in dividing and weakening Cosatu, or we expose them and crush them. The real reason why they won’t disclose their identities is that they act without any mandate from the members of their unions. Eventually we shall defeat these few individuals; we have no doubt about that.”
He accused the sources of fanning divisions in Cosatu and the broader movement. “What the sources are doing to this movement, which they clearly don’t know what it took to build, is worse than just committing treason. It forms part of the unfolding tragedy in our broader movement.
Divisions among the forces of change have moved focus away from driving real change – to defeat unemployment, poverty and inequalities and build a better life – into internal, unending strife that has left us incoherent and enjoying less and less confidence from the people we want to lead.”
“In the end, it is not even the parasitic sections of capital but the real ruling class that will be the main beneficiaries of these divisions the sources are promoting. There will be no implementation of the Freedom Charter or any second phase of a radical economic transformation if workers allow Cosatu to be divided and weakened.
Cosatu will no longer be able to fight for the total banning of labour brokering or fight against corruption, which is an elite programme to steal from the poor.”