SACP statement on the 10th COSATU Congress

24 September 2009

The SACP warmly congratulates our ally the Congress of the South African Trade Unions on the successful conclusion of its 10th Congress today. This was one of the most successful, tension-free congresses that allowed focused discussion on key policy issues and will go down in history as such. It was not characterised by diversions like the 9th Congress, but it focused on key challenges facing the working class.

We wish to congratulate the newly elected office bearers of COSATUand wish them well in their tasks. They are being elected in a very difficult period of the great recession and it is a period that is going to require focused leadership to mitigate the impact of the recession on the working class. But we are confident that they are up to the task and will rise to the challenges.

As the SACP we wish to assure this COSATU leadership that we will, together with the workers, be in the trenches with them to fight against capitalist exploitation, outsourcing, and retrenchments and deepen working class power and hegemony in society.

We especially welcome the many progressive resolutions that have been taken at this conference.

We agree with COSATU and the President of the ANC that there is a new threat to the unity of our movement posed by a tendency that wants to steal our movement for narrow business interests. As we said in our input to the 10th COSATU Congress, our movement and our alliance are not for sale. Working jointly with COSATU, we need to do more to disrupt the unity between public service and business. We will take up this struggle together with our general campaign against corruption in society as a whole, through our 2009 Red October Campaign.

The SACP has noted the proposals contained in the Green Paper on National Planning Commission. We will study and take into consideration the proposals made at this congress about the character, mandate and composition of the Planning Composition as contained in the discussion document.

We wish to highlight the following resolutions that are of interest to us:

1. The first one is on the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHI) which will form part of our 2009 Red October Campaign. Together with COSATU we will leave no stone unturned in order to make sure that NHI is indeed implemented with and for workers and the poor.
2. We wholeheartedly support COSATU on its resolution for the the total ban of labour brokers which, as we have said before, are nothing else but modern day slave traders. Labour brokering undermines the victories that the workers have scored as contained in the Labour Relations Act, Basic Conditions of Employment Act and further violates decent international labour standards. We agree with COSATU that the struggle against labour brokers is at the heart of the campaign for the creation of decent work as contained in the ANC electoral manifesto.
3. We also welcome the resolution on the proposed establishment of a workers’ bank. For us this marks a momentous milestone in the SACP-led financial sector campaign for banks that serve the workers and the poor of our country.
4. Furthermore we welcome the resolution on the strengthening of accountability of trustees on workers’ pension and retirement funds. This will go a long way in giving practical meaning to our call that workers should be directly controlling their own retirement and pension funds, including where they are invested.

We wish to assure COSATU that in the SACP they have a dependable ally and a true vanguard of South Africa’s working class.

Issued by the SACP.

Malesela Maleka
SACP Spokesperson – 082 226 1802