Johannesburg, 18 May 2000
Comrade Honorary President,
Comrade ZZ (Zola Zembe – Archie Sibeko),
The two Presidents,
The General Secretaries,
The national and provincial leadership of SATAWU and TGWU,
Comrade delegates
The SACP is deeply honoured for the invitation to address this Merger Congress. On behalf of the Central Committee and the entire membership of the SACP, I bring you revolutionary and solidarity greetings.
This Congress should be used as an opportunity to focus on the concrete challenges facing the working class within the context of defending and deepening our democracy and the struggle to build people’s power and socialism in our conditions; and particularly the challenges facing transport workers at the present moment.
1. BUILD AND DEEPEN WORKING CLASS UNITY AND POWER
This merger congress is an important contribution to COSATU’s long standing aim of one industry – one union!
We are calling upon workers to strengthen their unions. Let us ensure that service to workers is provided on an ongoing basis and that workplace union structures are strengthened. We have to strengthen COSATU and its affiliates by strengthening our current organisation, and recruiting other workers not previously organised into COSATU. We should not allow the labour movement to be weakened. Organised workers are the leading detachment of the working class as a whole. Let us also build worker unity more than ever before, and extend it across workers in all union federations.
COSATU must organise marginalised workers into its ranks and work amongst the Coloured, Indian and white working class.
Marginalised workers include young workers, domestic workers, farm-workers and casual workers. For SATAWU this task means the unionisation of taxi drivers into revolutionary trade unionism.
As the SACP we regard the new SATAWU as an historical continuation of, and real living tributes to your predecessors - SARHWU, BLATU, TATU and TGWU. Throughout their history, all these unions were actively involved in the economic and political struggles of the black working class. The SACP also views this Congress as a tribute to all those men, and women, black and white who sacrificed and suffered to mobilise and organise transport workers. Here we refer to heroes like Johnny Mtini, Ray Alexander, Zola Zembe, Lawrence Ndzanga, SARHWU members massacred in Germiston in 1987 and elsewhere during the union struggles of the 1980s.
The history of SATAWU, like all the history of South African trade unions, has its roots buried in the past. The first forty years of the twentieth century saw a rapid expansion in African wage labour, first on the land, then in the mines and in service occupations and finally in the manufacturing sector. The apartheid government policies discriminated against black labour, and wages and work conditions were poor. White trade unions failed to support African workers and a number of African trade unions were founded but these were unrecognised and weak and tended to be short lived. As we attend your founding congress today, the SACP is indeed proud that it also played its role in laying the foundations for the building of a strong and progressive trade union movement and in the founding of African unions.
In short, this is the history and background of SARHWU and other early unions and this is the history, which is represented in this merger congress today. This is the history, which will take the new and stronger SATAWU to meet challenges of capitalist globalisation in a new century.
2. DEFEND JOBS FOR THE ERADICATION OF POVERTY
This Congress comes in the wake of one of the largest worker actions ever in our country. Over the last few months we have seen hundreds of thousands of workers coming out in the streets of all our major cities and towns to highlight the scourge of job losses and retrenchments, culminating in the general strike of May 10.
As the SACP we firmly reject all accusations that struggles by workers are disruptive to our economy. It is not the general strike by workers that is disruptive, but the ongoing investment strike by the bosses in this country. What is even more disruptive to our economy are retrenchments and hunger, as this weakens the capacity of the working class – the overwhelming majority of our people - to participate in the rebuilding of our economy.
A loss of a job means poverty, as a job is the only means of livelihood for millions of our people. Workers are being asked to do the impossible. To watch their jobs being destroyed so that they will then get credit for not being selfish. Who in his or her right mind will allow himself/herself to be thrown into poverty so that they are given credit as patriotic? The hypocrisy in all the ideological attacks on the working class is that in fighting to defend their jobs workers are accused of being “selfish”, “lack realism”, “cannot adjust to the realities of globalisation”, yet those who are retrenching workers day and day out, and taking their capital out of the country and listing in the London Stock Exchange, are not subjected to similar attacks. Yet, destruction of jobs, investment strike and divesting, are the most unpatriotic acts in the context of deepening poverty and joblessness in our country.
Much as these job losses affect all of us, but it is women who are affected most. They are the ones who occupy the most vulnerable positions, which are low paying and are easily casualised and outsourced. It is also women who have to tender after the sick, the unemployed and starving children. Therefore for us the struggle against job losses and for job creation is a struggle for gender equality and women’s emancipation.
It is black workers who are bearing the brunt of joblessness and unemployment. This simply means that we cannot really talk of eradicating racism in our country unless we defend the black working class and the poor, who constitute the overwhelming majority of the people of our land. Similarly this means that the national question can never be resolved unless it is simultaneously tackled together with class inequalities and gender inequalities. The fundamental basis of racism in our country is the economic inequalities.
The success of the general strike is a clear and strong message to the bosses that they must meet the COSATU demands to stop job losses. It is also a strong and clear message to our own government on the urgency to take urgent steps to review and amend the relevant legislation and reviewing our economic policies to create new, quality and sustainable jobs. We welcome the Minister of Labour’s commitments in reviewing the relevant legislation to deal with some of these matters.
Yes our economy has to be restructured, but we reject the assumption that it is the working class alone, which must bear the costs of that restructuring. We say it is the bosses and the rich who must make more sacrifices to restructure an economy, which benefited and continues to benefit them most.
3. NEED FOR A FUNDAMENTAL REVIEW OF OUR ECONOMIC POLICIES
For the SACP perhaps the most important message and challenge we bring to this founding Congress is the need for a fresh look at our economic policies in the light of the deepening unemployment crisis, failure to increase domestic investment, as well as the very low levels of foreign direct investment. In our forthcoming Strategy Conference at the end of May we will attempt to re- open the national debate on our economic policies with a view to take forward our development programme in the light of the crisis we face.
It is the SACP’s contention that one of the major weaknesses in our economic strategy as a country is a lack of an integrated and coherent industrial development strategy. The explanation to this is that in seeking to implement the RDP, we only focused on one aspect of the RDP, the development of a macro- economic strategy, outside of and without an industrial development strategy. The core foundation of the RDP was that of linking reconstruction and development. This is in contrast to the argument that growth is needed before development is possible, an approach, which would leave intact the severe regional, racial, and gender and structural imbalances that characterise the present economy. To prevent this from happening, reconstruction and development must be an integrated process. Such integration must be basic to all economic policy. This is where the public sector must play a major enabling role since it cannot be expected that the market will make such a structural transformation on its own. Yet without such a transformation democracy will not survive, because socio-economic stability will not be achieved (RDP Base Document, p.82)
The link between reconstruction and development was to be a comprehensive industrial strategy premised largely on growing the economy through a domestic infrastructural programme aimed at meeting the basic needs of the majority of our people. Because of this, GEAR was bound to be a deficient macro-economic strategy as it was not responding to a domestic and state driven industrial strategy. Instead the emphasis of GEAR seemed to focus our hope and creating a macro-economic climate for attracting foreign direct investment, without the development of a coherent domestic industrial strategy, which would act as the foundation for attracting FDI and public-private partnerships. This is where, as the SACP, we believe we should be directing our efforts at: The need to urgently development such a coherent industrial strategy, to which a macro- economic policy must aim to reinforce.
The reality we are facing today is that sadly there has been no major FDI flows. The majority of incoming capital flows continue to be hot money. Much of the actual FDI has been directed towards mergers and acquisitions or partial privatisations (e.g. Telkom and SAA). It is these realities and shortcomings in the implementation of the RDP that the SACP believes we should immediately focus our attention on. We also hope that the NEDLAC executive committee meeting to be held tomorrow will not deal with peripheral issues, but direct itself squarely to this fundamental relook at our economic policies.
In taking this debate forward the SACP suggests a process that could take us closer to jointly tackling our economic woes.
Convening of sectoral summits
The Job Summit resolutions had taken us closer to the issue of the development of an industrial strategy and the identification of obstacles to job creation in order to stem job losses and revitalise our economy. Unfortunately it has too long to convene these summits. Therefore we should use the next three months to convene these summits, with a clear objective of development of a coherent industrial strategy with a view to infrastructural growth and development of our country.
Such a focus on infrastructural investment and growth will require, amongst other things, greater industrial policy clarity, alignment of fiscal and monetary policies towards this objective, and much greater strategic co- ordination of public capital resources – state departments and key parastatals. For instance we have an unhealthy situation where there is no real clarity as to the actual relationship between the department of transport and the role or restructuring of Transnet.
The issue of the restructuring of state assets should also be located within the framework of a co-ordinated industrial strategy premised on harnessing domestic capital towards infrastructural development. Our concern as the SACP has been that the restructuring of state assets is also taking place outside of this broader framework. As a result there is a very unhealthy state of affairs in many of the key parastatals. Firstly, there is still too much turf competition, and key parastatals are paralysed and confused by persisting rumours of impending privatisations and a general climate of uncertainty. Secondly, sections of management are taking decision on privatisation, take packages and then wait outside to buy those privatised or outsourced entities. This practice seem to be very rife in outsourcing at local government level, which amounts to the looting of the state and its assets.
As a key component of this strategic refocusing of our economy should be a discussion and broad agreement on the strategic role of the public sector and the key areas in which the state must play a leading role. The Alliance has a crucial role to play in this regard. There must be a broad common agreement around which areas the state should keep control. Our 1999 Strategy Conference raised this issue very sharply, and concretely outlined the key areas in which the state should be the preferred service provider, and therefore playing a leading role. These areas included: Education, Health, Water, municipal services, central banking, most forms of public transport, including roads, railways and pipelines and telecommunications, electricity supply, mineral rights and the creation of a housing parastatal targeted particularly at low- cost housing. It is within this framework that the role of the private sector should be located, the type of restructuring of state assets needed and the types of public private partnerships we need to forge. Until and unless the Alliance frankly and openly discuss and debate these issues and reach a common understanding we are going to continue to have unnecessary squabbles and tensions. e. It is also within the context of the above framework that the National Framework Agreement must be renegotiated, based on very clear industrial policy and strategic focus areas by the state.
We call on all of your comrades to use the occasion of this important founding Congress to debate these issues. We believe that your views will also be presented at our Strategy Conference, as well as find their way into the ANC NGC in July, as well as into the COSATU Congress in September.
4. KEY STRATEGIC CHALLENGES FOR THE LABOUR MOVEMENT
If the above framework is accepted as the basis for a renewed national economic debate and a framework for refocusing our economy, certain key challenges arise out of this for the new SATAWU and the labour movement as a whole.
The need to urgently work towards the convening of a transport sectoral summit. Such a summit in your sector must be premised on the achievement of three interrelated tasks. Firstly, it must be the development of an affordable and accessible public transport system. We need to place this issue high on the agenda as the RDP and the ANC’s Election Manifesto did. Secondly, such a summit must focus on the strengthening of the rail sector both domestically and in the region, as part of infrastructural investment and creating conditions for growth and jobs. Thirdly, the imbalance between the road and rail transport must be corrected. Spoornet is experiencing major problems not least because it subsidises its competitor, private road haulers, who are also carrying unacceptably high tonnage which damages our roads that have to be repaid through levies on liquid fuels, also paid by Spoornet.
Related to the above and a matter that requires urgent attention is the organisation of taxi drivers. Comrade President, the continued problems in the taxi industry is subjecting working class communities to perpetual dangers and violence in our townships and roads. The current situation in Khayelitsha is just but one example of this, drivers shooting at other drivers, and communities being attacked by sections of the workers themselves. The solid organisation of taxi drivers is a key intervention that could take us a long way in resolving this crisis facing black working class communities, as a basis for broader working class solidarity and jointly tackling the need for an efficient public transport system. No other union is better able to lead this organisational crusade other than the new and stronger SATAWU.
For the SACP the key political and strategic challenge for a transport union in our midst is that of defending and strengthening the public sector to play a leading role in the transformation of our society. This task becomes even more pressing given the current global context whereby the state has been targeted by neo-liberalism for downsizing and its role being limited to the creation of a climate for private sector expansion. The NFA becomes one concrete instrument through which the public sector can be defended and extended.
Let COSATU, the SACP and the ANC and other progressive organisations to convene People’s and Workers’ Forums Against Job Losses and Poverty between now and July. These forums must be held in townships, rural areas, informal settlements, the cities and wherever our people are in order to report back, consult our people and plan the way forward in transforming our economy in favour of the working class and the poor. These Forums must act as revolutionary councils, basically tools in the hands of our people to shape and drive our economic transformation. Without these Forums, we face the danger of mobilisation of the unemployed by reactionary forces against COSATU and the Alliance as a whole. This should be seen as part of taking forward the mobilisation of the working class to defend jobs and tackle poverty. In this regard, the SACP will mobilise its structures across the country to convene these People’s and Workers’ Forums.
Part of the struggle to strengthen the working class and turn the economy around, we need new and creative ways of challenging the neo-liberal ideology. One of the very concrete proposals the SACP is making is that it is time that we establish a think-tank for the working class in this country. All major think-tanks are of a reactionary and anti-working class nature e.g. The Race Relations and the Helen Suzman Foundations. We need to strengthen our policy capacity for policies favouring the working class. The SACP will be approaching the unions with very concrete proposals in this regard. Related to this task of an ideological challenge to neo-liberalism we need to really focus our attention on ensuring that the public broadcaster gives much more coverage to working class issues and struggles than it presently does. We must ensure that the current restructuring of the public broadcaster does indeed address this deficiency. This should be seen as part of deepening the working class voice as part of the struggles to deepen the NDR. As a slight departure, It is as part of this challenge to neo-liberalism that the SACP is today picketing against Privatisation Africa 2000 Conference being held in Sandton, as it is such measures that are setting up Africa as for sale, to be plundered by transnational corporations at the direct expense of the poor. This Privatisation Africa 2000 Conference is a display of private capital’s arrogance in ignoring the real challenge of the continent. We say, Africa is not for sale. We say – defend, extend and strengthen the public sector.
5. BUILD A STRONG SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY
Once more let me use this platform to call on the workers of this country to redouble their efforts in building a strong SACP. We have to rebuild this precious organ to be the prime political representative of the working class. We need workplace units, we need support from the workers to realise our dream of deepening democracy as a foundation for socialism. We want to build the capacity for socialism, momentum towards socialism and elements of socialism here and now! The defence of the public sector, the restructuring of state assets in favour of the working people and the poor, should all be seen as critical components of building elements of socialism now!
As the leading political force of the South African working class, the SACP calls on all workers and the poor to build and join its residential, industrial and work-place branches and units. Workers need a strong SACP and the SACP needs revolutionary workers to fight for socialism.
We hope this Congress will develop a specific SATAWU contribution to building the SACP.
With these words we wish you a successful Merger Congress.
BLADE NZIMANDE GENERAL SECRETARY SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY