To the 4th National Congress of the Police, Public and Civil Rights Union Badplaas, 13 June 2001
Leaders of POPCRU,
Leaders of Alliance,
International Guests,
Comrade Delegates
We meet today four months away from the Pietersburg Summit on the Transformation and Restructuring of the Public Service. This was a Summit with significant meaning directly to the Police, Public and Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) and all public sector workers. POPCRU has experienced at first hand the challenges of public service transformation and restructuring.
For us as the SACP this Summit represented a milestone in that it laid the basis for a common approach and consensus on the public sector, its transformation and restructuring. The task is upon all of us now to ensure that whilst we reverse the slow undermining of the democratic state, we actually consolidate it so that it can play its role in the social and economic development of our country and our communities.
Given this challenge of public sector transformation, the SACP appreciates the honour and pleasure to be part of this Congress. It is workers organised under COSATU who are the leading detachment of the working class and it is this detachment that can lead the national democratic revolution to its logical conclusion. It is organised workers which are critical in driving public service transformation. The SACP hopes that in your deliberations at this Congress you have borne in mind these massive political responsibilities facing you as organised workers in the immediate task of public service transformation, in the current period broadly and struggles over the content, trajectory and direction of our National Democratic Revolution (NDR) which must lay the basis for the socialist transition itself.
It is for this reason that I am here and bring revolutionary greetings to you from the Central Committee and the entire membership of the SACP.
1.BUILDING WORKING CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS AND PUTTING MEMBERS FIRST
Going into the history of POPCRU briefly, we note that when POPCRU joined COSATU in 1997, having been established in the height of our people's onslaught against apartheid in 1989, the police and prison sectors had no tradition of organisation. Like all unions in their first ten years, POPCRU was still grappling with issues of policy consensus, unity around leadership and a political programme to build POPCRU in order that it achieves its objectives.
It is these struggles which now seem to have consolidated POPCRU into a fairly stable organisation. Despite this, POPCRU still has to become stronger, consolidate its service to members and entrench itself fully in the police sector through building worker unity across the union divide and eventually addressing the question of unity of trade unions working in this section of the public sector.
An often under-stated challenge facing all unions in general is that of building the political and class-consciousness of the working class. Ideological training, which includes political and trade union education, of union members is an important task. In the current context, a worker who is not class-conscious is dangerous to the revolution. An un-politicised worker can undermine the very basis of a revolutionary trade union. As Lenin said, there can be no revolutionary movement without a revolutionary theory. There can be no revolutionary COSATU or POPCRU without a class-conscious membership and cadreship grounded in current struggles on the content, direction and trajectory of our national democratic revolution.
All unions must deepen class-consciousness and build the capacity of cadres to engage complex political debates and struggles in our country and world. We need to develop cadres with the political, organisational and technical skills and knowledge needed to advance the struggles of the working class. POPCRU, like all other COSATU affiliates, must prioritise political education to give depth and strength to the union at all levels.
A conscious worker will understand and deepen the role, nature, character and ultimate aims of revolutionary trade unions. A conscious worker will be appropriately armed to defend the organisation from any form of attack or aggression with extreme vigilance and revolutionary vigour.
The SACP calls on POPCRU to intensify political and ideological work amongst its mass membership in order to develop confidence, deepen class-consciousness and build working class hegemony. In this regard, the SACP is available for joint political education work.
This continuous ideological training, political education, conscientising, confidence building, training and skilling of workers must necessarily include the arts and traditions of trade unionism, the Congress movement, the Party and revolution. If there is a lack or failure to ensure political education in the trade union movement it is our collective failure as the leadership of the Alliance and not just that of COSATU leadership. In consolidating and building a stronger and better POPCRU, we cannot over-emphasise this task of building class and political consciousness of workers through political and trade union education.
This working class consciousness and leadership development is cardinal in the provision of quality service to members. Servicing of members is the lifeblood of the union and advances our revolutionary objectives. By servicing members the union will earn respect, admiration, hegemony and loyalty from its members, families and communities of members, and society as a whole. Organising, defending and servicing members can only be done through building united, strong, independent, progressively orientated trade unions that look after the interests of workers, the broader working class and the poor generally. We need to go back to the basics on how to deliver proper and efficient services to union members. The concept of quality service to union members must be some basic and human core values and principles. How responsive are our unions in dealing with shop-floor issues? Why should a worker lay a complaint with a union and 3 months down the line the union has not dealt with the case? We receive many reports about how sloppy some of our shop-stewards and union offices are in dealing with enquiries and complaints of workers. What worth is the union to the worker then? We cannot demand respect and to be listened to by the bosses if we ourselves unions do not service our members through courtesy, communication, credibility, security and producing tangible results for workers on a daily basis.
Servicing members is linked to the other broader challenges of recruitment of unorganised workers; driving transformation in the police and correctional services; continuous integration of police with the communities they serve; and appropriate service delivery to communities. We cannot seek to recruit unorganised workers without servicing our current members. We cannot even dare to hope to drive public service transformation if we do not service our own members. How do we win the trust of communities and serve them appropriately through members who are appropriately served by their own union? Service delivery to union members is the twin task to the task of building working class consciousness we have referred to above. It is only a conscious worker and union leader and official who will do everything in their power to meet the needs of union members first and foremost.
2. THE ROLE OF PROGRESSIVE TRADE UNIONS IN THE CURRENT PERIOD
We emphasise the tasks of building working class consciousness and service delivery to union members because of the difficult challenges facing progressive trade unions in the current period. This can sound like a cliché. But it is our task as revolutionaries to constantly revisit and clarify ourselves on the role of the progressive trade union movement in South Africa in the context of broader transformation struggles.
Firstly, we are talking about the role of progressive trade unions in the midst of a complex, complicated and often contradictory South Africa transition in the context of a dominant and globalising capitalist political economy. This capitalist political economy is ruthless and is radically altering the labour market and relationships between workers and capital. The effects of this globalisation process have been felt by industrial and public sector workers the world over. In the South African context the pain of this capitalist driven restructuring has been felt twice over, as it were. The bulk of the negatively affected workers, mainly Black people, have been recently politically liberated only to find themselves under a ruthless economic assault.
In other words, the transition to democracy has precipitated a period where the working class has appeared to win political space only to be prohibited from utilising it to improve its conditions. In the first instance this is because of the dominance of the advocates of the neo-liberal dominated globalisation process, who impose policy models on developing countries.
Whilst this is the case we cannot, however, downplay the uniqueness of our revolution. One of the unique features of the South African revolution at this point in time is that the national liberation movement still enjoys, by far, the support of the broadest range of progressive forces. At the centre of this movement is the Tripartite Alliance buttressed by a strong and powerful trade union movement and a popular Communist Party. This Alliance stands together with a whole range of other progressive student, church and other social formations and enjoying a two-thirds majority of South Africa's electorate.
Given this unique context, as conscious revolutionaries we will understand that one of the key tasks of the alliance as a whole is to strengthen the progressive trade union movement. The trade union movement can only be strengthened by ensuring that it has a privileged relationship with its allies and with government. This means that ANC and SACP cadres should join the unions and support their struggles, even when it seems that there are contradictions between these interests and the broader interests of the movement. These contradictions need to be resolved, but in a manner that strengthens the trade union movement as a whole. An unhealthy tendency has developed of criticising the trade union leadership, whether collectively or as individuals. The argument is often heard these days that "this is not the COSATU we know". This political opportunism, dressed up as revolutionary wisdom, must be exposed for what it is. This opportunism could unwittingly lead to weakening of the organised and leading section of the South African working class and thus the blunting of the revolutionary edge of our current struggles.
It is a conscious revolutionary trade union movement with a conscious and advanced cadre which will be able to take up shop-floor issues and broader political issues of the community. COSATU has been able to do this and this is a different character to most trade union movements. However we have heard the argument that COSATU is not a political party and must narrowly focus on shop-floor issues. This argument ignores the history of the progressive labour movement in our country. Unions and their political cadreship have a political role to play in building unions, taking forward working class struggles and contributing to our transformation. Political cadres of unions are essential to the unions, since they constantly bring a political consciousness to organised workers and reproduce revolutionary unionists.
Critical in this regard is the trade union movement's role in advancing, deepening and defending the NDR through strengthening the Alliance by building the ANC and the SACP and ensuring that the working class leads these organisations. At the heart of this issue lies the issue of the unions using their power to influence the Alliance and broader society towards their positions. Unions have a critical role to play in developing working class biased and orientated policies and having these adopted as the broad policy positions of the Alliance to influence the transformation of society.
Arising from the issues regarding the role of the progressive trade union movement, it is important to consider what the specific tasks of the progressive public service unions are. Public sector unions are unique in that they organise workers within the state. They therefore operate in an environment that is not one in which profits are generated, but in which public resources are consumed in the delivery of services and in the form of transfers to those deemed needy. In other words, they compete for resources with the general public. This does not mean that public service workers should not be paid a living wage. And thus the objective interest of public sector workers and unions in the mobilisation of more resources from private capital for the public good and service!
Therefore, despite their distinctiveness in terms of location, public sector unions cannot be separated from the rest of the trade union movement and the struggles of the broader working class and their connections to the struggles against capitalism.
The best way for public service workers and their unions to position themselves is to be the leaders in creating a new ethos, work ethic and culture in the public service. If workers make claims for resources while delivering services of a poor quality they will understand why the public are not sympathetic to their plight. If however the public feel that public service workers are trying, they will even overlook the effect of a lack of resources on the services delivered. If we, as public sector workers, fail to put the people the people first and ensure that we play our role in building the public sector and public service delivery, then our arguments for the consolidation, extension and strengthening of the public sector will fall flat on their face and those who seek to emaciate the state into a lean and mean state will be strengthened. A conscious public sector worker understands this revolutionary task of making a personal contribution to the consolidation of the public sector.
Recent initiatives by COSATU public service unions on service delivery are important and must be extended. For example, SAMWU mobilised the community in Winterveldt against a plan to privatise the provision of water. SAMWU, the community, the Rand Water Board and the municipality worked on a joint project to keep water provision in the public sector. The community agreed to keep consumption at affordable levels, paying for services by households who can afford and end illegal connections. Now the entire community has water at affordable prices and revenue collection has increased four times. Some of the revenue will be used to extend water provision and sanitation to neighbouring villages. In other words, quality service from the public sector depends on involvement of workers and communities and cannot come from the top only.
3. FIGHTING CORRUPTION AND CRIMINALITY
Another major task for public sector unions and all unions is the need for them to lead a concerted anti-corruption campaign that must include whistle-blowing on corrupt officials, monitoring companies for corruption, and ensuring offenders are prosecuted. The beneficiaries of corruption are none other than the elite. They benefit at the expense and detriment of our people, at the expense of a better life for our people.
A conscious worker cannot be and must not be complicit in corruption. A conscious and revolutionary worker must fight for a new morality based on the people. Therefore, workers have a revolutionary duty to fight and expose corruption without fear and favour inside and outside our movement, our government and the private sector. But our fight against corruption is not opportunistic and aimed at scoring political points as some reactionary forces have now made a career of. Ours is a principled fight which seeks to undermine the rationale on which capitalism is based. The SACP calls on all POPCRU members and public sector workers to fight corruption and all its manifestations in order to safeguard our revolution and its objectives. We call for a new POPCRU cadre who must hate and fight corruption wherever it takes place.
Related to corruption in our society is the scourge of crime and criminality which basically derives from the combined legacy of apartheid and capitalism in our country. As the SACP we understand that the basis of crime and corruption in our country is a combination of unlimited greed by the bosses, poverty and inequalities which afflict the majority of our people. In the long term, corruption and criminality must be undermined and reversed through equitable socio-economic development in our country. However, as the SACP we cannot keep silent on crime and criminality hoping that with socio-economic development we will deal with corruption and crime.
High levels of crime and corrupt officials are ravaging our country in the criminal justice system. But most of our media analysis on crime is insufficient and perpetuates the racist myth that crime emanates from poor black people without actually providing us with a scientific analysis of crime in general and in particular those crimes committed by higher echelons of society. Taking hijacking as an example, it is not the unemployed young man who benefits from car hijacking. It is the hidden boss who benefits from the sale of hijacked car! Once this young man is arrested, in the first instance he could get off through corrupt officials in the criminal justice system. In the second instance, he may spend too long periods awaiting trial, without legal advice and overcrowding in our prisons. Many victims of rape report how corrupt officials in the criminal justice system have not justly dealt with their cases. We mention these examples in order to emphasise one central point - corruption and criminality in our country affect poor and black people the most and in the media hype this is not addressed. Corruption and criminality do not serve our country's interests whatsoever.
It is for this reason that the SACP calls on POCPCRU to play a leading role in fighting criminality and transforming the criminal justice system in our country. Linked to this must be the mobilisation of our people in their numbers and as direct actors against criminality. Community Policing Forums are critical in this regard. But we cannot allow these Forums to be dominated by elite and conservative forces which have narrow interests which could possibly undermine our objectives to transform the police service into a people's police service. Therefore a POPCRU-led campaign against criminality must be based on the building of progressive and popular Community Policing Forums. A new and conscious POPCRU cadre will understand and actively build such a campaign against corruption and crime.
Already our reference point could be the 1997 anti-crime campaign initiated by POPCRU which was excellent in terms of mobilising public support. It was an example of how organised workers can deepen their organic links with communities and specifically how the police can be integrated with the communities they serve.
4. BUILD A PEOPLE'S ECONOMY
The most important platform on which to deepen the NDR in the current period is that of economic transformation in favour of the working people and the poor.
The impact and popularity of campaigns against job losses, against neo-liberal restructuring of the labour market and for the transformation and diversification of the financial sector are an indication of the potential for the mobilisation of ordinary people against imperialist and capitalist domination, thus adding significantly to mass-driven campaigns to build an economy oriented towards serving the mass of ordinary working and poor people - a people's economy.
In arguing and struggling for a people's economy we cannot underestimate the deepening of neo-liberalism of economic restructuring in our own country. This neo-liberalism seeks to weaken and destroy the working class as a basis upon which to grow our economy in order that the bosses maximise their profits. Key in its strategy is the portrayal of the black working class as a spoilt and selfish elite which acts in its narrow interests at the expense of the unemployed. They go on to say that the black working class must not expect "too much" and that it must sacrifice itself through retrenchments because of possible employment in the future. What twisted logic!
Our local brand of neo-liberalism aggressively promotes a black African petty bourgeois agenda through a rapid and state-dependent accumulation regime which is also characterised by a parasitic and junior relationship to white capital in our country. This Afro neo-liberalism defines black economic empowerment to the creation of a black capitalist class through, amongst other things, the privatisation of state assets and the downsizing of the public sector as a means for this rapid capital accumulation.
A critical part of building a people's economy is the rolling back of private capital and the consolidation of the public sector. Over the last five years, we have seen attempts at restructuring of state assets. By and large neo-liberal forces as discussed above have dominated the debate on this restructuring. But some recent experiences from state assets' restructuring vindicates the SACP approach for the strengthening of the public sector, and the SACP call for a comprehensive review of the entire process of restructuring of state assets thus far in order we, as the alliance, can emerge with a consensus and common programme on how to restructure state assets and advances our objectives of building a developmental state which intervenes in the economy on behalf of poor and working people.
For example, what is the relationship between restructuring in Telkom and retrenchments? What has been the role of the state compared to that of management in the restructuring of these parastatals? How do we understand the action by Telkom management going to court over restructuring facing government and the union as opponents? What skills and expertise are actually being brought in and transferred by these strategic equity partners in Telkom and SAA? What was the benefit to our country of the Post Office contract with the New Zealand company? Through Public-Private Partnerships, have we seen improved service delivery and lower service tariffs? Have we not, instead, seen increasing tariffs as announced by the Durban Metro recently?
Who has actually benefited from current restructuring of state assets? Is it our people or is it the bosses? Looking at PPPs closer, we now ask questions about whether we approached them as vigilantly as we should have. We also need to begin discussing whether PPPs are the best form of engaging private capital to play a role in our country. What about focusing on public partnerships with workers and communities instead of private sectors dominated PPPs?
In fact, the banks campaign is a good example of what must actually be done to direct private capital in economic transformation without handing over the economy to private hands. Through this campaign whilst we seek to roll back private capital, we are also demanding that private capital must be directed to productive investment through community re-investment. This is what building a people's economy must be about!
A short reflection on the banks campaign confirms that:
We also should note another important victory of our campaign, that of government's investigation of the regulation of Credit Bureaux. The Credit Bureaux Association, as a direct response to the SACP's taking up of this matter, has proposed a code of conduct for the credit bureaux. This is another important victory. We however do not believe that these institutions are capable of regulating themselves. Government must pass the necessary legislation and regulations on these hitherto faceless institutions. If we do not get satisfaction we will not rule out the possibility of testing the constitutionality of the activities and operations of these institutions.
In order to ensure that we take this campaign forward and for the people themselves to say how these credit bureaux should be regulated, the SACP is declaring the weekend of 30 June and 01 July as The Red Weekend Against Blacklisting. Each of our nine provinces will convene people's public hearings, for people to tell us about the functioning and the regulations needed to ensure that these credit bureaux operate in a transparent manner, and in a way that does not prejudice fair access to credit. Again, we are not calling for our people to leave beyond their means, instead we are encouraging savings. But we cannot allow these institutions to be a law unto themselves.
However this is only a short-term victory. We now need to ensure that all the other essential questions on how to transfer massive financial resources held by the bosses are not forgotten and in fact are advanced and struggled for in the coming period. This includes the more than R600 billion each held by the banks and insurance companies in our country. We also need legislation on community reinvestment and the building of co-operative banks which must be sufficiently protected in order that they provide real competition and alternatives to the private commercial banks.
Of strategic interest is the control and investment of funds held by Provident and Pension Funds and Workers' Investment Companies. Whilst workers' struggles have made it possible for workers' representatives to sit on the Boards of these Funds, workers and communities still do not have a say in how and where these massive funds are invested and what is done with the surplus from these investments. Workers and communities must take control of these funds, how and where they are invested and what is done with the surplus from these investments. Is it also not time that the Workers' Investment Companies are re-oriented such that they play a role in transforming our economy?
Many unions and NGOs have led struggles against discrimination of People Living with HIV/AIDS by the financial sector. This is a struggle we are still far from winning. Also related to this is the way forward on comprehensively fighting HIV/AIDS as part of building a people's economy and broader transformation. Whilst awareness, prevention and home-based care remain important, we cannot delay any further access to affordable medicines. This means that we must urgently develop and implement a National HIV/AIDS Treatment Plan led by government but also which mobilises and directs resources held in the private sector, not least resources held in the financial sector through Medical Schemes which continue not adequately cover People Living with HIV/AIDS. Therefore the Financial Sector campaign is an overarching campaign which seeks to challenge the basis and core of capitalist economic power in our country. This Campaign is a key component of building of a people's economy!
It is the responsibility of POPCRU and COSATU as a whole to ensure that all these matters we have raised on the Financial Sector are unequivocally tabled and adequately addressed at the NEDLAC Summit. We expect a discussion and decision by this Congress on how to deepen and escalate the SACP led Campaign for the Transformation and Diversification of the Financial Sector. 5. WORKERS AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY
The flip side of building working class consciousness is the task of building the South African Communist Party by unions and workers. The contribution of COSATU and affiliates to building the SACP is in their own self-interest. To turn current battles into a sustained fight for socialism, workers need a strong SACP and the SACP needs revolutionary workers. It is therefore important that POCRU makes its own specific contribution by taking practical and intensified steps to build the SACP as an independent leading political force of the South African working class.
There are a range of possible programmes which POPCRU can develop and implement in playing its role in building the SACP. The building of SACP workplace based units and branches remains a key priority.
At a local level, SACP and POPCRU structures could convene and hold regular socialist forums to share perspectives, struggles and for ideological development. The SACP led Campaign to Make Banks Serve the People could be an important avenue for this SACP building work as well.
As part of our 80th Anniversary Celebrations, we will be convening Workers' Assemblies in order to conduct a public evaluation of the SACP. These Assemblies, whilst rooting the SACP in the working class, also provide an opportunity for POPCRU, all COSATU affiliates and workers in general to own and build the SACP as their own organ. These Assemblies are basically an expression of the SACP's confidence in the people. As a Party, we are not afraid of being taught by and learning from the people. This is why we are asking workers to evaluate our history and role, tell us about their experiences and aspirations for a better life and how we can build the SACP as a stronger organ in their hands is our struggle for socialism. As we implied, these Assemblies provide the unions with an opportunity to start an SACP building programme.
We therefore call upon this Congress to discuss and take a resolution on what the POPCRU contribution and programme will be in building the SACP.
6. CONCLUSION
We are aware that through this message we have covered a lot of areas. However, we cannot take more of your time addressing all issues of concern to you and the country as a whole.
We have confidence that you will meet all the challenges facing you and position yourself to advance our revolution on which our people's hopes lie.
With these few words we wish you a successful Congress.