Letter from Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, to Gwede Mantashe, Secretary General of the African National Congress, January 7 2008

Comrade Gwede Mantashe
African National Congress
Luthuli House
Marshalltown

Dear Mqwathi

COSATU message of support to the ANC on its 97th Anniversary

The Congress of South African Trade Unions, on 8 January 2009, wishes the African National Congress best wishes for a very happy 97th birthday and victory in the 2009 national and provincial elections.

COSATU is proud to be in alliance with this mass movement that has led our people for nearly a century. The ANC is the longest established liberation movement in Africa, built on the foundations of long struggles against colonial domination. It led a heroic and victorious national revolutionary struggle against colonial oppression, which at the time the ANC was launched in 1912 was being systematically and ruthlessly imposed. It went on to overthrow apartheid, one of the worst racial tyrannies the world has ever seen.

But, as always on this day, we need to remind ourselves that this struggle was fought at a heavy price, and we must honour the hundreds of martyrs to the ANC cause, most of them unsung heroes and heroines, who sacrificed their lives so that we could enjoy the fruits of the victory of April 1994 that their struggle helped us to win. Their names may be forgotten but their sacrifices must be remembered forever.

Elections

The 97th anniversary takes place just weeks before the crucial elections. It is all the more significant because the movement in 2009 faces a new challenge from a party made up of dissident former comrades from within our own ranks.

This obliges COSATU to revisit the reasons why we have always been staunch allies of the ANC and why we shall back them even more strongly than ever in these elections. These were well expressed in a pamphlet COSATU wrote for the 2004 elections on "Why workers should vote for the ANC":

"Since COSATU was founded almost 20 years ago, we have understood that our struggles to improve our wages and conditions of employment are intertwined with the political struggles to end apartheid and ensure transformation benefits the poor more than just the rich. Even though COSATU is organisationally strong, we would be weaker if people who are hostile to workers dominated parliament and who pass laws that favour the bosses at the expense of the poor.

"That's why COSATU has always worked with organisations that are biased towards the workers and the poor. That is why we formed an Alliance with the UDF, and later with the ANC and SACP. Our united action was the keystone of the struggle against apartheid.... We still need unity of all progressive forces today. We cannot hope to improve conditions for workers if we do not support programmes to create jobs, improve skills, and raise living standards for all our people.

"Our research shows that, of all the major political parties, only the ANC has the capacity and principles to support this approach. The challenge we now face for the third time is to return the ANC with an overwhelming majority nationally, coupled with majorities in all nine provinces including in the Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal."

We are sending out exactly the same message five years later, because those arguments are even more correct and relevant in 2009. Although COSATU has never been afraid to criticise certain ANC Government policies which we felt were not in the workers' interests, like privatisation and GEAR, we have always been clear that overall the ANC is the only party capable of improving the lives of the majority of South Africans, especially the workers and the poor.

This view was vindicated by the publication of the government's 15-year review that demonstrates a continued and significant improvement in our people's lives. The record speaks for itself. Under successive ANC Governments since 1994:

• We have the longest economic expansion recorded in SA history - from 1994 to 2003 the economy grew at an average of 3% and 4.5% since 2004.
• Unemployment has decreased from 31% in 2003 to 23% in 2007, using the official narrow definition. This translated into 500,000 new jobs being created annually since 2004.
• Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) coverage has been expanded to include nearly a million domestic workers and farm workers.
• Access to social grants has massively increased from 3 million people in 1997 to 12.5 million, 8 million of whom are children aged under 14 years;
• About 3.1 million RDP housing for 10 million people were built, outpacing informal housing for the first time. The majority of RDP homeowners are women.
• About 18.7 million people have access to clean water and 10.9 million provided with sanitation, with the number of households with bucket system reduced from 605 675 in 1994 to 113 085 in 2007.
• The expansion of electricity has reached 70% of the population.
• In health, progress has been recorded through expansion of free primary health care. We have expanded health infrastructure, including building 1,600 clinics and new eight hospitals. Many public hospitals have been revitalized and refurbished. We have scaled-up the ART rollout programme with more than 480,000 people enrolled. A number of initiatives were launched to combat smoking.
• In education, access to our primary and secondary schooling has reached near universal enrolment, with the participation of girls being the highest in the world. A total of 98% of children aged from 7 to 15 years are enrolled in schools; 88% for 6 years olds and participation rate for children aged 4 and 5 (Grade R) in early child development has now reached 70%. The matriculation pass rate has increased from 58% in 1994 to 65% in 2007. Pupil-to-teacher ratios have improved from 43:1 in 1996 to 32:1 in 2006.
• Mass mobilisation around the literacy campaign means that it is now covering more than 350,000 of our people who cannot read and write. We are well within targets to ensure South Africa is free of illiteracy by 2014.
• In higher education, the ANC government has a plan to ensure participation rate of 17.5% by 2010 and 20% by 2015. Since 1994, 140,000 students have benefited from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), which is aimed at improving participation rates amongst disadvantaged South Africans.

The impact of these economic and social policies has seen significant reductions in the level of severe poverty and improvement in the quality of life of millions of South Africans. Significant progress was made, therefore, toward the vision of creating a united, non-racial and non-sexist society.  

Our country has become more cohesive and we collectively celebrated achievements in sport, especially being awarded the 2010 FIFA World Cup. During this period we also became the Rugby World Champions, top international cricket team, Angling World Champions and have world-class paralympians whose performance contributed to national pride at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.

On the international front, the ANC government has strengthened the country's role in peace, reconstruction and development, especially on the African continent. Our international responsibilities and recognition has also grown. Our membership of United Nations Security Council provided opportunities to promote peace. Strategic partnerships with major countries of the South - China, India and Brazil - were strengthened. We have also being active in international global forums, such as the G20 and OECD to advance the South African development and the African agenda. 

Challenges ahead

Of course, as most ANC members will be the first to admit, we still have a long way to go before we can claim we have overcome the apartheid legacy. The foundations for a free, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist society have been laid already but we are still far from realising this goal. The struggle continues and the ANC still has a revolutionary duty, as both the ruling party and a liberation movement, to unify our people for the attainment of the Freedom Charter's vision.

Unemployment, poverty and inequality remain intolerably high. But the 2007 ANC National Conference at Polokwane, the Policy Conference that preceded it, and last year's two successful Alliance Summit meetings have opened up a frank discussion on the best way to tackle these problems of poverty and unemployment.

Events in 2008 have reinforced COSATU's firm belief that, contrary to attempts by analysts and ‘experts' to persuade us that ANC policy has not changed, the evidence points to a decisive movement. The Polokwane resolutions, augmented by the declarations of the two highly successful Alliance Summits, clearly represent more pro-poor and pro-worker policies, which we expect to dominate the ANC election manifesto, which is to be launched this weekend.

As the federation said in its New Year message, "The ANC leadership, while understandably anxious to reassure all sections of society that they have nothing to fear from an ANC government, is firmly committed to a much more developmental, interventionist state that will make poverty eradication and the creation of quality jobs its top priority.

"This is why COSATU is fully committed to mobilising its two million members and their families to make sure that the ANC is re-elected with an even bigger majority and to implement its progressive manifesto with vigour and determination."

‘COPE'

Our new opponent, the misnamed ‘Congress of the People' speaks for a clique of pro-business, conservative forces, who follow the agenda of a section of the capitalist class. Their goal is to split and disrupt a progressive ANC that has the support of most South Africans and impose the programme of international capital and its local lapdogs.

We are certain that ‘COPE' will be defeated, provided that the ANC and its allies skilfully expose their right-wing policies, which, however well disguised in populist rhetoric, embody the class interests of the rich and powerful and the bosses who continue to exploit and abuse the workers and the poor.

Armed with the policies of Polokwane, the ANC has created the expectation that it will now speed up the drive to eradicate the last vestiges of apartheid colonialism and complete the National Democratic Revolution.

Alliance

COSATU has therefore recommitted itself to the Tripartite Alliance and will keep striving to make it an even more effective political leadership structure, which, together with the broader mass democratic movement, will ensure mass participation in the continuing battle to resolve the outstanding challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

The first hurdle to be overcome is to defeat the Enemies of the People, and all the other right-wing opposition parties and deliver an even bigger ANC victory nationally and in every province. To that end we must attend to the task of building strong organisations, starting with trade union, ANC and SACP branches up to the provincial and national levels, so they can more effectively pursue the all-important task of mobilising our people.

The second challenge is to make certain that the new government, led by Comrade Jacob Zuma, is not diverted from the course of progress by conservative interests. COSATU, as always, will never drop its guard to defend the workers and the poor and will remain both an independent trade union federation and staunch ally of the ruling party.

We wish the ANC a happy birthday celebration and every success in the elections, and offer our enduring support to help achieve the goals of our revolution.

Yours comradely

Zwelinzima Vavi
General Secretary

Source: www.cosatu.org.za