Statement of the COSATU/SACP bilateral meeting, 24 June 2013, Braamfontein
Leaders of the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party met together today to discuss preparations for the forthcoming Alliance Economic Summit.
The meeting was deeply saddened by the latest worrying news of the condition of our beloved Comrade Madiba and agreed to send its best wishes to him and his family at this critical hour. We committed to working to take forward his revolutionary legacy.
On preparations for the Alliance Economic Summit, it was agreed to focus the discussion on what the ANC 53rd Conference called the 2nd Phase of Radical Economic Transition, which calls for a fundamental restructuring of our economic growth trajectory.
The meeting was given an input by Comrade Rob Davies on the global capitalist crisis now in a second post-2012 phase. The prospect of a slowing of quantitative easing in the US and the sudden exiting of speculative money out of developing economies underlines that South Africa's current economic challenges are typical of numerous other commodity-exporting, developing countries around the world.
The meeting therefore rejected the narrative advanced by opposition parties and business commentators that our present challenges are primarily the result of policy decisions by the South African government or actions of the trade union movement.
The two delegations agreed that our organisations held broadly convergent views on the National Development Plan, in particular that the chapter on jobs and the economy requires serious reworking.
The two formations agreed to collaborate closely on policy development and mobilisation around, amongst other things, rural development, land reform and food security. The meeting also agreed to work on policy perspectives on transforming the financial sector and to call for a second financial sector summit.
Statement issued by the SACP and COSATU, June 24 2013
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