Overview of the political situation post-10th COSATU National Congress
Introduction
The COSATU Central Executive Committee meeting, on 23-24 November - two months after the highly successful tenth COSATU National Congress - gave the CEC the opportunity, as the national leadership of the Federation, to assess the national congress and determine how it has helped to position the Federation against the stated objectives of the congress.
The congress was held under theme - Consolidating working class power for decent work and socialism.
We set three objectives for that congress, namely:
a. Ideological clarity about where we are, what are the forces ranging against the strategic interest of the working class; who are our allies; and, last but not least, clarity about the international ideological warfare and our role in it;
b. A Programme for transformation. Whilst endorsing the Freedom Charter, RDP and September Commission, we gave ourselves a responsibility to develop a vision and programme to advance the NDR and socialism. We further stated that the national framework to respond to the current crisis is a useful starting point but does not constitute the programme for a systematic transformation of South Africa and the world we live in.
c. An organisational development and building programme: In the first instance that means strengthening COSATU at all levels. Our organisational machinery must be adapted to the new realities and new forms of organising. The aim is not only to build a strong organisation but to ensure maximum unity of the working class to realise COSATU's visions of ‘One Country-One Federation; One Industry One Union".
Building the ANC and the SACP is the second challenge for our organisation-building programme.
We said there must be a "link between COSATU's plan of action and the organisation building element. The two must reinforce each other. To deal with the challenge of post-apartheid ‘de-politicisation' of our youth it goes without saying that political education must be stepped up across the movement. In this regard we should harness our education programme with programmes of the Chris Hani Institute, the ANC, SACP, YCL, ANCYL and ANCWL."
Post congress the responsibility of the CEC and the Central Committee is to lead the Federation as a whole into the realisation of these basic objectives of the worker's parliament. The CEC was convened in the midst of the worsening crises of job-loss blood bath and after a highly successful but interesting Alliance Summit. In this report we will attempt to address all these important developments.
1. Assessment of the Tenth National Congress
It is no exaggeration to state that the tenth national congress was one of the most successful in our history. It received unprecedented publicity that was largely positive, focusing on the issues instead of personalities and divisions. It was truly a watershed moment that represented growth in every respect. We have grown numerically, politically and organisationally. The congress also demonstrated growing maturity, unity and dynamism, coherence and increased levels of cohesion.
1.1 Unity and cohesion of the Federation is sacrosanct:
Affiliates went to the congress determined to avoid leadership contests that would reopen the healing wounds left by the bitter 2006 Ninth National Congress. Unions managed their disagreements with a high degree of maturity. Unlike in 2006 we did not use tribal and regional mobilisation, posters and divisive songs and negative posturing. The delegates and the CEC must be commended for this. This is what is called a matured dynamism.
All delegates and the leadership jealously guarded the unity of the Federation despite contestations of two positions. There were no deliberate blocks of unions supporting each other no matter what. There were on occasions clear differences of opinion and differences on tactical and strategic considerations, but these were never allowed to dominate the congress.
When we say this, it does not mean we should take the unity question for granted. It is still a concern that despite a determination to ensure that there were no contests, at the end the contests happened. The new leadership of the Federation, including those who and those who contested but lost, have a responsibility to towards deepened levels of unity. All of us have the responsibility to move beyond those contests and build even higher levels of unity based on common action informed by our programme to implement congress resolutions.
1.2 Staging of the congress was superb:
the staging of the congress is a serious political matter and not some boring administrate detail. It is through staging of important events that the organisation demonstrates its might and importance in society. This congress, just like others before it, if perhaps not even more than any previous congress, demonstrated an intimidating strength and awesomeness.
The enemies of the Federation were forced to sit, observe and take note of the manner in which the Federation runs its affairs. Starting from the documentation and paraphernalia, to the military precision of all the chairpersons, the presentation of reports and the manner in which debates were conducted. The congress flags, the singing, the posters and the decoration of the hall all communicated a message that the Federation is not a corner fish and chips formation.
1.3 Participation of delegates must improve though:
On the whole, delegates' participation was satisfactory but it must be improved. The CEC calls on the membership to discuss ways of improving participation of delegates. COSATU has grown. At this congress there were unprecedented 2639 delegates representing 1 973 857 members in comparison to 2466 delegates representing 1 840 590 to the previous congress. This reflected a growth of our membership. This means if we achieve the goal of increasing our membership to 4 million in 2015, we will have the congress size doubling. This will compound the challenge of managing our congress.
We should ensure better preparation of delegates for the next congress. Discussion papers on the key themes of the congress play a role to prepare delegates in good time. We should consider changing the constitution so that affiliates resolutions and the secretariat report are submitted three or two months prior to the congress. This would mean that we manage the leaks that lead to media sensationalisation of the report and draft affiliates' resolutions. Or is that the price we should be prepared to pay to improve our internal democracy? Should we consider breaking the congress into smaller commission to enhance participation?
1.4 The resolutions committee almost killed the flow of congress debates:
There were two problems. Many unions did not think carefully about the challenges facing the congress in terms of what we wanted out of it based on the theme and its political objectives. This resulted in unions just sending too many resolutions that went in every direction. At the end the resolutions committee had a difficult task to try managing the resolutions. Secondly senior union leaders did not participate fully in the Resolutions Committee choosing to send head office officials. When difficult choices had to be made about which resolutions to drop and which one to prioritise, the officials were found wanting. Eventually those factors combined to cause delays of the congress.
1.5 Discipline of some delegates must improve: During big speeches and big opening sessions all delegates were on the congress floor. But once these passed a small number of delegates sat and chatted outside the venue, making noise at the door, forcing the President to intervene on a number of occasions. The reason for this may be attributed to failure of some unions to prepare delegates. Alternatively we may have pitched the debates too high for delegates who were not shop stewards or leaders of their unions. One Provincial Secretary overheard delegates asking each other what the COSATU local was.
2. Alliance
2.1 The tenth National Congress correctly affirmed the centrality of the tripartite Alliance - a unique weapon in the hands of the struggling masses to effect fundamental transformation of our society. In fact in the Federation there are no more debates about this conclusion. The debate has been how to make the Alliance more effective so that it could be this sharp instrument not a blunt one that can't effect fundamental change.
2.2 The Alliance relations have been altered fundamentally since the December 2007 ANC 52nd National Conference. Gone are the days where the Alliance was reduced into a crisis manager. The feelings of being used only as voting cattle are disappearing. The days of labelling have been replaced by mutual respect and common purpose.
2.3 The tenth Congress, whilst acknowledging and celebrating this progress, cautioned, in the light of some of the public utterances by some ANC leaders, that we cannot afford to celebrate forever. The reality is that despite the tremendous progress we made in closing the policy gaps in the Alliance, there is a contest on the policies with some pretending that some policy matters were not been resolved in Polokwane. Those who do not appreciate this should have been in the recent Alliance summit. The congress affirmed that whilst it is true that we have dislodged the 1996 class project, the ideology and practises have not been altogether wiped out.
2.4 Since the 2007 52nd ANC national conference we have identified the task of defending the working class gains achieved in Polokwane as the primary political goal of the working class. We acknowledge that when we were involved in a titanic battle to defeat the 1996 class project we formed part of a broad coalition of forces who demanded change. We acknowledged that there was no unifying ideology or politics between those who imposed change in Polokwane except dissatisfaction with the previous leadership.
2.5 Everyday it is becoming clear that the working class has a daunting task of defending the space created in Polokwane. For this reason, we gave ourselves a task to impose a new progressive hegemony in the Alliance, based on Alliance policy positions, ANC 52nd National Conference and ANC 2009 elections Manifesto. We drafted the ‘Seizing the moment document', which was broadly endorsed by the Alliance National Political Council. We knew that the other Alliance components did not ensure a discussion within their ranks on the document. In nutshell we always feared that the attempt to impose a progressive platform might be highly contested.
2.6 It is now clear that there is a realignment of forces in the National Executive Committee of the ANC with a new tendency emerging. There is a growing tendency to use the rooi gevaar and the usual anti-COSATU anti-union rhetoric. This is reinforced by the use of the concept of the left as some kind of new bogeyman or swear word by the mainstream media. All frustrations with the unhelpful culture of lack of service in the public service are blamed on unions that are randomly accused of being obstructionist and of not being revolutionary.
2.7 Society is confronted with a major challenge of crass materialism and corruption. No organisation or institution is not challenged by this new phenomenon. We shall be stepping up a campaign against the scourge of corruption, use of patronage, use of state institutions for the agenda of personal accumulation and all these other practises that destroy the moral fibre of our society.
2.8 Suddenly we have been reminded of what we thought we buried in Polokwane rearing its ugly head - "the ANC is not a socialist organisation". We have been accused of wanting to impose socialism on the ANC. The voices of this small minority accusing us of hijacking the ANC for narrow reasons have been growing louder and louder.
2.9 In the meantime there is evidence of some level of mobilisation by this minority targeted at those accused of "double parking between ANC and the SACP". The agenda seems to be to agitate for a regime change and it is not clear how far they are prepared to extend the envelope. Originally it appeared that this was targeted against the ANC Deputy President who was smeared in the media. Now the focus is clearly on the Secretary General, who is a subject of frequent beating and a systematic campaign to undermine his authority. These forces are also seemingly frustrated with the President, whom they accuse of allowing too much ground to the communists and COSATU. If this agenda persist the ANC may have a bitter battle for leadership yet again in 2012. It is however incorrect to suggest that this clique represents the views of the broader ANC members and leaders. Many ANC members and leaders want an end to the politics of patronage, backstabbing, careerism and crass materialism. They may not support a socialist course per se but constitute an important ally in returning the ANC to its values. It is worrying that organisational policy is debated and announced in social occasions like parties rather than in the structures of the movement. We must defeat this tendency of this tiny minority of leaders who believe that they are above the organisation and their word must be taken as policy.
2.10 This war won't be won from our ‘air conditioned offices' in No.1 Leyds Street but in the branches and structures of the ANC. That is where our multi-year 2015 programme comes in. Now more than ever before we need to renew our determination to implement all the elements of the 2015 plan. We need to monitor and enforce its spirit from the CEC down to every local. This has to be coupled with a massive drive to politicise workers so that we do not make a mistake of swelling the ranks with workers who have low political consciousness and who are generally politically unreliable. We have countless examples of worker leaders who once they join the ANC and government spend the rest of their lives not advancing the working class cause but trying to prove to all that they no longer have any connection with workers.
2.11 The SACP finds itself in an uncomfortable political situation challenging its unity and cohesion. The appointment of its General Secretary to the cabinet has not gone down very well with some. Whilst some regard the appointment of the SACP General Secretary as a strategic breakthrough that underlines the new spirit of a reconfigured alliance, others believe that this would undermine the capacity of the party organisationally. COSATU has not taken a view to reinforce any side of argument. Our hope is that the debate should strengthen rather than destroy the unity and cohesion of the SACP. We are concerned that this debate should not be allowed to weaken our party. The Party remains an important force to advance the NDR as the building block to socialism.
2.12 All these developments should not demoralise our forces. The reality is that we remain strong politically and organisationally. The anti communist and anti-COSATU forces cannot openly advance their agenda and do not represent the views of a majority in the ANC. They have to resort to codes and misinformation to gain ascendency. COSATU has to a large degree managed to get a critical mass of its shop stewards to participate in the branches of the ANC. What is still worrying is the participation of the industrial working class in the SACP. We are not there in big numbers - according to the last SACP congress reports only 40% of the membership of the party is drawn from industrial proletariat. A further challenge though is whether we have swelled the ranks of both the ANC and SACP with the most conscious and advanced cadres of our movement. Can we rely on them seeing through the new tendency emerging and other agendas at play? Or will they have to be spoon-fed and rely too much on COSATU for direction. If we overly use the latter route then soon we will be accused of operating a clique or cabal within the structures of the ANC. We call on our structures to monitor the call for swelling of the ranks of both the SACP and ANC and to ensure that the leadership leads by example.
COSATU will avoid repeating what happened in the run up to the ANC Polokwane conference in terms of discussing leaders of the ANC in the constitutional structures of the Federation. We however warn that we will not be spectators if some a new tendency seeks to take us back to what we thought we displaced in Polokwane.
Alliance Summit on 13-15 November 09.
Recently we had an important bilateral with the ANC followed by the critical Alliance Summit on 13-15 November 09. We are concerned that in both meetings too many leaders of the ANC did not participate.
In terms of the policy, the Alliance summit maintained a progressive stance on all the areas it has engaged with in the past. We made fresh gains on the macro-economic policy debates. Our task is to ensure that the Alliance task team on macro-economic policy is established and that the Minister of Finance drives through the consensus areas in the next three months or so.
It is clear that there is a body in the ANC that is no longer comfortable with the Alliance being a strategic political centre. We are saying so because in the May 2008 Alliance Summit, perhaps fresh from Polokwane and overwhelmed by the spirit of wanting to give so many things to COSATU and the Alliance (pay back) this matter of the ANC-led Alliance as a strategic political centre was easy to swallow. But now, after the elections and the memories of Polokwane starting to fade, coupled with the feelings of communist and COSATU dominance, a new tendency seeks to drive the ANC back to conservatism.
The challenge to develop a more sophisticated strategy to engage the Alliance
The summit has reinforced our view that we have relied too much on the top six of the ANC to sway things in our favour. It is clear that if we place all our eggs on the top six basket we will lose the fight. Signs are emerging that there is a new grouping of conservatives and materialists who may attempt to establish a new power block outside the top six and isolate it.
Overall our weapon remains our organisation. But it is clear that the organisation itself must be buttressed by a more consistent engagement strategy to counter rightwing onslaught that is threatening our gains. Below we put forward some of the sections we must engage in society.
1) ANC NEC
Most of the ANC leaders are mature and support the Alliance. They want the ANC to succeed based on the progressive platform informed by the ANC 2009 elections manifesto. Most don't like corruption, abuse of power and use of state institutions. COSATU must work with the mainstream ANC leaders in pursuit of fundamental transformation of society. The worrying factor though is that there are not enough outright left-wing allies in the NEC and the NWC.
2) SACP - the vanguard
We cannot overemphasize the need to keep the relationship with the SACP strong and vibrant. The SACP is the long-term political insurance of workers. Our relationship with SACP literally saved the day during the trying days of the Alliance.
But it would be a mistake to take this relationship for granted. It needs to be serviced and we must continue to support the SACP politically, and it must rely on organised workers for material assistance and not on BEE or even white capital.
Early in the coming year and certainly before the next Alliance Summit in February we must have a major bilateral with the SACP to look at the recent political challenges and to solidify joint campaign work.
3) ANC Youth League
Our relationship with the ANCYL has become more complicated. This is caused by the public engagement strategy. We clashed with them badly when they understood us to be entering an internal succession debate following the May 2009 CEC.
At the CEC press conference we were confronted by a question if we would be debating succession of the ANC President in our national congress, as it is known that he would serve only one term. We clarified that the ANC President has been engaged and that he would serve the second term if nominated by the ANC branches. Following sensationalisation of this by the media, the ANC Secretary General and later the ANCYL criticised the Federation for unwelcomed interference in internal ANC leadership affairs. The ANCYL President's criticism bordered on ridiculing the Federation in the National Youth Day rally.
Recently the ANCYL launched a venomous attack on the NUM following a disagreement on the ESKOM leadership crises. Despite the ANCYL's political inconsistency, such as support for huge salaries and bonuses to leaders of the state owned enterprises the youth league on many other policy questions remain our allies. This includes their stance on labour brokering, nationalisation, strong support for the progressive elements of the Polokwane resolutions, the manifesto, etc.
It would be mistake to allow a cooling-off of our relationship with the ANCYL, because its leaders still have to master the art of managing disagreements at the public level. COSATU has always enjoyed a special relationship with the young lions. The worker-youth alliance is the most potent weapon whose history began in the 1940s after the formation of the ANCYL. Naturally one of the issues that have brought workers and the youth closer to one another is high degree of militancy and intolerance with the slow pace of change. This is so precisely because both groupings are on the receiving end of unemployment, poverty, casualisation, labour brokering and HIV/AIDS, and therefore represent the most marginalised in society.
We will ask for a major bilateral with the ANCYL early in 2010.
4) ANC Womens League
We have not met the new leadership of the ANCWL and this is frankly scandalous. In the congress report we did talk to the difficulties and divisions faced by both the ANCWL and the ANCYL, which we did not fully understand. But that does not mean that we should allow the cooling off of the relationship between a leading detachment of the working class and these critical components of the working class.
We need the ANCWL so that our NDR does not degenerate into single narrow civil rights movement only based on addressing the national oppression whilst leaving the gender and class oppression unattended. African women faced triple oppression to perform unpaid household labour in the ‘reserves' to subsidise the cost of reproducing black labour for capitalism and were also exploited directly by the capitalist system. Sexism was also used to construct a hierarchy between men and women within the apartheid-capitalist state.
Patriarchy predates the onset of capitalism in South Africa, but was further refined under colonial-capitalist relations to support the cheap migrant labour system. The NDR therefore seeks to resolve the marginalisation of women, especially African women, from power and the mainstream economy. In that sense it aims to reconstruct the relationship between men and women on a more egalitarian basis in the household and in the public sphere. All these tasks cannot be achieved without destroying the systemic sources of inequality in our society.
The concept of the national democratic revolution, precisely because of these facts, seeks to speak to the desire to build a more egalitarian non-racial, non-sexist society and democratic society. The Freedom Charter is a vision to reconfigure society on a more egalitarian basis and requires radical not cosmetic changes of society. That is, we cannot be content with the mere transfer of political power while retaining the structural foundations of colonialism of a special type.
The fundamental national, class and gender contradictions remain firmly
entrenched in post-apartheid South Africa. White men still monopolise positions of power and influence especially in the private sector.
As the draft Alliance Programme of Action for Fundamental Transformation of our society says, "The working class must unite and lead the broadest section of the South African society to move beyond the neo-colony to a truly united, democratic, non-sexist and non-racial and prosperous society." If the working class formations do not work much closer together, a danger will always exist that the ANCWL would be high jacked to serve the interests of the elite women who want to advance an accumulation agenda instead of fundamental change that would benefit the downtrodden.
We will seek a major bilateral with the ANCWL early in 2010.
5) Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and South African Student Council (SASCO)
We deliberately cooled down the relationship with the current leaders of COSAS after their Treasurer abused resources we were providing them.
We do need to have a formal meeting with them to go over the page. COSAS is an important player in the movement and COSATU cannot afford to allow the lack of discipline on the part of one of its leaders to permanently define the relationship between COSATU and COSAS. We know now that if we don't bring any section of the mass democratic movement close to our approach and progressive platform, they may move closer to others with anti working class agendas.
A meeting must be held with them early in the year as well. Equally we must prioritise a meeting with the new leadership of SASCO.
6) MKVA
COSATU will continue to strengthen its relationship with the MKVA in pursuance of the transformation of the SANDF and to ensure that the ANC resolutions and policies are taken forward.
7) Engagement with government
In line with our overall strategy of not putting all our eggs in the Alliance basket, we will ensure that we build stronger and privileged relationships with departments that will play a critical role in the decent work agenda. We know that if we have a good relationship with most of the cabinet ministers this means we have good relationship with a sizeable number of ANC NEC members. We cannot only rely on inviting these Ministers to the CEC - there are only 4 CECs every year
We list below departments that we must work much closely with (not ordered in terms of priority):
1. Economic development
2. Trade and Industry
3. Rural development
4. Home affairs
5. Environment
6. Agriculture
7. Finance
8. Social development
9. Basic education
10. Higher education
11. Health
12. Labour
13. Provincial and local government
14. Human settlements
15. Women, children and people living with disabilities
16. Safety and security
8) Other tasks
As we engage with Alliance, MDM and the Government we know we have other areas of engagement that require capacity and attention. Nedlac has played a critical role in the past 15 years in terms of giving space for policy debates and engagements. As a result we won many victories through the structure. Equally the ILO is extremely important in that at international level it sets basic standards for the protection of labour. We list institutions and issues that COSATU must engage intensely with in the coming year.
1. Nedlac
The new challenge is that the Labour Convenor for many years was Comrade Ebrahim Patel who is now a Minister. His intellectual prowess allowed him to coordinate this work despite doing many other tasks in the Federation and in his union. We have now replaced him with the COSATU Deputy General Secretary, Comrade Bheki Ntshalintshali.
Coordination at the level of the Labour Convenor means sitting in the Executive and in Management Committee. It also means tightly coordinating with all the four chambers of Nedlac (trade and industry, labour market, fiscal and monetary and social development).
Coordination is impossible without strong political leadership and technical support at the chamber level. This demands that we review the whole COSATU representation at all these levels.
The biggest agenda item for Nedlac should be the issue of labour brokers and the other demands we have made for amendments to various pieces of labour legislation.
2. ILO
The agenda of the International Labour Conference (ILC), held in every year in June for three weeks, changes each year but after completion of the issues that would have been negotiated every year. Katishi Masemola and Salome Sithole were our representatives this year.
The Deputy General Secretary has replaced Ebrahim Patel in the Governing Body (GB), which takes place twice a year (March and November) with each session lasting between two and three weeks. In addition the GB members attend the three-weeks annual ILC every June. This commitment means that the Deputy General Secretary now will be away for close to three months every year doing ILO work. That is in addition to being a labour representative in the Proudly South African Campaign by virtue of him being the Labour Convenor. He is also our representative in the CCMA Governing Body and the Employment Standards Commission.
3. Millennium Labour Council (MLC)
The MLC remain a strategic body to engage with the captains of industry. It has served as the sounding board when big and difficult issues come for discussion in Nedlac. It has helped to strengthen the business voice on matters of common interest such as the need for a competitive exchange rate and the need for lower interest rates. Without direct engagements a more conservative and increasing powerful financial capital dominates the voice of industrial capital.
3. Social protests
There is a wave of community service-delivery protests, which are about specific local grievances but are also related to the structural problems in the economy. The patience of increasing numbers of poor working class communities seemingly is running thin. They are facing a huge squeeze in the former black only residential areas particularly in the former Bantustans.
They are living with massive unemployment and grinding and humiliating poverty in places such as Alexandra, while across the road they see that the grass is green in the flashy buildings in Sandton. The general law of capitalist accumulation stated by Marx in Capital Volume I operates without hindrance. Talking about the rise in centralisation and concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, Marx says:
"Along with the constantly diminishing number of magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolise all advantages...grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself".
There is an estimated 3 million Zimbabweans who are equal victims of mismanagement of the economic and political system, armed with better education, sidelining and regrettably dragging the basic protection of South African workers' rights down. Many in the SADC region, the African continent and even as far as Europe and Asia, combine in their thousands from everywhere in the world under the mistaken belief that South Africa is the land of milk and honey.
We need to begin a conversation on how we can address all these issues in a manner that ensures we maintain our strong stance against xenophobia and the misguided and mistaken belief that our African brothers and sisters who are streaming down south under pressure of poverty are the source of our crises of unemployment and crime.
At the same time we need to ensure that we develop systems to ensure that we do not open floodgates in a manner that simply worsens the squeeze in the townships and rural areas.
4. Other political Alliance political challenges
4.1 Strengthening COSATU and building ANC in the Western Cape
Recently we attended a COSATU Western Cape PEC and suggested that the province hold a bosberaad of the PEC to discuss the challenges of building COSATU and the ANC in the province. This was accepted by the PEC. Subsequently we wrote the guide below so that we can ensure that the province covers all real and perceived areas of weaknesses.
Organisational - strengthen COSATU
1. Before analysing other organisations, we must analyse ourselves, both at the leadership and membership level. The reality is that not many of COSATU leaders are active in the ANC and SACP. COSATU membership is largely very conservative which is mainly the mainly coloured working class is mainly voting for the DA.
2. We have to fix COSATU first before we can succeed to fix other Alliance formations
3. We must solidify the unity between the Provincial Office Bearers
4. We must adopt and practise the modus operandi adopted by the COSATU CEC on the workings of the collective
5. We must improve coherence of the PEC and openly discuss whatever uncomfortable issues based on different tactical approaches or even personalities
6. We must build locals and ensure systematic support of their programmes including the socialist forums
7. COSATU PEC must develop a systematic programme to empower itself using the national congress secretariat report and national congress resolutions
8. A more consistent mass political education programme targeted at our members and activists must be launched. This campaign must be based on using existing and new resources of affiliates.
9. We must put all affiliates' resources together to ensure more effective outcomes
10. The Federation must speak consistently, coherently in a principled fashion in a united fashion; personalised attacks on DA's Helen Zille will discredit us in the long term. Our politics must prevail when emotions run high around personalities. We have an ideology that we must use and not get involved in petty things like Zille's buttocks
11. Determine some key political campaigns going forward
12. When we coordinate more effectively our campaign to swell the ranks of the ANC but it is dangerous to swell the ranks with those that are not grounded on our political framework contained in the tenth national congress report and resolutions
13. The COSATU CEC will have to assist as these are special circumstances and this province should be seen as a special project of the ANC. This might need resources and unions must nationally also commit themselves to this approach
14. The ANC must be dominated in practice by the politics of the working class - the primary motive force of the NDR
15. COSATU's interventions in the ANC cannot be co-ordinated if COSATU itself is operating as an island that seeks to impose unknown leaders at the point of elections
16. The Federation has the primary responsibility to turn this political situation around and to educate and empower our members politically. The PEC must monitor the implementation of this
Strengthen the working class; build a strong COSATU and SACP relationship
1. COSATU must evaluate how as the leading detachment of the working class it has no good relationship with the vanguard of the working class.
2. A question is - have we not allowed personality clashes to ruin what should be a very privileged relationship of the forces that share a long term political goal of building socialism
3. The COSATU congress resolutions and secretariat report states categorically what type of the vanguard we need and how we should build a broadest front of socialist forces coalescing around the SACP.
What must we do as COSATU and together with the SACP to achieve these basic aims?
Strengthen the ANC
1. We must encourage the ANC to hold its own internal discussion and make a brutally frank assessment on how it ended up so factionalised and how these organisational and political weaknesses combined to see its defeat by the conservative anti working class/anti poor policies of the DA
2. Only following such as an assessment with the ANC that is willing to learn from the mistakes of the past do we stand a better chance of rebuilding the people's front for progressive alternatives in the Western Cape
Strengthen the mass democratic movement as a whole
1. The purpose of the programme with civil society must be to build an alternative progressive bloc
2. There is no short cut to the immediate crises. The same principles apply in relation to work with the SACP. These relations must change as it breaks down at the level of personalities
3. Through our struggles and campaigns we must educate activists and unite society for better alternatives
Coordination of the programme will require more resources. COSATU and its affiliated unions must agree to pull all their resources together. This would allow us to maximise the impact. In addition to that, the intervention in the Western Cape constituted by the biggest unions in the province will be revived to form a permanent task force to assist the province drive the programme.
4.2 Building unity of the Alliance in the Eastern Cape
In the Secretariat report to the tenth National Congress we observed with concern that COPE relatively did well in the Metropolitan areas of both Nelson Mandela and Buffalo City. We further warned that the divisions playing themselves out in the run-up to the ANC Provincial Conference, if not managed well, will further weaken the ANC and thereby give more possibilities to the dissidents that formed COPE.
It appears that there are real unity challenges facing the Eastern Cape. In both the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan and the Buffalo City there are massive battles between the Mayors and the ANC regional structures. In the Nelson Mandela area the ANC REC decided to recall Mayor Maphazi and replace him with comrade Zanoxolo Wayile. In the Buffalo City the Mathole REC decided to recall Mayor Faku and 19 other councillors.
This underlines these challenge we face. Luckily COSATU and the SACP remain united. This is a huge advantage we must use to unite the province.
4.3 Building the ANC and addressing COSATU and SACP unity challenges in the North West
We are aware of the damage the previous PEC caused to the Alliance unity and standing of the ANC in public eye. COSATU has a task of uniting first with the SACP and ensuring that the ANC emerges from its provincial congress with leadership capable of rising above factional blocks that have been operating in that province for so many years.
5. Build COSATU - build COSATU affiliates
The challenge of building COSATU and its affiliates remains one of the most important work we must continuously undertake. We know today more than we did yesterday that without a strong organisation our voice will be drowned by the voice of our class enemy. No matter how strong we can be at the policy level and no matter how articulate our spokespersons could be, but without a strong organisation and active campaigns to back our engagement strategy we will not succeed.
The most worrying aspect of our organisational weaknesses, which also is a strength, remains that COSATU as the Federation still enjoys high degrees of confidence amongst workers above some of the affiliated unions. Today some workers refuse to join the unions organising their sectors, demanding to join COSATU directly instead. It is against this background that we adopted the following key projects for the next three years.
a) Drive Organisational Development
The tenth National Congress adopted a comprehensive recommendation from Naledi. This resolution is indeed comprehensive and requires our full understanding and appreciation of the details it provides as a guide to our Organisational Development work. We must develop a capacity to drive this work at the Federation level. In this regard we will establish a commission to focus on this work as we have done in the case of political and socio economic questions.
In addition to this we believe we need to develop capacity to assist the following listed unions to overcome their different challenges:
1. CWU
2. CEPPWAWU
3. SATAWU
4. SASAWU
5. PAWUSA
6. SACCAWU
7. SADNU
8. FAWU
9. POPCRU
b) Drive mergers to achieve one union - one industry
There is already a policy decisions to drive the mergers as follows:
- SAMWU and NEHAWU
- SASAWU and PAWUSA
- DENOSA and SADNU
- Assist SADTU to be a truly education union
- Broader entertainment union
- Manufacturing unions to form a super union
- Private services to form a super union
c) Drive unity talks with the three Federation to achieve one country-one Federation
d) Move out of the current COSATU house and buy as many offices for provincial offices as possible
e) Consider buying houses/flats in Johannesburg governed by a policy so that we improve our capacity to coordinate and avoid massive rise in our travelling and accommodation cost as a result of the fact all worker NOBs reside outside Gauteng
6. Civil Society and building campaigns coalitions
Campaigns are the lifeblood of the Federation. Through campaigns we make our organisation relevant to members and the broader society. Campaign work gives us a chance to conduct mass political education, they help us train new leaders and they test the durability of the organisation.
We have over years build a number of coalitions that COSATU has not been great at coordinating. We must address that weakness and the socio-economic commission will help us address this weakness. We list below the number of coalitions that exist:
a. Jobs and poverty campaign
b. HIV and AIDS campaign
c. Peoples Budget
d. Basic Income Grant
e. Climate change
f. International solidarity
- Zimbabwe
- Swaziland
- Western Sahara
- Palestine
- Burma
- Others
Conclusion
This programme will be further developed and integrated to the departments' three-year programmes that systematically take forward the resolutions adopted by the tenth national congress. Once the CEC has further adopted other resolutions as mandated by the National Congress, we will consolidate all of them and integrate them into a single three-year programme.
A meeting of the four commissions (political, socio economic, international and organisational commission) will take place early on 3-4 February 2010 to discuss how we should improve coordination of all these activities in the Federation.
Statement issued by COSATU, November 30 2009
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