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COSATU: COSATU congratulates South African workers for a successful May Day

COSATU: COSATU congratulates South African workers for a successful May Day
Photo by Duane

3rd May 2016

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The Congress of South African Trade Unions wants to thank and congratulate the thousands workers, who took time this weekend to participate in this year’s COSATU May Day celebrations.  We are very happy with the manner in which the workers responded to our call for them, to participate in our decentralized May Day activities all across the country. Over three hundred thousand workers participated in COSATU May Day activities all across the country.

This is a huge success considering that this May Day also took place on a month end and during a long weekend, where most migrant workers had left the big cities to visit and spend time with their families. We also salute our alliance partners who actively participated in our My Day activities and we are hoping that this will continue beyond the upcoming local government elections.

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We also remembered the victims of the Bethlehem bus crash, where 53 COSATU members perished on their way to QwaQwa, when their bus drove into a dam near Bethlehem, Free State on 1 May 2003. We thank our affiliates for providing transport for the workers and we are still saddened though that some workers did not manage to get transport to attend May Day rallies. Our May Day rallies were characterized by cultural activities and a celebratory atmosphere. They were very peaceful with no violent incidents and workers behaved in remarkable way and we congratulate them for that.
We got a huge response and workers from all COSATU affiliates were present in COSATU events. Workers gave us feedback during celebrations and they have made it very clear that they are not going anywhere.

They want their COSATU to continue lead their struggles. They want a strong shop floor organization that will wage militant struggles for worker rights and defend collective bargaining. They want a democratic organization controlled by workers and whose unity is based on campaigns and mobilization; and the incorporation of broader social issues to its campaigns. They want us to continue to build alliances with community organizations and other progressive formations.

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Workers want a Jobs Summit to discuss the ongoing retrenchments and they want us to eliminate corruption in our unions first before fighting it, wherever it exists. Workers understand that leaders will come and go and they have assured us that they are not interested in organizations that are not worker controlled.

Recruitment, labour broking and outsourcing
After this successful May Day celebrations, we are going to hit the ground running with our campaigns, beginning with the recruitment campaign that is linked to the fight against labour broking and outsourcing.  Our recruitment campaign that was launched at the beginning of this year will be extended and strengthened to all the sectors , where we organise. There are only 3, 7 million organized workers in this country out of a workforce of 13, 4 million in South Africa. This means that there are around 9, 7 million workers in the country that are not unionized and we call on all our affiliates, shopstewards and organizers to be on the ground and recruit workers.

Union density in South Africa has remained at around 30% for many years meaning that since the end of apartheid, only about a third of all workers have belonged to unions. The challenge therefore is not that unionisation in the country has been declining; rather, the difficulty is that unions have not been able to grow their membership beyond what is clearly a very low base. We are going to recruit in all sectors but our major focus will be in the private sector which has experienced significant downward shifts largely because of the slow economic growth, higher rates of long-term unemployment, and the increase in labour broking. The vulnerability of many workers has simply made it that much more difficult to organise in the private sector. COSATU working with its unions understands that we all have to come up with new and innovative ways of organising workers in what is clearly a radically changed labour market.

Workers Summit and the formation of a new anti-COSATU federation
COSATU has noted that some of our former leaders are still working with the NUMSA leadership clique to attack COSATU. But the reality is that there is no federation that was formed over the weekend, and there is no federation that will be formed anytime soon. More than half of those so called unions that were paraded there do not have members. Most unions will not commit to a federation because they can see that this is nothing but an anti COSATU project by those with scores to settle with the federation.

We are not going to be defocused because we know that workers, including the workers in the metalworkers sector, have some real challenges and struggles ahead of them.  Collective bargaining is under siege and jobs are getting lost at an alarming rate. While others are plotting, we work to unite the workers to fight and defend collective bargaining including in the metalworkers sector.

COSATU is not a helpless organization that will allow its disgruntled former leaders and their funders to attack the federation without fighting back. Despite this offensive directed at the federation, we do not want our affiliates and members to be defocused from implementing the 12 National Congress resolutions. We need to deal and confront the exploitative and repressive working conditions including very poor wages, poor health and safety working conditions, and racist and sexist discrimination facing workers.

COSATU an unshaken member of the alliance
COSATU has a record of 30 years of firm, unbroken and uncompromising service to the workers. We remain at the forefront of workers’ struggles. Our record of struggle speaks for itself and we have never been neutral.  We have never been on the side of the monopolies or with the transnational corporations. We have never been on the side of the bourgeoisie and imperialists. This federation has always remained on the side of the workers' struggles for basic rights and total emancipation both in our country and beyond our borders.

We remain of the firm view, that factory-based struggles cannot be divorced from politics. Even from a pure working class and economic position, it is completely wrong to limit workers to factory-based issues. Politics determines who holds state power, who makes the laws, who controls the police, the courts, the army and prisons. All these issues affect workers everyday and cannot be ignored. Without addressing these questions the factory gains made by workers will be in danger of being wiped out.

We have learned from our common, painful experiences that we can win battles on wage increases at the work-place level, only to have those eroded by increases in transport costs, municipal fee rates, increase in electricity tariffs, food, children’s educational fees, tax, erosion of pension funds through rising costs of living, etc. It is for these reasons that from the onset, COSATU decided to participate in the political sphere. We are unshaken members of the Alliance because our struggles are political by themselves.

 

Issued by COSATU

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