Date: 01/02/2011
Source: The Congress of South African Trade Unions
Title: Cosatu: Dlamini: Address by the Congress of South African Trade Unions president, at the Communications Workers Union fourth national congress, Durban

The President of CWU
The entire National Executive Committee
Delegates from all levels of the organisation
Invited guests
Comrades and compatriots

As COSATU we are pleased to have been invited to address this 4th National Congress of Communication Workers Union. We would like to congratulate the CWU leadership for having been able to steer the union through the chilly winds of political battles and organisation storm up to this 4th National Congress.
Those of us who have been observing this union closely will know that this 4th National Congress represents an important milestone in the life of this organisation.
One experience of the political chilly winds which this union was to go through was the battle to defend the image of the SABC as a public broadcaster when there was rampant abuse of state institutions to advance factional political and business interests.

When there was an attempt to change the SABC into an instrument that served a few political masters, this union did not keep quiet. Surely, like all of us comrades, you shouted at the top of your voices when you heard the high court judge confirming that indeed there was extreme political interference and political manipulation in the SABC news room.
One of the important lessons that can be derived from what I call the Snuki Judgement is that the biggest mistake we can make now is to leave the task of transforming the South African media to the media itself. This is a struggle which every CWU cadre working in the media industry must consciously undertake.
This judgement is a lesson to those who still think that SABC can be turned into their instrument to fight political battles, advance their private interests or generate profits for themselves.
We are aware of the extent of corruption in the SABC and we are observing whether any action will be taken against the culprits.
It is disturbing to note the extent to which corrupt tendering practices has a played a destructive role in destabilising the SABC. We want our SABC to become an effective public broadcaster that can help to inform and to entertain the public.
Indeed this 4th National Congress must be seen as an important milestone, if we are to consider that the character of the industry in which CWU is operating is highly infected with atypical forms of employment, particularly labour brokers. This is an environment which makes the life of any union to be difficult and yet represents a reason why unions should exist in the first place.
Members of CWU understand better than anyone the brutality of labour brokers because these parasites attack in the main sectors in which CWU is organising.
We know that workers in call centres, in telecommunication, in postal and courier services experience high levels of exploitation and abuse at the hands of labour brokers.
The strategic task confronting us is ensuring that the campaign for decent work is not only limited to a fight against labour brokers but extends to all non-standard forms of employment like casualisation, part-time work and outsourcing. We want everyone to know that, more than ever before, COSATU is even more prepared now to defend the resolution on the achievement of decent jobs.
We will not accept to be blackmailed into accepting that there should be the creation of any jobs first and that when people have these jobs then they can start fighting to achieve decent jobs.
As we speak here today COSATU has prepared a comprehensive response to the Labour Law amendments which are intended to impact on labour brokers. We will table our proposals when we meet with the minister of labour next week.
Our approach is that we will not only limit ourselves to the three bills which include Labour Relations Amendment Bill 2010, Basic Conditions of Employment Amendment Bill 2010, Employment Equity Amendment Bill 2010 and the Employment Services Bill 2010, but will go further and consider other areas of labour legislation that need to be changed.
The struggle for decent work will find expression in areas of our engagement and we must not make the mistake of thinking that it is just a workplace matter. This is essentially a matter about the economic policy choices that we make as a country.
It is for this reason that as COSATU we take seriously the construction of the country’s New Growth Path and have produced our own proposal on the Growth Path to achieve full employment.
We have also prepared and responded comprehensively on the Government proposals on the New Growth Path.
Once again we are aware that there are serious attempts by some to take us back to the GEAR years and should we see any signs of GEAR we will fight tooth and nail to ensure that this time, the South African economic growth path is based on the economic pillars and policy instruments determined by our movement and not some Harvard University professors.
We must say it loud and clear - that we will not accept anything that seeks to push us to accept trade liberalization, financial liberalization, labour market deregulation, limited role of the state, fiscal austerity, tight monetary policy and central bank independence. We want a new growth path that is based on the long standing pillars of economic policy in the movement, which include the following:
1. A redistributive growth path that creates decent work is better positioned to be poverty-reducing and therefore, it is better positioned to be pro-poor. The patterns of income distribution that have emerged in the past 16 years, the levels of unemployment and the associated poverty rate show that economic growth promotes poverty. Redistribution must necessarily encompass the question of economic power because, as we have seen, this economy pays 1728 times the average wage of a worker to an individual who happens to be a director.
2. Fiscal Policy that can deliver economic infrastructure to support industrial development, and also deliver comprehensive social security.
3. A redistributive monetary policy which can support housing and developmental infrastructure finance, through differential interest rates. Monetary policy must be co-ordinated with fiscal policy and must be geared towards support for an expansionary fiscal stance.
4. A focus on Industrial Development: In procuring inputs into infrastructure development, allocation of credit, technology support, and skills development and training, the state will support local industries. Local industries in turn, will be required to also procure from other local suppliers as a means to build a cohesive industrial base. The expansion of industry will create decent work, increase value-added, and thereby increase the social surplus required to maintain the sustainability of the expansionary fiscal stance through a wider and deeper tax base. Monetary and fiscal policy instruments will have to be deployed to ensure that the social surplus generated does not leak out of the economy in the form of capital outflows and imports.
5. Collective and public forms of ownership: Our society suffers from a history of dispossession. The past 16 years sought to return the wealth to a few blacks, on behalf of the people as a whole. This has failed to resolve the underlying problems of apartheid and capitalism. The new growth path will progressively support the emergence and expansion of collective forms of ownership. Some strategic inputs to industrial development, e.g. the mines, steel production and petro-chemicals should be in the hands of the state, in order to build state power to direct industrialisation. Co-operatives should also be supported and be closely linked to state initiatives in order to build a progressive alliance between collective forms of ownership in the economy. Such an initiative will lead to redistribution of power in the economy and break the stranglehold of a few conglomerates.
6. The development of the Southern African region: Whilst South Africa faces major challenges our country cannot tackle its challenges fully unless it contributes towards regional development. South African capitalism developed on the basis of migrant labour drawn from the regional economy. By contributing to the development of social and economic infrastructure in the region, South Africa will be fulfilling its internationalist obligations and will foster closer economic and cultural integration of the region. South Africa’s industrial development can also benefit immensely by levering the strengths of the regional economy, especially in relation to food security, water, energy and market access.
7. Poverty reduction cannot be achieved through purely inward-looking policies. A sustainable regional approach, which is based on building regional economic capabilities, technology transfers and economic development policy coherence, is required to systematically deal with poverty. Indeed, the major driver of migration in the sub-Continent is the levels of poverty and economic under-development that exist in our neighbouring countries.
In addition there needs to be political will to industrialise the region, and to link national industrial initiatives into a coherent regional industrialisation strategy. Hence our industrialisation strategy must balance the national imperative to address domestic basic needs and the needs of the people in the region. The same approach should inform each of the national initiatives in the region.
8. Environmental sustainability[40] <#_ftn1> : Economic growth and development must support sustainable environments. Industrial and social processes must minimise the disruption of natural processes; limit environmental degradation, adverse changes in bio-diversity, soil erosion and desertification, the emission of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, and pollution of water streams and ground water. Patterns of consumption must also be aligned towards products that optimise environmental regeneration.
In this new growth path, we must draw a link between environmental sustainability and poverty eradication in the Southern African region. Most of the economies in the region are still agriculture based. They are therefore vulnerable to water scarcity, environmental degradation and changes in the climate. This in turn directly affects the livelihoods of the vast majority, who continue to rely on subsistence agriculture. Whilst recognising the need to mechanise agriculture, put it on a commercial basis and to raise productivity levels, it is clear that an unsustainable natural environment will pose an absolute barrier to poverty alleviation. This is exacerbated by the fact that the vast majority of rural people have no access to technology, skills, credit and markets.
The most important task now moving forward is that every CWU member must know and understand COSATU‘s proposals on the New Growth Path. We need to remain with a sense of clarity about what we want at all levels of our organisations!
We must remain guided by a maxim that power concedes nothing without struggle! In this context our members must remain combat ready because what will ultimately be in the New Growth Path will be determined by the class forces that are able to alter the balance of forces to its favour. We saw this in 1996 and must repeat it!
Comrades the theme of this Congress says: “Building CWU to advance job creation, decent work and socialism”. This theme speaks to the tasks at hand and comrades must understand that the dream of achieving socialism will not come only through slogans but will require conscious action on our part to build strong organisations of the working class. This includes strengthening our unions and building the ANC and SACP.
Allow me to focus more on what we are supposed to be doing as COSATU and its affiliates. Comrades one of the tasks we have set for ourselves in our 2015 plan was to ensure a systematic and rigorous implementation of an organisation building programme, ensuring the recruitment of over four million members, by the 10th National Congress in 2009, with a united working class and depth of organisation and militancy.
The reality is that we have not been able to achieve this objective. Part of the problem is that unions are not aggressively driving the Organisational Development programmes and that we have failed to pursue our resolution on the formation of mergers to achieve the dream of one union one industry.
In our 8th Congress this is what we said about CWU as part of the Organisational report “The union seem to be doing very well on the unity, following the merger of three unions in CWU. The union is however experiencing serious membership declines. The income of the union has equally declined. For three years the union has been attempting to organise workers in SABC head office and regional offices, without much success. The union has also organised workers in M- Net, Vodacom and MTN, again without much success. The union clearly faces serious organisational challenges.
“It is recommended that the union should with be merged or be integrated into one of stronger affiliates in the course of the coming year. There are various possibilities for this – NUMSA supplies most of the telecommunications equipment; CEPPWAWU also recruits media personnel and SATAWU is also strongly associated with a parastatal that provides basic infrastructure”
In our 9th Congress this is what we again said about CWU “The union is steadily improving from near-extinction. CWU was completely ill-prepared for the restructuring of Telkom and the Post Office and failed to diversify its membership base from these two entities. Leadership inertia and organisational stagnation followed.
“Membership was not growing but the union could continue to operate without incurring losses. In other words, the union was in a comfort zone and unable to break out of this cocoon.
“The Federation had to intervene. An initial effort to support organisational development as the basis for recruitment was not sustained due to lack of capacity. Yet the potential to grow is huge.
“The union faces rivalry from Solidarity in Telkom and the need to step up recruitment across the entire telecommunications and broadcasting industries. Within Telkom, it must contend with subcontracting by stepping up its recruitment campaign.
“CWU has continued to lose members, falling from 32 000 to 25 000 in the past three years”.
The question which this congress must answer is why has the resolution to have CWU merged with other strategic unions not have been implemented. The question is no longer whether there is a need to that but the issue is how best we can implement this resolution. As COSATU we have committed that this year will end with all unions having merged both in the public and private sector.
This congress can only strengthen this resolution by observing trends in the industry and see if CWU on its own can continue to survive given the objective and subjective factors that exist in the sectors where you are organising. The intention must be how best we can maximise our impact in the sectors where we are organising and the existing indication is that so far we have serious limitations which we must confront and address and when we do so we must be honest to ourselves.
Amandla!!!