Date: 10/10/2011

Source: The Congress of South African Trade Unions

Title: Cosatu: Dlamini: Address by the president, at the Sadtu provincial conference, Limpopo

The Chairperson of the Province, Comrade Ronny Patamedi Moroatshehla

The provincial leadership of COSATU present here today

The Alliance leadership

Invited guests, comrades and delegates

COSATU is pleased to have been invited to speak to the SADTU Provincial Conference.

I would like to believe that every delegate present here today carries a branch mandate and your mandate is not just about the election of new leadership but also includes the other strategic tasks that must be executed by this conference as articulated in your constitution which, among others, include the following:
(d) The formulation of policies and programmes of action for the Province.
(e) The implementation of decisions of the National Congress, National General Council and National Executive Committee of the Union;

The reason I emphasise this point is because I have been observing with pain that within our movement there is growing exclusive focus on individual leaders at the expense of the bigger task at hand.

If you make a mistake of reducing this conference into being just about electing new leadership you must know comrades that you will have created your own political monsters out of the comrades you will have elected.
An exclusive focus on just elections during conferences has an effect of elevating individuals above the organisation.
This exclusive focus on the individual has its roots in bourgeois ideology. It finds its life from being peddled by the media until the individual concerned begin to believe it and act in accordance with the expectations of the media.
It is predicated on an idealistic assumption that there is a powerful individual who can change the objective course of history. This view places the masses and organisations as secondary factors which are only relevant and useful to serve the whims of the individuals.
In this context the individual is seen as being the primary factor that stands above everything and drives the course of history at will.
This is actually what is at the centre of what is corroding our movement today. We are confronted with a situation where there is a political stampede by people who want to emerge as heroes carried on the shoulders of the masses.
They are prepared to win at whatever cost. They are prepared to destroy those who stand in their way and if need be they are prepared to destroy our organisation, because with their imagined victory come lifetime financial opportunities.
I want to clarify that elections are an integral and important element of the democratic process in our organisations. My concern is that they must not be treated exclusively to a point where a conference can exhaust its work.

I will argue that even if we enter into a session of electing new leaders, such a process must be guided by the Programme of Action and it must be the leaders who have a proven track record of submitting themselves to the discipline of the organisation, who have the capacity to work within the organisation and with the masses to implement the set organisational programme.

What actually happens is that those who get elected develop a mindset of placing their personal and factionalist agenda to compete with the organisational agenda.

As soon as they assume office, competition sets in among the collective as they try their best to satisfy and keep to the commitments and promises of their camps.

When they speak they avoid raising sharp organisational and political issues that can set them against this or that camp.

They become preoccupied with retaining their positions rather than executing the conference mandate.

Comrades we must stand up and fight against this culture; otherwise our organisation will become a commodity that is sold to the most influential and powerful mafia grouping.

It is disturbing to note that there are people who have made it their full-time job to campaign for others to be elected so that they can be the first on the line when patronage is dispensed.

Lenin once wrote that "Victory will go to the exploited, for with them is life, the strength of numbers, the strength of the masses, the strength of inexhaustible sources of all that is unselfish, high-principled, honest, forward-straining, and awakening for the task of building the new, all the gigantic store of energy and talent of the so-called ’common folk’, the workers and peasants. Victory lies with them.”

This conference must express itself as to how SADTU will fight to stop this disease of self importance and individual primacy at the expense of our organisations which is eating our movement to death.

Central to the agenda of this conference must be to take forward the vision that led to the formation of SADTU in the first place. The preamble of the SADTU constitution says that “recognising the deeply embedded class and gender disparities in South African society, SADTU commits itself to eliminating all gender and class based discrimination in Education in South Africa. To this end, SADTU shall endeavour to inculcate the values of egalitarianism and social justice among its members and the broader society”.

This means that central to the existence of SADTU is “eliminating all gender and class based discrimination in education in South Africa.

It is unbelievable that the first school in South Africa was built in 1658 and yet 70% of our schools do not have libraries and 60% do not have laboratories; 60% of children are pushed out of the schooling system before they reach grade 12.

This reality is confronting black schools in the main and it is a painful reminder of the extent to which colonialism and apartheid were committed to destroying our nation and our country.

It is unacceptable that 70% of (matriculation) exam passes are accounted for by just 11% of schools, the former white, coloured, and Asian schools.

Research shows that in 1997, approximately 1.4 million learners entered the system in Grade 1. The matriculation pass figure of 334,718 learners in 2009 means that only 24% were able to complete matriculation in the minimum of 12 years

It is bad that 12-year olds in South Africa perform three times less than 11-year olds in Russia when it comes to reading and 16-year olds in South Africa perform three times less than 14-year olds in Cyprus when it comes to mathematics.

Yet white learners on the other side perform in line with the international average in both science and mathematics, which is twice the score of African learners.

Furthermore it is estimated that only 3% of the children who enter the schooling system eventually complete with higher grade mathematics and 15% of grade 3 learners pass both numeracy and literacy,

Lastly it is unbelievable that 55% of educators would leave the profession if they had an opportunity to do so.

We are hoping that very soon here in Limpopo we will be launching an Alliance-led Education Campaign focusing on making our schools our work and on bringing the training programme closer to our youth.

Our country cannot achieve the dream of generating 5 000 000 decent jobs if there is no focus on having quality education, particularly for the children of the black working class.

Actually we must now confront the fact that achieving decent work will come with achieving quality training programmes for the children of the working class.

Your campaign on Quality Learning is in line with the instruction from the COSATU 5th Central Committee that we should work to improve the attitude and ethos of our members in the public service.

Comrades we must be the first to come out into the open and say to our members: yes there are not enough resources; yes there may be systemic inadequacies that lead to failures in the delivery of services, but all these must not be used as an excuse to treat our people badly when they need services.

This must not be used to explain why people dodge work or sleep at work instead of providing service, or come late to work or instruct people to go back to their homes when they are already in a queue.

We are saying a COSATU member who is public servant must do everything to make our people proud of the service provided by our democratic government. This will go a long way to reclaim our credibility and win the sympathy of the public in our other campaigns

The 5th Central Committee also noted that racial Inequality remains South Africa’s national signature on the global stage; it is deeply embedded and continues to be the basis of the current growth path. The recovery of our economy continues to be strengthened by worsening income inequality.

There is inequality in healthcare: only 9% of the African population belong to a medical aid scheme whilst 74% of the white population do.

There is inequality in education: schools with less than R20 fees have pass rates of 44% and those with more than R1000 fees have 97% pass rates.

There is inequality in income earnings, with the top 5% earners earning 30 times the bottom 5% on a monthly basis; white people earn in one hour what African workers earn in a day. The ownership and control of the economy remains colonial, with a growing trend of foreign ownership of strategic sectors.

It is often argued, especially in the case of the United States, that full employment is between a 5% and 6% unemployment rate. We may interpret full employment as a situation where unemployment is so low that it is no longer an issue of social concern.

Looking at the structure of South Africa’s unemployment, we note that the unemployment rate among Whites is 5.5%, among Indians it is 7.9%, among Coloureds it is 21.3% and among Africans it is 28.1%[1] <#_ftn1> .

Thus, according to these figures White people live under the condition of full employment, Indians operate near full employment, while for Coloureds and Africans unemployment is still a major social concern.

These differential material conditions have a direct bearing on what people think should be social priorities.

It was on the basis of these observations among others which led the Central Committee to adopt a radical Living Wage Campaign which is linked to other campaigns such as the Anti-Walmart Campaign, the campaign against atypical forms of employment, in particular against Labour brokering, which is nothing but legislated thuggery and human trafficking, which has resulted to millions of our people being poor whilst being employed because they are forced to take a section of their already meagre salary to a labour broker.

We had already identified the 5th October as a National Day of Action but had to postpone because bosses had indicated that they will interdict us and many wanted to use legal loopholes to declare the action as illegal and unprotected.

But as I stand here today we want to promise that the day is nearing when workers will come out into the open regardless of threats by employers to demand what is due to them.

From that day onward no employer in South Africa will continue to enjoy comfort and niceties derived from the sweat of workers when workers and their families sleep with hungry stomachs and without any hope for the future.

We will be marching to their houses, including marching to the house of the owner of Pick n Pay Raymond Ackerman who wants to retrench thousands of workers as part of preparing for the Walmart takeover. On the 20th, 21st and 24th October we will be attending a hearing at the Pretoria Competition Appeals Court against the decision of the Competition Tribunal.

We want to commend our three ministers responsible for Economic Development, Minister Ebrahim Patel <http://topics.bloomberg.com/ebrahim-patel/> , Trade and Industry, Minister Rob Davies <http://topics.bloomberg.com/rob-davies/> and Forestry and Fisheries, Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson, for joining SACCAWU , SACTWU and the South African Small Medium and Micro Enterprises Forum (SASMMEF) in an appeal against the ruling by the Competition Tribunal which allowed Walmart to proceed with the R16.5 billion takeover, giving only three insignificant conditions: i.e. the creation of the R100 million Development fund, moratorium on retrenchment for two years and the retention of collective agreement.

So comrades, we are preparing for a total war against exploitation. As you prepare for your next negotiation we want SADTU to start thinking broadly, beyond salary negotiations but integrate skills development, access to health care facilities and not just medical aid, housing and not just exclusive housing subsidy but ensure that we fuse our demands into a war against continued unemployment, inequalities and poverty.

This conference must be about providing answers on how best must COSATU prepare and conduct these battles lying ahead.

I must say that we have high hopes from this conference and we know that you will not disappoint us

May you have successful deliberations that will provide answers to the burning questions confronting our movement and the country at large.

Amandla!