Date: 06/06/2011
Source: The Congress of South African Trade Unions
Title: Cosatu: Vavi: Address by the general secretary, at the James Manor lecture, Johannesburg

Thank you for inviting me to take part in this discussion on such an important issue – the right to work.
India and South Africa have much in common. They were both pillaged and exploited by imperialists, who used their African and Asian colonies as a source of natural resources and cheap labour. Manufacturing industry was not developed; in India it was brutally suppressed. As a consequence we have both inherited extremely high levels of poverty, inequality and unemployment. We are both struggling to eradicate these problems and become advanced, industrialised and prosperous nations.
We both also have very progressive constitutions, which include clauses to protect workers’ rights to decent wages and fair treatment. The South African Constitution affirms that “everyone has the right to fair labour practices” but does not, like its Indian counterpart, specifically guarantee the right to work, though this is covered by “the right to freely engage in economic activity” which includes work.
Article 41 of the Indian Constitution commits the State “to make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of undeserved want,” and Article 43 says that “the State shall endeavour to secure a living wage and a decent standard of life to all workers.”
The 2005 National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is a bold attempt to by India implement this constitutional right to work. It is the world’s first employment guarantee scheme, which gives every rural household the right to 100 days of employment (manual labour) a year at a minimum wage.
With over 55 million participants, it has become one of the largest poverty programmes in history and has provided over two billion person-days of work – 48% of which have gone to women.
It has reduced hunger, raised self-esteem, advanced women, strengthened civil society, and - despite problems with fraud which we in South Africa are unfortunately also familiar with - introduced new mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability.
Interestingly the programme is also said to have increased the popularity of government, which my comrades in the ANC should bear in mind.
South Africa can learn a great deal from this programme. We have exactly the same challenges as India. Unemployment is higher than in any comparable country - 36.6% by the more realistic definition which includes those who have given up looking for work.
Inequality is greater than anywhere else in the world and still growing. On average the poorest 10% of earners get R1 275 a month - 0.57% of total earnings, while the top 10% get R111 733 - 49.2% of the total!
Thousands of South Africans feel marginalised and ignored, living in slum shacks, collecting water from taps in the street, even having to use bucket toilets. This has led to a growing number of service delivery protests, to demand houses, running water, tarred roads, schools, clinics and all the other basic necessities for civilised life.
A programme modelled on the Indian scheme could start to solve many of these problems, provided that it was modified to take account of South African realities. It should not for instance be restricted to rural areas, since much of our poverty resides in urban areas.
In both countries and all other developing nations, the state has to play a leading role in putting. The experiences of the last few decades have totally discredited the theory that market forces are the solution to getting rid of poverty, unemployment and inequality. The idea that an unregulated private enterprise system will create wealth, which will then filter down to the poor, has been shown to be completely false.
The developing world knows the cost they have paid by accepting IMF and World Bank “structural adjustment programmes” which compel them to open up their markets to “free competition” particularly when these programmes are drawn up by countries whose own industries are heavily protected by tariffs and subsidies.
Far from redistributing wealth to the poor, these policies have widened the wealth gap - created more millionaires, while condemning the majority to even worse levels of poverty, hunger and disease.
India, and Brazil have led the way in using the state to do what the market will never do. We have just heard what India is doing. Brazil, under President Lula and his successor, Dilma Rousseff, have followed the same path. Comrade Rousseff has launched a “Brazil without Poverty” plan, to eradicate the entrenched poverty that afflicts millions of Brazilians even as the rest of the country has benefited from strong economic growth. It targets the more than 16 million people, 8.5 percent of the population, estimated to live in extreme poverty, earning the equivalent of $44 a month or less.
South Africa has been slower off the block. Yes there have been similar schemes, like the Expanded Public Works Programme, to give young school-leavers work experience, in projects that improve the quality of life within their communities. We also have a fine record in extending social grants. By 2010, 14.5 million people were receiving social grants, compared with 2.4 million in 1996.

But excellent as they are, grants are not a solution to the underlying problems. Much more needs to be done of we are to give our young people hope for a better future. Poverty, unemployment and the lack of any recreational facilities leave young people with a feeling of hopelessness and worthlessness. If they see no prospect of ever getting a decent job and enough income to live a normal life, many are tempted to seek escape and oblivion through drugs and/or alcohol.
We have an army of 6 million people who want to work but can’t find jobs. Most of them are black, women and young without education and skills. They face a lifetime of poverty. This is what I have called a ticking bomb.
India has shown us a way to diffuse that bomb. I hope that today’s meeting will help to build up momentum towards much more radical programmes to get young people working and create a modern, industrialised economy which can eradicate poverty, reduce inequality and create a better life for all South Africans.