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The Congress of South African Trade Union in the North West Province held its last Provincial executive meeting for the year 2020

 Organisational

 The PEC welcomed the report on the state of the organisation which demonstrated that a lot of work has been done to revive the locals in the province. The meeting appreciated the organisational work which has been carried out by the locals and they were encouraged to carry on with the good work on the ground. There was an appreciation that most locals have made an effort to establish local gender structures to take forward the gender work at the local level.

 The federation noted that there are looming retrenchments at Sun City resort in the province, which will affect more than 1500 workers. This happens against the background of an agreement reached few years ago that Sun City will insource all the service in the resort into the employ of Sun International. The federation will be taking the fight to defend these workers seriously going forward. Retrenchments should be the last option. PEC further noted that most affiliates in the province are experiencing a number of challenges which amongst others include the following:

·         Retrenchment of workers 

·         Noncompliance to the labour laws by the employers 

·         Attack to collective bargaining 

·         Victimisation of shop stewards and workers 

·         High vacancy rate in some departments in government 

·         Political dismissal of workers in the municipality 

The PEC received a report on the assessment of the National Day of Action and further engaged on the response from the Premier on our memorandum. The meeting raised a concern on the quality of the response from the Premier. The response was underwhelming and will need further engagements 

The meeting received and noted the assessment of the work done in 2020 and further adopted the program and the year planner for 2021  

The PEC resolved : 

·         To continue to support the locals on the work that they are doing 

·         To convene a capacity building workshop for all the local office bearers and the gender structure in the beginning of the coming year 

·         To continue with the work of reviving the locals in the province and make sure that all 23 locals are functioning and strong 

·         The provincial departments in particular the department of health must fill all funded vacant posts  

·         To engage the MEC of COGHTA on the political dismissal of workers in the municipalities 

·         To engage the Premier; the MEC of COSATMA and the MEC of education on the relocation of the leaner transport function to the department of education 

·         To convene a march to Sun City on the 14th December 2020 to raise the plight of the workers who will be affected by the retrenchments.

·         To engage on the provincial action early in 2021 to further emphasise the challenges that are faced by the workers and the community of the province

Political 

The PEC received a summary political report which demonstrated the ailing state of affairs on the political situation in the province and noted the following: 

·         That there is an interim structure of the ANC in the province and the alliance took a posture to work with the IPC and since its inception there have never been any public spats between the alliance partners

·         Despite the support from the alliance the ANC remains factional and divided in the province.

·         The deployees of the ANC in government continue to be loyal to the factions of the ANC and in the process, they undermine the IPC as appointed by the NEC

·         The attempt to recall some of the troikas in the province has failed but it has excluded some of the council which are performing very bad and some which have been implicated on the VBS scandal 

·         The SACP is still relevant as a vanguard party of the working class 

·         The province is still under section 100 and the stakeholders who have called for intervention are not updated on the intervention developments 

The PEC resolved: 

Ø  To call on the ANC to get its act together and be a united organization which can lead the people of this province 

Ø  To call on all the deployees of the ANC to respect the constitutional structures of the movement irrespective of the fact that it is interim 

Ø  To have a thoroughgoing discussion at the national level on the role of deployment of the leaders of the SACP in the executive.

Ø  There must be alliance involvement on the deployment that is happening at the local level

Socio economy 

The PEC received the report that shows that there is a high level of job losses in the country and the province and the most affected sectors are Mining; Retail; hospitality and tourism.

The PEC also noted that COSATU is only represented in the boards of two provincial SOEs 

The PEC also noted that there has been corruption related to COVID 19 TERS

The PEC further noted that the COVID 19 relief fund has made an impact in the lives of many unemployed people, particularly the youth.

The PEC resolved: 

Ø  To call on the provincial government to urgently convene an economic summit to deal with the ailing state of the economy in the province 

Ø  To conduct a provincial audit on the companies which have benefited on COVID 19 TERS and to verify if the workers received what is due to them 

Ø  To call on the national government to make the relief fund to be permanent to all unemployed people. 

Issued by COSATU North West Province