3-24-05, 8:55 am
STATEMENT OF SACP-COSATU BILATERAL MEETING From RedNet News
A 20-a-side high-level Bilateral Meeting of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) took place in Johannesburg yesterday (22 March). COSATU President, Willie Madisha, and SACP General Secretary, Blade Nzimande led the respective delegations. This was the first such bilateral meeting since July 2002.
In its agenda, the meeting focused on:
The discussions were characterised by a very high level of convergence between the delegations. In particular, the meeting noted that notwithstanding important gains for workers and the poor, the first decade of freedom had been most beneficial to the established and emergent strata of the capitalist class. Workers’ share of GDP has declined dramatically, productivity has increased, and unemployment levels have escalated.
The gains of the workers and the poor have not been insignificant, these being:
The bosses have bypassed democratic institutions and sought to influence government behind the scenes. Indeed, government and the ANC must engage with all sections of South African society. But all such engagements with global and domestic capital must be based on discussions within, and reported to the ANC and the ANC-SACP-COSATU alliance.
A combination of persistent working class struggles, the growing economic crisis, and the failure of capital to reciprocate government market friendlier economic policies have led to mild but important shifts in many government programmes. We welcome these shifts in particular the relaxation of fiscal policies, emphasis placed on the role of the state and the increasing levels of state-led investment. Internally, we have also witnessed the consolidation of key COSATU affiliates and the significant growth in the membership of the SACP (30,000 active communist cadres) in the last five years. We are therefore encouraged by the steady growth of working class confidence in challenging the entrenched power of the bosses both here and internationally.
The second decade of freedom: a decade of the workers and the poor
The SACP and COSATU agreed that the second decade of freedom must be the decade of the workers and the poor. Working class forces have to escalate mobilisation and organisation to defend its gains, advance its interests and roll back capitalism in our country. In this second decade of freedom, working class forces must intensify a sustained and mass-based class offensive on the power and interests of the capitalist class. As the two central working class formations in our country, we will focus this class offensive to challenge pro-capitalist economic policy and the management and ownership monopoly of the bosses in the workplace and the broader economy. We will intensify working class mobilisation against retrenchments, casualisation, outsourcing and the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
We will intensify working class struggles for a strong public sector and interventionist state, which play a developmental and leading role in the economy. We will intensify working class struggles for accelerated land and agrarian reform, job creation, access to basic and essential services and ensuring worker control of retirement funds, the broader democratisation of the financial sector and the building of a progressive co-operative movement. We will also focus on mobilising poor communities and families who are unemployed behind their struggle for sustainable and decent livelihoods. In all this, we will also focus on building a working class led women’s movement and taking forward the struggle for gender equality in all aspects of our society.
All of our formations, but COSATU in particular, need to give much greater emphasis to recruitment and organisation at the base, including at the point of production. COSATU has an important challenge to wrest from a profit-maximising, labour-exploiting capitalist class its monopoly over ownership and management of key sectors of the economy. We will support each other in our recruitment and organising campaigns, and in campaigns to transform the financial sector and the agro-industrial sector.
The SACP and COSATU call on all poor and working people in South Africa to ensure that the second decade of freedom becomes their decade by escalating mass mobilisation and struggles for jobs, poverty eradication, access to essential services and accelerated land reform.
Southern Africa
The meeting discussed the Zimbabwean crisis. The SACP re-affirmed its support for COSATU’s actions in the coming days. The meeting agreed that the Zimbabwean crisis needs to be linked to the broader question of democracy and worker and human rights throughout our region. The important African renaissance vision of our government, and the NEPAD perspective of good governance stand no chance of realisation unless working people and the poor of our region and continent claim democratic space for themselves. In this regard, COSATU’s initiative to work with the Southern African Trade Union Coordinating Committee (SATUCC) on Zimbabwe lays the basis for a wider programme of solidarity action and engagement. The meeting condemned the Zimbabwean government’s refusal to admit a SATUCC observer mission for the forthcoming March 31 elections in that country. We will strengthen our joint and coordinated international solidarity work in the Southern African region focusing on democratisation of Zimbabwe and Swaziland, and the need for building working class voices for democracy, development and worker rights in the region.
The Alliance
The SACP and COSATU agree that there is considerable common ground around the need to improve and enhance the functioning of our ANC-led tripartite alliance. In particular, the independent strength and capacity of working people needs to be consolidated within the broader alliance. This requires, amongst other things, a much greater active participation of workers in grass-roots level ward committees, community policing forums, school governing bodies, and ANC
branches themselves. The alliance should not be understood primarily as a “head-office” arrangement, and governance should not be understood merely as a national government matter. As the SACP and COSATU, we express our commitment to the Alliance programme of action. We will ensure that the working class will be at the centre of the implementation of this programme.
Current struggles
In the immediate period, we jointly express our concern at the manner in which the Department of Correctional Services has been handling the unfair dismissals of POPCRU members. We call on the Minister to negotiate with the union in good faith. We call for a speedy resolution of this impasse. We are also deeply concerned and wish to condemn the closing down of DRDGold operations in the North-West and impending retrenchments in many sectors of our economy, particularly the mining, textile and clothing industries. South Africa simply cannot afford this continued job-loss bloodbath.
We also express our serious concern on continuing pressure to force developing country governments to protect the patent rights of pharmaceutical companies at the expense of access to affordable medicines by poor people in developing countries. Yesterday, the Indian parliament, under immense pressure from drug companies, adopted amendments to the Patents Act thus reversing gains made in the Doha meeting of the World Trade Organisation.
Finally, the SACP and COSATU will take forward the issues, discussions and decisions of the bilateral through similar meetings and engagements in provinces and districts, coordination of joint programmes and campaigns and follow-up bilateral meetings.
