COSATU Today, 16 May 2012
Patrick Craven
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Our side of the story
Wednesday 16 May 2012
Contents
Ø COSATU’s response to Democratic Alliance’s march
Ø Counter-memorandum to DA, COSATU House, 15 May 2012
Ø NEHAWU condemns HELEN ZILLE for blood spilled yesterday during march to COSATU House
Ø The enemy is on the run – the enemy is naked – a salute to the workers for defending COSATU!
Ø Exposure of DA’s shrewd and naked ideological inclination
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Ø CWU march to South African Post Office and Gauteng Premier’s Office
Ø Untimely passing away of Advocate Mvuseni Ngubane
Ø Congratulations to ANC for hosting successful provincial conference
Ø Sir Lowry’s Pass crisis is a creation of the DA
Ø Helen Zille must do the honourable thing and resign
Ø COSATU NW concerned about the social ills in society
Ø Gauteng celebrates 100th anniversary of the birth of Tata Walter Sisulu
COSATU v DA
COSATU’s response to Democratic Alliance’s march
Patrick Craven, COSATU National Spokesperson, 15 May 2012
The Congress of South African Trade Unions congratulates and thanks its members who rallied in their hundreds to COSATU House in response to the Democratic Alliance’s planned march to the workers’ citadel.
In the event the DA did not even reach their destination and beat an ignominious retreat when confronted by the massed ranks of the workers.
Regrettably there was some confusion amongst the demonstrators as to precisely where the DA’s memorandum would be handed over to those who had been nominated to receive it. This led to a confrontation in the streets of Braamfontein, during which there were a few incidents of stone-throwing by individuals, which led to a number of injuries by people on both sides of the confrontation. We wish them all a full recovery.
COSATU, as it always does, condemns these acts of violence unreservedly, but stresses that the vast majority of its members conducted themselves with exemplary discipline and restraint, despite the provocative nature of the demands being made by the DA. We recognise the DA’s right to demonstrate, but insist that COSATU members have an equal right to counter-demonstrate.
As the federation explains in its counter-memorandum (see below), workers are totally opposed to all the policies of the DA, which reflect the class interests of its backers in big business. These include its support for labour brokers, privatisation and export-processing zones.
It wants weaker labour laws to make it easier to fire workers and its support for a two-tier labour market which will enable employers to use the youth wage subsidy to cut their labour costs by receiving a subsidy from the tax-payers for employing young workers, while they are free to retrench an equal or greater number of other workers.
COSATU is doing everything possible to promote policies which will create employment. It has signed four important accords – on basic education, skills development, the green economy and local procurement - all of which relate to job creation. We are striving vigorously to reach the targets set in these accords to create jobs and improve the lives of workers and the poor.
The federation is constantly pressing for faster progress in the implementation of the government’s bold plans contained in the Industrial Policy Action Plan, the News Growth Path and the Infrastructure Development Plan, which, if fully implemented, will lead to the creation of thousands of real, sustainable jobs.
The DA policies on the other hand will create no new jobs, worsen the quality of existing jobs even further and lead to the impoverishment and enslavement of workers and economic meltdown for South Africa.
That is why workers are so hostile towards Helen Zille’s party and want to express their justified anger, most especially when there are confronted on the street outside their federation’s Head Office.
Counter-memorandum to DA, COSATU House, 15 May 2012
The Congress of South African Trade unions recognises the constitutional right of the Democratic Alliance to march to COSATU House. We are confident however that COSATU members assembled outside their head quarters, and workers around the country, will resoundingly reject the arguments of these shop stewards of the employers and spokespersons for big business.
No workers will be deceived by its programme which is pro-big business and anti-workers, pro-rich and anti-poor. The workers’ struggles to build a new and better South Africa cannot be led by those who benefitted, and continue to profit from inequalities, poverty and our oppression, and want to continue pursuing policies to entrench these injustices.
If ever the DA were to come to power, they would introduce policies which will cut workers’ wages and strip workers’ rights. Let us never forget Helen Zille’s warning to the government that they will never emulate the levels of growth shown by countries like China unless they stand up to COSATU.
Of course COSATU is concerned about the intolerable levels of youth unemployment. COSATU, more than anyone, else has highlighted the unacceptable levels of youth unemployment in our country. COSATU has done everything to bring to the attention of the country this unfolding tragedy of our times. We have called strike after strike in protest, initiated jobs summit after job summit, called on workers to donate one day’s wages and collected over R120 million and in the process created over 40 000 jobs, and initiated all the policy initiatives including the RDP, IPAP and the NGP, etc.
We have over and over again pointed out that the triple challenge of unemployment, poverty and inequalities is a product of the structural fault-lines we inherited from apartheid. These structural problems cannot be addressed by the piecemeal interventions such as the proposed youth wage subsidy called for by the employers and now supported by the DA and a few in our government.
This is the structural deficiency we have pointed out.
Our education system is in a crisis and it sidelines 400 000 young people who do not proceed with the studies after writing exams every year. Today 95% of the people who are unemployed have no tertiary education. 60% of the unemployed have no secondary education. As a result of this crisis 68% of the unemployed have been unemployed for the past five years or have not worked in their lives. The youth wage subsidy will worsen this situation.
The UNDP report in 2010 says 44% of workers in South Africa live on less than R10 a day. Using the Treasury poverty line that says anyone who lives on a R325 a month is poor, it means 48% of our people live in poverty. The youth wage subsidy proposal will worsen this situation.
The bottom 50% of the South African population lives on 8% of national income and the top 50% lives on 92% of the national income. The top 5% earners take 30 times what the bottom earners take. The directors of the top 20 listed companies on Johannesburg earn 1728 times the average worker. In the USA the directors earn 319 times above the average wage of a worker.
Approximately 71% of African female headed households earn less than R800 a month and 59% have no income. 58% of African headed households earn less than R800 a month and 48% have no income. On average African man earns in the region of R2400 per month whilst on average white man earns around R19 000 a month. Most white women earn in the region of R9600 per whereas most African women R1200 per month on average.
The Stats SA says around 60% of workers earn R3000 and below, 34% of workers earn R1000 and less and 16% earn less than R500. South Africa has become the most unequal society in the world. But the DA will not march against this pathetic situation. It now acts on behalf of those who benefit from these inequalities and poverty. The youth wage subsidy will worsen this situation by getting young workers to earn below the already pathetic levels.
The means of production and power remains concentrated in white capitalist hands. Estimates of black ownership of JSE listed companies ranged between 1.6% and 4.6%. The JSE is still dominated by a few large firms. Almost all the top paid directors in JSE listed companies are white males. The structure of the economy remains mineral dependent and now finance led.
Basically our economy is still in white hands. As we have said, we have political medals but the jewellery resides elsewhere. The DA will not raise this because it is a shop steward of these owners of the economy. They are now saying we must adopt a youth subsidy policy so that those who own the economy who in reality remain white males so that through our taxes we can subsidise firms to employ what will be in the main African youths.
We keep saying that if we do not create jobs for this new generation we are heading for a national catastrophe. We are sitting on a ticking bomb, which is already starting to explode in violent service-delivery protests. That is why we are working with government and business on ways to create decent jobs for young South Africans and give them hope for the future.
But these must be real new jobs for the youth, doing work to rebuild our infrastructure and providing basic services for our poorest communities. That is why we welcome the government’s bold new infrastructure development plans which can create many new jobs in its roll-out and lay the foundations of a modern, manufacturing-based economy.
If these plans are speedily and efficiently implemented, and are not sabotaged by corrupt tenderpreneurs, they offer a real possibility of creating real jobs and giving our young people a future.
As our part in taking these plans forward COSATU has signed four accords with government and business, on basic education, skills development, the green economy and local procurement, all of which relate to job creation. We are striving vigorously to reach the targets set in these accords to create jobs and improve the lives of workers and the poor.
This is not an easy task but one which we cannot dodge. The DA by contrast has made no attempt to find real solutions to the problem but proposes a completely bogus ‘solution’ - the Youth Wage Subsidy - which will do nothing to solve the problem of youth unemployment.
It is based on the false premise that the cause of high unemployment is the high cost of labour and restrictive labour laws that make it too hard to fire workers.
They simplistically imagine that if the tax-payers give employers generous hand-outs, they will create thousands of new jobs for young workers while retaining all their current older workers!
The obvious reality is that employers will employ more young workers and line their pockets with the generous subsidy, while retrenching an equal or greater number of older workers and thus create no more jobs overall. Then, when these new young workers reach the age limit for the subsidy they can be thrown out and replaced by a new set of subsidised workers.
It is a completely bogus, knee-jerk ‘solution’, which pretends to be tacking the problem by waving a magic wand at it, but actually solves nothing.
Why is the DA an eternal class enemy of workers?
In their 2009 election manifesto the DA made it absolutely clear what the workers would have to suffer if ever they came to power, when it made these promises to its rich and big business constituency. They said they would:
- Reduce corporate taxes - i.e. make the poor pay more, so the rich can pay less
- Reduce the labour laws to make it easy for employers to hire and fire workers – i.e. take us back to apartheid super-exploitation
- Introduce a six-months probation period in which employers can easily dismiss workers without any recourse
- Turn the current Industrial Development Zones into Export Processing Zones where employers will be attracted to invest on the basis of not paying taxes and where workers will not enjoy any rights!
That amounts to a blueprint for reducing workers to poverty and slavery. In what is already the most unequal society in the world, they would transfer even more wealth from the pockets of the poor to the bank accounts of the super-rich. They would speed up the casualisation of employment at an even faster rate than is already happening. They would slash away at the laws that protect workers’ rights to fair treatment.
Its 2004 election manifesto called for a second-tier of workers whose wages would be set at a level equivalent to the state old-age pension. What is that but poverty pay?
Now they are marching in support of their proposed youth wage subsidy, which is yet another way of transferring more money from the tax-payers to the employers.
The Export Processing Zones (EPZs) are another example of the DA’s pro-business bias. They want to allow firms to obtain partial labour law exemptions by creating EPZs in which firms are granted exemptions from certain taxes and labour laws in order to produce cheap goods exclusively for export.
For example they suggest that the government should follow the Chinese growth path for the clothing industry, under which Chinese workers have been paid starvation wages and worked under sweatshop conditions. That is why we were also not surprised at Zille and the DA’s very vocal support for the starvation wage levels paid to clothing workers in Newcastle, by the Newcastle Chinese Chamber of Commerce (NCCC) employers.
Clothing sector member companies of the NCCC were paying machinists a weekly wage of between R180 and R280, while the legal starting minimum wage for a qualified machinist was already as low as R479.10 per week.
These are the sort of poverty wage levels that clothing and other workers could expect under a DA government.
The illusion that structural problems of unemployment can be remedied by waving a magic wand to deregulate the labour market is justified by neither historical facts nor current experience. Unemployment is not caused by the high cost of labour, nor trade unions, nor low labour productivity, nor inadequate skills of the workforce but the nature of our industrial structure.
The underlying reason is the economy’s over-dependence on the export of raw materials, and the failure to develop manufacturing industry. It is also a consequence of the low level of demand for goods and services, reflecting the lack of spending power by the majority of South Africans, as a result of high levels of unemployment and - low wages.
A new growth path for South Africa cannot be based on reducing demand even further by poverty wages, nor by an attack on workers’ rights, as is being advocated by Zille and the DA. Such a race to the bottom is not an option. A new growth path must be based on decent work. This is the mandate from Polokwane and this is what workers expect the ANC-led government to implement.
The basis for these differences are rooted in the fact that while COSATU represents the working class and the poor, the DA speaks for big business, the wealthy and the privileged. That is why we can see no benefit in discussing these matters with them.
A luta continua!
COSATU sends its best wishes to following comrades who were injured yesterday
1. Thabo Kupa, 079 8111 222 (ANC YL NEC member). Injured on the head with broken brick in Jorrisen Street and treated in Pretoria, last night was still awaiting X-ray results and stitching.
2. John Machetela, 071 346 4811 (ANC YL member). Injured on the right cheek and taken by ambulance. Was not stitched to avoid bad scaring. Went home in the evening.
3. Prince Rampoti, 073 029 4686 (Post Office worker). Injured on the head, received first aid and left.
4. Sandile Xukwane, 072 618 3971 (SATAWU Shopsteward, Germiston LOB). Was marshalling workers at confrontation scene and police fired water cannons at COSATU members. (identified AP91). Identified police Van der Sand in uniform firing shots at workers.
NEHAWU condemns HELEN ZILLE for blood spilled yesterday during march to COSATU House
Sizwe Pamla, NEHAWU Media Liaison Officer, 16 May 2012
NEHAWU condemns the damage of property and the spilling of blood that happened yesterday during a march to the federation of organised workers, Cosatu by the Democratic Alliance {DA} and their rent-a-crowd. It was very immoral of the DA to bus in ,from around the country ,some very poor black South Africans, who were not going to say no to a free trip to Johannesburg, a t-shirt and a food parcel and lead them on a futile march against other sections of the working class organised by Cosatu.
This though will not fool the majority of poor people who have suffered and witnessed the suffering of their fellow citizens at the hands of the DA led province of the Western Cape. The same DA that was leading a mob to go and make a nuisance of themselves at Cosatu House is vehemently opposed to the total banning of labour brokers therefore keeping millions of workers beholden to their exploitative slave masters.
The same DA is opposed to the idea of universal healthcare and is doing its outmost best to frustrate the implementation of the National Health Insurance{NHI}.The NHI will benefit the poor who are currently unable to afford healthcare and are dependent on an overburdened public health sector. The majority of black people will never be bought and will never vote against their interests.
The Federation and its affiliates fight for full time decent jobs but not for a two tier labour market system that will be created by the implementation of a youth wage subsidy. When the DA, a party of bosses and big capital fights for a youth wage subsidy, it does so to ensure an unemployed layer of youth are exploited and forced to accept lower salaries in order for the bosses to increase their profits.
We are not surprised that the leader of the DA as a representative of monopoly capital, in her frustration and desperation ,is attempting to position unemployed workers against Cosatu. It is not Cosatu that has caused the 40% unemployment in this country; it is the system of capitalism that DA unapologetically advances that has led to more workers and families losing their livelihoods. They still continue to promote capitalism despite the fact that recently it has been collapsing and is being rejected by the working class in the North.
Cosatu, its affiliates, the ANC and the progressive youth alliance of Gauteng took to the streets to defend the federation and block an attack on Cosatu House. They never declared a strike or called for a march but did what comes naturally to anyone or any organisation that feels under siege, defended their property and their leadership.
Workers who gathered in Braamfontein to defend the federation were stoned by the rent-a-crowd and were also shot at by the police. The DA with their bricks and stones damaged several cars and hurt many people. To add insult to injury the metro police shot wildly into the crowd more than once and injured many workers.
We want to make it clear that we will not hesitate to occupy the streets of Johannesburg again to defend our federation and its leaders. The DA can lead the lumpen elements of society; they can exploit the vulnerability of poor unemployed people because that is the only way it pretends to have a mass base in the black communities.
We call on all those workers and students who were injured and citizens whose cars were damaged to send their bills to Helen Zille and her party because they organized this provocative march. They must take full responsibility for the actions of their rented-mob because they organized the march not Cosatu.
Furthermore we call on Helen Zille to resign as Premier and leader of the opposition as she is not fit to hold the office. She must take responsibility for all the damaged property in the Johannesburg CBD, and the blood of innocent people that was spilt yesterday.
She is a racist who refers to black South Africans as refugees in their own country, she oversees corrupt advertising contracts on behalf of the provincial government and is unapologetic about this.
She must go now!!
The enemy is on the run – the enemy is naked – a salute to the workers for defending COSATU!
15 May 2012
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), South African Catering, Commercial and Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU), Communication Workers Union (CWU) and the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) as constituted by the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), Young Communist League (YCL) and South African Students’ Congress (SASCO) salutes the workers and the working class youth for occupying and swamping the streets in defense of our reliable, class conscious, revolutionary and fighting COSATU against the provocative and deceitful failed march by agents of imperialism and chief spokespersons of white monopoly capital as represented by fascist and racist Democratic Alliance (DA).
The leadership of all these formations salutes you for defending what we perceive as a direct attack on COSATU, ANC and SACP by agent-provocateurs. What the DA was trying to do is unprecedented in the history of our new dispensation and our collective resolve to address the triple crisis of poverty, unemployment and deepening inequalities. The challenges faced by our people, especially young people cannot be resolve by the DA and other like-minded organisations or disgruntled apartheid leaders as personified by FW de Klerk, the forefather to the DA.
We should not forget that the name Democratic Alliance arose because the racist bedfellows, the Nationalist Party and the Democratic Party, decided to form an anti-ANC alliance, which they misnomerly called the Democratic Alliance.
The aborted and failed march by the DA to COSATU Head Quarters should serve as a call to democratically elected government as led by the ANC to move with speed in addressing the persisting challenges faced by our people. The failure by the ANC to heed this call we might be plunging ourselves into a deep crisis or inviting the Tunisian style of protests led by young people of our country.
It is within this context that we are calling on the ANC –led government to heed the resolve of the Strategy & Tactics as adopted in Morogoro, 1969, which aptly said; “.. it is inconceivable for the liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole. It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal political democracy. To allow the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the root of racial supremacy and does not represent even the shadow of liberation…..Our drive towards national emancipation is therefore in a very real way bound up with economic emancipation. We have suffered more than just national humiliation. Our people are deprived of their due in the country’s wealth; their skills have been suppressed and poverty and starvation has been their life experience. The correction of these centuries-old economic injustices lies at the very core of our national aspirations. We do not understand the complexities which will face a people’s government during the transformation period nor the enormity of the problems of meeting economic needs of the mass of the oppressed people. But one thing is certain – in our land this cannot be effectively tackled unless the basic wealth and the basic resources are at the disposal of the people as a whole and are not manipulated by sections or individuals be they white or black”.
This mass occupation of the streets by workers and the youth feed correctly to the analyses made by COSATU and the SACP that our democratic breakthrough of 1994, white monopoly capital as presented by the DA became the main beneficiary of the first decade of freedom, and that this economic tirade or triple crisis of unemployment, poverty and deepening inequalities must be reversed so that the workers and the poor can benefit.
Therefore the neoliberal or reactionary posture of the National Treasury must be undermined and be in line with the pro-working class policies adopted during the watershed ANC National Conference held in Polokwane in 2007.
The current spectre of popular youth militancy haunting both the developed and underdeveloped world, the Bosses and their lackeys given the crisis of neoliberal reforms and its failure to respond to the youth interests and aspirations. These popular revolts or actions have confirmed that neoliberal reforms are not the solution as there is being rejected by the working class and the youth. This confirms the scientific analysis by the greatest thinker of the working class struggles Karl Marx that capitalism is its own grave-digger.
Exposure of DA’s shrewd and naked ideological inclination
Mangaliso Stalin Khonza, YCLSA National Spokesperson, 16 May 2012
The Young Communist League of South Africa [uFasimba] is not in any way surprised at the recent exposure and nakedness of ideological inclination of the chief neo-liberal agent, the Democratic Alliance (DA). The DA in its support of the controversial Youth Wage subsidy has proved to be an agent of white minority capital which despite the challenges across the country and the globe have taken a stance to ensure that they are not labour absorptive and continue to seek monstrous concessions that will only lead to a reversal of the gains made by the government led by our movement that has been elected by the people of South Africa; thus forcing it to have limited choices in fulfilling its mandate to the people.
The youth wage subsidy is touted now by the DA and its media allies now as the only hope to take care of the rising unemployment crisis as it is speculated to have potential to take some 400 000 youth out of poverty and get them employed where they will get the much needed experience. However, what is not being said here is that the youth who have to bear the brunt of this subsidy will never be the actual beneficiaries of the subsidy as it is aimed at enticing capital to employ them. Post this employment; capital will be interested in the new group that has to be absorbed to get new subsidies that will benefit its profit maximisation aim and thus a creation of a revolving door syndrome that will see new entrants into the market being preferred to old entrants into the system.
This is just one problem as the system itself will pit the old workers against the new subsidised army of workers who are vulnerable and can be exploited without the protection of the rights regime capital has been complaining of for ages since the advent of worker rights. This labour modern slave market will not be tolerated by ourselves and it disgusts us that the youth vulnerability due to socio-economic challenges that are manifestations of the brutal, exploitative and crisis prone capitalist system that has seen the growth of wealth and profits that do not relate to benefits to the whole of society or increased employment as they depend mainly in the financial growths as we have evidenced in our own country particularly, and the global situation.
The DA has shown its weak moral fibre that is rooted in the exploitative attitudes that they hold in many issues and have exposed themselves in the public eye as no hypocrisy as they subscribe to can be hidden. Their anti-progressive attitudes cannot continue disillusion or even be sugar coated despite the media also playing a role in consolidating this hardened attitudes towards instability and disorganising the revolutionary alliance in its pursuance of transformation in South Africa.
We fundamentally condemn the instigation of black on black war by the DA which clearly calculated what was to happen out of its decision to march to COSATU house; this ploy was just to garner sympathy support for the Youth Wage subsidy by direct misleading action and neo-liberal lie of equal opportunity without equal access and benefit. The injuries that followed were unfortunate but were calculated with intended consequences and we wish a speedy recovery to those that were injured and the journalists that got injured at work.
The recent case is the Public Protector case where they were exposed and Helen Zille in her true neo-liberal attitude runs to the courts whereas she makes a lot of noise when it is not her party or its members found to be in the wrong. Worst of all she had made a commitment to resign and we still amazed at why she is still premier in the Western Cape and now remind her that she must resign from her position of Premier due to the corruption; she should stop coercing the Public Protector with court threats. Whether the report was leaked does not change the merits of the corruption that has been uncovered, the corruption in her administration and the contravention of rules means that she must just resign and stop her bullying tactics.
The increased intercourse of the chief agent of capital in South Africa with the imperialists that continue to lead the way of global neo-liberal oppression are exposed in the push to award Obama the President of the United States with the Freedom of the City of Cape Town amounts to an outsourcing of our city which the DA thinks it’s a capital of an independent republic which they have an illusion of running. Reminder the Western Cape is part of the unitary South African Republic as this is not a federal republic like the one the chief imperialist they awarding with Freedom of the City comes from.
There is a constant onslaught from apartheid apologists, white minority capital defenders and their co-opted members in the academia and the media against the revolutionary alliance which they would be happy to see breaking apart. This Freedom of the City they conferring is just another way of the symbolism they attach to their global integration into the imperialist outlook that sees our nation as nothing than an exporter of resources, a market for brain draining and cheap labour; we are not going to allow all this to happen, we will oppose this neo-liberal sense of foolish pride with all.
Workers
CWU march to South African Post Office and Gauteng Premier’s Office
Matankana Mothapo, CWU National Spokesperson, 16 May 2012
Today 16th May 2012 members of Communication Workers Union (CWU) in South African Post Office (Sapo) in Gauteng marched to SAPO’s regional offices in JHB, Braamfontein and thereafter proceeded to the Premier’s Office in the JHB CBD.
The march is as a result of the unresolved 2005 agreement entered into by both CWU and S.A Post Office to convert labour brokers workers to permanent positions in the company. CWU further demand that the company dismiss the Senior General Manager in the Mail Delivery (Pieter Swart) and the Group Executive Mail Business (Janras Kotsi) with immediate effect, both of whom are culprits of sabotaging CWU and Sapo agreement of 2005 that outline the process of doing away with labour brokers in the company.
CWU demand that the integration of Speed Courier Service into Courier Freight Group that was recently signed by the Minister, Comrade Dina Pule be halted. The move that is been viewed as outsourcing one of the core functions of the S.A Post Office and it has a potential of compromising service delivery. It is CWU believe that organized labour was not properly consulted; this process will be detrimental to worker’s quality jobs.
The union demand that a transparent report with regards to R425-million that was spent on the 10-year lease, an amount which the board of Sapo deemed as an “irregular expenditure”. Furthermore the irresponsible spent of R19-million prior to renting out of the new building at Eco Point in Centurion, all this is tantamount to corruption and all those who were responsible in a form of receiving “kick backs” should be brought to books.
NEHAWU demands reinstatement of 17 black workers unfairly dismissed by Royal Mnandi Catering Services
Sizwe Pamla, NEHAWU Media Liaison Officer, 16 May 2012
NEHAWU is calling for the immediate reinstatement of 17 black workers that were summarily dismissed by Royal Mnandi Catering Services, a catering service provider at Wits University, for refusing to be unilaterally redeployed by their management. We view this action by Royal Mnandi as a racially motivated dismissal because none of their white employees were redeployed and fired.
We call on the management of Wits University to intervene by reviewing their relationship with this service provider if those workers are not reinstated.NEHAWU working with the Progressive Youth Alliance {PYA} will fight tooth and nail to defend the dismissed workers. Today these progressive formations will march at the Witwatersrand University demanding the reinstatement of these workers. Racist employers have no place in modern day South Africa and no self respecting university should allow these archaic inclinations to prevail in its campuses.
Students have taken a conscious and progressive decision to cancel their meals in solidarity with the workers.
NEHAWU remains unwavering in its commitment to defend and advance the rights and gains of the workers and the working class in general.
South Africa
Untimely passing away of Advocate Mvuseni Ngubane
Zet Luzipo, COSATU KZN Provincial Secretary, 14 May 2012
COSATU KZN is shocked by the untimely passing away of advocate Mvuseni Ngubane. We extend our sincere condolences to his family, friends and associates. The death of this patriot is not only a loss to his family and the legal fraternity but to the country as a whole, including the trade union movement.
To workers, Advocate Ngubane was friend who saw himself as an activist first and foremost, hence the progressive role he played in the struggle to transform the judiciary. His death is a huge set back in the struggle to transform the judiciary.
Ngubane was a very hard working humble person who shared and used his skill and knowledge to contribute in the transformation of our country and the creation of a better society. The workers viewed him as a fellow fighter in the struggle to eradicate the legacy of apartheid and colonial oppression.
Congratulations to ANC for hosting successful provincial conference
Zet Luzipo, COSATU KZN Provincial Secretary, 14 May 2012
COSATU KZN would like to congratulate the ANC in KwaZulu Natal for hosting a successful provincial conference. This conference lived up to our expectations and was able to deal with issues affecting our movement, province and country in general; it was not characterized by fierce and serious leadership contest as some of our detractors had expected.
We are happy with the many positive socioeconomic resolutions that the congress has adopted as they will go a long way in improving the living and working conditions of workers and their families. Our province is not immune from the triple crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality that the country is confronted with and we are certain that the leadership collective that was elected in this conference will be up to the task of negating these challenges and uniting our movement.
COSATU KZN especially appreciates the overwhelming support for COSATU’s call on the banning of labour brokers that the provincial conference reached. We hope that the province will be able to influence the ANC policy conference and conference later this year to take a similar antagonistic stance toward labour brokers.
We fully concur with the sentiments of the Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in KZN, Dr. Zweli Mkhize, that members of the ANC must remain disciplined and not allow themselves to be provoked by rowdy elements who refuse to respect the leadership of the ANC and adhere to organizational discipline. The ANC has more task at hand including providing leadership in society at large. As COSATU KZN, therefore we look forward in working with the newly elected leadership collective as an ally.
NEHAWU supports proposal minister of rural development and land reform for foreign land ownership to be regulated
Sizwe Pamla, NEHAWU Media Liaison Officer, 16 May 2012
NEHAWU supports the proposal by the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform; Mr Gugile Nkwinti that foreign land ownership should be regulated in South Africa. We support this position because South Africa belongs to its citizens and is not for sale. We are also waiting for the finalization of the Expropriation Bill that is being prepared for submission to Parliament in the near future.
This should be sufficiently radical to address and remove all blockages that have delayed the transfer of landownership to the previously disadvantaged communities. The issue of land reform can no longer be treated like a taboo subject, especially with the statistics showing that the number of people employed by commercial farms has dwindled considerably. This needs to be immediately addressed if we are to succeed in creating jobs and developing our rural economy.
There is a pressing need to resolve the land reform issue if we are to guarantee food security and create work opportunities in the rural areas. The current ,exorbitantly high food prices are unsustainable in the long term. We will not be able as a country to break the monopoly cartel of commercial farmers if we do not pay particular attention to land reform.
During the 2009 national general elections, rural development and agrarian reform were identified as one of the priorities of our government. Since then, very little has happened except that we have seen escalating food prices and increased unemployment.
Government has been held to ransom by few white commercial farmers emboldened and cheered on by some conservative politicians and ultra right-wingers ,who have even arrogantly attempted to re-write our history. They have managed to blackmail and coerce government from transferring land to the previously disadvantaged communities for the last eighteen {18} years. As a result we have seen a lot of rural people moving to the cities looking for shelter, food and jobs.
This then has forced government to focus on urban challenges that happen to drain a lot of resources. The service delivery campaigns we see in our townships will continue as long as we see the continued influx of rural people to the cities in search of greener pastures. The reality that we all have to acknowledge is that most people are living in abject poverty in the rural areas. Speeding up the process of land reform will greatly assist in the eradication of poverty.
Sir Lowry’s Pass crisis is a creation of the DA
Tony Ehrenreich, COSATU W Cape Provincial Secretary, 15 May 2012
The attached report from the DA mayor Patricia de Lille shows that the city has been in possession of a survey of the crisis in the area since October 2011 and nothing was done to meaningfully address the crisis issues. Instead the services were focused on the Gordon’s Bay area. The report further shows that the transfer of the land has been on hold between the city and the Province since 2006. During this time Helen Zille was the Mayor, who effectively could not solve the problem.
The meeting in Sir Lowry’s Pass showed that, the Mayor and the Premier is at odds over the cause and the way forward, with Zille doing nothing more in the meeting than practice her Xhosa, and in many instances mispronounce words, causing insults.
COSATU will be working with the organisations to ensure that the DA focuses on delivery to this area also. We will also identify Government land at the coast that could house families who, are not accommodated in the Sir Lowry’s Park area. This will be the start of integrated housing in this City of Cape Town.
Helen Zille must do the honourable thing and resign
Zet Luzipo, COSATU KZN Provincial Secretary, 14 May 2012
Up until the latest findings of the public protector on the communications contract that was issued by the Western Cape government; the DA upheld the public protector as an embodiment of the fight against maladministration and corruption. Now that she has found against the DA Helen Zille finds it necessary to label her report as ‘fatally and legally flawed.’
One can only imagine what the DA’s reaction would have been if it was an ANC leader who was challenging the public protector’s findings and threatening her with court action. The DA would be screaming about how chapter nine institutions are undermined and bullied to prevent them from performing their duties.
Instead of hiding behind the technicality of the leaking of the public protectors report the DA should be explaining to tax payers why two of Helen Zille’s special advisers were allowed to conveniently sit on the bid evaluation committee that issued the tender. One can safely conclude that the only basis for their involvement was to ensure that the DA’s party political interest is served through this tender.
Helen Zille cannot be fighting the State Information Bill on one hand while at the same time protesting the ‘premature leak’ of the public protector’s report by the very same media she claims will be victims of the State Information Bill. The DA must display the transparency and clean governance it always preach about rather than protesting the fact that its dirty laundry has been made public.
Helen Zille must do the honourable thing by honouring her promise to resign if any corruption is uncovered by the investigation.
COSATU NW concerned about the social ills in society
Solly Phetoe, COSATU North West Provincial Secretary, 15 May 2012
Last week the Congress of South African Trade Unions in the North West issued a statement worried about the spate of the abuse and killing of women in the province.
In the past weekend COSATU has learned that five girls were raped in the province. COSATU is also informed that Elias Chirilo, the 72 old man, is still crawling to work and has not received any assistance from the authorities even after the Sowetan published his story.
COSATU provincial office bearers in the province met yesterday, 14 May 2012, and look at this alarming incident of human abuse and are now taking the matter to the PEC to resolve; but in their meeting the POBs have resolved that COSATU must act on this acts of inhumanity and call a march to the authorities of the province to raise the plight of this people in particular women, children and disabled people.
COSATU will march to the head quarters of the SAPS in the province on the 15 June to hand over the memorandum to the premier, the head of NPA and the provincial commissioner to demand that the women, children and the disabled must be protected.
Only this weekend, it was reported that more than five children were raped by their family members. The worse case is the father raping his young baby of two years at Boitekong Rustenburg and the mother who left a stillborn baby on the street due to her being raped.
COSATU calls on the authorities and all the stake holders to act decisively to fight against these barbaric acts.
Our action will be directed to the provincial commissioner, the director of public prosecutions, the MEC of social development and our premier of the NW.
It must be clear that we are not saying government is not doing anything. We are aware that the police in particular are making arrests. The challenge is the prosecution that gives those criminals bail. In our view any man who kills his wife, any man who rapes his baby, any young boy raping a women is an enemy to the society.
We are therefore asking for a joint program with our provincial government, our MDM, our alliance, our churches our business sectors and all our members to join the action as it is planned to take place on 15 June 2012 from 12h00 at the provincial office of the police.
International
Palestinian Prisoners Score Heroic Victory
Popular Struggle Coordinating Committee & Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), 15 May 2012
Struggle to End Israel’s Oppression and International Complicity Continues
15 May 2012 -- Nearly a month into the Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike, a historic victory has been achieved, as Israeli authorities were forced to comply with the prisoners’ main demands. Coinciding with the Palestinian commemoration of the 64th anniversary of the Nakba, the systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing that uprooted most Palestinians from their homeland around 1948, the prisoners’ victory has heightened hope about the prospects for Palestinian freedom, justice, self determination and the return of refugees.
This important triumph for the Palestinian popular struggle could not have been reached without the unwavering resolve of the prisoners themselves, grassroots mobilization in their support in Palestine, and the immense wave of effective solidarity and calls for holding Israel accountable that the strike has triggered around the world.
More than a thousand people around the globe have pledged to undertake a 24-hour hunger strike in solidarity with the prisoners, to take place this Thursday. While the solidarity hunger-strike has been called off, due to the prisoners' victory, injustice and illegal repression continue in Israeli prisons.
Emphasizing imprisonment as a critical component of Israel’s system of occupation, colonialism and apartheid practiced against the Palestinian people, Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations have called for intensifying the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to target corporations profiting directly from the Israeli prison system. In particular, we call for action to be taken to hold to account G4S, the world’s largest international security corporation, which helps to maintain and profit from Israel’s prison system, for its complicity with Israeli violations of international law.
Please click here to demand G4S ends its involvement in the Israeli prison system and its complicity in violations of Palestinian human rights.
Announcements
Gauteng celebrates 100th anniversary of the birth of Tata Walter Sisulu
Dumisa Ntuli, ANC Gauteng Province, 15 May 2012
The ANC Gauteng and Kathrada Foundation are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Tata Walter Sisulu this weekend. The first event on the 18th May 2012, 18h00, Wits University Great Hall will be a symposium to celebrate his life and legacy. The second event is the afternoon of song, dance and tribute to celebrate him as the people’s hero. The media is invited and many prominent leaders of the ANC and alliance are expected to attend the two events. Tata Walter Sisulu celebrations forms part of the ANC Gauteng centenary programme to celebrate the ANC 100 years of the struggle in serving the people.
Tata Walter Sisulu was born 1912 in the Engcobo district of the Eastern Cape and grew up in the care of his mother and uncle both devout Anglicans. He found the political home in the ANC in 1940. He was a founder of the ANC Youth League and Secretary General of the ANC from 1949 to 1954, Sisulu was amongst the most astute and important leaders of the ANC over the years when it grew from a small organization into a strong mass movement of the people.
He also joined the South African Communist Party and was an architect in planning for the Defiance Campaign in from 1952. He has served life sentence for his involvement in Umkhonto Wesizwe after being convicted at the Rivonia Trial. He was released in prison in 1989 after spending 26 years on Robben Island. After his release, he was elected Deputy President of the ANC. Tata Sisulu, described by Nelson “as a man who stands head and shoulders above us all because of his humility and simplicity” The whole nation should join us in celebrating his life and legacy as the great peoples hero who served the people of South Africa without fail.
Key Speakers in the Symposium :
First Event – 18th May 2012
Ø Cyril Ramaphosa
Ø Elinor Sisulu
Ø Ahmed Kathrada
Ø Noor Nieftagodien - Respondent
Second Event – 19th May 2012
Start at 14h00 – 17h00, City Hall, Johannesburg. Everyone is invited
Songs, Dance and Tribute
Patrick Craven (National Spokesperson)
Congress of South African Trade Unions
110 Jorissen Cnr Simmonds Street
Braamfontein
2017
P.O.Box 1019
Johannesburg
2000
South Africa
Tel: +27 11 339-4911 or 010 219-1339
Mobile: +27 82 821 7456
E-Mail: pat...@cosatu.org.za
