4
COSATU Media Monitor
<http://groups.google.com/group/COSATU-Daily-News/web/cosatu-media-monit
or>
and
"COSATU Daily News <http://groups.google.com/group/COSATU-Daily-News> "
Published by the Congress of South African Trade Unions
<http://www.cosatu.org.za/>
1 Leyds Street, Braamfontein
Tel. 011 339 4911
Fax. 086 603 9667
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COSATU Media Monitor
Thursday 5 November 2009
Contents
1 Workplace
1.1 Unions dig in heels over wages
1.2 Labour broking is vital service, says ILO paper
2 COSATU
2.1 Crass materialism threatening SA
2.2 Cosatu backs housing call
2.3 Cosatu calls for abolition of inflation targets
2.4 Cosatu wants 3% in interest rate
3 South Africa
3.1 Numsa and ANCYL show Gwede the finger
3.2 ANC, allies hatch new plan to curb Manuel's authority
3.3 The bogeyman of the leftward lurch
1 Workplace
<http://www.thetimes.co.za/Business/BusinessTimes/Article1.aspx?id=89232
0> 1.1 Unions dig in heels over wages
Kea Modimoeng, Times, 5 November 2009
Unions vowed to stand their ground as wage talks with platinum producer
Lonmin entered the fourth week.
Talks resume today after a week-long break during which the National
Union of Mineworkers, which is demanding an "unshakable" 14%, was
expected to consult its members on Lonmin's 9.6% wage offer for lowest
category and 8% for highest category employees.
NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said the union anticipates "big moves" at
today's negotiations to secure a wage deal.
"Hopefully, these negotiations won't result in a formal dispute, but the
company should also not dilly-dally because we won't accept anything
less than 14%."
NUM's initial demand was 25%, which was later dropped to 20% before the
union tabled a 14% offer at the last bargaining round.
Negotiating in a separate wage forum at the same mine, trade union
Solidarity, which is demanding a 10% wage increase, last week rejected
Lonmin's 7.5% offer.
Jaco Kleynhans, Solidarity spokesman, said his union was "definitely
not" going to accept any wage offer below 10%.
Labour expert Andrew Levy said the parties needed to add more time to
"find each other."
"I can't see the company settling at 14% in these economic times, also
considering that inflation dropped significantly in recent months," he
said.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/business/article180268.ece
<http://www.timeslive.co.za/business/article180268.ece>
1.2 Labour broking is vital service, says ILO paper
But temps are first to go in tough times
Samantha Enslin-Payne, Business Report, 5 November 2009
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has come out in support of
labour brokers - a move that will not prove popular with union
federation Cosatu and other opponents of casual labour.
Research by the ILO, a UN agency that promotes social justice and human
and labour rights, shows that private employment agencies help to
promote better functioning labour markets, as they match supply and
demand.
They also allow companies greater flexibility to increase or decrease
their workforce, and in good times promote higher labour participation
rates, the research shows.
However, workers employed by labour brokers have been first in the
firing line as companies worldwide shed temporary staff as an initial
defence against the global recession.
John Myers, an industry specialist from the ILO's sectoral activities
department, said the private employment agency industry had grown at an
incredible pace over the past three decades due to the increasing need
to provide workers to a growing market. But since mid-2008, enterprises
have used this pressure valve function to lay off temporary workers,
while often leaving their core workforces intact, he said.
South African temporary workers have also been hit hard.
Solidarity spokesman Jaco Kleynhans said: "By the time we get to
negotiations on retrenchments, companies have already cut temporary
staff."
He said, based on the sectors where Solidarity organised and "what we
know", about 28 000 temporary jobs had been lost.
The number of temporary workers unemployed is likely to be higher given
that in the first nine months of the year almost 1 million people lost
their jobs.
A survey released yesterday by international placements agency Manpower
shows that temporary workers in South Africa are mostly employed in the
restaurant and hotel sector.
This sector, which includes retail, has been the worst hit, with 324 000
jobs lost in the year to September. Another sector that could shed
thousands of temporary jobs is construction.
Louwtjie Nel, the group chief executive of WBHO, said 60 percent of its
12 500 strong workforce were temporary staff. "That is the nature of
this business. If we can maintain turnover then we can maintain staff,
but industry turnover is definitely dropping off."
He said middle-tier building contractors that relied on private sector
work faced pressure.
Richard Pike, the chief executive of staffing firm Adcorp, said the
trend differed according to industry and between blue and white collar
workers. In retail banking the first jobs to be cut had been contract
staff, but there had been an uptick in manufacturers using contract
workers as a "survival tactic".
Pike said temporary work created opportunities as it was a major conduit
for first-time employees into the job market as Adcorp helped train
them.
On any given day Adcorp has 92 000 people on contract assignment. Of the
total, 35 percent would become permanently employed within a year.
The temporary employment industry in South Africa has about 500 000
people on assignment everyday. It has come under intense scrutiny this
year after Cosatu called for its banning, which received some government
support.
But the ILO research shows that agencies play a role as intermediaries
in modern labour markets, giving business greater flexibility, while
ensuring workers security in terms of job opportunities and standards.
Chief executive of Landelahni Recruitment Group Sandra Burmeister said
this was particularly the case when you had a strong professionalised
temporary employment service sector, as in South Africa.
The industry is pushing for further regulation of the sector, setting up
a board and making it mandatory for recruitment firms to belong to.
Currently belonging to an industry association is voluntary.
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?from=rss_&fArticleId=3395738
<http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?from=rss_&fArticleId=3395738>
2 COSATU
<http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=852816> 2.1 Crass
materialism threatening SA
Ido Lekota, Sowetan, 5 November 2009
POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
To create wealth at the state's expense is becoming a culture
SPEAKING at the Business South Africa anti-corruption forum last week,
Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi spoke about the cancer of
corruption ravaging South Africa and how a culture of crass materialism
in our society is threatening the foundations of this country's
democracy.
Vavi went further and articulated how the country's attainment of a
democratic order has actually become a blight on our hopes of becoming a
more equal society.
"The 1994 historic breakthrough has opened a completely new chapter for
everyone. But as Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said: 'A country is just
like a house, it has windows and gates. If you close the window you get
no fresh air, and also no flies. But if you open the window fresh air
comes in and also some flies.'
"This is exactly what is happening in our country.
"A disturbing culture has blown in through the window and taken root in
our society and our movement, which threatens to erode the moral and
ethics of our revolution and is silently threatening our national
democratic movement," Vavi said.
He blames this phenomenon largely on the private sector.
"While of course the majority of businessmen and women - and we can say
the same about our political leadership - obey the law and do not get
involved in corruption there is a capitalist culture that praises and
rewards those who accumulate the most wealth and despises those who
'fail'," Vavi went on to say.
His argument is that business people bribed public officials to get
business from government.
"For every person who receives a bribe there is another who gives the
bribe. For every corrupt councillor or public official there is a
corrupt businessman or woman," Vavi said .
His argument cannot be faulted when it comes to how businesspeople wave
their cheque books at public officials who then bend the rules to grant
contracts to their benefactors - usually at huge costs to the taxpayer.
But, also, many stories are told about public officials bending the
rules and granting contracts to themselves, relatives and friends - also
at huge cost to the taxpayer.
Vavi is also right in saying there is a culture of crass materialism
that has pervaded the private and public sectors.
This is a society where there are massive inequalities.
What this scenario tells us is that the attainment of a democratic order
in this country has created a situation in which there is class of
people who are not necessarily entrepreneurs in the classical sense -
but see public office as an opportunity to feed their materialistic
hunger.
In his book Architects of Poverty Moeletsi Mbeki argues that the South
African productive economy remains in the hands of an economic oligarchy
that owns what he calls the Mineral- Energy Complex (MEC) - which
includes the country's financial and mining sectors.
Mbeki argues that it is this class who has set the living standard in
the country. There is then the black elite, on the other hand, which is
striving to live up to that standard.
The strategy that the black elite has embraced to achieve this has been
black economic empowerment.
Some have achieved this by using political connections to acquire a
stake in companies within the MEC.
Others have used their positions within the public sector to accumulate
wealth by earning inflated salaries and being involved in corrupt
business deals.
As Mbeki points out their approach is, therefore, not that of using the
state to serve the needs of the people but rather of using it to advance
their material interests.
What this tells us is that any solution to the problem of corruption and
crass materialism must look at South Africa's current developmental
model and how it has perpetuated the scourge.
Failure to do so will reduce putting legislation and anti-corruption
mechanism in place to mere band aid solutions.
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1085001
<http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,,2-7-12_2432430,00
.html> 2.2 Cosatu backs housing call
News24, 4 November 2009
Cosatu in the Northern Cape said on Wednesday it supported the
demolition of poorly built low-cost government houses as suggested by
Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale,
"It is indeed a shame and an insult to our people to allow them to stay
in brick shacks under the guise of service delivery," the Congress of SA
Trade Unions said in a statement.
"However we want to take the call further and call for a forensic
investigation of all the shoddy projects in the province so that the
culprits, both in construction and in government, are brought to book."
It said that for "every corrupt government official there is a corrupt
businessman and vice versa" so both must be harshly dealt with.
People did not just want shelter, they wanted decent houses and badly
built houses should be removed from the statistics of service delivery
as they did not belong there.
Cope defectors
"In fact we need to have statistics of the low quality houses that they
built for our people before they ran away to form [the Congress of the
People]," it said, referring to an ANC breakaway group.
It said contractors should not be paid in full until projects were
completed and thoroughly inspected.
Cosatu said it was during the term of former housing MEC Pakes Dikgetsi
that the houses were built with below-standard bricks.
"When we made noise and raised concerns about the poor workmanship at
that point, he was the one who jumped to the defence of those projects,"
Cosatu said of Dikgetsi who joined Cope in January.
Sexwale said on Tuesday that in the Northern and Eastern Cape alone 3
000 houses would have to be destroyed as a result of "shoddy" and
corrupt workmanship.
Dikgetsi told OFM radio that this was due to poor monitoring. - SAPA
http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/Politics/1057/50f47f098c78485c
831a205ba127e84b/04-11-2009-05-16/Cosatu_backs_housing_call
<http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=852816> 2.3 Cosatu calls
for abolition of inflation targets
Brendan Boyle, Sowetan, 5 November 2009
COSATU took its criticism of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's first
medium term economic policy statement to Parliament yesterday, pressing
for the abolition of inflation targeting and for the SA Reserve Bank to
drop its policy rate to 3percent.
The parliamentary liaison officer for the Congress of South Africa Trade
Unions, Prakashnee Govender, told Parliament's finance committee that
Gordhan should also have intervened more dramatically to weaken the
rand.
Speaking during the second week of public hearings on the Treasury's
three-year spending programme, which Gordhan tabled last Tuesday, she
said the unqualified focus should be on the creation of decent,
permanent jobs.
Govender did not say how the government should fund the plans that
Cosatu put on the table.
"A weaker exchange rate is necessary to discourage imports and ease
pressure on local producers," she said.
Luxury imports should also be taxed more heavily to help drive down the
deficit on the current account of the balance of payments, which
economists see as the Achilles' heel of South Africa's economy.
"The government must reduce interest rates to ease credit market
conditions, discourage speculation in the financial markets and enable
fiscal policy to divert resources to social spending as opposed to
servicing interest on public debt. Cosatu calls for an interest rate
reduction to 3percent."
In a generally more supportive submission to the committee, Business
Unity South Africa (Busa) called for a radical overhaul of the
management of state-owned enterprises.
"It is quite clear that the business model that has been applied so far
to the parastatals is no longer operative. We need not only to look at
the funding model in the short term, but how they are structured in the
longer term," said deputy director of the business lobby group, Raymond
Parsons.
The committee will submit a report to Parliament on Gordhan's proposals,
but has no authority to change his allocation of funds.
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1084971
<http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php> 2.4 Cosatu wants 3% in interest
rate
Michael Hamlyn, Business Report, 4 November 2009
Cosatu told MPs on Wednesday that it wants to see the interest rate set
by the Reserve Bank at 3%; the federation's officials also praised the
Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan, for his bold response to the economic
crisis in setting the budget deficit as high as 7.6% of GDP this year.
Prakashnee Govender from Cosatu's Parliamentary office however told a
joint meeting of Parliamentary finance committees studying the
medium-term budget policy statement tabled last week by Gordhan that the
unions noted that the deficit reduces year-by-year.
"We are concerned that the expansion actually starts to get more
constrained in the medium term," she said. "We are concerned that this
is going to be an inadequate and inappropriate response to the
structural trends of poverty and inequality in the country."
The trade union group also called for a tax to be placed on
non-essential consumption imports, which Govender said destroyed local
jobs. It also expressed concern about the "business-friendly" proposals
to reduce exchange controls.
A major Cosatu affiliate, the health workers' union Nehawu, endorsed the
federation's call for the Treasury to insist on local procurement for
purchases by national, provincial and local government.
Nehawu also backed Cosatu's call for more details on the National Health
Insurance scheme, and wondered why there was very little provision to be
seen in the medium term statement.
Although Cosatu praised the extension of the child support grant until
18, Govender said the unions wanted more clarity on what the rate of the
grant would be in 2010, saying that the grant has not been
inflation-proofed and is now worth much less than it was.
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5231467&fSectionId=552&fSet
Id=662
3 South Africa
<http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=852816> 3.1 Numsa and
ANCYL show Gwede the finger
Zukile Majova, Sowetan, 5 November 2009
A WAR of words has broken out in the ruling tripartite alliance, with
the ANC Youth League and the National Union of Metalworkers
The ANCYL and Numsa dismissed ANC general secretary Gwede pressing on
with their demand that President Jacob Zuma nationalise the country's
mines. Mantashe's assertion that the ruling party had no policy to
nationalise the mines.
Yesterday Julius Malema again warned that those opposed to
nationalisation would not get support for ANC leadership positions come
2012, when the ruling party holds its next elective conference.
Speaking on SABC2, Malema accused Mantashe of "speaking English instead
of politics" by insisting that nationalisation was not mentioned in the
Freedom Charter.
ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu said the current laws failed to ensure
that people shared in the country's wealth.
The league is unhappy with the fact that while the state owns the
mineral rights, it still grants mining licences to private companies.
Numsa spokesperson Castro Ngobese said: "Mantashe has a right to his
views. What we want is the nationalisation of the high commanding
heights of the economy - the mines, banks and land to be in the hands of
the people.
"We at Numsa know that the Freedom Charter remains the key over-arching
policy document for action by the ANC-led alliance."
On Tuesday Mantashe warned the Gauteng Young Communist League, ANCYL and
Numsa against the "loose reference" to the Freedom Charter in their
demand for the nationalisation of mines.
"When people refer to the Freedom Charter, we want them to refer to it
accurately because if you don't, you can cause confusion," he said.
"There is no decision of any congress of the ANC to nationalise the
mines."
Mantashe said the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act had
already "reverted the ownership of mineral deposits to the state".
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1085022
<http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1085022>
<http://www.businessday.co.za/News/Home.aspx> 3.2 ANC, allies hatch
new plan to curb Manuel's authority
Karima Brown, Business Day, 5 November 2009
THE African National Congress (ANC) and its allies have proposed an
alternative to the green paper on national strategic planning, in effect
destroying the authority of Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel .
Weeks after a shuffle of roles in the Cabinet and Presidency, a new ANC
document proposes a planning approach markedly different to that
envisaged by Manuel.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has criticised
Manuel for accumulating too much power in the national planning
commission that was set out in his green paper.
In the new joint paper, a presidential planning commission (PPC) chaired
by President Jacob Zuma or Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe is
proposed as opposed to a national planning commission headed by Manuel.
The document says presidential weight is needed behind the planning
commission to allay fears that one cabinet minister would become more
senior to others.
The document is to be discussed by the ANC's national executive
committee this weekend and at a meeting of the tripartite alliance next
weekend at which it expects to iron out differences, especially on
economic policy.
Besides changes in name and the chairing of the commission, there are
critical differences between proposals made in Manuel's green paper and
in this document. They include:
n The PPC will be composed of chairs of cabinet clusters and ministers
nominated by the president, instead of a group of 20 people from civil
society as proposed by Manuel;
n Significantly, Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, who does
not chair his cluster, will still lead in making economic policy;
n The authors of the document spell out that Patel's Department of
Economic Development should be "built and resourced as a policy and
planning oriented" rather than delivery department, leaving no doubt as
to the pre-eminence of Patel's role in the Cabinet and in planning;
n Policy making will remain a task of line function departments, and not
be led by the national planning commission as touted by Manuel; and
n A presidential planning advisory group will be set up and
co-ordinated by the National Economic Development and Labour Council,
which could meet twice a year to provide "specialist advice" and act as
a "sounding board" for Zuma.
The involvement of civil society in the planning process has been a
demand of Cosatu.
Alliance leaders are concerned that unless the green paper is
refashioned to exclude the recommendation that "outsiders" sit on the
planning commission, it could amount to "outsourcing" a key function of
the developmental state.
The latest proposal - aimed at developing consensus among the allies -
was drafted after a series of meetings, and included senior members of
the South African Communist Party and Cosatu . ANC executive member Jeff
Radebe is driving the process.
"Although the green paper does raise the relationship between policy and
planning, it should be clear that the responsibility of the PPC is
planning only," the new proposal states.
A secretariat comprising a civil servant team of full-time and
relatively "well-resourced" professionals should buttress the work of
the PPC, the report says.
Manuel and Collins Chabane, minister in the Presidency responsible for
monitoring and evaluation, would jointly oversee the work of the
secretariat.
But the architects of the PPC cautioned against the commission usurping
the policy-making role of the line function ministries.
The document says while Manuel's green paper does address the
relationship between the functions of the planning commission and
planning, in the government, it does not give details on how the
commission would relate to planning across the government or on the
roles of other departments that have planning functions.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=86067
<http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=86067>
<http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71616>
3.3 The bogeyman of the leftward lurch
Jonathan Steele, Politicsweb, 4 November 2009
Jonathan Steele says there is a big hole in South Africa's economic
debate
There is a big hole of Kimberley-size proportions in what passes for
economic debate in South Africa. Out here for three weeks on vacation,
and making a strenuous effort not to follow current events too closely,
I started to get the feeling of a strange vacuum in the newspapers
through which I occasionally leafed.
Where was the concept of "social democracy"? What made the political
commentators and economic analysts I was reading unable or unwilling to
mention the word "redistribution"? Why did no-one on the editorial pages
show any awareness of the fact that modern capitalist economies can run
efficiently on Keynesian lines and not just according to the neo-liberal
methods that were instituted by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher way
back in the 1980s?
In the United States and Europe a massive economic re-think has been
underway for the last twelve months. Neo-liberalism is on the defensive,
and rightly so. People realise that the current global recession was
sparked by the neo-liberals' mistakes in de-regulating financial markets
and encouraging bankers and pension fund managers to rush into
short-term profit-making and a greedy bonus culture that led to pyramid
schemes built up on shaky but impenetrable derivatives.
None of this shift in thinking seems to be reflected in South Africa.
Political commentary is stuck in juvenile tram-lines and a repetitive
cycle of speculative newspaper and magazine headlines which one day
announce that the government may "lurch to the left" and the next day
gleefully report that there will be no such lurch. At regular intervals
readers are warned that Cosatu and the South African Communist Party are
planning to force Jacob Zuma's government to adopt "socialist" policies.
Then comes the jubilant news that they will not succeed. Articles about
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's briefing to the media shortly before
making his interim budget statement concentrate on the inane issue of
whether he was still a secret member of the SACP. The fact that the SACP
long ago abandoned socialist policies and that for at least the last ten
years Cosatu has not articulated a radical leftwing programme is
ignored.
It is true that Cosatu bangs on about the need to tackle unemployment
and improve service delivery as the government's top priorities. But
these are goals. What about methods? What concrete programmes has Cosatu
offered to reach these goals, other than those which the government is
already following? It is also true that the ANC Youth League and its
leader Julius Malema talk of nationalising South Africa's mines at some
vague point in the future.
But has the ANCYL done any technical analysis or feasibility studies
about which mines to start with, and what costs or benefits would flow
from taking the mines under state control? Until it does, the talk of
nationalisation is rhetoric and not worth taking seriously, especially
as it comes from a man who lives a high life of flashy consumption that
reflects nothing of the sacrifice and modesty which most South Africans
have to put up with.
The sad fact is that, with very few exceptions, South Africa's
mainstream commentators, editorialists, reporters, and headline-writers
espouse rightwing pro-business views. Some have bought unthinkingly into
the neo-liberals' Tina line - "There is no Alternative" - initially
popularised by Thatcher. Others peddle it deliberately. The bogeyman of
"leftward lurches", given flimsy substance by the ANCYL's
mine-nationalisation waffle, is used deliberately to tell us that we
must all knuckle under to neo-liberal economic management and the harsh
reality that Tina is right.
What rubbish. The economic debate, now going on in Europe and the United
States, is between centre-right and centre-left, between conservatism
and social democracy. In order to extract the economy from recession
should governments cut spending or raise it? How high can public sector
debt be allowed to climb before the economy's re-expansion replenishes
the Treasury's intake from taxes? In the short-term, given the mess into
which bankers' greed has got almost every Western economy, why should
their bonuses not to be capped? In a time of national austerity,
shouldn't middle- and upper-income earners bear a greater share of the
pain, in part through redistributive taxes?
South Africa's economy is not the same as those of the developed north.
It is a hybrid of the First and Third Worlds. Even on a visit as short
as three weeks the country's glaring inequalities stare one in the face.
Nowhere else in the world are they so extreme. But that only heightens
the urgency of getting a sensible debate going here. There is a whole
host of policy options that deserve to be discussed, both within
government as well as in parliament, the media, and civil society. Bury
Tina. Cut the crap about "socialist threats", and start an adult
dialogue on what policies are likely to work best.
Jonathan Steele is a commentator, writing mainly for the Guardian in
London
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?o
id=149739&sn=Detail
|
