COSATU Today, 19 March 2010
Mluleki Mntungwa
|
4 |
|
Subscribe at:
Published by the Congress of South African Trade Unions 1 Leyds Street, Braamfontein
Tel. 011 339 4911 Fax. 086 603 9667
COSATU’s Communication Officer is:
To receive COSATU’s media releases direct, subscribe at:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Our side of the story
Friday 19 March 2010
Contents
1.1 Reburial of Comrade Leslie Massina
1.2 POPCRU tables a Special Motion in the SSSCBC on militarization
1.3 COSATU, the media and journalists
2.1 COSATU welcomes vote of confidence
2.2 POPCRU celebrates Human Rights Day
2.3 COSATU North West aggrieved at PTT convener
2.4 POPCRU condemns stoning of police vehicles
1. Workers
1.1 Reburial of Comrade Leslie Massina
Patrick Craven, COSATU National Spokesman, 19 March 2010
Leslie Massina, founding General Secretary of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), is to be reburied in South Africa. He died in 1976 in Swaziland, where he had lived in exile following his release from the Treason Trial in 1961
The media are invited to witness the exhumation and the arrival of his coffin in South Africa on Monday 22 March 2010 (Public Holiday).
His body will be exhumed in Swaziland at 05h00. It will then be brought to Soweto, at 15h00, where it will be driven along Massina Street, in Dube, Soweto.
Full details to follow shortly.
The funeral will take place on Saturday 17 April in Johannesburg. Details will follow.
Born in 1921 in Pimville, Johannesburg Leslie Massina left school
to become a factory worker. In 1946 he organised a union of laundry workers and
was later elected secretary of the Transvaal Council of Non-European Trade
Unions. During the 1952 Defiance Campaign he was deputy volunteer-in-chief for
the Transvaal, and in 1953 he became treasurer of the Transvaal ANC.
Comrade Massina left South Africa in 1954 without a passport, and attended an
international trade union conference. He visited Great Britain, Russia, and
other European countries. After his return to South Africa in 1955, he was
elected to the national executive committee of the ANC and became the first
general secretary of the South African Congress of Trade Unions. He was also a
member of the Dube location advisory board in Johannesburg. He was one of the
accused for the full length of the Treason Trial, from 1956 to 1961.
He was banned from trade union activity in 1960 and he left South Africa for
Swaziland in early 1960s, where he died of natural causes in 1976.
1.2 POPCRU tables a Special Motion in the SSSCBC on militarization
POPCRU General Secretary, Nkosinathi Theledi, 19 March 2010
POPCRU has tabled a motion of the re-militarization of the police services at the Safety and Security Sectoral Bargaining Council (SSSCBC) on the 24th of March 2010, that will seek to locate the importance of exploration of rules of engagement as per the SSSCBC Agreement No.02/2009 ;Clause 3.(3.1) on Principles which states eloquently that “Parties to Council must ensure that their representatives who consult or negotiate in Council are fully mandated”, and (3.2) further indicates that “Good faith bargaining means that negotiators must tender honest, realistic and implementable positions for negotiations and must desist from dilatory tactics”. Consultation must be made to matters (including but not limited to;
- Restructuring;
- Changes in the organization of work;
- Job Grading
The employer “before it implement a position in relation to matters referred ,the employer must consult formally with admitted Trade Unions and furnish labour with all information pertaining to the matter under discussion. In our view the employer has not met all the principles in the intended re-militarization process.
POPCRU contends that the agreement as duly signed by all parties must be respected and we stand to pursue the matter through dispute processes within the Council.
We have been extensively been consulting our Legal Representatives to prepare the matter for Labour Court and also High Court. Our contention is that the Employer must engage Labour on any matter that affect and impact on the service conditions of its employees and we believe in this regard Government fell far from that compass.
1.3 COSATU, the media and journalists
Patrick Craven, COSATU National Spokesperson, 19 March 2010
COSATU has noted with serious concern the dispute between the ANC Youth League spokesman Floyd Shivambu and a group of prominent journalists.
We are pleased that the serious issues arising from the dispute have been referred to the ANCYL, the ANC, the Presidency and the Press Ombudsman for investigation and adjudication.
At this stage the federation wishes to state that, in watching this development, we shall be guided by the following principles:
1. Clause 16.1 of the Bill of Rights, which says: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes freedom of the press and other media;” COSATU will always act in a manner that protects these basic freedoms, for we know all about the apartheid past we are emerging from.
2. The right of all South African to criticise the press and other media when they misinform the public, spread falsehoods or slander individuals. COSATU has on many occasions criticised the media when we felt it misrepresented our positions and when we felt that they allowed themselves to be sucked into factional battles in the Alliance.
3. The right of all workers, including those in the media, to the full protection of the laws of the country, including the right to privacy and not to be falsely accused. We are completely opposed to personal attacks and vilification of individuals. The federation draws an important distinction between criticisms of the media as an institution, which are legitimate and often necessary, and attacks on individual media workers, who are entitled to the same rights and protections as all other workers and who need to treated with respect.
4. Opposition to the misuse of state structures to obtain confidential information on individuals. It appears that this may have happened and we will be very happy for an investigation to establish the truth of this. If is true that state institutions are being deployed to silence the media, COSATU will be extremely concerned. The whole battle in the ANC Polokwane conference and the whole struggle for liberation was amongst others to ensure that the state institutions are not abused for narrow political and factional ends.
COSATU will always take a critical view of the media, especially the South African print media which is owned by just three giant private companies and generally serves the interest of big business. We shall not hesitate to complain whenever the media is distorting the truth, slandering individuals or misrepresenting the workers’ movement and its allies.
If however the allegations contained in the complaint by 19 journalists are true, we will not hesitate to condemn any attempt to intimidate journalists.
This will not be only an unacceptable attack on fellow workers but will make the media even more likely to present a biased version of the truth, as reporters and editors will not write the truth for fear of retaliation.
Attempts to threaten the media workers into censoring politically embarrassing stories could well be the first step in a descent towards Zanufication, dictatorship and a banana republic. There must be no return to those days.
We call on the ANCYL, ANC, Presidency and the Press Ombudsman to leave no stone unturned in their investigation of the allegation.
2. South Africa
2.1 COSATU welcomes vote of confidence
Patrick Craven, COSATU National Spokesperson, 19 March 2010
COSATU has warmly welcomed the overwhelming vote of confidence in President Jacob Zuma by members of parliament yesterday.
The MPs are speaking for the South African people in rejecting the pathetic attempts of the grossly misnamed Congress of the People to reverse the decision taken by a two-thirds majority of South Africans on 22 April 2009 to elect an ANC government under the leadership of Jacob Zuma.
The COPE leaders, who lost the battles at both the Polokwane conference and the 2009 elections, are now trying to misuse Parliament to try once again to claw their way back into power and thwart the democratic will of the people.
COSATU has full confidence in its ally, the ANC, to implement its manifesto commitments and the resolutions of the 2007 Polokwane Conference. While we shall always guard our right to be critical of particular government policies and decisions, we believe the government is moving in the right direction. It is sticking to its priorities to tackle the huge challenges rises in decent job creation, the public health service, the education system, rural development and crime and corruption.
The federation will continue to give the government support and defeat moves by minority opposition parties to divide our people on behalf of the rich and powerful vested interests that they represent.
2.2 POPCRU celebrates Human Rights Day
Mampane Norman, POPCRU National Spokesperson, 19 March 2010
POPCRU will join millions of South Africans on the occasion to celebrate the Human Rights Day on the 21st March 2010 under the theme “Working together we can do more to protect Human Rights”. We are calling all citizenry to recall the gruesome and selective brutality meted out to people by the then Apartheid Regime and killings of Police Officers as State Agents after they were labeled as “targets”.
Police Officers and Law Enforcement Agents are members of the community first before they become workers and all societal struggles are part of their brief; and call for more re-enforcement of Community Policing Model as resolved at Polokwane as our overarching premise to accelerate our Human Rights tenacity and heritage.
It is 50 years after the recognition by the South Africans that indeed we should not go back into those tragic experiences of our police services being used to suppress political freedom, freedom of association, freedom of expression and the right to assemble.
POPCRU adjures all South Africans to remembers all martyrs of struggle for leading us to a free country and make a clarion call to perpetrators of Human Trafficking, Abuse of any person in whatever manner and senseless killings to stop. Justice must be done to restore mankind.
2.3 COSATU North West aggrieved at PTT convener
Madito wa ga Molebalwa, Bojanala Local Secretary, 18 March 2010
COSATU in the Bojanala region is aggrieved at the utterances and actions of the so-called ANC’s North West Provincial Task Team (PTT) – Convener Saki Mofokeng when he told people in Madibeng that the federation’s Provincial Shopsteward or Provincial Secretary Comrade Nani Solly Phetoe is just a liar who confuses the people about the things he says.
Mofokeng must firstly know that Phetoe is a legitimate and constitutional Provincial Secretary and mouthpiece of the working class federation COSATU – North West. Saki must know that whatever Solly says is mandated by the workers in the province and he must respect that.
Workers in the province don’t know who this Saki represent or his PTT and RTTS as they are no such structures of in the ANC we mean constitutionally so.
This Saki and his PTT must not feel big for the shoes they are wearing as he knows for a fact that he is not a leadership material compared to our Provincial Secretary Solly Phetoe who was elected unopposed to the seat he is occupying, deservedly so. Saki was beaten hands down by the current youth league President Julius Malema and know we as the workers fully understands why.
He also like a brainless child called about 16 000+ marchers in Madibeng “anarchists” the same word once used by the previous and disbanded “PEC” referring to amongst those masses elderly people who some happens to be his great-great parents.
COSATU calls on this young boy to stop insulting the people of the North West and to publicly apologize to both COSATU and the community of Madibeng.
If Solly and the people of this province are “liars” and “anarchists” as pronounced by Saki and his PTT, the following would have not happened:
· Why section 139 in municipalities, Madibeng and Moses Kotane included?
· Why the recalling and sacking of Mayors?
· Why reshuffling of Councils’ excos?
· Why imminent arrests as pronounced by the Premier in her state of the province address?
If some progressive politicians in Moses Kotane can openly acknowledge that the current strike the poor workers have embarked on is basically caused by politicians who interfere in the administration of the municipality and Cosatu has been long saying this, are the poor people still anarchists and liars?
COSATU is in possession of evidence concerning one of them(PTT) who has been in the payroll of one municipality earning close to R50 000-00 per month but not working at that municipality and the same person is the one who went to Atterbury(Pretoria) with the local Mayor of Moses Kotane and promised to protect him if need be irrespective of him being implicated in the ministerial report or not and he indeed managed to protect him as COSATU knows for a fact that the said Mayor was topping the least of those who were supposed to be recalled. COSATU also knows that the same PTT man instructed the same Mayor to employ someone related to him in some way as payback but failed because the workers picked it up.
So what change does this PTT bring to this province that differs from the former PEC?
Are they not the real liars and anarchists?
The time has come for the workers not to respect this PTT as it is not helping the course of the poor in this province and as they are all out to undermine the alliance in this province.
2.4 POPCRU condemns stoning of police vehicles
Mampane Norman, POPCRU National Spokesperson, 19 March 2010
POPCRU has noted with dismay the perennial stoning of police services vehicle on the occasions of the court application of the two alleged drag racers in Protea, Soweto in which scholars were injured and killed.
POPCRU condemns any form of intimidation, destruction of property, looting from business premises and any form of threats whatsoever.
We reaffirm our stands in the principles of natural law which states that “any person shall remain not guilty until proven otherwise” and have sound respect for our justice system in delivering justice to humanity.
POPCRU calls upon all Community structures, Student formations, School Governing Bodies and Progressive Trade Unions to engage on these important matters by calling for calmness. We acknowledge the police services for enhancement of protection of life and property and the usage of minimum force to bring the situation under control within extreme circumstances.
