Cosatu will be ramping up its campaigns in support of badly needed interventions

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) convened its Central Committee (CC) over the past week.  The CC is a policy mid-term review convened by Cosatu to assess work done by the Federation, successes and challenges.  It’s a chance for Affiliates to raise key issues facing the working-class and most importantly, what the solutions should be.

The CC is a workers’ parliament.  A chance for a municipal worker to raise the plight of colleagues who go unpaid for months.  It is an opportunity for clothing and motor manufacturing workers to raise the alarm bells about the impact of the 30% tariff duty imposed on South African exports to the United States.

Cosatu was founded during the darkest days of apartheid.  The Federation’s principles of worker leadership and accountability to workers remain cardinal principles.

The CC met as the economy faces numerous structural barriers to growth and dangerous headwinds threatening the jobs of thousands of workers.  The economy has been stumbling along 1% annual growth since 2008 with unemployment at an untenable rate of 42.9% and thousands of job losses from Goodyear in Uitenhage to Glencore across our mining and industrial belt.  

Electricity is becoming unaffordable for working class households and the industrial foundries and smelters that employ thousands.  We have seen dairy plants close in small towns in the North West and clothing factories shift from the Free State.  Reports paint worrying pictures about the future of key motor manufacturing plants that provide the lifeline for the economy in the Eastern Cape.  The 30% duty on South African exports to the US poses a threat to thousands of agricultural and manufacturing jobs from the Western Cape to Limpopo. 

These crises demand bold and decisive responses by government in coordination with business and labour.  Negotiations to secure existing and open new markets for our export industries in the US, Europe, China, Japan, the Middle East and Africa must be intensified.  Measures to cushion at risk companies by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition as well as the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s Temporary Employee Relief Scheme as well as tax relief from Treasury must be finalised.

Announcements by the Ministry for Electricity and Energy for a more affordable electricity tariff regime are welcome but what is needed is action not words.  Workers cannot pay rent or buy food with PowerPoints.  Companies cannot afford to wait for research and discussions at some distant date.  Solutions are needed now.

The Department of Cooperative Governance is working on a new White Paper for Local Government which will hopefully provide lasting solutions, including a new municipal funding model.  Again, when Ditsobotla is entering yet another a period of being placed under administration, and numerous municipalities from the Free State to the North West, Northern and Eastern Cape routinely fail to pay staff and pension funds, let alone provide basic services; action is needed today.

It is clear that we cannot continue to follow along a path of business as usual and expect different results.  More must be done to tackle structural obstacles to unlocking the 3% growth key to reducing unemployment and tackling poverty and inequality.

Progress has been made to end loadshedding but much more must be done to ensure electricity is affordable by tackling Eskom’s financial leakages to wasteful expenditure, corruption, non-payment by customers, vandalism and cable theft.  Eskom too must be supported to enter the renewable energy space and investments in the 14000kms of transmission lines in the three Cape Provinces expedited.

Transnet and Metro Rail have stabilised and are showing signs of recovery but must be further assisted to return to the full capacity required to unlock the mining, manufacturing and agricultural sectors as well as to provide efficient public transport for workers in our cities.

Further support must be provided to the South African Revenue Service to enable it to ramp up efforts to ensure the state is able to collect the taxes required to fund the public and municipal services that working-class communities and the economy depend upon.

A new bold industrial, export and SMME financing plan is needed.  The amounts allocated under the fiscus are not sufficient to reach the 3% growth target.  Financing from the fiscus, including the need to shift from existing luxury programmes, the Development Bank, the Industrial Financing and Public Investment Corporations, private banks and investment funds need to be coordinated in a coherent manner that will protect and nurture fragile economic sectors and invest and unlock new and existing jobs intensive sectors, in particular agricultural, manufacturing and recycling.

The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources must move with greater speed to roll out the new mining rights application system to unlock badly needed investments and stem the tide of retrenchments in the backbone of our economy.

South Africa has earned an unenviable reputation for violent crime and corruption.  This has made the lives of women, girls and working-class communities a nightmare.  It has deterred badly needed tourists and investment.  We need to appreciate that investing in the South African Police Service, the South African National Defence Force, Home Affairs and the judiciary may cost money today, but society, the economy and ultimately the fiscus will reap the rewards with a growing economy that is able to create not shed jobs, and thus generate the revenues the state requires to fund public services and reduce the debt burden.

In two months, the Minister for Finance will table the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement at Parliament.  It cannot be a business-as-usual approach.  It must provide frontline services the resources they need to provide the public and municipal services society and businesses depend upon, inject stimulus to unlock economic growth and provide relief for the poor and the unemployed, in particular through easing the tax burden upon workers and drastically expanding public employment programmes to help the unemployed enter the labour market.

Cosatu will be ramping up its campaigns in support of these badly needed interventions with government, Parliament and business. 

Cosatu General Secretary Solly Phetoe

*** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL.

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