The emergence of a black bourgeoisie in South Africa is compromising the national democratic movement, the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) has charged. And there are ”forces” within the [democratic] movement not supportive of the interests of the working class.
Former trade unionists, says Samwu, are among the ”forces” promoting the interests of domestic and international capital while seriously contesting the leadership of the national democratic movement.
It is clear, noted a report by Samwu general secretary Roger Ronnie, that these forces within the movement are not supportive of the working class. The secretariat’s report was presented at Samwu’s seventh national congress in Pretoria this week.
”Nowhere has this [conflict] emerged more clearly than in the debate on the objectives of the NDR [national democratic revolution] and consequently on Gear [the government’s growth, employment and redistribution policy] and the restructuring of state assets,” says the report.
It further notes that the emergence of the black bourgeoisie, ”many of them former trade unionists, has seen a change in the culture of our movement. Besides the obvious material changes, it is the intolerance, personal abuse and unwillingness to engage in reasoned debate that is most worrying. What makes it worse is that there can be no doubt that this grouping is not representative of the broader alliance constituency.”
The report urges members to assess the ruling alliance — comprising the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) — against the union’s objective of ”striving for socialism and for a local government that remains in public hands and operates in the public interest”.
SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande echoed such concerns in his address to the congress on Wednesday. He asked: ”Is the restructuring of state-owned enterprises geared to consolidating a more effective development state and parastatal sector, or is it, again, about creating business opportunities for emerging elites?”
The Samwu secretariat’s report also cites the alliance’s failure to take charge as the reason for the emergence of anti-government social movements.
Samwu, the report says, was in the forefront of setting up a mass-based forum opposed to privatisation and the restructuring of Wits University, but had to give it up because of the union’s inconsistent approach towards taking up such issues.
It asks whether it should support issues raised by movements outside the alliance, issues at times consistent with the union’s own views. Cosatu, it says, recognised this dilemma and has ”adopted a stance that says it shall determine who its principal allies within civil society are, and criteria for identifying them. It has recognised that in some cases it might have to form tactical coalitions, but that the principles and terms of such coalitions must be clearly spelt out.”
At the floor of congress, despite being disenchanted with the ANC government’s performance, the country’s most militant union pledged its support for the ruling party in next year’s elections.
The union, however, proposed that the alliance run the country ”as a team”, formulate policy and put ”mechanisms” in place to monitor the ANC’s performance in the government after the elections.
The proposal is likely to gain support among Cosatu’s other affiliates, whose members are also battling job losses and increasing unemployment ahead of the federation’s eighth national congress next month.
In 2000, before the local government elections, Samwu was behind the move to provide support only to those ANC candidates who opposed the privatisation of state assets.
In a resolution on next year’s elections, proposed this week by its Gauteng and Eastern Cape provincial offices, Samwu noted that there are certain government policies that ”are not embraced by other alliance partners” and that in the 1999 general elections and 2000 local government elections there was a decline in voters.
Samwu also resolved that the alliance must ”formulate policy and structures that will force politicians and all government departments to implement agreed policies”.
Samwu noted, in a resolution proposed by its Northern Cape and North West provincial offices, that the alliance ”only exists when nearing elections, and when it is convenient for the ANC”.
The union then reaffirmed the alliance as the ”political centre to drive the national democratic revolution”.