In marked contrast to previous congresses, Cosatu’s policy resolutions grapple with labour’s role in economic policy-making, productive investment and tax reform, reports Drew Forrest
`THE devil’s in the detail,” quipped textile union boss Ebrahim Patel in the aftermath of Cosatu’s fifth national congress.
Patel was referring to the vexed issue of tariff reduction in his troubled sector. But in its pragmatism, its implied impatience with ideology and airy abstraction, the remark might have been the watchword of the entire four-day gathering.
One wall in the vast hangar where the 1 700 delegates sat was festooned with a banner reading “The future is socialism”. But in contrast with earlier congresses, marked by a thousand ritual obeisances to socialism and public ownership, the debates and resolutions tried to get to grips with the economic challenges of the new era.
Nowhere in the congress’ four-page economic policy resolution is there a reference to socialism or nationalisation — the only mention of the public sector is in a call for it to play “a fundamental role in economic development and the productive economy”.
Instead, it tries to stake out the labour movement’s role in economic and trade policy-making, industrial reorganisation, productive investment and tax reform in a South Africa rejoining the world economy under a “people’s government”.
In the light of what followed, President Nelson Mandela’s 30 minutes of finger-wagging on day one of the congress seemed out of line. Now part of the political mainstream and sensing for the first time that the economy was theirs, delegates seemed to feel no need for the timeworn rituals and rhetoric of defiance.
It was this that explained the low-key nature of the face-to-face with Jay Naidoo, Trevor Manuel and Alec Erwin. Questions from the floor to “our ministers” reflected subterranean tensions but did not seek to confront or embarrass. For the ministers’ loud “amandlas” and then their plain speaking, and the subdued response, it was a strange and touching spectacle.
Manuel bluntly told delegates that there could be no return to the protectionist laager of the apartheid years, and that the government on its own could not carry the cost of salvaging moribund industries. Warning that his speech would be unpopular and quipping ominously that “when a (union) finance committee is your friend, there’s something wrong with your finances”, Erwin said there could be no increased state spending in 1994/5 and that the state would not borrow its way out of trouble.
He went on to insist that while they would have the right to make representations, unions would not sit on the Tax Commission. Grasping two sacred cows by the horns, he also hinted that because of the revenue implications, the lifting of VAT on basic foodstuffs was a less effective way of tackling poverty than the reconstruction and development programme, and that the privatisation of ill- used state assets was not out of the question.
The independence of the labour movement was not at issue: in its economic policy resolution, passed after the ministers’ forum, Cosatu demanded the zero-rating of VAT on food and other necessities and a seat on the Tax Commission.
But the newfound sense of economic responsibility found voice in a remarkable resolution calling for workers to boost the RDP fund “through financial contributions or the contribution of their labour” — coupled with a call for a corresponding levy on the incomes and profits of the well heeled.
For Labour Bulletin editor Karl von Holdt, this is a “strategic breakthrough” and a decisive counterblast to charges that unions have become a self-serving elite. “Labour’s history has been about resistance to management and the struggle over wages,” he said. “Now unionists were saying: `Our work will contribute to society’.”
Other congress initiatives reflect the drive for constructive engagement with capital and the state, modelled on the social democracies of northern Europe. Resolutions call for the strengthening of three-cornered policy forums at national, sector and company level, and for a shop-floor stake in decisions on production and investment.
According to Von Holdt, there was hot debate around a radical proposal of “solidaristic bargaining”, a single national forum involving all unions which would essentially set national wage policy. In line with the social market economies of Europe — and in contrast with the sectoral chauvinism of the British system — this would allow for the closing of pay gaps between affluent and Cinderella sectors and the bolstering of Cosatu relative to its affiliates.
On tariff protection, Cosatu is markedly more hard-nosed than the phoney war during the motor strike suggested: unlike British labour, it has not planted its standard on historically doomed restrictive practices. Its congress declaration accepts that South African industry must be unbuttoned to the chill winds of world competition, but insists that trade reform must be harnessed to “supply- side” measures — training and new technology — and to a “Social Plan” to cushion workers from the ravages of restructuring.
All this suggests that Cosatu’s ties with the ANC-in- government may prove unexpectedly robust. While stressing that the ANC must be monitored to ensure its continued working-class bias and delivery on the RDP, that Cosatu will guard its independence and that the alliance is “not permanent”, the congress called in a composite resolution for the bonds to be strengthened. None of the affiliate resolutions urged a simple parting of the ways.
Where the government has room for manoeuvre, the loyalty clearly remains reciprocal. The warnings and exhortations of Manuel and Erwin were counterpointed by Labour Minister Tito Mboweni, whose off-the-cuff speech to the congress unveiling planned labour law changes was ecstatically received.
Among the most sweeping since the Wiehahn era, the reforms reflect a government still bent on raising labour standards. They include the reduction of the working week to 40 hours, the raising of statutory annual leave to 21 days, protection from dismissal for pregnant women and women on maternity leave and statutory disclosure of company employment records.
New shopfloor rights, entrenched in a redrafted Labour Relations Act to be tabled at the National Economic Labour and Development Council within weeks, embrace the right to information and provision for meetings. Union registration is to be simplified and bargaining structures streamlined.
The underlying differences between Cosatu and its political ally were clear enough. In the teeth of ministerial pleas of poverty, numerous resolutions call for government handouts — for more industrial court judges, for legal aid to unorganised workers and for the boosting of “union capacity” to negotiate economic policy, for example.
At the same time, delegates wanted tax reforms — lower taxes on the poor, an end to sex discrimination and zero- rating on necessities — which would significantly dent the fiscus.
In addition, one cannot see the government passing into law a resolution on strikes which seeks to ban strike- breaking labour, outlaw the firing of workers who strike in breach of agreements, entrench the constitutional right to strike “without exception” — which presumably embraces essential services — and “prohibit the involvement of security forces in disputes”.
Other potential flashpoints are a demand for a cutback in the military budget and regulation of bread and maize prices, which in the past has implied state subsidies.
For Von Holdt, some of the congress’ work was a mere staking out of positions, an opening gambit in a bargaining contest. Minister after minister stressed that on taxation, on tariffs, on the use of natural resources and on the Budget, Cosatu was expected to lobby and negotiate.
Mirroring Cosatu’s willingness to engage is the government’s newfound willingness to be engaged — its “female posture”, to use Derek Keys’ famous metaphor.
“The process we’re going into will not be an easy one,” Erwin told congress delegates. “But we’ll be talking to you about it more than ever before in South Africa’s history.”
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