The reasons given for the upcoming national strike by the Congress of SA Trade Unions suggested there were some fundamental policy differences between Cosatu and the African National Congress, ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe said on Sunday.
”That’s why we as allies need to sit down and discuss that,” he said at a news conference at the ANC’s national policy conference in Kempton Park.
”We’ll continue the discussions to ensure that we find one another, that we find a common understanding.”
Cosatu’s planned strike on Tuesday and Wednesday is aimed at protesting privatisation and joblessness.
In a statement, the ANC said it believed the strike was neither justified nor productive.
However, Motlanthe said the ANC would not call on its members to defy the strike.
Cosatu, as an independent component of the alliance, had taken an anti-privatisation resolution.
”The ANC expects them to be loyal to their own resolution.”
But, he said, the strike was a political one.
”There is no way the ANC can support a strike against itself.”
The secretary-general said the party wanted to ensure that its members were clear about ANC policies, so they would not treat them in an eclectic fashion.
Meanwhile the South African Communist Party called on all its members and structures to support the Cosatu-led protest.
In a statement on Sunday, SACP representative Mazibuko said: ”The SACP’s 11th congress in July this year mandated the SACP to prioritise intra-alliance discussions to find effective ways of unifying the ANC-SACP-Cosatu alliance on our approach to restructuring state-owned enterprises within the context of consolidating a democratic, developmental state.
”Unfortunately, we have failed collectively to achieve sufficient unity within the alliance, and between alliance partners and government, on how to approach state-owned enterprise (SOE) restructuring.
The SACP remains convinced that substantive agreement already exists in some sectoral areas, and is eminently achievable in all other cases.”
Jara said the SACP would support the worker protest actions precisely in order to highlight the importance of prioritising effective alliance discussion and review of SOE restructuring.
”It is very important, in this regard, to underline that restructuring cannot, and should not be reduced to privatisation.
The SACP supports a restructuring of SOE’s aimed ensuring that these important public assets are harnessed effectively to our overall growth and development objectives. Continued public ownership in which, however, SOE’s are simply run on a commercial basis is equally unacceptable,” he said.
The protest actions of the coming week will also be used to highlight the general plight of workers and the poor in the country.
Jara said escalating food prices, and massive job losses all impact with particular severity on the workers and poor.
”These realities are not necessarily nor primarily the consequence of government policies but of the heartless, profit-maximising capitalist-dominated economy in which we find ourselves.
”In this context, the challenge confronting the alliance is how to ensure strategies, policies and programmes that most effectively address the crisis of underdevelopment that afflict our country,” he concluded. – Sapa