The Congress of South African Trade Unions’s (Cosatu) planned anti-privatisation strike has been timed to precede the African National Congress’s national conference as a pressure tactic, it was learned this week.
The strike will take place a month before the ANC conference in Stellenbosch, where new office-bearers will be elected. Cosatu and its left-leaning sympathisers in the ANC are a powerful lobby group in the movement.
In another pressure tactic, the labour federation will highlight its anti-privatisation campaign at a civil society march to be held at the World Summit on Sustainable Development next month.
In a move reminiscent of last year’s anti-privatisation protests during the Durban racism conference, Cosatu announced last week that it was reviving its campaign and would hold a national strike on October 1 and 2.
The move follows a National Union of Mineworkers’ (NUM)resolution in April, in which general secretary Gwede Mantashe called for an anti-privatisation campaign in August. Mantashe said the movement would not be political but would function as ”an informal coming together of civil society” and it would involve the mobilisation of churches, unions and NGOs.
The move came as a surprise as Cosatu, in a goodwill gesture earlier this year, announced it was suspending its anti-privatisation campaign until the growth and development summit.
The summit, expected to be held under the auspices of the National Economic Development and Labour Council will now apparently only take place next year.
Mantashe has compared the campaign to the mass mobilisation led by the United Democratic Front in the 1980s. ”The important thing is that people be mobilised and not be spectators,” he said.
Senior trade union sources said soon after Mantashe’s announcement in April the Cosatu leadership was called to Luthuli House by ANC high-ups and asked to explain the change in its position.
The meeting, attended by the entire senior ANC leadership other than President Thabo Mbeki, was told the government had reneged on its promise to wait for the growth summit to address Cosatu’s concerns, before pressing ahead with privatisation.
Reference was made to Minister of Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe’s budget speech, in which he outlined privatisation plans, including the sale of 30% of electricity generation and the concessioning of ports.
Cosatu said it had acted in ”good faith” in suspending its privatisation campaign. In response, ANC leaders are understood to have cited the alliance summit held in February as a mark of their commitment to accommodating the labour federation.
Cosatu stood by Mantashe and the NUM resolution, which was tabled at Cosatu’s central executive committee last weekend and accepted.
Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi announced the strike and associated campaign were political, and that the strike would happen almost a month after the World Summit, scheduled for August 26 to September 4.
The timing of last year’s general strike, coinciding with the World Conference on Racism, enraged the government and sparked unprecedented tensions in the tripartite alliance. ANC ministers accused Cosatu of trying to embarrass the government.
Support for the Cosatu strike was evident at the opening of the South African Communist Party’s 11th congress this week. After Vavi made the announcement ANC national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota rose to address the meeting. He was forced to remain speechless for two minutes as angry communists sang ”Makuliwe … [Let’s fight]”, in response to Cosatu’s call.
Vavi indicated that his federation had lost almost 250 000 members in the past few years and 66 000 members this year as a result of increasing unemployment and retrenchments. Cosatu’s membership has dwindled from two million to 1,5-million. He said the federation could not afford to wait until its membership had dropped to 500 to take action.
”Target the government, which is listening to capital,” he said.
The federation will also launch a long-term campaign in the next few months, which will include mobilising support for the extension of the child support grant, a basic income grant, treatment for people with Aids and the acceleration of land reform.
In his speech, Lekota was placatory, pointing out that the government needed time to address the centuries of wrong committed by the apartheid regime and colonialism.
After promising the Mail & Guardian an interview on the first day of the conference, Radebe, also head of the ANC’s policy unit and an SACP central committee member, was prevented from giving it by the Minister in the President’s Office, Essop Pahad.
”We do not speak to the Mail & Guardian,” Pahad said.
Suggesting the paper contact him on Monday, Radebe was dragged away by his fellow minister.
M&G editor Howard Barrell expressed disappointment at Pahad’s behaviour.
”This is silly behaviour, immature and unbecoming of a minister of state,” Barrell said.
”We will continue, however, to ensure we reflect as best we can the viewpoint of SACP members as we do in the case of all other organisations.”