”This is our last chance. If the strike fails, we’ll have no reason to exist.” This was the message delivered by the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha to Cosatu shop stewards at a national conference in Midrand last week.
Declaring that the labour movement had been ”kicked in the face” by the government’s privatisation policy, Madisha said the strike — scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday — was Cosatu’s last chance, ahead of the African National Congress’s policy conference, to influence the government.
The anti-privatisation campaign of Cosatu and the South African Communist Party has been running for three years, growing out of the drive against the growth, employment and redistribution (Gear) strategy introduced as the government’s economic stance at the ANC’s last national conference, in 1997. Neither Gear — economic liberalisation — nor privatisation has gone away.
Sceptics might dismiss Madisha’s speech as militant unionspeak, but it was an honest attempt to face the facts. Hours later, at a press conference led by Minister of Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe, the government announced it was going ahead with ”restructuring plans” as the Cabinet had found nothing ”unbecoming” in its implementation. Coupled with this were assurances that the Growth and Development Summit, involving the unions, would take place in the first quarter of next year.
The left believes that an understanding was reached at the Alliance Summit in February that the government’s economic policy would be reviewed at the summit, which would be held soon. As a measure of good faith, it decided to suspend its anti-privatisation campaign pending the encounter.
But as months went by the summit was pushed off the year’s calendar and the government continued to make pronouncements on its privatisation plans.
It was this that pushed Cosatu, with the backing of the SACP’s congress, to call for yet another anti-privatisation strike, just a month before the ANC’s conference, as a pressure tactic.
The threat does not seem to be working. Last week ANC members emerged from various provincial policy conferences voicing support for the state’s ”restructuring plans”.
With strike after strike, and the government continuing to dig in its heels, Madisha’s speech seemed to ask the question: is there any point in continuing the anti-privatisation campaign?
And if not, what is plan B for the left and more specifically the SACP, supposedly the political spearhead of the working class?
There is a plan in the making. As two provinces proposed at the SACP’s congress in July, it lies in fielding candidates on a communist ticket and forging governing alliances with the ANC. The ANC’s tripartite alliance partners have discovered that the ruling party is more responsive to its partners — the Inkatha Freedom Party and the New National Party — in government.
Hinting at a desire for greater political independence from the ANC, and frustration over lack of influence over the ruling party, this would be a major departure by the communists. Conservative elements in the ANC would be sure to oppose it.
KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape have suggested fielding candidates at local-government level as a first step. Party sources say they have received overtures from various opposition party members about their willingness to join forces with the SACP in municipal councils.
The idea grew from suggestions by ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma in various SACP strategy conferences that the left should have a voice in Parliament to counter ”neo-liberal forces” in the Democratic Alliance and within the ANC. The suggestion will be taken up by the SACP’s central committee at a special congress in 2004.
Another possible approach would be to elect an ANC national executive committee in December more sympathetic to the left, and less likely to be co-opted by conservative elements. Communists are particularly irked by national executive committee members elected on a left ticket who are seen as moving rightwards, including Radebe,
”Our problem is that ANC policy is still determined by the leadership and few grass-roots members can challenge them,” said a communist.
The SACP congress in July took the position that the ”tripartite alliance” had to be led by the working class. This proposal — along with the purge of pro-privatisation elements in the leadership — has sent shivers down conservative ANC spines.
Gauteng ANC chairperson Mbhazima Shilowa, criticised by the left as a ”flexible communist”, tabled the issue of who should spearhead the ”national democratic revolution” at the province’s policy conference at the weekend.
He asked: ”Do we share a common understanding as to why the national democratic revolution is led by the ANC, even though communists and sections of workers … may aspire to a communist society?
”Some of our difficulties as an alliance stem from disagreement about this issue even though it is never voiced … Some have even called for this phase of our struggle to be led by the SACP since the working class is the leading motive force for social transformation.”
The recent election of ANC provincial chairs sympathetic to the left in at least three provinces — North West, Mpumalanga and Free State — has also got Luthuli House worried.
Still fresh in the memory of ANC leaders is the coagulation of the left-leaning forces at the Mafikeng conference, in response to Gear.
This had a clear impact on the conference elections. It was the candidate of the left, Mosioua Lekota, who scooped the national chairmanship against the favourite of party bosses, Steve Tshwete. The same dynamic elevated die-hard communist Thenjiwe Mtintso to the deputy secretary general’s post.