Cosatu’s influential transport affiliate has warned that it will not tolerate beyond 2004 the “continued arrogance and undermining of workers” by the African National Congress government.
The 75 000-member South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) has also suggested that the South African Communist Party send its own MPs to Parliament to “advance the agenda of the working class”.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions’s affiliate attacks the government’s “unfortunate bungle” on the treatment of HIV/Aids, saying it is “likely to be remembered by millions for a long time to come”, and describes Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as “politically clumsy”.
These militant positions are contained in the report of general secretary Randall Howard, presented at Satawu’s first national conference in Kempton Park this week.
Howard said the ANC was a “contested terrain of different class forces. Flowing from this, there appears to be a need for more than one platform to influence the ANC, including Parliament, by the vanguard party of the workers.”
He suggested the labour movement should swell the ranks of the SACP and ANC in equal numbers.
The secretariat’s report on the restructuring of Spoornet and the concessioning of ports accuses the Department of Public Enterprises of “bad faith practices”.
The report said: “We will not engage in restructuring processes where job losses and neo-liberal presumptions are a foregone conclusion, and Satawu regarded as a nuisance to talk to.”
It complains that the government has not adhered to the letter and spirit of the National Framework Agreement, in most instances dictating the terms of restructuring without conducting the required “case by case analysis”. The agreement requires the authorities to consult labour on privatisation.
Satawu cites as an example of this the government’s recent announcement of its intention to sell off Autopax, Transnet’s road transport division.
In its political analysis, the report says the union will vote for the ANC in next year’s election. However, it will not give it a “blank cheque with regard to delivery on quality employment creation to restore real economic dignity to our people”.
It said the ANC had rejected the idea that the “tripartite alliance” should jointly decide political policy. “The ANC has rejected the political centre concept as they view it as ‘sharing power’ with Cosatu and the SACP. Could this be a fundamental reason why the alliance is not functioning?”
In its critique of the SACP, the union suggests the party should become “sustainable and less dependent on Cosatu or other formations for its resources”.