The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has announced the formation of a new extra-parliamentary movement with social groupings and civil society organisations to agitate for economic reforms favouring the poor. Fashioned after the United Democratic Front of old, the movement will be launched in Cape Town on August 22.
The Mail & Guardian spoke to Cosatu’s Western Cape secretary, Tony Ehrenreich, about the movement’s structure, vision and political goals.
What is it that the movement will do that the already existing coalition has not done or cannot do?
This is a coalition around jobs and poverty, coming together around the Cosatu programme, and giving expression to our commitment to build closer links with civil society.
Essentially it’s a coalition of working class organisations to advance the interest of working families. Our present political construct has overseen rising unemployment, increased inequalities and deepening levels of poverty.
Is this an anti-African National Congress movement?
If anything, the ANC will be invited to be part of it. The objective of the ANC is to advance the interest of its core constituency, the working class, but the government has not always been able to do this because of their desire to balance a host of class interests. This coalition would strengthen both the government and the ANC’s hand to drive a more radical transformation agenda.
If it is not, why is it premised on criticism of the ANC government’s macroeconomic policy and lack of delivery for the poor?
The policy choices the government made in Gear [the growth, employment and redistribution strategy] are responsible for the many hardships confronting working families. This policy, to my knowledge, has never been endorsed as ANC policy when it was implemented.
This policy is about trickle-down economics, a departure from the [reconstruction and development programme] that was premised on growth through redistribution that would have guaranteed greater levels of equality in our society.
Have you invited the ANC to participate in the movement?
The ANC has been invited to participate in the jobs programme as early as 2001 with the big jobs strike. They have again been invited, and we hope to see them participating, given that the alliance and the president has identified jobs and poverty as our national priorities.
Will the South African Communist Party be invited?
Of course, the SACP is invited; they have already participated in one of the planning meetings and had called on people present to support their finance sector campaign.
What are the implications for Cosatu? Can it be a member of separate alliances with different visions?
Any organisation can have a broad range of strategic and tactical alliances, as long as it does not conflict with their principles. Our vision is to build a society free of oppression and economic exploitation under the leadership of a united working class.
After the ANC’s national general council (NGC), did the delegates there not successfully win space within the ANC for leadership to listen to different voices more? Should you not be using that space?
The ANC’s NGC was a watershed in asserting greater democratic control of the ANC. This provides important space that we use, the opportunity is there for the ANC to drive a domestically conceived development programme instead of what can only be described as the Thatcherist-like policies of Gear.
Is the real objective of Cosatu not to co-opt problematic structures outside of the ANC-SACP-Cosatu alliance so that you manage them?
Democracy is not the management of various interests, but the balancing of various interests. When we are part of a coalition as broad as this, we go in with our own ambitions, but we are also impacted upon by the ambitions of our partner organisations and the result is inevitably compromise. The deciding factor, however, is the best interest of working families.
Is the left in South Africa not seeking to claim the small movements that have arisen in the townships through protests over service delivery?
The protests that we see are largely legitimate, the majority of our people live in desperate circumstances, while the new black business and political elite is assimilated into the apartheid ownership structure, trying to give it legitimacy with their political credentials. A better life must be possible; we must come together to define a programme to give our people hope, to inspire the realisation of the values of the Freedom Charter.
Will the movement have an elected leadership and a constitution?
The coalition for jobs is a partnership; it will not have an elected leadership. It is not the new UDF. I think what concerns some people is that it is similar to the UDF. The real worry should be that our existing movement has been unable to maintain the confidence of our people as the only vehicle required to drive the transition. The UDF filled a political vacuum; we have a political space that is not adequately tended. It is infinitely more desirable to have the political confrontation in the boardroom than in the streets. This abrasive conduct must be the midwife that provides us with a way out of this crisis of delivery.