Police management is still treating ordinary staff badly, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Wednesday.
”Five years ago, the unions gave up rank and leg promotions in return for a promise of more equitable career pathing and pay progression. But we have received almost nothing in return,” Vavi said in a speech prepared for delivery at a South African Police Union (Sapu) congress in Durban.
”To this day, the employer does not recognise that police should have the right to strike like any other workers. Police management is still often discriminatory and arbitrary. And too many police work in understaffed stations with useless and faulty equipment.”
He said that like other workers, police officers need power to ensure real transformation — ”and that power will come only from unity”.
Sapu is an independent, 65 000-strong union.
Cosatu’s Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union is about 75 000 strong.
Vavi called for solidarity between public-sector unions to demand a ”new deal for all of us, as both citizens and workers”.
That means a focus on key demands such as decent pay and conditions, job security, reasonable treatment by management, skills development and real career paths ”that give every worker hope for the future”.
”In the process, we must ensure that public servants, including the police, are better able to serve the people,” Vavi said.
Giving Sapu what amounted to a tutorial on Cosatu, Vavi said his federation would never subordinate workers’ needs and views to other organisations.
”The tripartite alliance [Cosatu, the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party] brings together three independent organisations, which can and do sometimes disagree. Naturally, this can lead to severe tensions. Workers have their own ideas, and will not sign away their right to use power to support them,” Vavi explained.
”In addition, we will never make workers’ unity take second place to our political alliances. Not every Cosatu member supports the alliance parties. The measure of a Cosatu activist is her or his willingness to fight for workers’ interests, not their views on government.
”As unionists, we cannot repeat too often that unity is the basis of workers’ strength. An individual worker has no power to stand up to the employer or demand better conditions. Only together can workers improve their situation.”
He said unions cannot limit themselves narrowly to the workplace and turn their back on political alliances.
”That is a lesson we have learnt, not only from our own history, but from other countries. Everywhere in the world, the labour movement’s relation to the state is crucial, because the law largely shapes the balance between workers and employers.
”If workers give up on political action, we know what kind of laws employers will push through.” — Sapa