The Congress of South African Trade Unions was not divided into pro-Zuma and pro-Mbeki camps, it said in its year-end statement on Thursday.
”We have also spent the year trying to convince the media that Cosatu has not taken any decision to support [African National Congress (ANC) deputy president] Jacob Zuma, or anyone else, as the next president of the ANC and South Africa, and that there are no pro-Zuma or pro-Mbeki ‘camps’ within our ranks,” wrote the union federation’s general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi on behalf of its central executive committee.
Turning his attention to the economy, he said the rate of job creation ‒72 000 new jobs in the last quarter — was ”nowhere near” that required to reach the government’s goal of halving poverty and unemployment by 2014.
Cosatu’s ninth national congress in September had decided that its Jobs and Poverty campaign would be its main focus for the next three years. It promised a ”relentless campaign”, involving a broad front of organisations, to fight for job creation and against poverty.
Vavi recalled the ”bitter disputes” over retrenchments at, among others, Transnet, SAA and de Beers.
The year had also seen numerous, ”nearly all exceptionally bitter”, strikes at Karan Beef, Shoprite Checkers, Kraft Foods and Kumba Resources.
Cosatu said it celebrated the government’s imposition of quotas on clothing imported from China.
”This has infuriated our unpatriotic retailers but could save many hundreds of jobs and even create new ones in this industry, which has been hardest hit by retrenchments over the last five years.”
Cosatu welcomed the finalisation of Nedlac’s code defining an employee. This would help deal with employers who tried to dodge their responsibilities towards their workers.
The union federation had also been ”vigorously resisting” pressure from businesses to weaken the country’s labour laws, wrote Vavi.
”With the growth of casualisation, we feel these laws need strengthening to give casual workers the same rights as permanent staff … ”
He expressed concern that ANC leaders were abandoning a tradition of self-sacrifice and service in favour of
”get-rich-quick crass materialism”.
”[I]t seems to be an unstoppable cancer, eating away at the
organs of our political body,” he said.
The year had seen a number of tragedies, including the murders of three laundry workers in Vereeniging in January and the deaths of five miners at Carletonville’s TauTona gold mine in October.
Twenty farm workers were killed at a level crossing at Faure in the Western Cape on November 13. – Sapa