/ 21 January 2011

From Gear to Tear

From Gear To Tear

Cosatu’s isolation has increased following the endorsement of the government’s controversial new growth path (NGP) proposals by the South African Communist Party (SACP), its leftist partner in the alliance.

The NGP, which is the brainchild of former Cosatu leader and now Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, aims to find workable solutions to stop growing unemployment and to create five million jobs by 2020.

The trade union federation has described the new policy proposals as “incoherent and vague”, but the SACP and the ANC say the policy will open doors for a significant paradigm shift in government thinking.

Sharp differences over economic policy are likely to deepen tension within the alliance, with the ANC and the SACP on one side of the fence and Cosatu on the other.

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi was given a rough time at the ANC lekgotla this week, an alliance leader based in Cosatu House told the Mail & Guardian. Vavi’s contributions to the discussion about the NGP were heavily criticised and he was “ridiculed” by some ANC leaders.

“Cosatu has tangible alternatives but this is undermined by the battle for posturing,” the alliance leader said. “Even in presentations some leaders will take a jibe at Vavi and ridicule him.”

The ‘political hyenas’
The source said references to the “real hyenas” were made at the lekgotla — an obvious response to Vavi’s recent public denunciation of the “political hyenas” in the ANC.

“Cosatu is losing the battle because its engagements are clumsy and therefore they cannot get their point across,” the leader said. Cosatu has so far declined to release its response to the NGP.

Cosatu’s chief economist, Chris Malikane, confirmed that the response is ready to be distributed but said it is with Vavi, who is still studying it.

Malikane told the M&G this week that the NGP is “making the same mistake as Gear” — the macroeconomic policy under former president Thabo Mbeki that prioritised growth, employment and redistribution.

“Gear said growth first and then employment will result and through employment there will be redistribution. We now know that the Gear theory failed.”

Jeremy Cronin, SACP deputy general secretary and deputy transport minister, argues in an opinion piece published in the SACP’s online publication, Umsebenzi, this week that Cosatu is misguided in saying the NGP is similar to Gear.

He says the NGP takes a broader view of, for instance, black economic empowerment, than Gear ever did. “Let us not forget that BEE proponents advance precisely a redistributionist argument,” he writes in the piece.

Focussing on growth
Cronin argues that BEE did not transform the economy but merely “entrenched existing patterns of capital domination”. Speaking to the M&G, Malikane said Cronin is merely replacing Gear’s focus on growth with a focus on transformation in the NGP and in the end it will still be the workers who suffer.

“Comrade Jeremy in my view is now advancing a Tear [Transformation, then Employment and through that Redistribution]. Once again the redistribution will be sorted out in the labour market. Tear, with its slogan of jobs, jobs, jobs and without regard for the quality of those jobs, will bring misery to many as we have seen in the past 16 years,” said Malikane.

Cosatu’s isolation is also evident in the furore over the quality of the five million jobs government claims the NGP will create by 2020. Cosatu’s key demand has been that they be decent jobs. Previous projects, such as the expanded public works programme, created thousands of jobs, especially in building infrastructure, but these were for limited periods and so did not provide sustainable income.

At a Luthuli House press briefing this week, ANC secretary general and chairperson of the SACP Gwede Mantashe was asked whether the jobs to be created will be “decent”, according to Cosatu’s definition, as stated in the ANC’s manifesto.

He responded: “Our view is that jobs must be created. Once people are employed they can negotiate conditions, but initially they will enter the jobs with the conditions that are set by the sector.”

According to Mantashe it is “decent” to have meaningful and gainful employment. “There is nothing as undignified as being unemployed,” he told reporters. These comments will come back to haunt Mantashe, Frans Baleni, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, told the M&G.

Baleni said Mantashe had hinted that the drive for job creation is an election ploy. “You don’t make a statement without being convinced it is the right thing just to win the election. That can cost an organisation or a leader because he must be seen as a person of integrity. It is like us ­saying we want service delivery of a poor standard.”

Meanwhile, Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven has denied that Vavi was ridiculed at the ANC lekgotla. “We accept the ANC statement this week stating that the debates at the ANC lekgotla were healthy. It is not true that he [Vavi] was given a rough time.”