Women's ministry mercy Pakela oBe debate red card mexico ...

1The ShopSTeward auguST/SepTember 2010 www.cosatu.org.za

Volume 19 • No. 4 • August/September 2010 • www.cosatu.org.za

The official magazine of The congress of souTh african Trade unions

Women’s ministry mercy Pakela oBe debate red card mexico Women’s oppression in swaziland

2 The ShopSTeward auguST/SepTember 2010 www.cosatu.org.za

The people’s flag is deepest red,It shrouded oft our martyred dead,

And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,Their hearts’ blood dyed its every fold.

chorus

Then raise the scarlet standard high.Within its shade we’ll live and die,

Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,We’ll keep the red flag flying here.

Look ‘round, the Frenchman loves its blaze,The sturdy German chants its praise,

In Moscow’s vaults its hymns are sungChicago swells the surging throng.

repeat chorus

It waved above our infant might,When all ahead seemed dark as night;

It witnessed many a deed and vow,We must not change its colour now.

repeat chorus

It well recalls the triumphs past,It gives the hope of peace at last;

The banner bright, the symbol plain,Of human right and human gain.

repeat chorus

It suits today the weak and base,Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place

To cringe before the rich man’s frown,and haul the sacred emblem down.

repeat chorus

With heads uncovered swear we allTo bear it onward till we fall;

Come dungeons dark or gallows grim,This song shall be our parting hymn.Then raise the scarlet standard high.

Within its shade we’ll live and die, Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,

We’ll keep the red flag flying here.

The Red Flag (1889 by Jim Connel)


In this issueEditorial

letters to the editor 5

Worker IssuesAfter the World Cup: how do we build on our success? 6

Taking Stock of Life in the Farms 9The introduction of Wal-mart Philosophy at game and dion stores 12dischem Pharmacists who donT care! 13The class Basis of the Public service strike 14Remembering Violet.... 17

Gender Agenda Women’s Struggle: a Pictorial exhibition 19

do we need a women’s ministry? 26

The Economy Rich Men’s Club: the g20 and austerity measures 28Job stats: a national catastrophe 31

EducationOBE: an expensive and unaffordable rolls royce? 32

OBE: Missing ‘Class’ 36Reorienting the Skills Landscape 40

vol 19. No.4 August/September 2010

editor iN CHieF: Zwelinzima Vavi editor: Phindile Kunene layout aNd desigN: Nthabiseng Makhajane editorial Board : Zwelinzima Vavi, Bheki Ntshalintshali, Patrick Craven, Zakhele Cele, Phindile Kunene, Mluleki Mntungwa, Nthabiseng Makhajane suBsCriptioN & distriButioN : Nthabiseng Makhajane priNters : Shereno Printers advertisiNg sales: Nthabiseng Makhajane Tel: +27 (0)11 339 4911 Fax: +27 (0)11 531 5080 Email: [email protected] Leyds Street , Braamfontein, 2001 PO Box 1019, Johannesburg 2000 Tel: +27 (0)11 339 4911 Fax: +27 (0)11 339 5080/6940 E-mail: [email protected] www.cosatu.org.za© Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.

Community Obama Cuts Aids Spending 42equal education supports teachers’ demands 44diary of a World cup volunteer 46

Arts & Culture Mercy Pakela: no mercy for the exploiters in the music industry 49Pitika Ntuli: art exhibition 52

International The Right Wing Mexican Government and the subversion of Worker and Trade Union Rights 56How Swazi Women Fare under Tinkhundla system. 58Spotlight interview with Gertrude Hambira(gaPWuz - zimbabwe) 60ITUC and ILO - Spaces for real change or illusions of a dream permanently deferred 62

Commentary The case for a media Tribunal 66The Nedbank Sale: Why it should be opposed 67Living under a cloud of toxic waste

Reviews

Jay Naidoo: Fighting for Justice 68Capitalism: a love story 69

Written Wordmemo from the ceo 70Think of her 71


Workers must be on guard. We are un-der attack. neo-liberal ideas are regaining ascend-

ance and momentum. Our gains as workers are looked at with scorn and anger. The rightwing is mounting this attack unapologetically.

For one, the Organisation for economic co-operation and devel-opment (oecd) recently made a merciless attack on the strength of trade unions in the country, arguing that this was a factor preventing the cracking down on the high unem-ployment. The report has since been used by capitalists; including those in major backs such as nedbank to argue that trade unions represent a labour aristocracy and that they are no different from “a narrow interest group potentially holding back the drive to lower unemployment.”

The latest punch was blown in Tim cohen’s “sa needs a little of the iron lady’s steely will” opinion piece in the Business Day (12 August 2010). In this piece Cohen basically argued that Thatcher was way ahead of her time. The measures she introduced in Britain during her tenure as prime minister are more relevant in south africa today. These measures in-clude amongst others union bashing, anti-worker labour laws and privati-sation of parastatals. Cohen argues that these measures proved their necessity as “union power in Britain had run amok, and the result was ultimately choosing someone tough-minded enough to face them down.”

He further goes on to say that “SA faces the same challenge now. Eve-rybody wants to earn more, but the public service wage bill is out of con-trol. We are haunted by Thatcher’s ghost, but lack leaders with her in-ner conviction and strength to say ‘enough is enough’”. The domination of views such as those expressed in Cohen’s capitalist apologist article is precisely why we need a magazine such as The shopsteward as an

alternative to the pro-business news. The Shopsteward hopes to bring you news, analysis and information from a workers worldview.

Bourgeois analysts argue that un-ions are too powerful and that strikes are happening too frequently in the country. But what is it that these commentators expect from workers? We know only too well that capital will not make concessions to work-ers’ demands for higher wages and improved conditions of work unless workers collectively withdraw their labour power on a large scale.

The working class has no property, doesn’t own the factories, the land or the mines. Workers’ strength de-rives from the fact that the factories, the mines and the land cannot make money unless workers employ their labour power in this process.

At the moment, workers are wres-tling with the power of capital. The more profit the bourgeoisie seeks to make, the more they encroach on the gains won by workers, including on the legislation front. Capitalists can threaten what we have called “invest-ment strikes” and threaten to chan-nel capital towards other countries with “more favourable” labour laws. Capitalists can corner government to adopt laws that are in its favour. Workers have no such luxuries. The only power that workers have is their labour power. Anyone who argues the contrary is clearly using a differ-ent way of analysing the situation.

Others would argue still that work-ers are counter-revolutionary and that the constant engagement in strikes is a sign that unions in South Africa are governed by a trade union rather than a class consciousness. This is our state, they argue, and it certainly cannot be treated the same as any ordinary capitalist state.

This is a caricature of the worst kind. Our state, regardless of the subjective wishes we have, is a bour-geois democratic state. The eco-nomic power still lies with the ruling

capitalist class. This class has used the democratic state as a best shell through which to pursue capitalist policies and to maximise profits. This state will not cease to be a bourgeois state until it is replaced by a worker’s state. Without this, the revolutionary movement will be merely entangled in the bureaucracy of the bourgeois state and prove incapable of satisfy-ing the working class and the poor. Workers must always be vigilant and defend their gains whilst seeking to make new advances. This is why the working class, through its vari-ous organisations and through mass struggles must continue to wrestle for control of the state.

This issue of the The shopsteward comes to you against this backdrop. Various articles show how the public service strike is indeed a legitimate action carried out by workers. The argument here is that power con-cedes nothing without struggle and that workers must assert the only muscle they have in order to realise their class interests.

The issue also carries a captivating interview with mercy Pakela. in this interview, Mercy reveals much about the exploitative music industry. she does this from a women’s perspec-tive, highlighting the fact that female musicians still suffer the most brutal forms of patriarchy.

Two different views on the oBe debate are considered. Whilst salim Vally argues that OBE was never fully implemented in working class schools and that the success of the curriculum depended on the resourc-es that working class schools could not muster; Mbuyiseni Mathonsi ar-gues that jettisoning OBE is a grave mistake and a setback to the objec-tives of building people’s education for people’s power.

Finally, the excepts from Jay Naidoo’s book titled Fighting for Jus-tice form part of building the momen-tum towards the celebration of the 25th anniversary of cosaTu in december this year.

Editorial Comment


Letters to the editorDear EditorThis letter serves to raise a constructive criticism around the role of COSATU in organizing the unorganized.

While COSATU has a progressive role to organize the poor and the toiling masses particularly the workers who are unorganized and are victims of exploitation of the brutal capitalist system, it seems to be wondering, if not just being a paper tiger claiming to organize the unorganized. The aim is not to attack the union but instead to raise a dialogue around how the struggle to organize the vulnerable workers can be intensified.

While the union has raised a legitimate demand around the workers who are currently bearing the brunt of a modern form of slavery in the form of labour brokers and calling for its banning, at the moment we seem to remain stagnant beyond the call for the banning of this modern slavery. Currently most of the vulnerable workers working in this sector continue to receive less salaries, poor working conditions as well being living at the mercy of the brutal employers who can fire and hire them at any time at their own will. COSATU as a union and its affiliates seems to be failing to organize these workers, raising bureaucratic debate concerning subscription. It remains a critical challenge for the union to move beyond the level of lamenting about the exploitation of those workers and organize them.

Engles said, “Theory without practice is sterile; practice without theory is blind” until such time that cosaTu such time cosaTu focus these areas, the great resolution on organising the unorganized will remain a paper tiger.

Yours comradelymalefo mosimanyane

Thank you for the song on the copy and from now on in our PECs, Solidarity forever, International, Red flag and What a system, will be sung. Kindly please put another international song, in the next copy and unions must be encouraged to sing one of the songs or read before the meetings.

Thobile maso

i am employed by a company that has a very “dynamic” woman CEO. I started mobilising for nehaWu at my workplace around march this year.

many considered this career suicide. The real trouble began when I sent invitations for a mass meeting to various parties who were interested in the union or whom i considered good potential comrades. Not only did I have an angry CEO shouting outside my office, that I had violated her rights but also that I could bring Vavi, she would tell him the same thing. Emails went out advising staff that their rights had been violated and that the person who had made the invitation had no mandate nor did she know what she was doing when it came to labour activism. I was being victimized and the intention was clear, muzzle this monster before it gains momentum!

Of course it had the opposite effect, in less than two months union membership took off – from under 5 members to over 80. This is an enormous number considering that the company has a staff complement of 190 people. This naturally did not suit the employer, so with perfect timing, on the day before interim elections for shop stewards, yours truly was suspended and duly escorted off the premises. over two months later and through misuse of the tax payers’ money, I am still on paid suspension. over two months later the recognition agreement between the Union and Employer has still not been signed by the employer. from a membership of over 80 members, the union seems to have slipped into nothingness. This is the experience of a woman, a single mother at the hands of another woman, but onwards with the struggle.

Marcelle Van RheedeBlue iQ

Write to us and tell us your views, suggestions and comments: [email protected]

Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)

PO Box 1019

Johannesburg, 2000

South Africa


The Congress of South Af-rican Trade unions con-gratulates every South Af-rican on the unbelievable success of the 2010 fifa

World Cup, this historic global event that was held on african soil for the first time.

it has confounded the prophets of doom who believed that africa could never run a fifa World cup final and who kept predicting a disaster. In the end it proved to be the best-run World Cup ever, a brilliant organisa-tional triumph, running smoothly all

the way from the spectacular opening ceremony to the extraordinary closing ceremony and final.

The whole world has seen the best possible picture of south africa on their TV screens – beautiful stadiums packed with exuberant fans, a festive

atmosphere in the streets and fan parks, efficient public transport, vis-ible policing, minimal levels of crime and an effective and efficient judicial system. even the criminals appear to have gone on holiday – we urge them to remain wherever they are! We acknowledge that this success is also due to a visible policing. In this regard we thank strong leadership of the Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa and National Commissioner, Bheki cele

But it has been an even bigger psy-chological triumph for the country. It

has instilled an unprecedented feel-ing of national pride and self-esteem. it has led to an explosion of patriotism that extended to the entire continent. This patriotism has been rubbed on the young South Africans now and many generations to come. It has brought

us together as a nation as never be-fore, except possibly for one day on 27 april 1994.

South Africans - from all races, classes, and walks of life, including young children – have come together united in a common cause. support for Bafana Bafana welded the nation together, and then, after their exit from the tournament, all South Afri-cans united in support for Ghana, as the only remaining African team.

We wish to thank and congratulate the FIFA Local Organising Committee led by the chairperson Dr Irvin Khoza.

We single out Dr Danny Jordan for special praise as he drove the proc-ess on a full time basis together with a team of dedicated and able staff. We also thank workers in general and the business fraternity, who all went be-yond the call of duty and demonstrated that there is nothing impossible when a nation unites behind a single goal.

Again to say, it is not the generals that make history but or-dinary soldiers, the masses who waved flags, sang a sin-gle uniting national anthem so pas-

sionately, filled the stadiums and fan parks and opened their hearts and homes to our visitors. south africa demonstrated to all what it means to be an african and what ubuntu really means. indeed this was a celebration of african humanity.

Worker IssuesAfter the World Cup: how do we build on our success?


What lessons can we draw from this phenomenal success?

We now know we have a good gov-ernment that led all the way from the time when the infrastructure was put in place up to the last moment. We now know that we have an efficient and ef-fective police, traffic police and judicial system. We have skilled and hard-working workers – including construc-tion and security workers, stewards, administrators – and we have 18 000 enthusiastic volunteers whose skills and experience should not be lost. We thank them all. We now know that south africans love their country and can unite behind a single goal, irrespective of the things that used to divide us in the past. for four weeks we stood united behind the goal of hosting the World Cup and behind our national soccer team. for a month there was no racism, sexism, tribalism or regionalism but just proud south africans. There could be no bet-ter 92nd birthday gift to our icon Nelson mandela than this. he saw his dream unfolding in front of his own eyes.

The question we must ask now is how can our country build on this success and how can we ensure that we do not return to the past?◊ how do we maintain the momentum of unity behind a single goal, with no racism, an effective police and judicial system?◊ how can we use the momentum and self-confidence we have during the four weeks of the World cup to achieve similar successes in other areas of our national life and transform the lives of our people in a manner that can deepen the unity we have seen? ◊ how can we harness the skills and expertise of the workers who built our new stadiums, roads and public transport infrastructure - efficiently and on schedule - to build the much needed schools, houses, clinics, roads, bridges and sewers in our poor communities?◊ How can we put to good use the volunteers who went beyond the call

of duty to help our visitors and made sure the matches proceeded without a hitch? ◊ how can we use the implementation models and managerial skills of those who ensured the smooth running of the World Cup, its fan parks, ticket sales, park ‘n rides, volunteers, etc, to transform the efficiency and speed of service delivery in our communities? ◊ how can we develop south african soccer and other sports so that we can challenge victory in future World cups and other international events?◊ how can we build on the manifesta tion of african unity in support of ghana to combat the feared re-erup tion of xenophobic violence against our fellow-africans?

inspired by this success and chal-lenged by these questions, COSATU wishes to propose that all workers through their trade unions, the govern-ment, business, other civil society for-mations, all faith based organisations and all the traditional leaders commit themselves to keep the current spirit and momentum and unite south africa behind the following national goals.

Declaration of commitment to main-taining the current levels of unity and confronting South African chal-lenges post-2010 FIFA World Cup

We declare that south africa can never be the same again! We want to live in a south africa that we have during the World Cup. We will strive to ensure that south africa continues the wave of unity and uses the energy unleashed by the World Cup to build a lasting legacy for all south africans and the african continent. In the coming period, start-ing with the celebrations of our icons’ 92nd birthday we shall spare no energy to ensure:

1. our nation remains united behind Bafana Bafana and does everything possible to promote soccer, which re-mains the biggest and most popular

sport, yet is seriously under-developed. We are disturbed about media reports of pending leadership battles within the football family. We urge the football au-thorities to remain united, around only one goal - the development of soccer at every level. We urge government, in particular the departments of sports and education, to ensure that soccer and all other sporting codes are de-veloped from our schools. There must be no dithering; SAFA must use all the money they are to receive from fifa on development, and for nothing else. We need to discover the hidden talents of the hundreds of unknown south afri-can Peles, Drogbas, Messis, Xavis and Ronaldos, who have no opportunity for their skills to be recognised. We need to develop academies to hone the skills of these promising players. We urge former white schools to develop soc-cer. On the 24 August 2010, we urge south africans to once more come out in full support of our amabhokobhoko when they play against New Zealand at soccer city. We shall support all na-tional sporting codes including our bid to host the olympics in 2020. sport has proven that it can play a key role in unit-ing our country and healing the wounds of the past.

2. We know that the ever-existing threat to our progress is the astronomi-cal levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality, which blight our land. even as we prepared and hosted the World Cup, jobs continued to disap-pear, inequalities continued to grow and poverty remains widespread. We need a new economic growth and develop-ment path that will help address these challenges with the necessary urgency and speed. We need to ensure an ef-fective implementation of the iPaP2 to ensure industrialisation and restructur-ing of our sectors to preserve existing jobs and to create new jobs.

3. We commit to address the chal-lenges of our education system. We call on government to prioritise building and refurbishing schools and to ensure that all schools receive adequate support from the education departments at

Worker Issues


all levels. We call on south africans to make every school function, so that we can return to the culture of learning and produce workers with the skills the nation requires. education must move beyond the call for all to donate books and build school libraries on the nel-son Mandela Day. The campaign must run for the next 12 months until every school functions and is a centre of em-powerment to build a new generation that can take our dreams forward.

4. We commit to the transforming our health system and implementing the national health insurance scheme. We have to fix our public hospitals and defeat the scourge of HIV/AIDS to build a healthy nation and improve our country’s life expectancy.

5. We commit to address underde-velopment and poverty in rural areas. This campaign should address food insecurity and empower our people to use land that currently lies unused; so that people can produce the food they need and escape from their deep lev-els of unemployment and poverty. 6. We commit to campaign against crime and corruption. We can build on the successes of the World cup by sending out an unequivocal message

that crime does not pay. corruption is stealing from the poor to feed into nar-row elites’ selfish accumulation inter-ests. corruption kills the spirits of the majority, black and white, who want to work hard to build their country. We will act decisively against corruption including misuse of state power and resources for narrow factional inter-ests irrespective of who is involved. 7. We commit to work hard to fix the energy challenge the country is fac-ing. We need more action and not empty words to ensure that south af-rica moves out of the current energy crisis. 8. We commit to spare no energy in finding solutions to the looming wa-ter shortage crisis so that we do not wait for 2025 when the problem will be much more intense. 9. We do recognise that many public servants work hard and serve our peo-ple with integrity. But there is a minor-ity that regrettably continues with the work ethics that demonstrate a care-less attitude and in some instances contempt for our people including the elderly. For change to happen it re-quires that we do more to ensure that the public service adopts a new culture

of service to our people. We commit ourselves to support the ongoing en-deavours of the trade union movement to campaign to change work ethics in the public service so that they can be people service oriented. 10. We recognise that South Africa will not succeed to develop unless development also takes place in our SADC region and in the entire con-tinent. Everything possible must be done to prevent a new outbreak of xenophobic attacks in some of our poorest communities. no matter how bad living conditions are, there can be no excuse for blaming fellow-Africans for the country’s and continent’s eco-nomic failures. It would be a tragedy, after the display of african unity in sup-port of the Ghana football team, to see foreigners being made scapegoats for the lack of service delivery in our com-munities. They are not the cause but the fellow victims of our unjust and un-equal economic system. Workers and the poor must stand united against the common enemies of capitalist greed and corruption.11. lastly and most importantly we demand more decisive and visionary leadership. The period of own goals

and foot-in-the-mouth must be-long to the past. This newfound spirit of unity and racial harmony will not succeed unless strong leadership helps to maintain the mood moving forward. Leader-ship must at all times, irrespec-tive of whether there are visi-tors or not, act in an exemplary fashion. We need leadership at all levels within and outside government, in every political and civil society formation to act with integrity and honesty. That is the only way we can in-spire confidence in our political system and democracy. We call on the government and all our country’s political formations together with other organs of people’s power to unite behind realisation of these new goals.

Worker Issues


if lindiwe Buthelezi was not the sole bread winner at home, she would have long abandoned her job as a labourer at a dairy farm in northern KwaZulu-Natal.

Since 2001, her job at Groot Geluk dairy farm is to milk the cows and assist in the milk processing room.

Barely nine months after her em-ployment, a tragedy occurred to Lindiwe. She fell pregnant and her employer refused to grant her a maternity leave until the day she delivered. as the child was not in a stable condition, he passed away after two months of birth. “This was a very tragic period in my life. To

add insult to injury, when I returned to work, the owner of the farm, Mr helberk dismissed me as he claimed i did not inform him that i was on maternity leave and that my child has passed away,” said Lindiwe. This meant that Lindiwe could no long-er put food on the table for her family of 15.

After six months of languishing at home and grinding poverty, Lindiwe was reinstated at work on condi-tion that she will start off as a new employee, forfeiting her one year of service in the farm.

Apart this sordid tale, her employ-er does not comply with any labour legislation. Lindiwe earns R1100 per

month, contrary to the R1300 pre-scribed in sectoral determination for farm Workers. “after salary deduc-tion by the employer, some of my colleagues take home around R200 per month, especially those who take food on credit in his supermar-ket which is situated in the farm.” The deductions include r100 for rental and r100 for electricity. Those who have livestock are forced to pay r50 grazing tax.

farm dwellers have also had their fair share of abuse at the hands of helberk. Tears trickle down the face of Maria Mabaso, a farm dweller when she recounts stories of abuse that are taking place in the farm.

Worker IssuesTHE NATIONAL FARM WORkERS’ SUMMIT - Taking Stock of Life in the Farms

Farm workers have been labouring under exploitative working conditions, where decent work and the right to sustainable livelihoods remain elusive. Mluleki Mtungwa recollects some of his observations from the national farm Workers summit held in Westerncape from the Western cape from 30th and 31st July 2010.

Pictures taken at the Farmworkers summit


“Just last week, the farmer chased three school boys with a firearm. Mi-raculously they escaped the bullets unharmed. in this farm we don’t feel as part of south africa. People are expelled daily and they are not al-lowed to join unions. labour inspec-tors are unable to access the farms hence the violation of worker’s rights continues unabated,” said Maria who resigned from the farm and founded the farm eviction and development committee (fedco).

The organisation plays a crucial role in fighting for the rights of the farm workers and farm dwellers.

Since its establishment, FEDCO

has notched up some victories such as facilitating access of union organ-isers in farms and circumventing il-legal evictions. A day Maria handles over 20 complaints of evictions. last year alone, they registered 3000 cases.

it is such conditions that are pre-vailing in farms that have prompted the government under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture forestry and fisheries to convene a two-day farm Workers summit.

The summit which was addressed by President Zuma, COSATU Gen-eral Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi and the Minister of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries ,saw all stakeholders in the agricultural sector commit-ting themselves to end the strife in farms.

Addressing the summit, which he described as one of the most impor-tant occasion that any of the dele-gates will attend this year, the Gener-al secretary pointed out that pover-ty pay, job insecurity, casualisation,

foul living and working conditions, disregard of health and safety, sum-mary dismissals and evictions, phys-ical assaults, racist abuse and even rape and murder are widespread in farms. “farm workers and dwellers have even been shot “in mistake for baboons” and mauled by lions. This is all part of everyday life on south Africa’s farms,” he said.

Vavi told the 1100 delegates that labour relations on farms were a disgraceful blot in the society. Ac-cording to FAWU workers in the farms continue to earn far less than the minimum wages contained in sectoral determination laws and

work for very long hours with dangerous chemicals under adverse weather conditions without protective clothing.

Workers and dwellers on farms and forests continue to live without adequate decent shelter, without amenities like recreational facilities, health care and educational facili-ties, and without services like run-ning water and electricity.

not many of these violations and crimes are reported. of those re-ported, only a few are successfully prosecuted. of those prosecuted the guilty verdict is not common. Of those with guilty verdicts, pun-ishment does not fit the crime committed.

Vavi fired a broadside on farmers saying that the law of the land is a dead letter on most farms. “Workers are carried on the back of lorries like sacks of potatoes, causing many horrific fatal accidents.” He urged the delegates to push for the law to be enforced and offenders brought

to justice in farms.Delivering his keynote address, the

President told the summit that farm workers have endured 97 years of social, political and economic hard-ships starting with the passing of the Land Act No 27, of 1913. This period of land dispossession spanned over 23 years between 1913 and 1936 affecting millions of people, depriv-ing them of free access to land and placed them largely under tenancy.

The President was at pains to note that working conditions for many farm workers still remain far from ideal. “Reports state that long and unpaid working hours are still

a norm. most of the workers do not have any kind of insurance, includ-ing Unemployment Insurance Fund, which means their future is not se-cure,” he said.

He urged Government, labour, and the commercial agricultural sec-tor to work together to ensure that farm workers, like all other workers, are able to enjoy worker rights that they are entitled to in terms of the constitution of the land and relevant legislation.

The summit culminated in the adoption of resolutions which were formulated in the four commissions that dealt with working conditions, Security of tenure, Social determi-nant of health and empowerment and Training of farm workers.

on the social determination of health, the summit noted that the majority of vulnerable workers in the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries sectors do not have access to basic services such as water, electricity, housing, sanitation and healthcare.

Worker Issues

“Farm workers and dwellers have even been shot “in mistake for baboons” and mauled

by lions. This is all part of everyday life on South Africa’s farms”


The summit resolved that govern-ment, employers and workers must work in partnership to ensure the provision of basic services (water, electricity, housing, sanitation, and healthcare) to workers in these sec-tors, that access to health services for vulnerable workers be included in annual district health plans, en-suring training of workers to support health in their communities, food se-curity for workers to be addressed through the establishment of food gardens and implementation of minimum wage, community policing forums to be created and strength-ened as well as the establishment of mobile police stations. guaranteed access to burial sites must be ac-cepted and facilitated by employers, including the creation of a simple sms number for access to police and emergency services.

On working conditions, the summit resolved to intensify awareness rais-ing to ensure workers are informed about their rights in terms of labour legislation, ensure that the right of freedom of association for workers will be realized and respected and that support will be provided to en-able them to exercise this right. The summit further resolved to avail a special fund administered by ned-lac to assist trade unions in this sector to ensure that they are able to realize the right of workers to as-sociate and to establish Bargaining councils for vulnerable workers in the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisher-ies sectors to enable them to enjoy inflation related increases. Enforce-ments mechanisms and the powers of labour inspectors will be strength-ened and the prohibition of child la-bour will be enforced, underpinned by a minimum set of sanctions.

With regard to Security of tenure the summit noted that the major-ity of workers in the sectors do not have access to land to support their livelihoods and economic activities and resolved that a moratorium on farm evictions be enacted and a

mechanism be put into place to al-low for a process before evictions can be effected. Tenure rights will be secured for workers and work-ers should have access to land to support their livelihoods and eco-nomic activities. The summit further resolved that the concept of Agri- villages should be promoted. The extension of security of Tenure act (ESTA) legislation provision shall be reviewed and strengthened before the end of the 2011 legislative pe-riod. Tenure rights will be secured for workers and associated with that subsidized houses will be provided. applicable resolutions of the 2005 national land summit should be implemented.

On Education and Training, the summit noted that the majority of vulnerable workers in the Agricul-ture, Forestry and Fisheries sectors do not have access to education and training (Basic education, Further Education and Training, and Adult Basic Education and Training), the summit resolved that access to edu-cation and training (Basic Education, Further Education and Training, and Adult Basic Education and Training) for vulnerable workers and relatives be facilitated and guaranteed. In addition, mentorship programmes to support the development of sub-sistence and small holder producers / users will be established. Skills development programmes will be developed for each sector and sub-sector based on skills audits. The summit further endorsed the idea of a 50% co-ownership of farms by workers and their employers, the creation of incentive schemes to attract mathematics and science teachers to work in rural areas and the implementation of a comprehen-sive rural development programme will be fast tracked. Prior learning will be recognized.

The summit further resolved that relevant and applicable legislation should be amended to realise these resolutions. it further endorsed to

refine and implement the Forestry Sector Charter, the Agri-BEE Char-ter and develop a fisheries charter to address transformation and skills development, establish a national and provincial Vulnerable Workers’ units, and a Judicial Commission of enquiry to look at the condition of workers in the fisheries sector. The Steering Committee which was set up by the Minister of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries to organize the national summit will now trans-late into a delivery forum which will monitor the implementation of pertinent programmes linked to the resolutions.

AgriSA distanced itself from the resolutions of the summit alleging that their views were not accommo-dated in the resolutions. The minis-ter of Agriculture presented a road-map on how her department will take the resolutions forward.

The roadmap included the following:• The establishment of the Vulner able Workers unit at all levels of the department.• A Trust Fund to assist farm workers in instances where they face legal challenges from employers• Development of terms of reference for the implementa tion of resolutions within three months• Facilitation of local vulnerable workers summit to track implementation of the national summit resolutions

Mluleki Mtungwa is COSATU’s Communication Officer

Worker Issues


in the past few months, a vicious class onslaught has been waged against workers in South Africa. Workers in the retail sector have not been left unscathed by this.

Workers in one of the country’s largest retail stores - game and dion – have been victims of various techniques employed by management aimed at increasing their subjugation. In 2009, workers in these stores went on strike for wage increases and against unilat-eral restructuring of the terms and con-ditions of employment.

This year, negotiations deadlocked with the company, resulting in SAC-CAWU withdrawing from the process. The response of the company was draconian in nature. 200 workers at the company’s numerous warehouses were issued with notices of termina-tion of service. The police wass called in to enforce the notices and to escort workers off the premises. clearly the capitalists running the company didn’t take kindly to workers’ attempts to protect their jobs and to resist the ongo-ing unilateral restructuring that will ad-versely affect the terms and conditions of employment of thousands of workers. According to SACCAWU, the company was preparing to retrench 1500 work-ers, (700 of which are permanent and 800 are flexi-time employees), impose ultra flexi-time contracts on workers, in-troduce a 40 hour rolling week with no overtime for sundays and compulsory

work on sundays and public holidays. Workers rightly interpreted these

changes as attacks on the working class, which is already under stress and still suffering as a result of the recent

economic crisis, a crisis not of their own design , but as a result of how the nature of the capitalist system that is driven to make profits at any cost and without consideration for the consequences for workers.

Such has been the profits of Massmart in the last period that a few years ago the former CEO, Mark Lamberti received a salary of r9.1 million and in 2008 the current CEO received a salary of R6.4 million, this is more than two hundred times the average wage of a Massmart

employee. since the year 2000 mass-mart sales have more than doubled from R20 billion to a more than R43 billion in 2009. Even in the period of global reces-sion, Massmart still increased its sales by more than R10 billion between 2007 and 2009. clearly the company cannot not plead poverty, therefore the reasons for this restructuring and retrenchments are squarely aimed at further increas-ing their profit rates through the inten-sification of the rate of exploitation of workers. While the current round of re-structuring and retrenchments is taking place at game and dion Wired (mass-discounters) it will soon spread to other divisions of the group.

While Massdiscounters are planning the retrenchment of 1 500 workers they at the same time planning to expand their operations, with twenty new stores over the next two years. These facts clearly demonstrate that the company is doing well financially.

In the chairman’s review for 2009, Lamberti, noted that last year Mass-mart experienced their first protracted industrial action and listed the transition from former President Thabo mbeki to President Zuma as one of the significant developments that covered the report-ing period. According to Lamberti, this transition, “increased the stridency of populist rhetoric and the vigour of socio-economic demands, both indicative of an open democracy. service delivery rioters, striking workers, obstructive taxi

owners and officious youth leaders all contributed to the first ever protracted dispute between certain massmart di-visions and organised labour.”

This is an indication of how out of touch bosses are with the realities fac-ing the working class. How convenient to forget to mention that the workers had to resort to strike action to increase their minimum wage to a paltry R2 700 per month, how convenient to forget that workers resorted to strike action for decent work and greater job secu-rity when they demanded the conver-

sion of part-time employees to full-time. how convenient to forget that they plan to open 20 new massdicounters stores in the next two years while at the same time preparing to retrench 1 500 workers now. Of course Mr. Lamberti was talking to shareholders and here the only thing that matters is the bottom line, returns on investment, PROFIT!

And yes, there is the issue of specula-

tion that the worst employer in the world, Wal-Mart, is interested in taking over massmart. The experience of the labour movement globally, when it comes to the expansion of Wal-Mart is; to make your business attractive to Wal-mart you weaken if not smash the unions, you

Worker IssuesTHE INTRODUCTION OF WAL-MART PHILOSOPHy

AT GAME AND DION STORES


increase the vulnerability of workers, you erode job security, you reduce your staff complement and you drive down wages. And this is exactly what we see at massmart. however even if they do not intend selling out to Wal-Mart as their denials go, they are introducing Wal-Mart philosophy in the workplace at an aston-ishingly rapid rate with a typical Wal-mart aggression towards organised labour. In any event, with 57% of investors be-ing none South African, mainly European and American investors, it is not difficult to see why the Wal-mart format is so attrac-tive to massmart and why the rumours of a possible Wal-mart buy-out should be taken serious.

but blatant union-bashing.Thus for saccaWu this is not merely

a Massdiscounters struggle, but a Mass-mart issue and we will mobilise all our members across the group to take up joint struggles against this recent restructuring and retrenchments. For us, this new turn of restructuring and retrenchments as well as the high-handed and arrogant manner with which the company conducted itself during a protracted period of negotiations is nothing short of Union bashing. The retrenchments of workers and the escort-ing of workers off the premises by police while the dispute has not been resolved are all indications of this. The failure to train shofloor staff to prepare them for the

new technology, the compulsion to sign new employment contracts and re-inter-views of employees for the same posts they currently hold and the consequent threat of down variation of terms and con-ditions of employment all point to a well orchestrated strategy against unions. The rolling 40 hour week without overtime for sundays and compulsory work on sun-days and public holidays as normal days at normal rates all, point to the intensifi-cation of the exploitation of workers. no trade union worthy of its name can accept this. This is not simply a dispute over re-structuring but blatant union-bashing.

dis-chem Pharmacies work-ers at outlets throughout the country have been on a long and painful strike since 27 May 2010. Amongst

the demands of the workers were the following:

Meaningful engagement with our Union aimed at meeting the following fair and reasonable demands;• A minimum wage of R 3 500-00 per month;• An across the board increase of 15%;• All casual employees should be converted to permanent full-time employees after three months of employment;• Parental Rights; a subsidized Medical Aid Scheme; a housing subsidy and meaningful long service awards.• An immediate end to all forms of harassment and intimidation of

workers who are currently on strike and are exercising their right to picket;• That the Company should practice cordial industrial relations.

What follows is a story of one of the workers at dischem. she narrates how her employment at dischem is not only exploitative but deepens her experience of subjugation and oppression as an African woman, a mother and a breadwinner.

The Life of Ethelina, a Dis-Chem Employee

“My name is Ethelina and I am fifty-eight years old. I am on strike at Dis-chem. i work as a cleaner. i’ve been working for Dis-Chem since January 1996 and I still only earn R3600-00 per month. I live in a shack in Orange Farm, I started at Dis-Chem Randpark Ridge but was transferred to Cresta. Every morning I get out of bed at 3:30am and leave the house before 4:00am, when my family is still asleep, to make sure I get to work

on time at 7:00am. When I get home in the evening it is already dark, after sev-en sometimes even after 8:00pm. Then I must still cook, iron and wash clothes, feed and wash the little-ones before i can go to bed at after 10:00pm, because I must be fresh at four in the morning to go to work. many times when the train is full i have to stand all the way. sometimes I am so tired, I don’t even have energy to cook, and I just give the children bread and tea and put them to bed.

my train fare is r150-00 per month and i spend a further r15-00 per day on taxi-fare, this mean I spend more than R300-00 on taxis every month. every second week I work over week-ends and get one day-off during the week. . I am the sole bread-winner in the family and have four dependents to take care of, two of my own children – young men who are still unemployed and looking for work and two grandchildren. In Orange Farm where where I live, I stay in a one-bedroom

Worker Issues“This is not simply a dispute over restructuring but blatant union-bashing”

DISCHEM PHARMACISTS WHO DONT CARE!


shack, I want to extend it and even later build a proper brick-house for my fam-ily, but with my income and given my age it will not happen.

In 2003 I had an accident and my leg was broken, my leg was in a cast and I was in a wheelchair, but my bosses insisted i must come to work. i had to sit in a wheelchair still mop the floors, or I was going to lose my job. This was degrading and humiliating and I felt very angry and insulted by this.

My daughter Mavis also worked at Dis-Chem for seven years until she got to sick and passed-away, now I’m tak-ing care of one of her children as well. While Mavis was sick, and with no-one to take care of her i asked my boss-es to give me a few days off to make

arrangements to send her to my sister in cape Town that is at home and will be able to take care of her, but the bosses did not believe me. They insisted i must first bring my sick daughter to work so that they can see if she really is sick. even when she came back from cape Town later they told me to bring her to work to see if she is still sick, they did not believe me.

Shortly after that my daughter passed-away. When i went to the company about funeral benefits, they told me my daughter was out of work for too long and I received no funeral benefits for my daughter, despite the fact that they deduct funeral benefits. For Provident Fund they only gave me R5000-00 and told me the rest of the money must go

towards paying tax, they did not even tell me how much it was. i had to de-pend and donations from family and friends and still had to borrow money from the loan sharks to arrange the fu-neral and bury my daughter. Today I’m still paying that loans, that’s why I don’t think i’ll ever extend my shack or build a house for me and my family

All this make me very angry. I’m not the only one who suffers like this, there are many of my fellow-workers who suf-fer like this at dis-chem. This company does not care about us workers, that is why i have joined saccaWu and that is why we are determined to strike until dis-chem meet with our union.”

Worker Issues

HISTORy HAS TAUGHT US

THAT POWER CONCEDES

NOTHING WITHOUT STRUGGLE: The class Basis

of the Public service strike

Zingiswa Losi


By the time this article goes to print, work-ers would have already taken to the streets. a settlement would have

probably been reached and perhaps the might of mass power demonstrat-ed by the workers would have taught the capitalist state a lesson or two. Prophecies aside, there is a need to tackle some of the arguments against a public service strike head-on. The premise of this intervention is that public sector workers are as valuable as workers in the largely commercial-ised state owned enterprises and the private sector and should therefore enjoy the same right to bargain for an increment.

some sections of the media have predictably showed the usual scorn against teachers, accusing them of abandoning the sacred mission to teach and develop our children. lit-tle has been said about how the em-ployer (the bourgeois state) does not take education seriously. even dur-ing the World Cup, negotiations for the public sector were in process. The bourgeois state did not heed to the class demands of public sector workers and argued instead that en-ergies should be focused on hosting a successful World cup. The work-ers succumbed to this call, with the wish that the prophets of doom, who long declared the country unfit to host the tournament, would eat their own words. Workers were adamant that the World cup was a demonstration of power and capacity on the part of the state and that this energy must be channelled towards improving the lives of many working class and poor south africans.

The demands of the public serv-ice workers are by no means exor-bitant. Workers have seen the same

government making available billions of rands for the World cup to suc-ceed. surely it cannot be a crime for workers to demand that the same po-litical will displayed during the World cup should also inform the state’s re-sponse to the demands of workers in the public service.

It is quite clear which class agen-da the media is pursuing. Those that write lengthy columns about the ‘un-reasonable’ nature of workers’ de-mands conceal the unfortunate reality of income disparities in south africa.

They do not tell the public that in 2008 alone, the top twenty directors of JSE-listed companies, the over-whelming majority of whom are still white males, earned an average of

r59 million per annum each ( mcgre-gor, p.45), whilst in 2009 the average earnings of an employee in the South African economy was R34 000 per an-num( LFS, 2009, Quarter 1). Each of the top 20 paid directors in JSE-listed companies earned 1728 times the average income of a South African worker. This is far worse than in the US, where it is estimated that CEO pay was 319 times that of the aver-age worker in 2008 (Anderson, 2009, p.2).

An average, between 2007 and 2008, these top twenty directors of these JSE listed companies experi-enced 124% increase in their earnings, compared to below 10% settlements that ordinary workers tend to settle at including what is being demanded by the public service workers.

directors in state-owned enterpris-es also experienced the same rate of increase to their earnings, thereby contributing to income disparities in the economy. hefty increases were also seen in state-owned enterpris-es. The top 20 directors experienced a 59% increase in their earnings,

collectively raking in R132 223 million. This amounts R6.6 million per direc-tor, which is 194 times the average income of the south african worker.

What is even more worrying about these income disparities is that they have a racial and gender dimension. In South Africa today, approximately 71% of African female-headed house-holds earned less than r800 a month and 59% of these had no income. in-come inequality is still racialized and gendered: an average African man earns in the region of R2 400 per month, whilst an average white man earns around r19 000 per month. most white women earn in the region of R9 600 per month, whereas most African women earn r1 200 per month. at the

centre of these demands is a call to address these disparities.

Workers cannot be expected to be silent about this reality and accept a trivial offer that government has put on the table. such will not happen. History has taught us that power con-cedes nothing without struggle!

The media parades the idea that workers in the public service are ir-rational and irresponsible. Teachers are naturally the soft targets for this class onslaught. In carrying forth the agenda of the ruling class, the media continuously attempts to undermine class solidarity amongst the working class by appealing to the sentiments and desires of working class parents whose children’s education inevitably suffers because of the intransigence of the bourgeois state in meeting the demands of the workers. all this is aimed at mustering public sup-port and to dampening the impact of the strike.

The self acclaimed experts who ac-cuse public service workers of selfish-ness should walk a mile in the shoes of these workers.

Worker Issues

“We did not vote for a government that limits its role to that of a facilitator of business deals and transactions”


They should enter the discussion on education seriously and not in an opportunistic manner. The fact that our schools are not healthy, safe and conducive for quality learning and teaching is by now well known.

What society must know is that the conditions of work for most public serv-ants are intertwined with that of the people who are expecting to receive a service.

The conditions under which learn-ers live in schools constitute working conditions for educators. The fact that 42% of schools depend on bore-holes, rainwater or have no access to water on or near site and that 88% of schools have no laboratories, or laboratories are not stocked or that 21% of schools have no toilets on site or have more than 50 learners allocated one toilet or that 62% of schools have a learner educator ra-tio that exceeds 30 - means that no effective teaching and learning can take place under such conditions.

if one nurse has to provide a serv-ice to hundreds of people per day, it means that we will not achieve the dream of quality health care. let us have an open debate about improv-ing the conditions of work for health workers. let us stop the hypocrisy and ask why is there feet dragging on the implementation of the nhi.

As COSATU and all our affiliated unions in the public service we are at the forefront of the battle to instil new work ethos in the public service as a whole. The problems besieging the public sector cannot be addressed via the market, through outsourcing and tenders. These merely sap away resources from the state through chasing after profits. Further, privati-sation generally does not guarantee local procurement of inputs into in-frastructure development and does not guarantee decent work. The state should bear direct responsibil-ity in addressing these challenges. When we voted in 1994, we did not vote for a government that limits its role to that of a facilitator of business deals and transactions.

Tendering on public services must come to an end as a matter of urgency.

Losi is the Second Deputy President of COSATU.

References McGregor’s Who Owns Whom, 30th Edition, 2010.sQuarterly labour force surveys (2009) and Quarterly survey on employment and Earnings (2009 Quarter 1). Anderson, S, America’s Bailout Barons, Institute for Policy Studies, 2009.

Worker IssuesPhotographer: william Matlala


during this time, particularly since it is women’s month, one is compelled and re-flect on some of the power-ful women that dedicated

their lives to the struggle for liberation of the working class and the return of the wealth to its primary producers. Women that dedicated their lives to a future free of racial and gender oppression and a world driven by people’s common human-ity and cooperation. One such a woman, a mother, a friend, a fellow worker, com-rade and revolutionary fighter is the late Violet Seboni.

she was loved and admired by all who ever came into contact with her and it is essential that we find ways to remember and honour her, both as an individual and a stalwart of the workers’ revolutionary

movement.It was absolutely typical of Violet that

she lost her life on active service, on her way to Mafikeng, where she was to par-ticipate in ANC election campaign, during Heroes Month, April 2009.

She was, at the time of her tragic pass-ing, the COSATU 2nd Deputy President and the 1st deputy President of sacTWu. But she played a broader role to advance the interests of the labour movement in general, in many other areas. This is why the many messages of condolences read out at her funeral came from many people and organisations in South Africa and all over the world.

There are so many instances i could recall of her commitment and enthusi-asm for the workers’ struggle, but one that will always stand out was her brave

leadership of the COSATU fact-finding mission to zimbabwe in 2004 whose members were arrested, forced onto a bus and deported across the Beit Bridge border in the middle of the night.

equally important as her national and international work was Violet’s determi-nation to remember her roots. she never lost contact with the members at her fac-tory and SACTWU Branch, and she was always deeply involved in the personal problems of workers and people in gen-eral. It was typical that Violet should have devoted so much energy to the battle to combat the scourge of HIV/Aids and con-stantly reminded us of our responsibility to make this issue a top priority.

The trade union movement lost a great worker leader, who cared deeply about the clothing,

Remembering Violet ...The Big Problems that Comrade Violet Seboni confronted are Worsening. We have unprecedented unemployment, poverty and inequality and the breakdown of our public education and health system. President Sdumo Dlamini shares his best memories about the late 2nd deputy President of cosaTu.

Photographer: william Matlala


textile and leather workers yet was also an internationalist who understood the true meaning of “Workers of the World unite!” As with any great leader however, the best way to honour Violet is not by mak-ing speeches, but by learning from her example, teaching young workers the lessons that she taught us and putting those lessons into practice by continu-ing the fight for workers’ rights and so-cialism to which she dedicated her en-tire life.

We have to be frank and say that the big problems, which Violet had to grap-ple with, remain unresolved to this day. some have worsened - the un-precedented levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality, the breakdown of our public education and healthcare services, the continued existence of squatter camps with no running water, electricity and sanitation. We see the re-emergence of xenopho-bic attacks and violent protests in which desperate community members destroy the very institutions that should be offer-ing them hope – schools and libraries. While of course we condemn such

acts unreservedly, we have to under-stand the desperate plight of the grow-ing number of South Africans who are living in dire poverty. These include the 5.5 million people who have joined the ranks of the poor as a result of the loss of 1 100 000 jobs that have been lost since the beginning of 2009.Even among those who are lucky enough to have a job, the curse of casualisation of labour, driven by labour brokers, is getting worse. Relatively se-cure and reasonable well-paid jobs are rapidly being replaced by casual, low-paid and temporary jobs, which swell the ranks of the working poor. Yet business leaders, and their mouth-pieces in the media and universities, still preach to us about a “too rigid la-bour market” and “excessive wage de-mands”. Yet these are the very people who vote themselves massive increas-es, which have turned South Africa into the most unequal society on earth.We owe it to the memory of Violent seboni and all the other fallen heroes and heroines of our movement to take decisive action to put an end to these

social evils. The World Cup showed us, and showed the world that we have the skills and the ingenuity to organise a brilliant international class event. Why can we not use those same quali-ties to build good schools for our chil-dren, provide a comprehensive national health and social security system and in so doing create thousands to bring down the horrific levels of unemployment?cosaTu issued a declaration the day after the World Cup Final, which we hope all South Africans will sign, setting the goals we need to score if we are to overcome all these problems and move speedily towards the kind of just and equitable society promised in the free-dom charter. cosaTu is also about to launch a ma-jor policy document setting out the strat-egies and policies we need to adopt as a nation if we are to provide decent jobs and living standards for the workers and the poor. Violet would have been one of the most passionate crusaders for these initiatives. Let us, during this women’s month dedicate ourselves to the struggle to which our comrade de-voted her life.

Remembering Violet ...


GENDER AGENDA

WOMEN’s sTRUGGLE:

A PICTORIAL EXHIBITION

William Matlala’s pictures speak a thousand words about the struggle against partriarchy. As a photographer, Matlala has captured many moments that depict the road travelled by women in south africa.


The fact that she is breastfeed-ing in a meeting highlights the sad reality that universal

childcare facilities were (still are) a luxury in south africa and how the

responsibility of caring and rear-ing children still falls squarely on the shoulders of women. The fact that she is wearing formal attire might be an indication that she sojourned

straight from work into the meeting. In this sense, women like the one depicted above face the wrath of class exploitation as well as racial and gender oppression.

GENDER AGENDAThe Triple Oppression

The above picture best depicts the notion of the triple oppression. The woman carrying a baby in the picture formed part of the Dube

(Soweto) Detainees’ Parents Support Committee in 1987.


GENDER AGENDA

21

Motherhood

motherhood has often been an important factor in lead-ing women to activism. In this

picture the two women draw a direct correlation between the meagre wag-es they are paid, the hostile working conditions and the negative impact

that this has on their role as mothers. Whilst this may have not been a direct challenge to the patriarchal roles that women are expected to perform in a patriarchal society, it was certainly an instructive link between working class struggles and the gender struggle.

With societal expectations that wom-en ought to be the primary carers, meagre wages and the undermining of freedom of association through the refusal to recognise trade unions had a significant impact on working class women.

This picture depicts a childcare day in a factory in Wadeville in 1990. This mirrors the struggle for the creation of

childcare facilities in workplaces.


GENDER AGENDA

Housing, Food and Low Rents

Women lead a march against the removal of Thokoza (East Rand) residents to Riefontein in 1989.The march also demanded housing, food and a cut on rents.

This struggle continues in the democratic period with many struggles around the high price of food, commodified water and electricity and the slow “delivery” of housing.


GENDER AGENDAOpening the Doors

Winnie madikizela-mandela at a Welcome rally in Kwa-Thema (Springs) with leaders from Robben Island.

Winnie became a household name in the townships on the east Rand, particularly with the upsurge of violence and turmoil

experienced in the area in the early 1990s.


GENDER AGENDABeijing Platform for Action

Delegates from the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing Conference) in 1995

delegates prepared a Platform for Action that aimed greater equality and opportunity for

women. 189 governments and more than 5000 representatives from 2 100

non-governmental organisations. The main themes were the advancement and empowerment of women in rela-tion to women’s human rights, wom-en and poverty, women and decision-

making, the girl-child, violence against women and other areas of concern. The resulting documents of the Con-ference are The Beijing Declaration and Platform for action.


GENDER AGENDA

25

The september Commission

Here Connie September, then 2nd Deputy President

of COSATU along with members of the September

Commission at the Johannesburg City Hall in 1996.

The commission was estab-lished to look into the future of trade unions amidst the attacks

induced by neoliberal capitalism. The commission also made widely

accepted recommendations on or-ganisational weaknesses, the snail pace progress in terms of organis-ing workers in atypical forms of work. The findings of the commission were

crucial in devising ways to make the union more responsive to women’s struggles.


discussions about the es-tablishment of a women’s ministry for south africa took place as far back as the early 1990’s and dur-

ing the country’s negotiation process. at the heart of its mandate was envis-aged to be the initiation of appropriate legislation for the protection of women’s rights and the development of women. At this stage, some held the view that the establishment of the ministry car-ried a lot of merits and that the period was conducive for such a move. it was argued that the strength of the women’s lobby during the negotiation process, its limitations notwithstanding, provided a sound base from which to advance the case for the establishment of the minis-try. Further, there was a sense that there is a political will to address women’s op-pression and that the moment must be seized. Accordingly, this environment

provided the space to negotiate bet-ter terms for a women’s ministry, including when it comes to budget-ary concerns.

The overwhelm-ing discussion, which was posed in opposition to this view, was that women’s minis-tries posit a range of problems. chief among these was the contention that women’s ministries tend to be isolated and used as a dumping ground for all sorts of problems concerning women and other disad-vantaged groups.

In this sense, women’s ministries were seen as amenable to being turned to welfare structures which also incorpo-rate other pressing and yet neglected concerns of children and persons with disabilities. There was also a fear that the ministry would discourage the inte-gration of gender into broader national policies because women’s concerns would be seen as the sole responsibil-ity of the ministry. In other words, the ministry would be ghettoised.

These debates were not novel to the south african context. in the australian case, calls for a dedicated ministry for women were rejected for similar rea-sons. The warning bell indicated that ministry would become a waste bin for the disposal of all problems affecting women and that it would provide a suit-able excuse for gender blind policies in the rest of the state. it was attractive

to argue that a self-standing ministry would have limited access to crucial information about other ministries and their responses to women related is-sues. The world-over, resounding sup-port was given to the idea of having an office dealing with gender issues located in the office of the prime minis-ter or president. In many countries, this office became known as the office for the status of women. Accordingly, this office was said to be in a structurally better position to access information and that its location would give it signifi-cant clout in terms of accountability and monitoring.

This rationale was by no means ahis-torical. Feminists had paid specific at-tention to the various challenges facing women ministries in a variety of cases. In Zimbabwe for instance, a similar ministry was considered marginal in matters of national development. This ministry also faced the challenge of being finically starved and faced prob-lems of censorship in terms of criticising the government or ZANU PF’s policies regarding gender. Even in the 1990s, women activists were already making the admission that one of the reasons for the failure of women’s ministries was the lack of coordination and interaction between the ministry of women affairs and other ministries.The debate about the establishment of a women’s ministry won the day in South Africa only in 2007.

This means that it took more than a decade for the discussion to come back on the agenda.

Accordingly, the 52nd National Con-ference of the anc noted and resolved that there is a need for the establish-ment of a women’s ministry and that an invaluable contribution could be made through ensuring that the lessons from countries such as chile and Tunisia

GENDER AGENDAWomen’s Ministries: Structures for Change or Dumping Grounds for Women’s Problems?

Phindile kunene


are taken into account. The confer-ence also recommended that the anc must make a thorough assessment of the current instruments dealing with women matters and the extent to which these have been successful and thereafter advise a way forward.

This was a significant departure from earlier arguments which favoured the establishment of strong National gender machinery (ngm) as a “whole

package” dedicated to addressing women’s oppression. This whole pack-age came in the form of the Commis-sion for Gender Equality, the National Office on the Status of Women (OSW), Parliamentary Women’s Group, and Women’s empowerment unit (Weu) amongst others. Many analysts hold the view that if the ministry is expected to intervene in the many problems fac-ing the National Gender Machinery then it is already starting from a point of disadvantage.

According to the Minster of Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities, the ministry’s role is threefold as three-fold. It is expected to play an oversight role; mainstream gender, children’s rights and disability consideration and pursue the empowerment of women, children and persons with disabilities. To its credit, the Ministry has demon-strated energy towards the drafting of the gender equality Bill and the revi-sion of the national policy framework for women’s empowerment and gen-der equality.

It was never going to be easy to start a ministry from scratch. Putting in place a bureaucracy and crafting a strategic framework for the ministry is proving to be a long and daunting task. Many are already ringing the death knell on the ministry. The arguments that prevailed in the early 1990s have resurfaced. Recently, a critique has been made that the establishment

of the ministry was an effective pa-per plastering on male domination in South Africa. These comments, made by Ginwala, also lamented the fact that women’s oppression under patriarchy was lumped together with other forms of discrimination such as discrimination based on disability. This view has been supported by others, who contend for equality between men and women.

“Tell no lies. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories!”

The biggest mistake that the min-istry can ever make is to create an impression of activity whilst behind the closed doors it faces frustration in terms of government bureaucracy and financial starvation. In this regard, it is laudable that mayende-sibiya has been honest about some of the struc-tural challenges besieging the Ministry. Certainly, the department will continue to be disadvantaged by the fact that it is currently under resourced in budg-etary terms. The ministry is also one of the few ministries without a deputy minister. This situation is compounded by the fact that although the Minister announced in her budget vote speech that the process of setting up a fully fledged department with a total staff complement of 195 is well underway, this process has been slow and rather discouraging. It is hard to see how the Ministry can have a lasting impact on other government departments given this snail’s pace approach.

The extent to which links have been forged with civil society groups is also not encouraging. If it proceeds in this fashion, the Ministry risks become a mere commentator on issues affect-ing women, without the clout or the will to challenge the roots of a system of male domination. This will be a lost op-portunity indeed. The ministry must be

prepared to lose some popularity rat-ings and take a confrontational stance on certain issues affecting women.

In the final analysis, the success of the ministry will depend on the strength of the National Gender Ma-chinery (NGM) and the grassroots links that the ministry maintains with civil society organisations aimed at ad-dressing women’s oppression. What is clear though is that with all the difficul-

ties already confronting the NGM, the ministry has mountains to climb. The absence of a strong and independent grassroots voice for women will directly contribute to the ministry’s woes. The attenuated state of the anc Women’s League and its unclear stance against patriarchy will certainly not aid the situation.

It might be too early for pall bearers to line up preparing for the burial of the Ministry. However, the structural inser-tion of the ministry into the state and how it relates to others within the ex-ecutive will hang like an albatross for most of the electoral term and will cer-tainly become a key determinant in its success or failure.

References Budget vote speech 2010/11 of Minis-ter for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities, 18 May 2010. Geisler, G, Troubled Sisterhood: Women and Politics in southern Africa: Case Studies from Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana , African Affairs, Vol. 94, No. 377 , Oct., 1995 , pp. 545-578. ginwala comments strike a raw Nerve, Business Day, 19 August 2009. Mabandla, B, Choices for South Afri-can Women, Agenda, No. 20, 1994, pp.22-29. Sawer, A, Women’s Ministries: An Australian Perspective, Feminist Review, No. 63, 1999, pp.91-94.

GENDER AGENDA

“The biggest mistake that the ministry can ever make is to create an impression of activity whilst behind closed doors it faces frustration in

terms of government bureaucracy and financial starvation.”


The Economyrich men’s club: The g20 and austerity measures

Discussions of the G20 Summit held in Canada in June this year will have far reaching implications for developing nations. Mpheane Lepaku makes a strong case that the G20 austerity measures are a threat to the objectives to create jobs and reduce income inequalities and poverty.

one of the major chal-lenges facing the South african economy is the high unemployment rate which is close to

40% using the expanded definition of unemployment. This means that government should use among others expansionary fiscal policies in order to increase spending by putting more money into the economy. This would result in an increase in spending on infrastructure, public services and

demand by firms and households and creation of jobs. it is also accepted that government may finance spend-ing through a deficit in order to grow the economy and create more jobs. A deficit occurs where spending ex-ceeds tax revenue and this forces gov-ernment to cover the shortfall through borrowing from local or international financial institutions. Contrary to an expansionary fiscal policy, a restric-tive fiscal policy means government decreases spending or expenditure

slows growth and creation of jobs. The current Treasury policies favour restrictive fiscal policies over expan-sionary policies. These anti-devel-opmental policies form part of the Growth, Economic and Redistribution (gear) economic policy. According to the 2010 Budget Review the budget deficit is to be reduced from 7.3% of GDP in 2009/10 to 4.1% in 2012/2013. The government’s net loan debt was about 28.2% of gdP and debt service costs were 2.4% of gdP.


In this regard government has com-mitted to reduce spending in order to increase revenue. However, this may prolong the high unemployment crisis. instead the government should save more money through restrictions on the use of consultants, outsourcing, labour broking and combating corrup-tion. By so doing it will release funds to be used for job creation and produc-tive economic activities. The other tool is to discourage tender-preneuship.

south africa has an open capitalist economy which means that it is vul-nerable to changes in demand in other countries in particular its trading part-ners. as a result south africa suffered a recession in 2009 with a negative growth rate of -1.8%. The recession would result in the following; reduction in export volumes, and foreign earn-ings, an increase in retrenchments and short time, abusive labour practic-es such as labour broking and casuali-sation, and a reduction in tax revenue as more workers are retrenched and more firms are liquidated. As a result government is then forced to ask for money from international institutions and commercial banks. in response to the crisis countries adopt various policy measures to cushion the poor against the crisis. Whilst the express intention of these measures is often to protect the poor it is the interests of the commercial banks that are protected. In order to protect and manage capital-ism, rich countries have tried various ways to coordinate their responses to the crisis through various international institutions and forums including the g20 forum.

What is the G20? Pursuant to the financial crisis in

Asia in 1997/8 the G8 invited other countries and formed the g20 in 1999 on recommendations of the g8 minis-ters of finance. The g20 should not be confused with the G20 group of de-veloping countries that are fighting for a fair developmental outcome within the WTo. The members of the g20 are the g8 members who are consid-ered rich and developed countries with high purchasing power and represent the largest markets for developing

poor countries and some develop-ing countries including China. South Africa is one of the developing coun-tries that have been ‘co-opted’ into the club. The g20 has been described as an informal forum which promotes an open dialogue on financial and eco-nomic policies. its main participants include the ministers of finance and central bankers of the g20 members. Whilst trade unions participate in the G20 meetings through the Internation-al Trade union confederation (iTuc) they do not have a seat on the negoti-ating table.

The g20 discussions are informal and its decisions are mere recommen-dations and not legally enforceable. However, these recommendations may have a decisive influence over national economic policies of develop-ing countries within the G20 such as south africa. This is so because the world economic ‘police,’ the Interna-tional monetary fund (imf) and the World Bank (WB) are represented in the g20. one of the imf’s objectives is to solve financial problems associ-ated with financial and economic cri-ses. Therefore, the IMF would inter-vene when there is a financial crisis by lending to countries experiencing shortage of money. Countries that are confronted with macro economic pol-icy challenges such as high debt lev-els and high budget deficit would ap-proach the imf for assistance. often private commercial banks would only assist governments after the IMF has intervened and arm twisted the debtor government to accept market econo-my reforms.

IMF conditional lending and austerity measures: the Greek Experience

The IMF and other financial institu-tions have the powers to use credit as a leverage to force countries to reform and introduce anti-worker policies without the consent of national legisla-tures. One of the methods of influenc-ing national policies is to give loans to countries in return for the recipient or the debtor country to undertake spe-cific economic policy reforms in order to get out of the financial or economic

crisis. These policies are called stabili-zation or structural adjustment policies. one of these policies is called auster-ity measures.

austerity measures include commit-ment by a government to reduce a def-icit to a certain percentage of GDP e.g. 3%, to reduce public sector wage bill, and increase government savings, fi-nancial prudence, a cut in government spending on health, education, social service, wage freeze and outsourcing of government services, privatization, reduction in debt levels i.e. debt-gdP ratios and revamping of tax laws. These measures also include an in-crease in the prices of public services such as electricity tariffs. The objective of austerity measures is to generate cash and to spend less so as to pay creditors as represented by the imf.

The Greece sovereign debt default experience

greece is a member of the euro-pean community and the euro zone. At the end of 2009 Greece’s budget deficit was at 13.6% of the GDP and its public debt was above 115% of the GDP. The Greece government failed to pay the creditors or defaulted due to speculation in the debt market in eu-rope and Greece’s high level of debt that was held by euro commercial banks. on 9 may 2010 the euro zone community and the IMF gave Greece a 110 billion euro loan. one of the con-ditions for the loan was for the greece government to adopt austerity meas-ures. some of the objectives of the greece austerity measures include a reduction in the government deficit to below 3%, an increase in taxes on among others luxury goods, and VAT. The government committed to increase savings by reducing spending or cut-ting expenditure and increasing taxes. These measures were adopted to get more cash for the government and to comply with the eu rules that require that no nation in the euro bloc should have an annual budget deficit which is higher than 3% of its gross domestic product. The IMF argues that these measures are unprecedented. how-ever, we know that these are the same structural adjustment programs and

The Economy


The EconomyWashington consensus neo liberal

policies that were applied to developing countries with devastating consequenc-es on their economies in particular on jobs and the consequential de-industri-alization.

Impact of the G20 membership on South Africa

in support of these austerity meas-ures, The G20 meeting in June 2010 recommended that high deficit coun-tries should focus on price stability and cut unnecessary spending in or-der to reduce their deficits. The G20

declaration calls for members to cut spending, in order to “avoid leaving future generations with a legacy of deficits and debts.” Austerity meas-ures and restrictive fiscal policies are inappropriate for sa’s economy because unemployment remains un-acceptably high, and the economy continues to shed jobs. The economy is depressed because factories are operating below capacity, Infrastruc-ture backlogs in respect of repairing and building new road pipelines, hos-pitals, educational institutions, further education training centers place the responsibility of demand stimulus on the public and not the private sector. Furthermore, poverty remains high, with almost 25% of the south african population living on grants (COSATU statement).

Therefore, fiscal austerity meas-ures and monetary policy based on an overriding goal of price stability is the therefore unwarranted and should be rejected. Instead the government should focus on expansionary fiscal policy to deliver basic services. Defi-cit spending would not automatically result in inflation and unsustainable debt levels since SA’s deficit and

debt levels are very low compared to its highly industrialized trading part-ners. In the long term deficit spending would result in the delivery of public services and creation of decent jobs. What matters is not high debt levels but interest that is payable on debt. For instance Japan one of the larg-est economies in the world has a debt level of 227.1 % of GDP yet interest on its debt is less than two percent of gdP (Weisbrot and montecino alter-natives to fiscal austerity in spain).

Whilst south africa may learn more from its trading partners in the G20

forum it risks losing her fiscal policy space and adopting restrictive macro-economic policies that are suitable for developed countries’ economies such as the low deficit of less than 3% and low inflation. Whilst high deficit and debt levels are not sustainable, ap-plying EU standards on macro-eco-nomic policy in a developing country like south africa would result in the deepening of the crisis of high unem-ployment. south africa may further marginalize fellow African countries in purporting to represent their inter-ests in the g20 since it is viewed in this light by the rich members of the club. austerity measures should be rejected because workers should not pay for crises caused by governments through adoption of developed coun-tries’ economic policy standards.

The g20 in its current form consti-tute a threat to the survival and rel-evance of the UN and its agencies on international economic and financial policy issues. The club may further marginalize poor economies from par-ticipating in world economic affairs. Poor countries constitute the major-ity of countries in the world yet they are not represented in the g20. more

participation by african countries should be encouraged as this is the only channel in which they can force developed countries to adhere to their economic dynamics and concerns as well as providing tailor made pack-ages that have less restrictions and conditions for assistance. an example of this is the WTO where developing countries have recently been vocal about their demands and expecta-tions. That is why there is a standstill in the 2001 doha round.

In the long term the G20 should be replaced by the UN agency, the Eco-

nomic and social council or ecosoc. one of the objectives of ecosoc is to coordinate economic, social, and related work of the 14 un specialized agencies. The G20 austerity meas-ures are a threat to the objectives to create decent jobs, reduce income inequality and poverty and should be rejected.

Lepaku is COSATU’s Trade Policy Coordinator

References 2010 Budget Review (South Africa).R Janssen ‘Greece and the IMF: Who is Exactly Being Saved’ CEPR July 2010.Prof c malikane ‘cosaTu statement on g20 ‘response to g20 summit’ COSATU Daily News 5 July 2010. M Weisbrot and J Montecino ‘Alter-natives to fiscal austerity in spain’ CEPR July 2010.

“These are the same structural adjustment programs and Washington consensus neo liberal policies that

were applied to developing countries with devastating consequences on their economies in particular on jobs and

the consequential de-industrialization”


The news that a further 61 000 jobs were lost in the second quarter of 2010, on top of the 171 000 jobs which disappeared during

the first quarter, and the 870 000 last year - amounting to a colossal 1102 000 since the beginning of 2009 - will cause many workers to question whether 16 years of democracy have done them any good at all.On average every worker supports five dependents, which means that over 5.5 million additional people have been plunged into a life of pov-erty and misery in just 18 months. The fact that rate of job losses in south af-rica is slowing down will be no comfort to those 5.5 million who are now con-demned to a life of destitution.As well as the direct, devastating ef-fect that such a level of unemploy-ment and poverty has on the individ-ual workers who have lost their jobs and their families, the crisis reaches into every aspect of life. Thousands of unemployed workers live in shacks with no water, electricity or other basic services. They still face a two-tier education system, a collapsing public health service and still no progress towards a national health insurance scheme. While more and more workers sink into deep poverty, they see a small minority earning mil-lions and living in luxurious mansions.such poverty and inequal-ity aggravates all the anti-social consequences which we see more and more – violent community protests, crime, xenophobia and the collapse of social and moral values. such a level of un-employment is not just a personal and family disaster

but a national catastrophe.The official unemployment rate, which excludes those who have given up looking for work, rose to 25, 3% from the 25, 2% in the first quarter, and re-mains at an absolutely unacceptable level, far above that of any compara-ble country, the highest in 62 countries tracked by Bloomberg news agency. and the more realistic expanded un-employment rate, which includes those who have given up looking for work, increased from 35, 4% to 35.9% over the first quarter.The stats sa Quarterly labour force survey has revealed that formal-sec-tor employment fell by 1, 4% in the second quarter, driven by jobs lost in the construction, transport and ag-riculture sectors. They also revealed that informal sector employment in-creased by 5, 7% or 115 000 jobs in the 2nd quarter. This indicates that the casualisation

of labour is gaining momentum at an alarming rate. As decent jobs disap-pear, more and more workers are be-ing forced into low-paid and insecure forms of casual employment.These statistics make cosaTu more determined than ever to campaign, in the short term, for a significant cut in interest rates, to provide relief for em-ployers struggling to avoid retrench-ing workers and an incentive to those wanting to create new jobs.In the longer term however, it is be-came ever clearer that if we are se-rious about reversing the trend and creating jobs on the scale we need, we have to move rapidly on to a new economic growth path that shifts our economy from one based on the ex-port of raw materials and capital-in-tensive sectors to one that is labour-intensive, based on manufacturing industry and meeting the basic needs of our people.

Job stats: a national catastrophe

The Economy


Mbuyiseni Mathonsi argues that the process through which the Curriculum review committee undertook its work was completely flawed and has resulted in a misdiagnosis of the situation. He argues instead that the entire debate has placed the political right over the moon as it has successfully evaded questions around the impact of neoliberal macro-economic policy on education.

History is being made in South Africa as many join the bandwagon denouncing the National Curriculum Statement and elevating the Old apartheid education system as the panacea for the problems it created.

never has it happened in the past that the opposition becomes more thrilled and more excited by the announcement made by a Minister hailing from the

ruling ANC. The announcement made in mid-July placed many rightwing and reactionary organisations on cloud nine.

The minister is presently criss-crossing the country proudly announcing that the country is going back to basics in terms of the national curriculum. That is the reason why she continues to receive accolades from the opposition and other shallow progressives. her utterances have led to counter-revolutionary organisations arguing that the department of education and the ANC led government have used South African children as guinea-pigs

Unashamedly, the Minister announced that “we are now going back to basics” and “basics” in this case refers to old apartheid education system whose primary purpose was to create, sustain and reproduce the society of

race, gender and class inequalities. John Block, who has suddenly become darling of the department, in support of the Minister, argues that “OBE was never going to work. It was hopelessly over-ambitious, a Rolls- Royce Model.

if a rolls royce is to be understood as an expensive car of high quality, then what are the innuendos carried in this statement? According to John Block south africans do not deserve anything expensive and of high quality. John Block has hit the nail on the head about why ncs implementation was made difficult. It needed resources that are available in all former model c schools and since government cannot provide these then the ncs must be abandoned.

GEAR, the Reverse Gear in Education Transformation

The present revolutionary curriculum was developed immediately after the defeat of apartheid by the democratic and progressive forces in 1994. The primary purpose was to destroy the old apartheid curriculum which was education geared towards the dehumanization The new curriculum sought to destroy and throw into debris all that would be reminiscent of the past apartheid capitalist system. in this apartheid curriculum the school and the teaching and learning process in particular sought to reflect the then political physiognomy of the country which was premised on race, gender, and class disparities.

The curriculum itself sought to produce cheap labour through the production of un-critical, un-innovative and submissive learner. The learning activity was composed of a narrative subject (uncritical teacher) and receiving object (un-critical learner).

EducationTHE OBE DEBATEWas OBE a Rolls Royce that could only be driven by learners from former Model C Schools?


EducationoBe was supposed to be learner

centred, activity based, and outcomes oriented. it is founded on the notion that knowledge is not imposed but discovered through the process of inquiry by both the learner and the teacher. it promotes such ideological fundamentals as communalism as opposed to individualism. such a critical outcome is demonstrated through teamwork by both teachers and learners as teachers plan their teaching programmes or as learners perform their tasks.

To succeed, this revolutionary curriculum by its nature demands more human resource in the form of teachers

and administrators. it demands a reduced teacher- pupil ratio. it demands cheap resources but high quality. The above curriculum was decided upon within the context of the reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP).

The introduction of neoliberal economic policies which made high social spending the public enemy number one drastically affected the success (or lack thereof) of the new system. As part of this neoliberal straight jacket, teacher training colleges were shut down. Instead of employing more teachers to reduce teacher/pupil ratio, GEAR, which argued for a lean state, led to the retrenchment of teachers and the redeployment of others. Those teachers that remained in the system became crippled by the clustering of subjects – a factor which reduced teachers’ ability to mediate their subjects or learning areas.

For instance, EMS learning area demanded of one individual teacher to be an expert in Accounting, Business Economics, and Economics all at once. Instead of increasing experts

within the school that would guide curriculum implementation and develop programmes for teacher development, the department moved away from the concept of subject heads of department in favour of cluster heads wherein one natural science hod would be responsible for Physical Science teacher, Biology teachers, Agriculture teachers, etc. Currently, in Districts there are a limited subject advisors. These should be experts available to guide and ensure quality curriculum implementation. all the above challenges suggest that oBe as an approach has never failed but has been failed by the very same

department of education and the 1996 class project.

Going Beyond the Review Terms of Reference

The minister made a mistake by delegating task and responsibility, power and authority to the curriculum review committee. The point of departure should be to demonstrate and expose the inadequacies, not only of the product of the review, but also that of the review committee. The committee has been insincere, dishonest and treacherous in carrying out the mandated task. As a result of this professional delinquency there is disjuncture or a contradiction between the mandate and the results of the investigation.

Paragraph 2 the Minister states the reason why she felt that improvement should be made on the implementation of the curriculum. In elucidating the reason, the minister states as follows: this is in response “... to wide-ranging comments in writing and verbally from range of stakeholders such as teachers, parents, teacher unions, school management

and academics over several years, on the implementation of the national curriculum statement”. The minister proceeds to say that, “While there has been POSITIVE support for the new curriculum, there has also been criticism of various aspects of its implementation, manifesting itself in teacher overload, confusion and stress and wide spread learner underperformance in international and local assessments.” clearly from the above, the mandate given by the minister was not the review of the curriculum structure and design since the curriculum was not questionable or commented upon by stakeholders and

instead, through Minister’s own word, “... there has been positive support for the new curriculum”.

sadTu as one of the stakeholders did raise concerns around challenges surrounding the implementation of the curriculum and sadTu was clear about its stance on both the philosophical and practical correctness of curriculum structure and design having, of course, played the leading part in bringing it into being. SADTU understands that any interference with the present curriculum design in the negative would be tantamount to committing ideological suicide as the present curriculum derives from the Constitution of the republic, its values and its developmental outcomes. The national curriculum statement (and its fundamentals), therefore, was designed as the bridge to lead the country away from the “institutionalized inferiority” of the national christian education system.

any approach that seems to nullify the present curriculum will have to be preceded by enough space for an intensive ideological debate.

“For the last 10 years, Outcomes Based Education has been under persistent attack in South Africa. A wide range

of South African and International research argues that outcomes inhibit the clear specification of what content,

concepts and skills need to be taught and learned “


EducationWe the stakeholders in the education

system must be appraised and be allowed to engage the ideological leanings of that new approach. ncs and its principle of outcomes based approach cannot therefore be dismembered at just the stroke of the pen by the panel of experts who in the first place do not have the mandate to do that.

The panelists improved the mandate and thereby compromised the minister so dearly. it must be noted that throughout the report it is evident that the respondents shaped their comments as per the mandate of the minister. They limited their comments on what was presented as the terms of

reference by the review committee i.e. challenges around implementation. one will later dissect those comments and responses.

On page 38 of the report there begins professional dishonesty, a demonstration of the biased and self-interested panel driven by market fundamentalism. In paragraph 6 the “experts” write: “The brief of the review team was explicit in that it was not the curriculum that was under review but its implementation.” in the following line in the same paragraph the experts write: “in this section we

do, however, highlight a number of key issues pertaining to the structure and design of the curriculum as reflected in the curriculum policy and guideline documents.” The question is, where do they derive the mandate to improve the terms of reference? from the minister or perhaps the respondents?

The answer is neither of the two. To further mislead the public to accepting their un-researched, emotional and counter-revolutionary decision to scrap OBE, the so-called panel of experts argue that:

This statement is misleading and biased because it refers only to the

argument led by the researchers quoted above -who had from the inception of outcomes Based approach, always been antagonistic to this revolutionary curriculum. some of these are well known praise singers of the old apartheid curriculum based on national christian education. as for Jonathan Jansen, the panel of “experts” has deliberately quoted him out of context. Jansen had never said this curriculum will never work but instead he said teachers need a year long period of quality training and professional development for the oBe

to work.The panel of “experts” has

deliberately decided to ignore a revolutionary argument by scholars and sociologists like William Spady who have always provided a sound and scientific argument why OBE should continue to be an integral part of any curriculum statement. The panel also regards outcomes and content as binary opposites. This argument is shallow in the sense that it presupposes that there are inherent contradictions between focusing on outcomes and the content or subject matter of any learning activity. It would seem as though this panel of “experts” was never selected on expertise on

the outcomes based approach to learning and teaching. They don’t seem to understand that outcomes cannot be achieved within a year or two or in a short term but are a lifelong in nature.

The panel of “experts” conveniently forgot that the major reason why curriculum 2005 was reviewed was the idea of content was completely omitted in the curriculum 2005. For content or subject matter, “experts” relied on teachers to develop material on their own during curriculum implementation,


Educationknowing very well

that teachers had never been trained or as material developers. it is the experts rather than the curriculum which are to blame for this.

In short, the argument for interfering with the curriculum structure and design is the figment of the imagination of the panel of experts and is not supported either by a sound argument or by the responses of the respondents to the review process. The minister has been gullible enough to run with the argument on curriculum structure and design which was opportunistically championed by the so called experts.

Lack of Clarity on the Methodology Utilised in the Review Process

The entire process undertaken to review the curriculum is a fiasco. It was sadly unprofessional, unscientific and un-methodological. Any review process falls squarely within the parameters of a research and therefore it must satisfy at least some of the basic tenets of the research project.

The curriculum review document is found wanting in all basic tenets as argued above. It fails dismally to assist us as readers to understand how exactly the review process was done. It reveals nothing about the sample for the research process and the methodology used in its identification. As a result we are not in a position to say that the review process was balanced in terms of demographics. For an example we cannot say whether all the racial groups were sufficiently consulted during the process. We cannot say that such contradictions as race, class and gender were sufficiently considered during the review process. as things

stand, we cannot tell how many post level 1 educators were allowed to be part of the process, how many HOD’s, principals, subject advisers, ward managers, parents, learners, etc were part of the process.

The methodology for collecting data has never been clarified nor was there clarity on the scale used to process that data into information that would empower the panel of experts to arrive at certain conclusions. There is not even a summary of the responses by the respondents to the review process. We had also been informed that the majority of people who made contributions were those that were invited to contribute over the internet. That goes to suggest who the main sample was and therefore what ideology would eventually dominate and permeate through the review process. We should therefore not be surprised by this ideological assassination of the structure and design of the curriculum and thereby tarnishing any possibility for people’s education for people’s power.

given the above we can conclude that the review process was scientifically paralysed. it’s an example of a project

purported to be serious but done as an optional extra. We are not surprised why the “experts” had to improve their mandate to justify the philosophy they (and not south africans) subscribe to.

Responses by the progesssive trade union movement have left a lot to be desired. all unions have been united in welcoming the pronouncements from the curriculum review process. The reduction in teacher workload in the form of administering portfolios, essays and projects has been hailed as the first steps towards the emancipation of the teacher.

This argument is completely misguided. The curriculum should not be blamed for being labour intensive. In conferences and congresses we usually argue for the creation of decent jobs. Shouldn’t the progressive trade union movement be calling instead for the employment of more teachers and administrators. This would surely have a positive bearing on the desire for smaller class sizes and reduced teacher-pupil ratio.

Mathonsi is the KwaZulu Natal SADTU Provincial Secretary. He writes in his personal capacity.

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wWith the advent of the national Qualifications Framework and the adoption of the principle of outcomes-based education, Curriculum 2005 (c2005) was hailed as the centerpiece for the transformation of teaching and learning in South Africa. Launched amidst great fanfare in March 1997, c2005 was promoted in the mass media as ‘an end to apartheid education’, ‘liberation through a new kind of learning’, ‘teaching for the real world’, ‘education into the 21st century’ and so on. There were also exaggerated claims made about OBE, namely that it would provide a panacea for south africa’s economic development challenges and solve the ‘skills’ shortage.

Despite this exuberance, soon after its launch key educationists warned that oBe would not deliver on its promises. not surprisingly, the roll-out of the curriculum over the first several years was chaotic, characterised by an uneven distribution of learner support materials and a widely fragmented teacher training system often delivered through a ‘cascade’ approach largely seen as inadequate and ineffective. This old-fashioned “toy telephone game” approach to teacher training and the implementation of the new curriculum left the recipients with pages of policies, some teacher or learner materials, and few examples of concrete instructional changes for the classroom.

as educational results started to visibly decline by 2000 and a new minister of Education was appointed, a committee was convened to assess curriculum policy. The report of the curriculum review committee (crc) in may 2000

found that c2005 was confounded by: a skewed curriculum structure and design; lack of alignment between curriculum and assessment policy; inadequate orientation, training and development of teachers; learning support materials that were variable in quality, often unavailable and not sufficiently used in classrooms and shortages of personnel and resources to implement and support c2005. in september 2009 the new minister of Basic education unveiled a report that aimed to address challenges experienced in the current curriculum and assessment policies. In summary, the recommendations made in that report included: requiring only one file for administrative purposes from teachers; reducing the number of learning areas from eight to six for grades four to six; limiting the number of projects required by learners, discontinuing the use of learner portfolios, and once again, emphasizing the importance of textbooks in teaching and learning. The curriculum will now be known as curriculum 2025. These plans refer back to some of the recommendations made in 2000 by the CRC, but are less comprehensive and again do not go far enough to begin to address structural inequality.

While many critiques of OBE are valid, in this article I argue that OBE has often become the scapegoat for problems associated with educational failure of the system. I further suggest that while OBE has become shorthand for many who express dissatisfaction with education in South Africa, the social, political and economic context of education and its continued stratification along class,

racial and regional lines has been left largely unexamined. Despite the drama and noise, OBE has not actually been implemented since 1997 and many of the policies and recommendations associated with the review of curriculum 2005 were not put into place – despite thoughtful and engaged deliberations that preceded its recommendations.

Secondly, the ‘value’ of OBE cannot be assessed or properly understood unless account is accorded to the day-to-day contextual realities of teaching and learning in South Africa, the continuing school inequalities, and issues related to the enormous ‘poverty gap’ across the schooling system. Finally, there is an ascendency of social conservatism which also focuses on the curriculum and a risk that the social justice impulses as a result of our struggle will be diluted. unfortunately today’s public dismissal of oBe is often coupled with an attack on progressive education, the rights framework and learner-centered practices. We strongly caution against the current glib tendency to dismiss many of the earlier transformational goals of a critical social orientation that have been fought so hard for by pre-1994 education social movements and progressive academics in South Africa’s liberation struggle. We have the dangerous situation where failure by the state to implement its policies such as c2005 (or learner-centered education) has resulted in many incorrectly blaming what they consider as an all too powerful human rights culture for undermining discipline and respect for authority as they understand it.

Education OBE: Missing ‘Class’

The changes made to the curriculum calling for the demise of OBE have been largely welcomed by many across the political spectrum. The political right has argued the government is responsible for the incalculable damage done to an entire generation of learners’ school education and future careers - a lost generation of young people without the necessary knowledge and skills, without grade 12, or with a useless Senior Certificate. Salim Vally argues that OBE has become a scapegoat for South Africa’s deep-seated problems that rest largely on inequalities along class lines. An autopsy of OBE reveals that social class is the most important determinant in whether schools function and which learners achieve the best results. Ringing the death knell on OBE is somewhat of a misnomer as the reality is that many working class schools, because of lack of resources and inadequate teacher training, never fully implemented OBE.


EducationThis often involves for example, the

calls for a return to corporal punishment because there is too little discipline or “kids have too many rights”.

Too easily discussion about, importantly “discipline and values”, harkens back to the apartheid era authoritarianism characterized by its differentiated opportunities for learners (including the fundamental pedagogics of didactic and choral recitation, ‘talk-and-chalk’ rote learning, and corporal punishment) and blaming teachers and learners (and not systemic inequality) for educational shortcomings. While discipline and accountability is essential, learner-centered practices need not undermine

but could instead enhance respect and self-discipline in the classroom. until we come to grips with these issues, quality education for all will remain elusive, and for the majority of teachers and pupils education will remain in crisis mode.

The real problem of the education system instead lies in the failure of government to address the existing inequalities and basic shortcomings in the majority of schools. This includes addressing huge class sizes and overcrowding in schools (over 6000 of our schools have more than 45 learners per classroom), establishing functioning libraries with appropriate books and trained teachers (over 90% of our schools have no libraries), early childhood development, distributing text books and learner-support materials, providing support and teacher training for bilingual and special needs learners and devising strategies that relate to the protracted poverty of many school communities. Hence, the bureaucracy associated with structuring and implementing OBE was more of a distraction that took away from other possible futures in education.

Finally, it is not the supposed learner-centered approach of the oBe policy that has ‘failed’, but rather the ways

in which this emancipative goal has come untangled with a bureaucratic environment that centers on performance and achievement rather than learning and development.

Separating off social inequality and focusing on outcomes was an ideological choice. Focusing on OBE which was introduced as an incredibly complex and grandiose curricular approach resulted in the neglect of all other aims of education, and the focus on outcomes helped create a climate where the only things that matter are those you can measure. Some curriculum theorists have argued that a more precise technical and scientific approach to educational delivery

was needed, specifically employing better time management and discipline in schools and the classrooms; some suggest OBE required “more time and a more accurate intervention”. I argue quite differently that the continuation of the narrow, instrumental and technical approach ignores the main problem of the achievement gap that is structural inequality, social class and the impact of poverty on learners. It ignores or downplays the real conditions in classrooms (often violent, overcrowded and lacking in basic material resources) under which teachers work and students are expected to learn. While short term technical remediation in the classroom is possible and might yield some immediate results, many of the benefits of these interventions wane over time if the fundamental issues are not addressed.

The predictions made by some of the early critics of oBe have come to fruition. Whatever benefits the new curriculum would bring in its wake, they are more likely to be accrued by those who benefited from the existing system in the past, and be denied to those who suffer from poor-quality education at present. rather than reducing disparities and inequalities, the revised and streamlined curriculum had

and continues to have a greater chance of being implemented successfully in well-resourced schools, with more qualified teachers catering to better-prepared students. There was a concerted view that teachers in poorer communities had to be creative in “mustering additional resources and inventing alternatives” but without adequate training and resources to sustain their initiatives, this was akin to providing teachers with “a lamp and three wishes”.

early on much was written about the failure of teachers to implement OBE, their “lack of capacity”, or their outright resistance. The current rhetorical shift is now on the overall “failure of oBe”.

In a longer article (see reference at the end) we explore teacher preparation, beliefs and motivation, the policy gap and finally, whether and if OBE has been implemented. We show how this new “blaming OBE” debate displaces the real need for programmes and policies to address structural inequalities, material resources, teacher development and adequate support for teachers in their classrooms. our concern is that in its eagerness to combat the latest “education crisis” and address the country’s low literacy rates, the government’s continued reliance on short term technical solutions while failing to learn from the past (or in this case, follow clear and specific

“OBE’s false promise that schooling could overcome poverty without addressing the wider social and economic context left teachers, who were at the forefront of reform,

increasingly demoralized teachers”


recommendations that address literacy and the contextual realities of schools) will likely end up wasting more of the limited financial educational resources and repeating mistakes that were previously made (including those pointed out by its own review committees).

While we recognize that textbooks on their own are not the panacea for failing schools, this example illustrates the limitation of a narrowly defined and technical policy prescription for educational challenges and its obstacles for real change over time. much like the over-emphasis on curriculum, the “textbook versus teacher” debate throughout the continent set up a false dilemma for improving teaching and learning. Those (most notably the World Bank) who promoted the use of textbooks as a more efficient and cost-effective measure to improve education also previously recommended strategies that de-professionalised and stressed teachers, such as raising class size and lowering teacher salaries.

one cannot learn how to read effectively without access to libraries with a range of literature and books to read for pleasure. For the great number of schools in South Africa, there are no books in the classroom, no books suitable to the bilingual challenge in schools, and no educational resources that make reading and writing fun. The exorbitantly high price of books in south africa compared to other countries also prevents a reading culture. most children come from communities where an active culture of reading is absent and they struggle to gain confidence in writing.

The need for stronger literacy programs that engage learners in purposeful activities that build connections to communities and develop a love of learning should be emphasised, and where they already exist, supported. Literacy and numeracy must be developed through methods that engage and inspire learners to read and especially methods to help bilingual learners to do so. A rigidly defined literacy strategy based on workbooks and

reinforced by cascade-type training and monitoring not surprisingly, will not produce literate or skilled readers. Even when teachers are encouraged to use exploratory discussion it is undermined by the number of learning objectives they have to cover. south africa’s failure to produce critical readers cannot be blamed solely on oBe. Without libraries and creative outlets for authentic literacy and creative written expression, the government’s new plan of generating two workbooks per learner will not by itself build critical literacy skills or create a love of learning to read.

The progressive idea of moving to learner-centered practices and encouraging teachers to be critical, independent curriculum developers was central to the oBe and c2005 mission. Yet, in South Africa, where the vast majority of teachers were educated under apartheid, they had little experience with learner-centered education, constructing curriculum, or being empowered to engage in their own intellectual work to develop alternatives. The dramatic changes brought on in education over the last decade - starting from the disastrous teacher rationalisation process, to the inability to resource schools with libraries and adequate learner-materials, and the lack of support for bilingual instruction and assessment - made teacher professionalism and improving education difficult to achieve. oBe’s false promise that schooling could overcome poverty without addressing the wider social and economic context left teachers, who were at the forefront of reform, increasingly demoralized teachers. As they began to recognize their inability to alter social relations and bring about broad social changes in education, teachers experienced tremendous stress and a growing dissatisfaction with their profession. a comprehensive study by the human sciences research council in 2005 revealed that 54% of teachers want to leave the education profession. at the same time, there is a serious crisis in the supply and training of teachers, with a projected shortfall of tens of

thousands of teachers. as education quality continued to

deteriorate over the last decade there was a rise in attacks against teachers, suggesting they “lacked capacity”, were “lazy” and “incompetent” or downright resistant to change; and with the introduction of each new minister the idea of oBe came under closer scrutiny (as each new minister wished to distance him or herself from a failing system). The consequences of rhetorically supporting OBE initially (without examining whether it was being put into place) resulted in first blaming teachers and then ultimately scapegoating OBE for the country’s educational woes, all the while ignoring significant problems – structural inequality, social class, poverty and the lack of sufficient support resources in the majority of schools. The oBe controversy was not only about changes in teaching and learning, but also on its origins and its relevance to south african schools. The implementation of oBe in south african schools marked a dramatic departure from earlier policy proposals, displacing initiatives such as “peoples education” that had currency with the democratic movement up through the early 1990s. under outcomes based education and training policies, teachers establish individual student benchmarks around learning outcomes which are largely disassociated with traditional content knowledge. The emphasis of oBe on skills-orientated mastery of pre-determined benchmarks had wide appeal for the goals of integrating

Education


Educationeducation and training in South Africa

and elsewhere. in many ways it served to reinforce an elaborate global educational monitoring system that is currently being put in place to hold schools and teachers accountable for delivering “quality schools” with “high achievement” regardless of public investiture in education and governmental services to address broad social inequalities. in terms of the specific uses and functions around OBE, South African policymakers borrowed from the broad vocational and occupational outcomes based frameworks in New Zealand, Scotland, Canada and the US. While an argument can be made for borrowing from other countries, much of the transference of the new curriculum was from countries very different from south africa. countries such as Brazil where the social dynamics and inequalities are similar to south africa were ignored. For example, the education system based on the curriculum model employed by Paulo friere while he was the secretary of education for the Workers’ Party administration in the Brazilian city of sao Paulo, had much to offer and would have accommodated much of the criticisms leveled at oBe. unlike c2005 in south Africa, in Sao Paulo, teachers played a critical role in curriculum reform and curriculum became the centre-piece for a strategy of emancipation. Brazilian educational reforms involved the active participation of the community at large and the contribution of social movements; respected the specific dynamics in each school; used the Freirean methodology of action-reflection in the curriculum and included a model of continuing teacher training, with a critical analysis of the curriculum in practice. By contrast, in South Africa, the democratic movement was marginalised.

At a different level, the dual and contradictory inspiration and values in post-1994 education policies were also played-out in curriculum 2005. for

instance, in an analysis of curriculum development and curriculum materials in promoting human rights, democracy and citizenship education in south africa reflects that citizens are simultaneously expected to be cooperative, caring and tolerant of each other, as well as individualistically competitive and entrepreneurial for the capitalist global market.

The tensions between these were never noted in curriculum 2005 or the human and social sciences and life orientation Programmes. As a consequence the discourses of the global market economy and democratic citizenship

are juxtaposed as if they are congruent. Both are accepted as non-negotiable realities, and both are projected as if they can operate simultaneously in general south african society and particularly in learning and teaching situations. How for example would a committed teacher deal with a learner’s question about why there is such high unemployment in South Africa, why their rights to their own livelihood are not being protected and why more people are instead being retrenched.

Finally, scant attention has been paid to what should be considered a central issue in understanding the past fifteen years of education policymaking - the effect of poverty and inequality on the implementation and outcome of education reforms in post-apartheid South Africa. Although prolific in quantity and rich in their theoretical and analytical contributions, many volumes

of educational analyses leave a major gap in understanding policy in practice. Poverty undermines education, and in south africa the majority of children live under conditions of protracted poverty. A situation that, if not ameliorated sufficiently, will reduce the effectiveness of education reform, however enlightened. By obscuring this simple reality, the public discourse on our school system including calls to dismantle the curriculum (oBe) misses the essential issue. This is not to deny that there good and bad approaches to teaching or that school can make a difference. However, a clearer and explicit indication that

economic problems can best be understood by analysing the economic and political choices made by the state is required. While curriculum change, innovations in schools and certainly better trained and resourced schools is vital; the precondition for ultimate success in these endeavours is changing the socio-economic status of learners. our schools are still not disable-friendly and remain places where orphans and learners and teachers who have HIV/AIDS are not treated with humanity.

schools must become sustainable community institutions that can be mobilised as hosts toward caring for vulnerable children. This is only possible if overburdened teachers are given support by health, psychological and social service professionals. This is not happening at present in most schools.

Quality education is not only about the curriculum; these issues of poverty matter as well. many of our learners do not do well at school because of specific learning barriers which cannot be blamed on oBe or on teachers. While schools are not systematically testing learners for problems such as visual and hearing disabilities, speech problems, identifying and intervening effectively around issues such as emotional difficulties, child abuse, sexual abuse and alcohol/drug problems, they continue to monitor and measure their competencies on these types of normative scales.


Increasingly, some of us trying to grapple with the seemingly intractable nature of the education crisis believe that educational reforms in south africa have floundered because they have not always attended to issues in which the social class context of schooling helps determine redistributive patterns in society. Moreover, the focus of many of these reforms has been on individual disadvantage abstracted from its broader social context. The importance of community engagement, participation and social mobilization through resurgent social challenge and public protest in moving towards achieving equitable outcomes needs once again to be re-visited.

This summary is partly based on the following article: Outcomes Based Education and its (Dis)contents: Learner Centered Pedagogy and the Education Crisis in South Africa, Carol Anne Spreen and Salim Vally, 2010, Southern African Review of Education, Volume 16, Number 1.

The Ministry of Higher education has produced a draft document on the nsds iii and the Proposed new seta landscape. These were

done separately through the 29/04/2010 Strategy proposals and the 30/04/2010 Seta Landscape gazette. The respone timelines were also separated in that the Seta Landscape went through public hearings process from the 14-18/06/ 2010 culminating in the final written submissions of the 30 June 2010. The strategy document on the other hand required wriiten submissions by the 15 July 2010. The mere separation of the two processes confused many constituencies and resulted in many cross- cutting

submissions and lack of clarity of the process.

Seta LandscapeThe draft proposals were merely suggesting a twigging of the Seta landscape structures (the seta’s) and many of cosaTu seta Board members participated in the process. The participation was however was very difficult to coordinate and manage since many of our comrades sit in the seTa Boards and sometimes get bound by the Board decisions rather than cosaTu Congress resolutions or even those from Affiliates. This in many instances then lead to clashes between different seta’s who ironically involve COSATU delegates

on both sides of the table. This is a very serious lesson for future coordination purposes since many employers and even government officials abuse those intra-sectoral differences for their selfish ends.

In summary the government proposals argued for the maintenance of a number of seta wherein the 10% administrative caps had proven as a hindrance. The proposals were also heavily biased against manufacturing related Seta’s and support service Seta’s like the Finance, Banking, Insurance and Services Seta’s. unfortunately not all of us could see the intentions of that draft document. for instance,whilst the proposal was to merge the AgriSeta, FoodBev and Fieta, the

Education“our schools are still not disable-friendly and remain places where orphans and

learners and teachers who have HIV/AIDS are not treated with humanity”

National Skills Development Strategy III: Reorienting the Skills Landscape?

Bhabhali ka Maphikela Nhlapo: cosaTu’s critique and policy proposals


EducationfBi’s were to remain as they are.

The argument was good performance whilst the proposals emphasised that performance was not a measurement tool of the delineation. This was indeed a big contradiction. The other rationale was to ensure continuity vs. change with a very selective application of that principle and policy approach

These proposals essentially provided for the maintenance and retention of a number of seta by a rationalisation process that would have left twenty one (21) Setas from the existing twenty three (23). That proposal was rejected by our submission that was canvassed throughout all the affected unions albeit through very difficult and processes. As we write the national skills authority Board Meeting will consider all the submission and finalise the input to the Minister on the 16 July 2010. We will report in the later edition what the final outcomes of that process will deliver in terms of the new landscape

NSDS III Strategy The document on the strategy was

somewhat positive and seeking to effect change on the strategy. This therefore begged the question as to whether the crafters of the Landscape and the Strategy documents had the same philosophies and mindsets. This is because whilst the landscape discussion was hostile to change the strategy was calling for

change. There are many positives that are proposed by the Strategy ranging from a realisation that ABET, RPL and Public provision needed an urgent attention. This then led to a very huge outcry by the private providers that think they are owners of the strategy. This as cosaTu we should welcome and seek to build on those positives. We however don’t have to think that all our battles will only be won through those positive outlooks. The following are key weak points of nsds iii that we have raised with the nsa and hope to carry with the advice that is going to be forwarded to the minister

1. That the levy grant system still remains at 1% despite serious evidence of a greater skills revolutionary need especially on the priority skills identified through the JIPSA process. We have therefore maintained the social equity demand of a 4%2. That the ratification of ILO Convention 140 (Paid Education and Training Leave) has not yet materialised, which then leaves many workers not able to access the training opportunities. We have also maintained that demand in our response to the minister3. That the Strategy still does not provide strict sanctions for companies who fail to engage in training. We have then captured that also in our submission4. That skills development processes

are not yet linked to employment equity process which then leaves a huge gap between the two processes. Again we have not lost that in the submission5. That the Strategy still does suggest any balance between employed and unemployed learners which has created many tensions at the workplaces leading to a dual labour market system being applied wherein young workers are used purely as cheap labour under the learnership guise without even getting guarantees of gainful employment after those programmes6. That Large and Medium Size Companies should have 100% submission levels as opposed to the suggested 80% Large and -60%Medium7. That WSP grants should have stringent conditions and yet be reduced to 30% whilst discretionary grants should be at 50%8. That alternative forms of learning like Trade Union, Cooperatives and ngo education should not necessarily subscribe to the notions of accreditation since those have failed in the last Ten Years and should have a separate funding window in the National Skills fund9. That seTa or the nsf should create a Provincial footprint to ensure that Rural learners should also get the same opportunities as urban learners10. That at least one feT provider in every district should be accredited to ensure that delivery mechanisms are availed for all learners11. That finally Providers should be totally removed as stakeholders since this conflicts their primary role as delivery agents of skills development. They will then be replaced by community groups in all seta Boards

We hope to further engage both the other nsa parties and the minister on these provisions to ensure that the skills development revolution is safeguarded. We will also further report on the progress

Nhlapo is COSATU’s Skills Development Policy Co-ordinator


DONT CLOsE THE TAPs ON AIDs FUNDING civil society’s request to us President obama

community

activists from various organisations operating in south africa and the southern Africa region organised a march demanding the US

government to halt the rollback of Aids aid to south africa. The march was not only directed at the us but the international community, for failing to live up to the promises for more financial aid to assist South Africa in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The march followed the unsuccessful attempts to secure a meeting with U.S Vice President Joe Biden, who was in South Africa for the opening of the World Cup. The march highlighted concerns about the US government’s reluctance to meet financial commitments to PEPFAR ( President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), which has been a leader in financial assistance to South African aid organisations. Cuts to AIDS aid will mean

that hundreds of patients on PePfar facilitated programs will now have to be taken back to provincial ARV lists. This could mean a long wait for many, a factor that might lead to ARV resistance and even death. This letter expresses the cries of many South Africans living with the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The letter was signed by amongst others the TAC, Section27, MSF, Community Media Trust, COSATU, etc

Ambassador Donald H. Gips Embassy of the United States of America Pretoria South Africa

C/O Mary Fanning (US Health Attach to South Africa): [email protected]

Dear Ambassador Gips WE CALL ON THE US GOVERNMENT TO PROVIDE GLOBAL LEADERSHIPTO ACHIEVE MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOAL (MDG) 6, INCLUDING UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPy (ART)

at the outset we would like to state that TAC and our allies acknowledge and appreciate that the US government, particularly via PePfar and the us contributions to the Global Fund on AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM), has played a

leading role in providing treatment, care and prevention for AIDS, as well as TB and malaria. We also acknowledge the benefits of PEPFAR’s technical expertise as well as its financial assistance of the south african department of health in the 2009/10 financial year.

However, your letter raises a number of concerns and questions that we hope you will answer: The right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health:

in south africa and many other countries the right to health is a legally enforceable human right, vital to dignity, equality and life. While us law does not explicitly recognise that people have a right to health, the US government is signatory to a number of international agreements that refer to the right to health, including the 2000 Millennium development declaration which resolves to strive for the full protection and promotion in all our countries of civil, political, economic, social and cultural

rights for all.Similarly, the 2001 UNGASS

Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS also recognises the right to health. We believe that duties arise for all governments, including ours, from this right. All aspects of health are intricately linked. HIV may not be the major cause of disease and death in all parts of the world, but it is in ours. Donor funding has assisted our government in particular to meet its obligations to the right to health.

Having become instrumental in the delivery of health services in south africa and elsewhere, we consider it a duty on your part to ensure that these services are not suddenly withdrawn. The sudden withdrawal of funding will violate many people’s rights. We believe that the US, as the most economically powerful and resourced country in the world, should be leading global efforts to develop a plan that assists States to realise the right to health as expressed in the universal Declaration on Human Rights.

Tac letter to the usa


community Such a plan would seek to engage and leverage all other countries, developing a sustainable model of shared responsibility among states.

Funding for HIV/AIDS: The global health initiative (ghi) consultation document states that from 2009 to 2014, $51 billion of the proposed $63 billion will be made available to AIDS, TB and malaria programmes. We broadly support the principles of the ghi.

We note your statement that it is not our intention to reduce funding to fight HIV. Nevertheless, we continue to be concerned about US funding of health interventions targeting AIDS, TB and malaria, particularly PEPFAR. For example, it has been brought to our attention that from 2009 to 2010 the increase in PEPFAR funding was only 2.3%. A further 2.3% increase has been requested for 2011. This is approximately equal to the US rate of inflation and lower than the rate of inflation in many developing countries. It is a de facto decrease. Please can you confirm this.

further we are told that the lantos-hyde PePfar reauthorisation of 2008 provided that the US government would contribute $48 billion to alleviating AIDS, TB and malaria for the 5 year period beginning 1 October 2008. The PePfar enactments for 2009 and 2010 and its requested amount for 2011 are far short of the amounts envisaged by this legislation, which would need to be in the order of $8 to 10 billion. Do you acknowledge that the 2010 commitment, and 2011 White House proposal, fall far short of the funding levels authorized by the US Congress in PEPFARs reauthorization legislation?

finally we are informed that PePfar’s contribution to the gfaTm has been reduced from $1.05 billion in 2010 to $1 billion in 2011. is this true?

Because of the importance of the us commitment to the gfaTm in marshalling the commitment of other countries, this proposed decrease stands to have a compounded effect in further exacerbating the GFATMs funding crisis.

how does your administration justify cutting funding to the GFATM at a time

when the gfaTm estimates that it needs at least $20 billion from 2011 to 2013 in order to maintain and expand its existing commitments and to put the world on track to meet MDGs 4, 5 and 6? Conservatively, this means that the GFATM needs to receive at least $5 billion in 2011 rising to $7 billion in 2013.

in our view the us contribution to the global fund in proportion to its gdP should be at least $2 billion dollars in 2011, increasing to $2.8 billion in 2013. The European Union, China and Japan also need to increase their contributions and we will be calling on them to do so.

Meeting identified treatment needs: As of December 2008, UNAIDS

estimated that about 4 million people were receiving antiretroviral treatment (arT) and that this constituted 42% of need. it is clear that unmet need was large then and remains large now. Last year the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued new guidelines, which South Africa has largely adopted. These guidelines confirm that the greatest benefits in terms of both treatment and prevention of HIV and TB are achieved when adults start treatment at 350 CD4 cells/mm. Following these guidelines ART is only reaching a third of people in need. Many people are starting treatment with sub-optimal regimens which will limit the long-term benefit, and increase the long-term costs of health care generally and arT particularly. To achieve universal access to treatment, there needs to be a significant increase in funding for ART.

As you are aware, besides dramatically improving life-expectancy, increased access to arT will help reduce the number of new HIV infections, maternal mortality, child mortality and the incidence of TB. Scaling up ART in hyper endemic countries, including South Africa, will therefore have a substantial impact on achieving all of the MDGs.

PePfar and the gfaTm have been the leading funders of AIDS, TB and malaria treatment programmes in poor countries, with PEPFAR covering the cost of arT for 2.4 million people. PEPFAR funding grew from $2.3 billion in 2004 to $6.8 billion in 2010. It has been by far the largest fund of its kind globally. Both PEPFAR and the Global

fund can demonstrate that they are initiatives that have saved millions of lives, so the question we have is why retreat from a model that is working, rather than improve the efficiency of the model while expanding its capacity?

Transition to Technical assistance Your letter refers to transitioning from

service delivery to technical assistance. This is an important aim, but because of the poor quality of our health systems at this point, many facilities are unable to carry the load. do you accept the veracity of reports produced by mdecins sans frontires (msf) and others that this approach is in fact leading to declining enrolment on treatment, treatment interruption and uncertainty for both patients and service providers? In this respect, please supply us with the joint Partnership Agreement with the sa government which you refer to. unfortunately this has been developed without any input from civil society, despite the fact that partnership between government and civil society is enshrined in the south african constitution and had been heralded as a cornerstone of the PePfar approach.

Shared Responsibilities and Duties: finally let us make it clear that our

concern is not confined to South Africa. Indeed, South Africa in contrast to other sub-saharan african countries is better able to cover a significant part of the cost of AIDS, TB and malaria treatment, prevention and care from our own fiscus. But for historical reasons most developing countries are unable to finance the health needs of their population. The global AIDS epidemic has vividly illustrated this.

Nonetheless we fully agree that much more needs to be devoted from developing country budgets to health; that there is a need for ownership and responsibility for health programmes, better monitoring, evaluation and efficiency.

in south africa these are commitments that Tac and our partners demand from our government and will continue to do so. We will continue to campaign for countries to meet their obligations, including the commitments of the 2001 abuja declaration.


community However because of global inequality a large part of the resources that are needed to realise the right to health (and for people with HIV/AIDS this includes access to treatment) must come from developed countries and China, supported by with significant contributions from private donors, most notably the Bill & Melinda gates foundation.

This is why we are calling on President obama to provide visionary leadership on health and AIDS, in the way that he appears to be doing on climate change and nuclear disarmament. at the moment we fear that us leadership is providing excuses for a global retreat from health care and this will have dreadful consequences.Our Requests: We therefore call on the US government to:1. Increase PEPFAR funding to an amount that is consistent with the

Lantos-Hyde legislation beginning in 2011. 2. increase your 2011 contribution to the GFATM to $2 billion, rising to an annual contribution of $2.8 billion by 2013. 3. call on the member states of the european union and other countries including China, Japan and Canada to increase their contributions d: proportionate to this increased contribution.4. call on members of the african union countries to meet their abuja commitment to increase health expenditure to at least 15% of their annual budgets. 5. Build a partnership with south africa to press for health mdgs and for gfaTm replenishment to be on the agenda of the coming G20 meeting.We ask you to indicate your response to each of the requests above as well as other questions we pose in this letter.

yes We Can! We are part of a global movement of people who believe in human rights, democracy and development. We are convinced that the right to health care is realisable across the world. We are resolutely opposed to policies that undermine this right. We seek a partnership with the US government to ensure we achieve millennium Development Goal 6 and universal access to HIV treatment.

In this light, we ask you to respond seriously to the issues we have raised in this letter.

Yours sincerely Vuyiseka DubulaTac general secreTarY

“We will continue to demand a higher quality of teaching,

but we stand by our teachers in their need for decent pay.”

equal education argues that teacher

demands are reasonable.


community only secure and valued teachers

can deliver quality education. equal education will continue to campaign for quality teaching and professionalism from teachers. equal education (ee) believes that the demands of workers and teachers for an 8,6% increase, a R1 000 housing subsidy, equalisation of medical aid, and an implementation

date of 1 April 2010, are reasonable. We call on government to engage seriously and urgently.

Learners, particularly matriculants, will indeed suffer from a strike. These are equal education’s core members. Exams are approaching and it would be a crippling blow, a potential disaster, for learners to be without their teachers. Nobody, including striking teachers, can take this lightly. If there is to be a strike, teachers will need to arrange extra classes for matriculants.

We call on our government to make every possible effort to meet the legitimate needs of the teachers so that a protracted strike is avoided.

ee’s support for teachers is based on several reasons. Teachers are underpaid. A new teacher, with matric and three-year university qualification, will earn R9 271 per month. This is inadequate for a worker supporting a family. government and society at large – are failing teachers in this regard.

We need to attract a new generation of teachers to fix the education system. There are very serious problems with the level of skill, qualification and sometimes professionalism of many of our teachers. We need to ask ourselves, as a country, what we want the situation to be in 2025, when the objectives of government’s new educational plans are meant to

be achieved. unless we attract a new generation of bright and motivated young people into the profession, none of the other work being done to fix education will succeed. Motivation comes from much more than income, but with high costs of living, student loans to repay, and families to support, we must recognise that a decade of

above-inflation increases are needed to attract people into teaching. In the meanwhile we need more training and support for current teachers.

The allocation of teaching posts and the remuneration of teachers does not adequately address inequality.

The vast majority of education funding by government – teacher salaries – is not allocated on a pro-poor basis. Due to the higher levels of teacher qualifications and experience in wealthy public schools, and a lack of financial incentives to attract good teachers into township and rural schools, government itself spends more, when it comes to teaching, on each child in a wealthy public school than each child in a poor school. The only pro-poor funding is “norms and standards” funding which accounts for about 9% education spending. According to the Western Cape government’s own performance assessment, when teaching and non-teaching expenditure is aggregated, government spends the same on its poorest learners as it does on its richest. As we’ve shown previously, there is little actual redistribution in the education system, and this is exacerbated by the hiring of additional teachers out of fees charged in wealthy schools. The teachers in poor schools suffer this reality. They are expected to teach bigger and more classes, mark double the homework and double the tests, with fewer resources, all for less pay.

What does Equal Education expect from teachers?• As a basic minimum, we expect the non-negotiables of being on time, on task, well-prepared, delivering quality education every day.• As we have said in the past, teacher union meetings during school hours are unacceptable.

• We expect to see teachers joining and leading campaigns to improve their own conditions of work in schools. We invite teachers to join EE’s campaigns around textbooks and libraries. • We expect teachers to work beyond when the bell rings at 2pm. Many teachers do offer extra lessons and give passionately of their time. But in many schools there is no sport or extra-mural activity. We have to ask more of teachers in this regard.• Future generations of our people depend on the quality of teachers’ work. We believe that a discussion is needed on whether an element of teacher remuneration should be related to their performance, as independently assessed, and how teachers should be held accountable for their performance by communities.

Equal Education high school members are often frustrated by our teachers, but we know that our teachers work in intolerable conditions and are paid too little. if there was money for the World Cup, why not for our teachers? if there is money for cars, hotels and salaries for Ministers, why not for our teachers?

We know that an investment in teachers is an investment in the education system. We will continue to demand a higher quality of teaching, but we stand by our teachers in their need for decent pay.

“If there is money for cars, hotels and salaries for Ministers, why not for our teachers?”


community

i was a volunteer at the green Point stadium and had to quit because I have enough self worth. Volunteers there (at least in Media, my area) were being talked down

upon, insulted (Mark Meyer, a staff member used the word “f**k” on a number of us), not properly managed and just put in a situation where they ran around like headless chickens. Mark Meyer and Virginia Gabriels were so condescending, so rude and treated volunteers as nonentities that about 30% of volunteers quit quietly by staying away. Some, though, like yours truly left with a bang. As a leader, I felt that it was morally incumbent on me to voice my concerns and those of others the best way I know, through writing. Needless to say Virginia and her team were not leaping with joy with the idea of a volunteer questioning the staff members’ modus operandi.

It got worse. At times, there was no food the whole day. On a couple of nights, namely after the France vs. Uruguay and the Paraguay v Italy games, over 200 volunteers were stranded outside the stadium until around 4am with no transport to take them home. it was worse for the Italy v Paraguay game because it was not only bitterly cold and people got sick afterwards as it was raining. On the first night I remember that we were told to vacate a certain office that we used as shelter in the middle of the night as it had laptops that needed to be kept safe. To hell with people who were donating their time and effort out of the love their country to host the best world cup. computers were more important and the people were bulldozed out into the freezing cold night by a certain mr ferreira to wait there for over three hours for the horribly unfit

vehicles to stutter around town delivering fellow volunteers and come back to fetch them.

Those who did go home did so in un-roadworthy vehicles that were provided by an businessman who claimed that the loc owed him r15 000 and thus he could no longer transport people with the hope that he will be paid later. The transport that he provided was poor. The vehicles stopped dead at the robots. Volunteers had to come out and to push the car for it to start. some of the cars only started on third gear. In the Final Draw of December 2009, the shuttle service was one of our highlights as volunteers. it was not perfect as we had to wait a couple of hours at times, but the vehicles were fit for kings and we all got home with relative ease. What happened during the World Cup however, was nothing more than a moneysaving strategy. My description of the poor state of the fleet will not do it justice. You just had to be there. some of the people were transported to UCT to spend the night and go home in the morning. What a waste of time and money when those people live here in the city and it would be much cheaper to take them home.

I decided that I had to do the right thing, no matter what the consequence. i wanted to speak out and be part of the solution, as opposed to mumbling my words and watch things deteriorate. I had always complained about the world and how it lacks good, ethical and honest people. This was my opportunity to start doing something, rather than complain. I thought about the worst-case scenario - of being expelled as a volunteer and not get the certificate I hoped for and decided that i was okay with it.

i became a voice for all volunteers

after these incidents. i informed the media and was called for interviews by many radio stations, contrary to what my contract advised. i felt that if the loc personnel could break their verbal contracts with us volunteers and be so mean, so disorganised and so rude, I could also break mine. i was not fazed by their threats however. all of this gross maltreatment occurred while they repeatedly threatened us that we should provide the best service to media, tourists and fans. “What an irony!”, volunteers cried.

i was also a volunteer and a freelance writer at the final draw held on 4th December 2009 at the CTICC, which was followed by a massive celebration at Long Street in the City Centre. There were also problems there. However, no one complained because those were teething problems.

Diary of a World Cup 2010 VolunteerAbongile Waganda captures his experience of the 2010 fifa World cup. he worked as a volunteer for a brief period during the tournament and eventually quit citing the unfair treatment that many volunteers received from the management. The Shopsteward has not tampered with the contents of these notes. The reason is simple – some things are better when they are said from the horse’s mouth...


community The LOC staff was getting to know

each other so there was an air of understanding from volunteers. If I had to give them a mark out of ten for the Final Draw, I would give them a six. I felt that they tried very hard and succeeded on many important things. Some of their triumphs (as far as volunteer

management is concerned) is that there was ALWAYS something to eat and drink for volunteers. Transport was world class and acceptably efficient, our managers Quinton Dicken, Erick de la Faunte and Jen-Peter Hecht were wonderful people. it really was a joy to work there. It was not perfect, nothing is. However, one felt that an effort was put in to make sure that volunteers had a good environment while carrying out their duties.

In the world cup however, where all volunteers who were at final draw expected a higher standard, things were just poor. Quinton, Erick and Jens-Peter had been moved to different areas.

When i asked questions about the horrible treatment that was dished to volunteers, even fellow volunteers distanced themselves from me in order to get into the good books of Mark and Chantelle, not to mention Virginia and even onke mjo who failed to act upon realising this. These same volunteers would whisper about how bad the situation is there. i later became immune to their complaints as i felt that they were using me as a mule to take their complaints to the authorities.

Things were so bad that volunteers got three or four conflicting messages about their roster in a matter of hours. You would leave home knowing that you are going to the stadium to volunteer in a certain shift. You would get there to realise that it is actually your off day in the “new roster”. By lunchtime, you

would have been told that your name is not on the roster and that you should fill in a new one. By the end of the day your original schedule would say you are off the next day, the new one says you are on duty and the person doing schedules telling you that you do appear on list and that you should

fill in yet another one! I know it is hard to believe, but it could not be truer.

While all this was going on, I decided to take initiative and start a facebook group and a bulk email facility where volunteers would communicate amongst themselves, as Mark and Chantelle were failing dismally with everything. These facilities would help volunteers with sharing information about shifts, roster, general news, transport arrangements. Unfortunately, because the people at the top (did not like it as it made them look incompetent, the facilities quickly turned to places

where volunteers could vent their anger and dissatisfaction of how they were being treated by the people on top. droves left quietly and never volunteered again – they went AWOL. some only came back once a while to check if things had gotten better, while a few decided that they will

make themselves heard before they left for good.

On the day of the Paraguay v Italy game, I arrived to volunteer and found that my name was not on the list of volunteers for that day. mark failed to take responsibility and referred me to the volunteer centre. I got there and found that mark had removed me from Media, an area I knew so well and where i was one of the most experienced volunteers because we did the same job at the Final Draw, to Transport- something I had no idea of.

“i came here to volunteer for my country and not to be treated like royalty. While serving however, I do expect due respect and to be afforded treatment that human

beings are worthy of and nothing less.”


community I refused to go to Transport and told

them that I knew what was happening and that it was wrong. Virginia, the big boss of all volunteers in cape Town protected Mark’s decision and gave me an ultimatum that i either went to Transport or quit as i was “destructive” at Media. Given that choice, I quit as a volunteer. i handed in some of my uniform as she requested and left quietly. The next day, the whispering volunteers called again to inform me that mark had told them that i had been moved to Transport for “safety” reasons and that upon my arrival there, I was fired the same day because “the transport people were fed up with my attitude”. Needless to say, that I put mark to task and promised to sue him for defamation of character if he did not refrain from talking such nonsense about me. Even though I continue to write emails to volunteers about my experiences there, Mark could not reciprocate because I was telling the truth.

subsequent to my resignation, at least 10 other volunteers sent me emails saying that they had also quit in solidarity with me, infinitely worse treatment from mark and Virginia, or that they could no longer stomach the chaos and the sense of not being appreciated as a volunteer. They reiterated that they did not hope to be treated like royalty, but as people. And that the Volunteer Office failed to do that.

A good number of them also quoted the saying I had coined “I came here to volunteer for my country and not to be treated like royalty. While serving however, i do expect due respect and to be afforded treatment that human beings are worthy of and nothing less.” This became the anthem in the fight for just treatment

and respect from the LOC staff, namely Mark Meyer and Virginia Gabriels.

it comes as no surprise that volunteers have not been paid their stipends yet. The amount of disorganisation, disrespect of volunteers and arrogance of by the LOC staff was evident for anyone to see. in addition, because of the disorganisation that included volunteers not being able to sign in or out, there will be complaints with the amounts that will be paid out as stipends. i recall that for the france v Uruguay game, which followed the Bafana v Mexico, I spent an hour pacing up and down the stadium corridors looking for the register to sign my name on. The registration room had closed early even though there was a shift meant to start at 8pm. Those kinds of days will not be paid as the contract stipulates that volunteers need to sign in and out for them to be paid for a particular day. it does not make provisions for loc staff hiding or misplacing the register or

going home early and leaving the later shift not signed in and out. For the Final Draw in December 2009, I got about half the money i expected for the days i worked. Moreover, I got it 23 days after the tournament (29 december 2009).

On the day of the Argentina v Germany game, I recall bumping into a one of my friends i had met while we were volunteers at the final draw. he chose to not be part of the World Cup; he was fed up with the poor treatment he received earlier. some people have all the insight because as i told him that i had quit as i could no longer handle the treatment there, he was not surprised at all. he said he saw it coming and that was why he chose not to be part of the World cup. for a second there i felt like an idiot because i had also seen it coming. But I had too much faith in thinking that things would get better. Things only got worse....

Waganda was a FIFA World Cup 2010 Volunteer based in Cape Town.


The shopsteward (Ts): in a letter you wrote dated 26 July 2010, you make the argument that creative workers, particularly those that were prominent in

the 1980s suffer a range of exploitative practices at the hands of music agents, recording companies and music promoters. can you please expand on what you meant by this?mercy Pakela (mP): They exploit whoever comes their way. They take the pride of the musicians ...who they are...and take advantage of their plight. There is a white guy who registered the concept of owning the 1980s musicians...he gets the funding and pays us peanuts. he humiliates us and dictates to us how much we must be paid. That is not how it is supposed to be! he will tell you that for this event you will be paid r5000. he dictates the paymentThere is also separate development in music. They separate us so that we can’t speak with one voice. its divide and rule. Yvonne Chaka Chaka will get paid lots of money and the rest of us are given peanuts. For how long will white people do this to us? For how long must we suffer this exploitation? For how long must we continue to die as paupers? if you look at a record company, the earn thousands. But what do we get? Our music is still being sold. If you go to Reliable you will find the Best hits of mercy Pakela and yet our wealth and heritage goes to foreigners. White people who own record companies – those are the real foreigners. I won’t say that Zimbabweans and Nigerians are foreigners. It is the white exploiters that are foreigners. Cyril Ramaphosa owns a percentage in Gallo Music. What does he do, it goes to his pocket. He climbs the wagon. He operates in the same system of capitalism ... a white system. No one is prepared to talk like this, even the likes of mzwakhe mbuli. What they will do is that they will speak and get artists to run after them and then sign deals

of bribery. I am on fire, I am burning, and my heart is on fire. But out of it I need help, i don’t just want to talk about it and leave it there. i need help.Ts: There have been many reports of how musicians that were quite popular and loved in the 1980s die in poverty, owning nothing. The case of Simon Nkabinde popularly known as mahlathini was a clear demonstration of this terrible situation. What is your feeling about this?mP: There is a need for government to intervene. Thabo mbeki promised after Mahlathini’s death...Mahlathini... imagine...is the main guy who started this music and the main guy who sold better music than most of the musicians in south africa but he died a pauper. i think he was one of the first musicians under Gallo. I think he should have been a shareholder, he is internationally recognised...where did his money go...He died a pauper.

Ts: What sort of treatment do you as musicians receive from record companies? You speak about this issue in your letter...mP: record companies don’t discuss percentages of payment with us. They dictate and give you a standard contract which contains a copyright law that hasn’t changed since the year I was born in 1966. They don’t sit down and discuss business with us...our union doesn’t understand this at all. We don’t have ownership of our talents because we don’t have facilities, we don’t have money. They own our God given talents. record companies archive our work and it is owned by them for seventy years and definitely after seventy years you are dead

because you suffer so much, your health and standard of living deteriorates. They will give you 3% of 90%. SAMRO I don’t know how it works because they will pay you after two years. They are supposed to collect rights but you don’t know how much they collect and why. You don’t get money when your music is playing on the radio. Where do you complain? That’s why I am saying it’s high time that Vavi and Jacob Zuma intervene. Jacob Zuma is being ignorant when he says...I find it very strange that he calls artists and have a meeting with them and then his decision is that artists must get their act together. But how do they do that without being counselled. Do we tell them that when they campaign? These artists are exposing matters that have been affecting artists for years. We are not interested in being taken to dine in expensive places because they spend on the venue, catering and not on the artists for their development.

Arts & CultureNo Mercy: interview with mercy Phakela on The exploitative music industry

“The producers are men...record companies are run by men who want you to open your legs for them to get

somewhere. Those that open their legs are somewhere. I can’t mention

names but they are somewhere.”


Ts: We have known for years that the creative industry is amongst the most patriarchal of industries, where women are oppressed and exploited in a variety of ways. In your letter you specifically refer to the marginalisation and the sexual abuse of women in the industry. What are the different ways in which this manifests? mP: All other industries, women are covered in a scorecard and women get developed...but what of women in the music industry? Where does the money go to? How many times does that ANC Women’s League raise the issues about exploitation and oppression of women? i have written many letters to the Women’s League but there is nothing. Angie received one of the letters and told me that i must type it...when i don’t have a computer... What’s wrong with them? Why did they go to exile? To better their own lives and those of their friends and families? We are a society and need to correct the music industry. There’s no man who is an island. i will not do it alone. But I am setting the standards. i am the voice of the voiceless and the mouthpiece of my society. Women in the music industry are undermined. Few are given positions. Few given positions in management in record companies. Few are developed and remember we are from apartheid. There were no music schools under apartheid. We were not skilled. We had to learn from experience and be exploited so that we learn how to run our own businesses. Even when you run your own business, they can’t allow it because you will recruit others who are supposed to be exploited. The producers are men...record companies are run by men who want you to open your legs for them to get somewhere. Those that open their legs are somewhere. I can’t mention names but they are somewhere. And they tell you that we have been waiting for you to grow and now you are grown you should be able to open your legs for them. Some of these people I thought they were my mentors but they only see me as a sex object. That is why the likes of Khanyi Mbau come into the music industry and open their legs because that’s all they know. And they get coverage in the papers and media because even the editors want you to open your legs. If you don’t they write bad things about you. When is it going to stop? The federation and government must intervene. TS: Very often many people live under the

illusion that creative workers are not workers in the true sense. Do you agree with this analysis, considering that creative workers have very little say in how the profits derived from selling their music are redistributed and in fact many have even been stripped off the right to decide what type of music to sing? Everything that musicians do must be suitable for the “market”. mP: If so and so is selling then they’ll say we need you to record music like so and so. They record beats and....British...and if you use their sounds automatically you have used their music and they are the ones who get the credit and their music and beats become popular. The only thing that happens is that you become a puppet and perform on TV and on shows and they get the rights. Ts: do you feel that as a woman in the creative industry you have been failed by women’s organisations? mP: Definitely, women are failed by women’s organisations. Their only interest is for you to market their brands and lift them up with your music. They don’t care about your well being and how you live as a musician. The anc...i have campaigned with my recordings and gave them rights for free. But what do I get in return? They can’t help me to put my fellow musicians together and give us a platform. They did that to Eugene Mthwethwa and gave him a platform because he is a man. But women... we are not together as women. if they see that you want to climb the ladder she kicks it so that no woman can climb it except her alone. We are not united as women. I am tired of fighting and I feel and believe that it’s my right to get Vavi and Jacob Zuma to help me out. I hardly have a home and a place to stay because i don’t get any earnings. Many musicians of the 80s are in a similar situation, except Yvonne chaka chaka. most of them...others have to devise exotic means. If I may tell u, one Swazi woman, who was a good singer...Its either she sold drugs or had to be a prostitute in order to survive. otherwise the record company chews you and spits you. Those are the means that most musicians turn to. Some were caught in Beijing selling drugs because that’s all they can do. meanwhile society at the grass roots expects you to be driving a nice car and living in a nice house. If you don’t do that they think you are a failure, meanwhile you have been setup to fail.Ts: Your letter refers to a need for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission covering crimes

committed against black working class creative workers under apartheid. This is not the first time that it is raised. For instance, Eugene Mthethwa wrote in an Open Letter to the then Deputy President of the ANC, Jacob Zuma about the same issue...mP: There is a need for that because there are so many guys that are respected today for exploiting musicians. There are so many guys that front for these white guys. The politicians don’t understand the industry but they climb the bandwagon and get the money. They don’t know anything about the music industry. The Trc must expose the mafias who are operating in the music industry...those who take the lion’s share and pay musicians peanuts. They write proposals, ask for funds in the name of musicians from the creative arts industry institutions. Managers charge exorbitant fees when they solicit funds and pay them less.Those who use artists’ names and benefits from this. They are now big shots and sit in city council offices and have meetings with mayors and make decisions. They decide who ....if you talk too much si zokuvala phela [ we will close space for you]so you have to keep quiet and eat s**t meanwhile they eat cheese. now recently one of the promoters in the Fan Park gigs books me and we agree on a certain amount of money and when he has to pay he decides how much to pay me without consulting me. he makes all sorts of excuses and says i can’t pay you this much because you didn’t bring your dancers. He decides that you can’t get R15 000 alone, you must get half of it Its old men with big tummies and they teach these young ones this thing. They sit in boards and become stakeholders of the industry Who are they to become stakeholders when the main stakeholders? The artists have no say and they are treated like puppets being pulled with strings. TS: What sorts of changes do you want to see happen in the music industry? mP: I want to see a change of copyright law...change of SAMRO, change of how record companies operate and i would force men within the music industry to change their mindsets. I need my place in the music industry, my heritage...I am a legend and this must be a practical reality not word of mouth.

Arts & Culture


On the 26th July 2010, Mercy Pakela - a music artist from the 1980s- wrote a letter to COSATU highlighting the plight of creative workers in the music industry. In the letter she laments the neglect of musicians by progressive organisations and vents out against the exploitation that musicians suffer at the hands of record companies, most of which are foreign owned.

* This is the unedited letter from Mercy Pakela.

Arts & Culture

26/07/2010

Mercy Pakela

Request to the Leadership of COSATU to intervene in the music industry

Dear Sir,

Cordial greetings to you and your associates, Mercy Pakela who is one of the South African female/women who stoodfast in the music industry while others were in exile.

I request that we correct the wrongs in the music industry. Musicians of the 80s are sidelined by music promoters, recording companies and agents – they take a lion’s share and pay musicians peanuts. They write proposals, ask for funds in the name of musicians from the creative arts industry institutions. Managers charge exorbitant fees for when they solicit funds and pay them less. The recording industry takes ownership of musicians work and their God given talents which is the sound voice owned by the vulture of copyright law that hasn’t changed since 1966. The so-called stakeholders own the rights of music exhibition projects – violating the rights of those who hold a rich culture of music industry. The singers’, composers and producers’ workers are kept in the American owned companies. Musicians of the 80s need to benefit from this heritage.

Lobbying a TRC in Music Industry

Musicians of the 80s and their music deal with music industry rights violation. Musicians of the 80s dealing with managers and agents contract. Correcting the wrongs done by musicians who are successful and role players in the music industry exploit the ones they getWomen marginalisation Sex abuse Male domination and manipulation Reclaiming of royalties on TV and Radio and the change of copyright law.

From Mercy Pakela


zwelinzima Vavi posits that cultural activists must be the voice of the revolution. They must be the voice of the revolution against corruption

and greed, self-enrichment, HIV/Aids, hunger and homelessness, joblessness and poverty. This is an abridged version of his address to the launch of Professor Pitika ntuli’s exhibition entitled scents of the invisible footprints in moments of Complexity, Museum Africa Newtown.

A Great Son of Africa: Pitika NtuliPlease allow me to express my

gratitude for the opportunity to speak at this launch of the exhibition showcasing the work of one of the greatest artists of this country.

As workers, we deemed it necessary to mark our presence here this evening as a way to honour and celebrate the work of one of the greatest sons of Africa, Professor Pitika ntuli. our participation is also informed by the need to honour and celebrate a living legend.

We are here to pay homage to the “invisible footprints” not only of Professor ntuli but also of many of our cultural activists whose works rang the death knell of colonialism and its cousin, apartheid.

We are also here to reflect on the “moments of complexity” confronting us as a people in Africa, as the working class and as agents for social change.

The launch of the exhibition on Professor ntuli’s work is an important milestone in the path to reconnect with our painful past and to carve a course for our future.

Having been confined to exile for many years, Ntuli’s work is an important way to forge the connection between the global and the local. it provides a platform for working class internationalism as a weapon against cultural imperialism.

This artistic work is born out of the need to challenge eurocentric notions about what constitutes art. It is a challenge to the imposition of the culture of the powerful nations and classes upon the oppressed and exploited.

As workers, we have great respect for the work of Professor ntuli because it tells us that art should not merely be a preserve of the rich and powerful.

His work confirms our beliefs that art and culture have a particular role to play in social healing and cohesion. That art and culture can be forms of protest and resistance against the evils of exploitation.

Arts and Culture can be

Midwives of our Revolution

Arts & Culture

53The ShopSTeward auguST/SepTember 2010 www.cosatu.org.za 53

Arts & CultureWe are inspired by ntuli’s impatience

with narrow specialisation. The diversity entailed in his work contains the seeds for a new society, a society where people are not confined to one sphere of activity but can become accomplished in any aspect of life that they wish.

Through Ntuli’s work we can see the shape that this new society will assume. His work mounts a challenge to capitalist notions that one should either be a poet or a sculptor. Through his work, we can see that it is indeed possible for one “to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, [tell a story] after dinner...without ever becoming a hunter, fisherman, herdsman or [storyteller].”[1]

ntuli’s work should be used as a platform to channel society towards creating a holistic human being, who has a reciprocal relationship with nature and his/her surroundings.

Ntuli’s work serves as a bulwark against the de-politicisation of art. It is an integral part of dismantling the fictitious wall erected between politics and art.

Pitika ntuli’s work is important because it is the eyes and the voice of the revolution.

culture and art as midwives to revolutions

We are all too aware that most revolutions that have recorded success have done so using culture as a bulwark against imperialism and exploitation.

We know for a fact that in Cuba, as early as 1959, several new cultural institutions were founded that would become important to the development of art and culture across Latin America: Casa de las Americas, the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry (I.C.A.I.C.), the National Theatre, the National Ballet, the National Symphonic Orchestra, and the National Folkloric Group. The literacy campaign also raised Cuban capacity to fully engage in the arts and culture.

These developments enhanced the life of the cuban people. But what has most characterised cultural development in cuba is the massive participation and access to arts and culture that is available to the cuban people.

The same thinking inspired the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. The struggle against US imperialism in Venezuela is waged side by side with the struggle against a cultural imperialism and the elite

monopolisation of arts and culture. Various efforts are being made to

ensure that the museums and the art galleries cease to be the preserve of the rich and become melting pots dedicated to the defence of the revolution and the deepening of participatory democracy in that country.

The people of Venezuela are engaged ceaselessly in a war to ensure that culture responds to the immediate challenges facing the working class and the poor of that country.

our very own revolutions in africa were informed as much by the need to negate our economic dispossession as much as they were about reclaiming our lost and bastardised culture. colonialism would have never thrived for so long without making inroads into the destruction of people’s culture. “cultural domination and oppression were necessary for effective economic and political control” by colonial forces.[2] our history is littered with examples of how “people’s songs, poetry, dances, languages and education were attacked and often ruthlessly suppressed.” [3]

The african continent has produced many astute cultural activists. We are indeed proud of these brothers and sisters who refused to accept colonial oppression and exploitation as a natural state of things.

from achebe we learnt about the trials and tribulations of the Nigerian people in the post independence era. from Ngungi wa Thiong’o about the resilience of the Kenyan people against British settler colonialism; from Cabral about the commitment of the people of guinea and Cape Verde to self-realisation.

all this merely shows that our cultural activists, our poets, writers and singers have never been aloof in the struggle against oppression and exploitation.

Creative Workers: Torchbearers for the South African Struggle

Here at home, the role that creative workers played is written in bold letters in pages of the struggle against apartheid oppression. It is imprinted in the graves of the likes of Miriam Makeba, Vuyisile Mini, Brenda Fasi, Phumuza Patrick Cokotho and many others.

The likes of letta mbulu have armed us

against our oppressors who continuously argue that the struggle is over and that all our recollections must be condemned to the dustbin of history. Through their words we can safely say that indeed the struggle continues and “it is not yet uhuru”.

When faced with a dangerous encroachment of selfish values in every facet of our society, we are reminded of the great sacrifices made by those who came before us. We are reminded by Vusi mahlasela’s observation that the “armed struggle is an act of love”.

When many were ready to shut their eyes to the injustices committed by apartheid and capitalism on the people of this country and the african people as a whole, the likes of Hugh Masekela reminds us of the pain and suffering brought by the migrant labour system to the entire Southern African region, a system whose profit driven tentacles reached as far as the Congo, Malawi and Mozambique.

cultural activists played a role in reminding us of the brutal reality of an untransformed judicial system. in poems and songs, they reminded us that the black working class expectations about justice under apartheid were tantamount to corn demanding justice in a court full of chickens.[4]

Cultural activists like Phuz’e Khemisi placed the plight of the rural working class and the atrocities committed by some traditional leaders in the public discourse.

These cultural activists understood the significance of the role of artists in a situation where there is a battle of ideas. These cultural activists ensured that arts and culture becomes part and parcel of resistance.

The cultural movement against apartheid ensured that the lived experience of workers finds resonance in the creative world. This meant that the aspirations for defeating exploitation and oppression found expression through the majority of the people as represented by the workers, who experience the rawest oppression and exploitation on a daily basis.

The workers used culture not only as a means of resistance but also as a means of defining the contours for a new South Africa, free of oppression and exploitation.

This is the rich history that the generation of the Masekelas, Serotes, Makebas, Don Mattera and Cassie


cassie motsitsi have left to the new generation of activists in the sphere of arts and culture. it is a history rooted in people’s culture, from the toyi-toying to singing, to murals, the poster movement and community drama. This is a history engraved with selflessness and great personal sacrifices. It is a history where the immediate award was not fame and fortune but banishment, torture, arrest and even death.Pitika ntuli’s work is celebrated today precisely because he did not choose fame and fortune above the commonweal of his people. ntuli’s love for art and freedom cost him a high price indeed. It drove him from his home and his country for 32 long years.

As a country, we should indeed be proud that we have produced cultural activists who could declare as the poet Wally serote said “The cost one has to pay for fame and fortune is alienation from the people. alienation for a cultural worker is shame and death. and there are so many kinds of death. The other alternative is to engage in a struggle for the creation of a liveable world and future.”[5]The search for a better world was exactly what prompted many to write song after song, poem after poem and one short story after another. The search for answers in “moments of complexity”We look back to all this history with a sense of nostalgia, but nostalgia on its own will not resolve our problems. our people continue to cry out for culture that meets their needs and helps them deal with their daily realities of exploitation in the factories, the mines and of their hostile living conditions in the townships and the informal settlements.

our people look unto you for an understanding of why land is still in the hands of the minority, of why places like alexandra continue to exist parallel to Sandton, of why the matchbox houses that were such a seminal topic in the 1980s are now being replicated in a poorer fashion in 2010. our people want to know why the courts are still untransformed, of why the inequalities continue to rise as well as how they can overcome HIV/Aids. In these circumstances, creative workers like all workers also need to take sides. They have to give a voice to those who remain oppressed and disempowered. They have to reflect on the realities of our society and our people, not on the

fantasies of the rich whether in south africa or overseas. They need to hear that resistance against racism and exploitation is not futile. The last thing our people need is to be told to “get rich or die trying” or be given some false hopes about how they can become instant millionaires. Culture should not be about distracting our people from their daily realities and duping them into the belief that inequalities are natural and therefore justified. Culture should never succumb to the notion that some are born to be workers whilst others to be ceos who loath in air-conditioned offices and rotating chairs or play golf half of the day whilst the majority toil and sweat for peanuts but whilst the loathing class earn millions in executive packages and bonuses whilst the majority of our people go hungry. The aim of culture must be to give workers courage, to aid in the mobilisation of workers against social injustices. Culture does not always have to be serious,

of course, or realistic - but ultimately it has to be rooted in the realities of our people, in their daily lives, struggles and celebrations. We ought to ask, why is it that cultural workers are found wanting in these struggles? Why is it that there has been an activist lull amongst this section? Is it because the struggle is over as our detractors tell us? The answer is no. Our biggest challenge is that the world market for the arts is ruled by a handful of companies, interested only in profit. The music industry for instance is dominated by six multi-national companies - BMG, EMI, Universal, Polygram, Sony and Warner. These companies accounted for 78% of

global sales in 1996 and sadly not much has changed since.Together these five companies controlled 92% of the South African market. BMG, Polygram and Sony came back into the country before and immediately after the 1994 elections. Prior to this the south african market was controlled between EMI, Gallo Africa and Tusk Music. Our film industry is also dominated by american and european companies. south african stories are told and portrayed by artists hailing from other continents. The lead roles in movies such as Drum, Invictus and Skin are all taken by american artists under the pretext that their faces will guarantee more revenue for the movies. This surely points to a need for more efforts to be dedicated towards the honing and funding of our own film industry which will allow the people of this continent to narrate their own stories. The entry of multinationals has had largely negative consequences for the music industry in our country.

Arts & Culture


Arts & CultureFor one, the creative aspirations of the

worker are seen as worthless unless they conform to the logic of the market.

We should not be surprised when we all we hear is a shallow, vain and fun-loving music instead of music that challenges established patterns of racial and gender oppression as well as class exploitation.

This situation arises precisely because the creative worker has become an appendage to the “free market”. He/she has lost all creative control to the money chasing record labels who from time to time remind us of what sells and what doesn’t sell.

When these multinationals make money, where are the real workers? The answer is that they are given peanuts to allow them to reproduce themselves - to survive and produce the music that the industry is willing to sell. How much space do these multinationals provide for our people to express themselves, to develop and portray our values and aspirations as Africans and as working people?

This industry like all others creates a fertile ground for high rates of accumulation by the owners and managers of industry, at the expense of workers. in fact it explains why most creative workers, like all other workers, remain property less till their death while those who manage their creative work remain filthy rich. Even in the creative industry we still have the world of the haves and the world of the have-nots. We should never be under the illusion that the creative world stands in isolation from the world of the class struggle, where workers are in a constant collision course with the bosses.

Creative Workers: Pallbearers to the Capitalist System

creative workers have not been left unscathed by the erosion of revolutionary morality in our society. For many the gift of writing or singing is directed merely at fame and fortune.

The works of many an artist are displayed in the art galleries in suburbs where workers will never set a foot except as domestic workers for the owners of the same galleries. Some musicians have become too famous to perform in the very townships that produced them.

From where we stand, the immediate tasks are twofold. There is an urgent need to build a cultural movement that can challenge capitalist values that emphasise individual fame and fortune above the need to build a world free of oppression and exploitation.

This was precisely the rationale behind the formation of CWUSA. Like any union, CWUSA’s chief mandate is to fight and defend the rights of creative workers. However, it would be a great injustice if this vibrant organ limits its role to this.

We encourage cultural activists to extend their reach to their counterparts who sell arts and crafts on the side of the highways and outside shopping malls. These artists might not have the mastery of the academic discourse and training, but they do form a critical component of the cultural revolution.

Our struggle depends on creative workers to popularise the demands of the people, their hopes and aspirations as well as to conscientise them about the need to create an alternative world, a world that does not transform talent into a commodity that can be consumed only by those with thick wallets.

it is the responsibility of creative workers to challenge the “dog eats dog mentality”, the bling culture and crass materialism. creative workers also need to advocate for mass literacy campaigns and the improvement of our education system, as this will go a long way in ensuring that arts and culture is accessible to everyone, regardless of their class or status.

The mission of the current generation of activists must be to reclaim the stance that their predecessors occupied. cultural activists must be the voice of the revolution. They must be the voice of the revolution against corruption and greed, self-enrichment, HIV/Aids, hunger and homelessness, joblessness and poverty. no true and committed activist can turn a blind eye to the hardships of our times. No true activist can ignore the interconnectedness of arts, culture, politics and the struggle for economic freedom.

To us Professor Pitika ka Ntuli represents this interconnectedness. We are here to honour you the professor of the working class. To all others we say we want you to be like him.

[1] Marx, K, German Ideology, 1845. [2] Ngugi wa Thiong’o, The Role of Culture in the African Revolution, African Communist, No. 13, 2nd Quarter, 1988, p35. [3] Ibid. [4] Dikobe Martins, Corn in a Court of Chickens, African Communist, No, 124, First Quarter, 1991, p. 43.[5] The role of culture in the African Revolution, African Communist, No. 13, 2nd Quarter, 1988, p33.


International

let us use the occasion of the World day for decent Work on October 7 to take action in solidarity with workers and trade unions of mexico

against the continued onslaught and terror unleashed by the fascist and counter-revolutionary Mexican regime.

in the week before the start of the World Cup Soccer tournament, due to kick off with Bafana Bafana playing Mexico in the opening match, South Africa was pumping with anticipation and spirits were high. But there was a completely different reality unfolding across the world in Mexico. The rights of mexican workers were under direct attack by the repressive right wing Mexican government of President Felipe Calderón and the ruthless employer, Grupo Mexico, the largest mining company in mexico.

In the evening of 6 June 2010, at least 2000 mexican federal troop supported by helicopters, used tear gas and rubber bullets to gain control over the Cananea copper mine to end a three year long strike against Grupo Mexico. Five union leaders were arrested. The legal strike at Cananea began on 30 July 2007 when union members refused to work in dangerous conditions due to serious health and safety violations.

The attack was not unexpected, striking workers were living under threat of a violent end to their strike by government forces after a decision by a labour appellate court in february 2010 upholding a Federal Conciliation and arbitration Board declaration to end a 31-month strike by the union, and terminating the collective agreement

between mexico’s national miners’ and metalworkers’ union and grupo mexico.

In a coordinated onslaught by the state on the union, Cananea federal forces also forcibly took control of another grupo mexico’s mine at Pasta de conchos in coahuila state.

The Pasta de conchos mine had been closed since sixty-five miners were trapped underground on 19 February 2006 when a methane explosion occurred in the number eight shaft of the mine. many felt that the search ended too soon and that it was terminated in order to conceal management’s negligence regarding the accident. Only two bodies were ever recovered.

The government has refused to investigate the cause of the accident and grupo mexico has failed to properly compensate families of the dead. Widows and family members had been on a long vigil, with demands that the state and company recover the bodies of their loved ones.

In the dead of night, at 2am on June 6 2010, 20 patrol cars of the state forces in coahuila escorted grupo méxico back into the number eight mine at the Pasta de Conchos mine, enabling the company to retake possession of the mine. The widows and family members of 65 dead coal miners, all but two still entombed in the shaft, swiftly gathered at the entrance but were denied entry and refused information. Reports indicate that following the police action on 6 June, the mine shaft was sealed

permanently and grupo mexico has been given permission to recommence exploration and operations at the mine.

Tensions ran high and by the time South Africa was playing Mexico at the opening World Cup match on 11 June 2010, it was reported that at least 16 people had been injured in four days of altercations at Cananea, including four miners, two police, and the remainder civilians, mostly family members of strikers. Many more were suffering the effects of tear gas.

The town of cananea was occupied by armed police that provided escorts for new contractors and workers into the mine whilst union members and residents blocked roadways and threw stones until they were chased away by the police, using tear gas, pepper spray and batons.

“Without provocation, the police ordered the union members to lie on the street, and then brutally beat the

union members”

The Right Wing Mexican Government still continues to subvert Worker and Trade Union Rightssteve nhlapo


The mexico’s national miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union representing strikers at cananea and many of those that lost their lives at Pasta de conchos has been in a struggle with the Mexican government since 2006. The union had been very vocal on Pasta de conchos incident, bringing to light the poor health and safety conditions that led to the incident, demanding a full investigation of the incident, the retrieval of the miners’ bodies as well as compensation for the miners families.

In an attempt to break the union, shortly after the Pasta de conchos incident the Mexican government instituted corruption charges against its leaders and froze the union’s bank accounts.

The general secretary napoleon Gomez has been living with his family in exile in canada under the sponsorship of the United Steelworkers, fearing he will be assassinated or arrested on these trumped up charges should he return to mexico. he has not lost support and was unanimously reelected in may 2008, yet the Mexican government refuses to recognize Gomez as the head of the union.

gomez’s fears are not unfounded. Union official Juan Linares was arrested in september 2008 at an airport on his return from Canada, where he was a guest at a Canadian labour conference. he remains imprisoned despite multiple court rulings that charges against him are baseless. Mario García Ortíz, alternative general secretary of the union was arrested in may 2010. a union delegation went to the police station to ask the reason for the arrest; they found Ortíz in the process of being released. Without provocation, the police ordered the union members to lie on the street, and then brutally beat the union members. mario ortíz was seriously injured in the attack and hospitalised. Following the attack, the delegation was detained and only released after fellow union members stopped work in protest at a nearby arcelormittal steel factory.

Combining with this state harassment campaign, Grupo Mexico has used

the familiar tactic of sweetheart unions to further undermine union solidarity. In the days after taking the mine at Cananea, Grupo Mexico imposed a company union on workers. The new union is part of the national federation of Independent Unions, which is backed by powerful corporations. While called “independent,” these are unions completely dominated by the corporations and often called “sindicatos blancos” or “white unions,” a term meaning company unions. The company unions collaborate with management in restraining workers’ demands for higher wages and better benefits and working conditions. The imposition of a company union is in violation of freedom of association, a core convention of the ilo.

it is not only the mexico’s national miners’ and metalworkers’ union that has been under fire by the government. In October 2009, thousands of Federal Police seized the plants of the state-

owned Central Light and Power Company, which provides electricity to Mexico City and several neighbouring states. The government announced that the company would be liquidated and all its approximately 45,000 workers fired, which would mean the destruction of the mexican electrical Workers’ union (sme) and elimination of its members’ collective agreement and pension benefits for 20,000 retirees.

The sme is one of mexico’s oldest independent trade union organizations with one of the best collective agreements in the country. It has been playing a leading role in the fight against privatization, proposed regressive reforms to the Federal Labour Law, and other neoliberal policies.

Secretary of Labor Javier Lozano declared in september 2009 that sme’s internal elections were invalid and that general secretary martín esparza and other officers would not be recognized by the government. Without legally recognized officials, the union cannot engage in contract negotiations or other activities.

Following the liquidation, the government announced that another state owned company, the Federal Electricity Commission, whose company union has a reputation for submissiveness and corruption, would take over all Central Light and Power’s functions. The government tried, but failed, to order the SME to be dissolved. However, efforts by SME and its political allies to get the courts to declare illegal the dissolution of Central Light and Power also failed. The SME and its allies accuse the government of trying to break their union so as to clear the way for eventual privatization of electrical services.

By april 2010 workers embarked on a mass hunger strike, for social justice, peace and dignified employment, that lasted for 90 days. dozens of workers and supporters had taken part in the strike at various times, and eleven men and three women remained at the end. Cayetano Cabrera, who lasted out the 90 days, and Miguel Ángel Ibarra, that endured 85 days, were in grave danger when finally negotiations took place between the government and SME. In exchange for ending the hunger strike, the union regained recognition from the government and won a verbal agreement to resume talks.

Internationally, trade unions have been demanding an end to the violent repression of trade union activity and the brutal victimization of trade unionists in mexico.

International

“The company unions collaborate

with management in restraining workers’ demands for higher wages and better

benefits and working conditions.”


The international metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) initiated a campaign in 2006 to seek proper address of the Pasta de conchos incident by grupo Mexico and the Mexican government as well as an end to attempts to destroy mexico’s national miners’ and metalworkers’ union. imf was joined by the international federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), together these international federations have been keeping the unfolding events in Mexico in the public eye, taking up issues with the Mexican government, mining company grupo mexico and the ilo.

icem and imf have also been gathering support from their affiliates to call for the respect of workers and trade union rights in Mexico. In South Africa unions decided to use the 2010 fifa World cup as a platform to raise the plight of the workers in Mexico. COSATU affiliated unions, the National Union of

Mineworkers (NUM), National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), south african Transport and allied Workers Union (SATAWU), Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union (CEPPAWU), joined by ICEM and the IMF, took a political and conscious decision to embark on actions in solidarity with workers and trade unions of Mexico against the continued onslaught and terror unleashed by the fascist and counter-revolutionary Mexican regime.

Pickets were to be organised during the World Cup games in which Mexico was playing and a march was to be organised to the Mexican Embassy in Pretoria where demands would be handed over. But this was not to be. local municipalities refused permits for actions at World cup stadiums in Rustenburg and Polokwane and the police refused to grant a permit for the march to the mexican embassy in

Pretoria. The World cup and the fifa ‘interim

government’ has come and gone but workers in mexico still need our support. Our democratic rights to protest have been restored and World day for decent Work on October 7 provides us with the opportunity to embark on a national day of action against the Mexican government and Grupo Mexico. The IMF calls on COSATU unions, all workers and the general public to join in a solidarity march on the mexican embassy in Pretoria. since our plans for actions during the World Cup were thwarted, bring along your vuvuzelas and we can do the mexican wave.

Steve Nhlapo is the International Metalworkers Federation Regional Representative for Africa

attaining full and meaningful gender equality in swaziland is still a distant dream. in their homes and social lives, almost

all women are controlled to a greater or lesser degree by their fathers, uncles, husbands or sons. In their working lives they are still controlled by male supervisors and managers. not all professions and jobs are open to women, and those that are, still contain the ‘glass ceiling’ above which women seldom rise. In most, if not all aspects of life in Swaziland, there are no women in decision- making roles.

The monarchical system in

Swaziland hangs like an albatross on the shoulders of many women. in this system, women remain accessories to men, serving as trophies to demonstrate male achievement. The king, as the chief beneficiary of this anachronistic, undemocratic and patriarchal system practices the marriage system of polygamy, possessing many wives in his palaces. most of these are young girls of school going age, who like many of their peers espouse to bigger things in life. It is somewhat of a misnomer to say that marrying the Swazi king is a choice that women make without any intervening factors. For many, the abject poverty in their

homes and the promise of a better life are the class determinants of such a “decision”. The system therefore triumphs on the oppression of women and (in class terms) their exploitation and alienation from the means of production. Women in this situation often cannot pursue their education any further, thus making their material reproduction completely reliant on occupying a place in the monarchical patriarchal hierarchy.

under the Tinkhundla system of government, Inkhundla is formed by several chiefdoms headed by chiefs. These chiefs are responsible for distributing land among subjects.

International

How Swazi Women Fare under the monarchical and despotic Tinkhundla system. Nompumelelo Magagula


InternationalThese chiefs are chosen by the king

and there are very few female chiefs countrywide. Even in the Cabinet the king is allowed to impose twenty members at his discretion, among these members there are usually very few women. This is contrary to the Eight Millennium development goals and the sadc Protocol as signed by Swaziland.

in the workplace women experience both exploitation as workers and oppression as women. The challenge facing working women is how they can create adequate forums and mechanisms to ensure their welfare and support at work. how can women in Swaziland bring an end to the inexcusable lack of women’s leadership in the working environment? As much as women in the working front have fought tirelessly against discrimination, it continuously rears its ugly head.

Woman still get low pay and unequal wages compared to their male counterparts who do the same job. some women still work overtime in the firms run by Asian “investors” who are also running the Swaziland Labour industry as their own farms. Women in this situation work long hours and even at night with no pay. These women cannot quit their jobs as they desperately need these jobs to keep food on their families’ tables.

sexual harassment in workplace committed by men who are higher on the class ladder is a nightmare that haunts many working women in Swaziland. Women are sexually harassed by their supervisors or managers at work. These vultures often feed on the fact that many working class women seldom report incidents of sexual harassment and violation fearing dismissal and victimization. The burden of caring for the children and making ends meet compels women to succumb to these abusive practices.

Some working areas still deprive women of their maternity rights. It is no secret that some company policies, approved by the Swazi regime specifically preclude maternity benefits. Sadly, women are only allowed a few days off to give birth and are expected to return to work shortly afterwards.

These few days come at a direct material cost to women as they are tantamount to taking unpaid leave. It is thus no surprise then that maternal health is often compromised, a factor which partly accounts for the high rate of maternal mortality. To this day, the cabinet has still not approved a gender policy. Simply put, there is neither a mandate nor the political will to address gender inequalities in Swaziland.

an account of exploitative property relations in swaziland would be incomplete if it did not consider how women are currently amongst the dispossessed. Women under the Tinkhundla system are still denied land ownership. Because the premise is that women are minors who cannot be given the prerogative to make decisions, they must have a male companion or an adult age male heir in order to access land. Thus amongst the working class, (previous land owners who were disposed and alienated from land as a means of subsistence and turned into the proletariat) women remain the most downtrodden, disposed and oppressed even under the dominant capitalist mode of production. The feudal system and the capitalist system in swaziland articulate in a manner that entrenches and deepens the exploitation and oppression of women at the hands of the capitalists and patriarchs.

The struggle against women oppression shows that the liberal separation between the public and the private sphere is illusionary. Patriarchy straddles the world of women in the household, the workplace and various other arenas. The oppression of women in swaziland occurs in multiple ways - from the patriarchal manner in which the incidence of rape is treated to domestic violence and the objectification of women under practices such as the reed dance. men remain the main beneficiaries of such a system. However, working class men are precluded from reaping the same benefits as the monarch and the entire swazi aristocracy. The latter derive direct benefits from

the continued subjugation of women and this is not only facilitated by their gender but the space they occupy in class terms. The liberation of women cannot be seen as a separate and isolated struggle from the liberation of the swazi people and the transformation of the current property relations in swaziland. There is an urgent need for a mass based and relatively autonomous women’s movement in swaziland. it is only through this that women will adequately lead their own struggle and give it the voice it deserves. The road ahead is a thorny one.

“The liberation of women cannot

be seen as a separate and

isolated struggle from the liberation

of the swazi people and the transformation of the current

property relations in swaziland.”


International

gertrude hambira is the general secretary of the General Agricultural Plantation Workers union of zimbabwe (gaPWuz) (1).

she has been forced to leave her country after criticising the land reform that has triggered countless barbaric acts and left hundreds of thousands of workers jobless. Amid continued human rights violations and the persecution of trade unionists, she is calling for a genuine land reform programme that will bring greater social justice without violating human rights.What does the land reform implemented in Zimbabwe since the year 2000 consist in?

It could be seen as a racial issue, as white farmers are evicted from their farms to be given to blacks... but the fact is that they are given to the blacks that are part of the political elite: ministers, war veterans, ZANU-PF (2) supporters, judges, etc. The ministers have received around five to ten farms per person. In the process, the new owners have evicted the farm workers who were supposed to work this land. They only keep five to ten workers, for example, on a farm that used to employ 200 people. Production is falling as a result, and this affects the production of the entire country.

The potentially active agricultural labour force prior to the reform was around 500,000 during high season (including seasonal workers), but it has now fallen to almost 120,000. Most workers are abandoned on the farms and become internally displaced, living on the side of the road; others hang around in the villages and try to survive on piece work. Some take up illegal activities, such as gold or diamond panning, or join the informal economy, etc.But it is not in the new owners’ interest to evict the farm workers. Why do they do this?

Everyone wants land, but not everyone wants to be a farmer. Farming is a business,

not a hobby; every effort has to be put into it. To produce, you have to be on the farm. Yet these new owners spend most of their time in offices from which they give orders, and there is no one on the ground to supervise the work that is supposed to be done. if you take on a farm and part with the labour force and start to underpay the workers, you are heading for failure. When this happens, you place the blame elsewhere (on the opposition, the workers, the banks that won’t give you a loan), but it is you yourself who put yourself in this situation.Has the entrance of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai into the government not helped the situation?

Things may have improved for the rich, but when there is a change in the structure of a system, people expect to see bread and butter on the table. This is what the ordinary person in the street would like to see the government focusing on, but within a week of the national unity government being formed, farms were being seized again, workers were being evicted and others continue to be underpaid. The human rights violations have continued and trade unionists are still being persecuted and arrested. It was under the rule of the unity government that I had to go into exile. Yet an ordinary woman like me has no intention of overthrowing the government, or reversing the land reform. All I am doing is telling the truth.

What led you to go into exile?I was summoned to the JOC (Joint

Operation Command), a high-level structure of the army, police, prison system and intelligence services. On 19 February, they summoned me to the police headquarters and asked me why i had produced a documentary on the human rights violations linked to the land reform (3). They questioned me for about two hours. Three days later, they sent seven men to “kidnap” me, which implies being arrested and held in secret for an indefinite period. Fortunately, I wasn’t at the office, and I fled the country. After my

departure, my colleagues were arrested. They were not beaten but they were heavily intimidated. They were told that they would die in jail if they didn’t tell them where i was.What form did your interrogation take?

They kept asking me where the images of the documentary were filmed and what our intentions were. They told me i should be imprisoned and die because i am a dangerous person. I answered that I was only telling the truth, that I would expect them, rather, to ask me how to stop all these terrible acts of violence. Instead of that, I was confronted with an aggressive interrogation.Have you been arrested in the past?

Yes, and I have also been beaten by the police on a number of occasions. my latest arrest was in December 2008, when we took part in a zcTu (4) demonstration about the lack of money in circulation. i was severely beaten by the police in the street and was then held in detention for about two hours before being released.The GAPWUZ documentary denounced the torture inflicted on black workers and white farmers. It shows, for example, the case of a worker thrown into a crowd of drunken people that treat him with appalling cruelty. Are these people paramilitaries, gangsters?

They are the “Youth militia”. The government has set up a youth militia made up of young unemployed people from rural areas.

Spotlight interview with Gertrude hambira (gaPWuz - zimbabwe)2 July 2010: “Farm workers are ill-treated and abandoned”


International They receive training and are then

sent to invade farms. They start to harass the workers, forcing them to attend their meetings. If the workers refuse to obey them, they accuse them of being members of the opposition and threaten to “discipline” them. Then they harass them, beat them up, tie them to trees to beat them, force their children to watch the torture they inflict on them.They are like paramilitaries employed to do the dirty work?

Yes, and if we call the police for help, they simply look on without doing anything.Is the same violence against white farmers and their black workers described in your documentary still taking place now?

At present, they are evicting them but not assaulting them. The Youth Militia sometimes comes to drive away the workers living on the roadside, but there are organisations that come to provide them with humanitarian assistance.What happens to the white farmers who are evicted?

Some have gone to Australia, England, New Zealand or neighbouring countries. all they can take with them is their family. our documentary shows the case of an evicted white farmer worrying about his daughter’s schooling, but who is going to take care of the schooling of the 200 workers he used to employ? There is nothing wrong with correcting the inequalities that existed, because the good land was owned exclusively by the white minority, but why kill a worker, a farmer, in the process, why do children have to be thrown out of school? We need a genuine land reform programme that does not lead to human rights violations.Can the union remain active in such a context?

Prior to the land reform, we had 150,000 members. This number has now fallen to around 25,000. Most of our members have been thrown off the land where they used to work. Our union is doing everything it can to remain strong; we have done nothing but rebuild it over recent years. When the farms were seized as of the year 2000, all the trade union structures were destroyed. We started to build

them up again. Then, in 2005, human rights violations were rife and trade union structures were hit once again. We had to start rebuilding them after the elections. The farm evictions that have been pursued over all these years have meant that we have constantly had to rebuild our structures. In 2008, during the most violent elections ever seen in Zimbabwe, all the union structures were affected once again. Other trade unions were hit, but the agricultural union was the worst affected.

We have always, in fact, been in the process of building up the trade union within rural communities. We have been recruiting members since 1985 through education programmes, meetings, explaining the benefits of becoming a member. it took nearly 20 years to develop this union, but what we had built was demolished virtually overnight. One day we are building, they next day it is destroyed... that is the context we have had to overcome, surviving thanks to the support of foreign unions and other partners around the world.

What services are you able to offer your 25,000 members?

a trade union’s work is not limited to negotiating wages. When farm workers are thrown off the land, we represent them in the courts; we establish links with organisations that can provide them with humanitarian assistance. We also organise civic education programmes, education on HIV, etc.

You provide legal assistance, but it is a well known fact that the judicial system in zimbabwe is far from independent...

Of course, but we have to do it, because one day normality will be restored and we will be able to reopen the cases and demand justice.your documentary reports on the cases taken to the SADC (5) Tribunal. What rulings did it deliver?

The SADC Tribunal affirmed that the government should not seize the farms, but the latter refuses to implement these rulings and there is no one there to force it to do so. some of the cases taken before this tribunal even involved farms that came under the sadc bilateral partnership agreement, which were not supposed to be affected by the land

reform. According to this partnership, everything produced on these farms is for export to sadc countries.How can international labour solidarity help you?

The iTuc and its members should write to the government of Zimbabwe, support the ZCTU, and join with the IUF (6) in highlighting the plight of farm workers. And whenever possible, financial resources should be offered through the ZCTU, to help our members affected by the reform. all the workers interviewed in the documentary, whose faces were concealed, are still in hiding in Zimbabwe, they are in an extremely difficult situation.knowing the problems you would face as a trade union leader, what motivated you to take on this role?

i am passionate about my country and the people i represent. They were voiceless for so many years. i cannot simply sit back and watch what we have built over the years being destroyed. Someone has to speak out, and I was given the mandate to speak on behalf of zimbabwe’s workers when i was elected at a congress.

Interview by Samuel Grumiau ( http://www.ituc-csi.org/spotlight )(1) General Agriculture & Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe, affiliate to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).(2) Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front, headed by President Mugabe(3) “House of Justice”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl97... and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ulG.... Also consult “If something is wrong...”, the report accompanying the documentary(4) Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, affiliated to the ITUC(5) Southern African Development Community(6) International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations


International

cosaTu perspectives on international work have always centred on the primacy of transforming the global reality in line with the

progressive aspirations of working people. In making the decision to affiliate at the international level, COSATU was actively pursuing this noble objective in the same way that at national level we chose to be part of the tripartite alliance as the base upon which to mobilise the rest of society for fundamental social change.

The objective was to be part of a global family of trade unions, which without doubt, was never going to be perfect and we definitely knew its objective and subjective limitations and were committed to playing our part towards its fundamental transformation into a weapon of class struggle. Having undergone these few years of our active participation in this regard, this may be the opportune time to reflect and pose questions, however uncomfortable they might be at times, as to how far have we gone in the journey towards the realisation of that historic commitment to transform this institution. in the same vein we need to further pose the question, what is the likelihood that we have become moderated in some way.

There is no doubt cosaTu has made an impact over the years and its presence has been felt in the international trade union arena. This is not to gratify ourselves, but to acknowledge hard evidence in front of us. That being the case, no space, however small, should be open to complacency about the enormity of the tasks ahead. Critical reflections are necessary to provide us with the requisite tools to reposition our momentum and internationalism on the road to profound global change. The e ILO Conference and the ITUC World Congress have sharply brought to the fore issues that have long been containing seeds of tension and explosion. These issues are

about the relationship between the north and the south, particularly in the trade union movement and generally.

It is now even clearer that the designs of the global political economy are such that all structures and institutions in the north serve and reinforce the agenda of the global ruling class. In this regard, even trade unions see their main responsibility as, first and foremost, about the protection of the capitalist system, except questioning its excesses. They scorn every attempt to question its legitimacy and call for its challenge. It was deliberately designed by imperialism that they must see their future as tied to the existence and success of the system. This is why they defend with passion all that is seen to threaten the core elements of the system. The defence of; the global markets and trade system that furthers our underdevelopment, the interests of their ruling classes in the Middle east, and their unfettered control over the international trade union movement and its related systems, all help to sustain the dominant system and protect it from those who are its victims and would want to see it removed . This is the basis for the ideological and political choices made by our comrades in the north in pursuing the trade union struggle.

There is confusion around what is the meaning of trade union independence as articulated by some in the international circles. There is a tendency to conflate

organisational independence with class (ideological) independence of the trade union movement from the ruling classes or even to consider the two as synonymous.

The iTuc emphasises on the former, which means organisational independence which is very important, but class independence has historically (and currently) taken the backseat. Whilst both are important, the ability of the working class to assert its class interests without fear is of crucial importance.

most european trade union pass the first test, but dismally fail the second and more critical test. With a few exceptions, most of them have no working class agenda independent of their ruling classes, except a few concerns. In most instances, they unwittingly and unquestioningly follow their ruling classes, particularly as regards foreign and economic policy interests of their countries. several unions in the south fail the first test for various reasons, some of which are linked to the fact that those in government today in many cases, were liberation movements or anti-imperialist forces of whatever sort, who forged common cause with the working class in the trenches against colonialism and imperialism, hence their being trusted by their own working classes, even when they have deviated in some respects.

The ILO – Space for Class Struggle or a Forum to manage class contradictions?

The 99th session of the international labour conference convened in Geneva, Switzerland this past June on the basis of the following agenda; decent work for domestic workers, which was a first year of standard-setting committee), HIV/AIDS in the world of work (second and final year of a standard-setting committee), which resulted in the adoption of a Strong Recommendation, a general discussion on the strategic objective of employment, and a review of the follow-up to the 1998 declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at work.

The conference had major outcomes. The first amongst these is the recommendation on HIV and AIDS and the World of Work. Following intensive discussions raging over two years, workers won the day regarding mandatory testing, which employers

ITUC World Congress and ILO Conference outcomes: Spaces for real change or illusions of a dream permanently deferredBongani Masuku


Internationalemployers were pushing for and workers

felt it would open a flood gate for the discrimination of workers and deny them their rights to keep their status private. The other victory won by workers was on the domestic Work convention (to be included in 2011). This was not without resistance. Employers and even some governments raised convenient concern over the enforceability of the instrument. This was mainly aimed at weakening the instrument and challenging its necessity.

The biggest setback for workers took place in the committee on the application of standards (cas). a report from the committee of experts was received and this summarised the violations of conventions by various states throughout the world. This usually is the key site of struggle between employers and workers every year.

The main contention this year was around the UK and Colombia cases which employers wanted out of the agenda at all costs, to the extent that a walk out was threatened in the event of these cases being tabled. Workers also felt that Venezuela and cuba should not appear before the committee for principally two reasons. The first is that the ruling class often uses these cases to delegitimize attempts to develop anti-capitalist models of human development that liberate the people and natural resources from the ruthless power of global capital. To achieve this, capitalist often create and sponsor splinter unions to undermine these anti-capitalist routes. Sadly, in some cases, these rightwing unions are supported by iTuc. This is the case in Venezuela. In this regard, even genuine issues that we would also challenge in these countries, but for different reasons, are appropriated for narrow rightwing reasons The other reason was that the committee of experts had proposed that those countries that were discussed in the previous year and are not in the special paragraph would be better off not discussed to make way for other cases as the 25 limit is too small for a big world, and both Cuba and Venezuela had appeared before the committee last year.

Eventually, the ITUC leadership gave in to the employers and we could not discuss both the UK and Colombia. Workers succeeded in getting Cuba off the charge list. No success was recorded with regards

to our efforts on Venezuela. This fuelled frustration, anger and a feeling of betrayal, particularly from african and latin american delegates

Of all the 25 cases, only three countries or cases got to the level of the Special paragraph, which according to ILO language is the highest reprimand and call for attention. These countries are Burma, central african republic and swaziland.

ITUC – Confronting Global Capital or Giving it a Human Face?

Held under the theme; Now the People – From the crisis to global justice, the 2nd World Congress of the International Trade union confederation convened in Vancouver, Canada on the 21st – 25th June, 2010. The Congress took place in the midst of a deepening global economic crisis, though signs of a recovery abound. The impact is still being severely felt and is indeed deepening at all levels. Interestingly, the g20 summit convened in canada almost around the same time, whose principal aim is to rescue capitalism from its death bed and renew its lease of life.

There were 13 proposed or draft resolutions to which we made inputs. The structure of Congress was such that there was plenary at the main hall, where general speeches were made and then there was the resolutions committee where each affiliate was represented by one or two people, which was the principal theatre of the ideological struggle where real contest over ideas and issues took place. it was here where evidence of northern domination was so nakedly at play. in the main or Plenary hall, COSATU also made various inputs into the discussions, particularly through our second Deputy President, Zingiswa Losi.

The style of chairing and related proceedings created discomfort and concern, particularly the conduct and powers of the Secretariat. In indicating the next resolution and who has sponsored it, the chairperson would then allow the Secretary to guide the house how we shall proceed and the powers of the secretary are so sweeping, his word is almost final even before discussions.

Such sweeping introductory statements as, “we think this resolution is divisive, does not enjoy the support and consensus of affiliates and therefore must be rejected”.

Others such as, “this resolution is not in tune with the traditions of the ITUC, its too ideological and therefore does not enjoy consensus of affiliates”. These are some of the statements that the secretariat would make to introduce a discussion on a resolution. Despite that, almost all cosaTu amendments succeeded in making their way to the final documents, except the Palestine and gender amendments, with some having been toned down or changed to mean something else. The amendment on Palestine was accused of not being balanced by not treating Israel, (which in our view is the coloniser) and Palestine (the colonised) equally. The amendment on gender was accused of being ideologically rigid and divisive for emphasising the fact that women from the south are the worst victims than those in the north.

Whilst the resolutions committee was involved in these intense battles, Plenary was proceeding. On the 22nd of June, 2010, Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization – WTO, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Director of the international monetary fund – imf and Mr. Rick Samans, Director of the World economic forum participated in addressing Plenary without space to challenge them sufficiently, which gave some amount of credence and legitimacy to their rightwing views that are essentially about attacking workers. It furthered their feeling of indispensability when even in our own forums they can feel free to assert their anti-worker views without fear or being challenged.

In view of the then foregoing, COSATU-KCTU-CUT held a Trilateral to discuss issues of common interest and assess the then prevailing situation at the Congress. CUT also requested that we add lessons from hosting the 2010 World cup for their own in 2014, whilst KCTU requested that we add their hosting of the G20 in November, 2010. These were on top of the Joint Global Economic Justice Programme which we agreed to collaborate on in our last trilateral in India, Kochi in 2008.


International The success of this trilateral meeting

was echoed by Cde Joao Felicio of cuT when he said this discussion in both content and style far surpasses the whole Congress itself. The outcome of the discussion was summarised into a statement to be submitted to the ITUC General Secretary. However, it largely reflected on such issues as; the dominance of the north in the whole ITUC Congress, open flirting with anti-worker elements such as the World Trade Organisation, IMF and World Economic Forum; hostile attitude to revolutionary or radical resolutions, forging or consensus which mostly reflect the interests of the dominant unions, and the failure to use the opportunity of Congress to assess and reflect on the raging class struggles, particularly in the global south.

The following observations are critical; There are four broad categorisations of western or northern trade unions;

Firstly, there is the Big Four ; AFL-CIO (US), DGB (Germany), TUC (Britain) and RENGO (Japan) - whose are the core custodians of the most conservative policy positions, particularly as regards maintenance of imperialism. These unions regard themselves as part of imperialism and thus have a responsibility to defend it at all costs. in many instances, the Big Four recites the foreign policy verses of their ruling classes particularly as regards issues such as trade and underdevelopment of africa as well as the middle east.

The second category consists of the social democratic unions. This is the Nordic plus Dutch grouping. These unions agree with most of our views but are not eager to challenge the Big Four. In fact, there is danger that these unions might be reneging on some of their historically progressive positions. In this regard, they continue being a critical ally. They cannot however, be relied upon for the most deeply profound and fundamental battles, particularly on confronting underdevelopment, trade and anti-imperialism. A few years ago, you would not imagine one of them emphasising the security of Israel over

that of the Palestinians in the way that the FNV did during the Palestine resolution discussion.

Fourthly, Southern European trade unions which include the CGIL (Italy), CC.OO (Spain), CGT (Portugal). These unions have been historically progressive, possessing an anti-imperialist posture. There are recent signs of retreat. These unions are slightly more confident in challenging the Big Four in certain mild areas, but top toe on some major issues.

Lastly, there are progressive individual unions that are part of federations that are not necessarily progressive. This is the case even within the Big Four. For instance, in the UK, some affiliates of the TUC such as Unite, UNISON, PCS and the Fire Brigades (which together make up more than two thirds of the British TUC), share many of COSATU’s perspectives on global matters such as Palestine, trade and Africa’s development.

Strategic considerations en route to international policy repositioning

The following factors should be critical in the discussion about the next step in our international roadmap;

In its current form, the ITUC is unable to lead or co-ordinate a serious challenge to the global ruling classes and the capitalist system in general. In this sense, it has become a cooler box meant to contain radical working class struggles and in the process, entangle them onto the web of sophisticated designs that safeguard the interests of global capital. The worst victim in that regard, are the working classes of the global south who are on the receiving end of the viciousness of the global system

despite much talk about trade union independence, the dominant affiliates of the iTuc are not independent of their ruling classes, even they organisationally seem to be, but they are politically tied to the ruling establishment, hence their vociferous defence of the system. Their claims of independence are daily being exposed as a smokescreen. as we talk, the Histandrut is a core part of the apartheid system ruling Israel and its

tied to the system there, even in terms of its investments and economic interests. We are told, for instance, that Zim Lines, the ship that SATAWU refused to offload is owned by the union. These double standards must be exposed, particularly as we continue to note their vicious attack on Cuba and Venezuela for same reason, to justify supporting rightwing splinters wherever revolutionary unions refuse to bow to imperialism. Worst still was the announcement that the current President of the ITUC, Michael sommers immediately went back home after his election to germany to launch a Pro-Israel organisation. This sends further problematic signals about the iTuc. This is additional to the most embarrassing fact that the Chairperson of the Histandrut, a racist institution and supporter of the occupation, Ofer Eini is now an executive Board member of the ITUC as Vice President.

A fair, evidence-based assessment of the iTuc and WfTu must be done to assist the discussion about options, which are neither sentimental nor orthodox. This must lead to a strategic and solid discussion by the leadership of the federation about what the picture means to the future of our international policy alignments. In this regard, the principle of uniting workers of the world must be held high and not allow artificial barriers and narrow interests of certain individuals to fragment workers. This means, the possibility of a new international trade union centre bringing together all workers of the world, as much as is possible, should be considered.

The stranglehold of the Big 4 in the ITUC is not about to be relaxed, in fact, it is being tightened owing to the growing challenge by some unions, cosaTu included. The fact that the leader of Histandrut, the apartheid union of israel ofer eini was elevated to the iTuc’s 25 member executive Board as well as its general council as he is now one of the Vice Presidents, confirms the over-arching influence of the big 4 and their intention to further control the organisation. It is just one example, which show how power is used to exercise patronage and control.


International The other even more crucial

example is that of their total rejection any fundamental critique of the global capitalist economy, instead preferring to call for its moderation and not fundamental change. Without generalisations, it does seem clear that transforming the ITUC will be work of decades (assuming it will finally succeed) and we may need to evaluate whether it will ultimately pay off or we rather focus our energies elsewhere.

In the meantime, the centre of gravity of our international policy must be placed on organising the Global south, key to which shall be the African trade union movement into a mighty, militant and progressive movement, always acting in the best interests of workers and the continent’s intention to defeat the underdevelopment and the stranglehold of global capitalism. SIGTUR has a huge potential to be such a strategic platform and must be harnessed effectively for that. This will also assist us interact with as many progressive unions as possible and not be limited by affiliations that

sometimes expose us to reactionary unions, as is the case in Venezuela and Palestine where the iTuc affiliates are the counter-revolutionary unions.

What is the potential for gufs in the process of transforming the global trade union landscape, so that affiliates can effectively harness these in the interests of radical change. This requires effective co-ordination and maximum participation, more than lamentation. Once again, the south-south strategy will be the key anchor in that regard.

What about the deployment of personnel to international trade union structures? We need to harness it for maximum results, because history has shown that it is not just enough to deploy, but there must be clarity of purpose and effective support

mechanism in the struggle against global bureaucracy and counter-revolution in most of the structures we deal with.

It must be noted, even as we discuss these issues, that COSATU has always emphasised the unity of workers at a global level as a

critical factor in the struggle of the international working class movement. In this regard, joining one of the international trade union centres did not mean abandonment of that important mission. in this regard, the question might not be this or that, but any chance for a unified global trade union movement that would unite all the various strands of the international trade union movement into a mighty wave. This might not bear immediate results, the disparities in ideological, historical and organisational orientations of the two major centres, which means we need to consider this as work in progress, but an immediate programmatic response linked to this long-term strategy is critical in determining the future. Such should be determined by the cec and if possible through a task team to work out in future scenarios.

Masuku is COSATU’s International Secretarty

Have Your Say!Write to us and let us know which features, stories

and poems you liked most in this edition.

Email your suggestions/comments to the Editor:

[email protected] or write to

Phindile Kunene (Shopsteward Editor)Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)

Po Box 1019Johannesburg, 2000

south africa


The recent headline stories about a journalist ashley smith who confessed to taking bribes in order to do public relations for mr rasool

during the political battles in the Western cape calls for a debate on the role and responsibility of the media. This must be paired to the discussion on media freedom which is regarded as vital by most media practitioners in our society. our media has seen many compromises through allowing itself to be used by those with deep pockets to the detriment of the poor majority of this country. The polarization our society and the intoxication of the public discourse has largely been blamed on politicians. However, we must ask how big a role has the media played in this dire situation.

The reality that we all have to live with is the fact that this country is a third world country despite the efforts of all those who are ashamed of this fact and who portray us as a first world country. A developing country with enormous socio-economic challenges as ours needs all the stakeholders to play their clearly defined roles if we are to achieve the kind of development and prosperity that we hope for.

I am mentioning this because this story came at a time when another UK journalist Simon Wright is on trial for nefarious activities that go against the rules and ethics of journalism. our media has the propensity to copy western media antics and neglect their mandate and responsibility to spearhead a developmental consciousness.

Apartheid was more than a legal racial segregation system that imposed a minority rule over the majority who were second class citizens. There was also an ideological indoctrination of sides, the oppressors and the oppressed which resulted in the mental enslavement of the population. This is reflected by the

rigidity of both sides when it comes to public discourse on divisive issues of national importance and the priorities of our country.

The media in our society plays a very significant role and the lazy definition of that role will be to educate, inform and entertain our society.

The debate in this country regarding issues like micro and macroeconomic policies has seen an unashamedly one sided reporting that favours the views of the capitalists. The people of this country are not given all sides of the story to make their own conclusions and decisions but they are consistently fed the capitalist propaganda that thrives on the exploitation of the poor.

We all respect and admire the role that the media play to hold power to account and one of the greatest successes of our democracy has been the entrenchment of media freedom. This has however has been tainted by the fact that readers and viewers have at times been subjected to some very lazy, ignorant and sometimes libellous kind of reporting that has occasionally been characterized by bias and prejudice. The latest revelations regarding Ashley Smith call into question whether the obsession the media has shown in investigating and exposing the private lives of public figures is motivated by public interest or there are personal battles at play.

The failure by some journalists to respect and follow the ethics of journalism like verifying stories has left South Africans feeling short-changed and taken for granted. If the objective of reporting is to bring about change, then the cynical pattern that strip people of their dignity is a very superficial strategy to pursue. The media neglects one of its major responsibilities which is to educate and instead focuses on competing for the pursuit of the most salacious stories.

south african media sometimes comes

across as very detached from the history, dynamics and realities of our society. in some occasions it suffers from hysterical bouts of sensationalism and indulges in disinformation campaigns that are based on obsolete cultural and racial stereotypes.

The major challenge for our media is to look after the interests of the broader south african public and also to ensure that their angles on stories are relevant to their viewers and readers. last year’s national general elections results proved how out of touch the majority of our media was with the electorate.

The time has arrived for our media to re-evaluate the aims of journalistic reporting in our young, divided and unequal society. The challenge is to decide whether the kind of reporting has got an objective to build or destroy. We have seen journalists, columnists and cartoonists making news headlines rather than them reporting news. The coverage we have seen at times especially relating to President Jacob Zuma’s personal life has been shameful, dehumanizing and has trashed his dignity. No one denies the media their right to probe and investigate but then the reporting has to be fair, factual and balanced without malice.

The media has got a moral obligation to give voice to the voiceless and all those who are at the bottom end of the socio-economic pyramid. The elitist tendencies that we have seen from some of our media institutions have put a question mark about their independence and integrity.

This has also strengthened the argument for the establishment of a media tribunal because the question of self regulation is illogical and impractical. In a democracy everyone needs to be accountable and we all need to play by the acceptable and well defined rules. Sizwe Pamla is NEHAWU’s Media Liaison Officer. He writes in his personal capacity.

“The debate regarding macroeconomic policies has seen an unashamedly one sided reporting that favours the views of the capitalists.” sizwe Pamla advances the case for a media Tribunal.

Commentary


Commentary

There is no accident as to why there has been an enormous amount of interest in South African banks on the part of foreign investors. There also appears to be a large

degree of naivety on the part of many South Africans, in particular those that have tried to convince us that these type of sales and all foreign investments are good for the country. “Investments” are good if they create employment and able to increase government revenues, but what if “investments” do the exact opposite. The problem with the sale of banks, as it is the case with the sale of South Africa’s most strategic and lucrative assets, is that it in fact encourages disinvestment and job losses.

Banks wield enormous power over the economy in that they hold a large amount of liquid assets in the form of savings and deposits. They also have the legal capacity

to create “new money” in the form of credit. A profound example of the power that banks have is the Bank of China and the enormous leverage it gives the Chinese government to buy out and invest in large parts of the world. The problem that we have is not only the nationalisation of banks, what is in fact happening is that South Africa banks are becoming globalised.

South Africa has the one of the highest levels of unemployment in the world and the highest levels of inequality, despite the fact that South Africa is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources. Even the capitalist class admits this. For instance the world Bank, South Africa has 90% of the platinum metals on earth, 80% of the manganese, 73% of the chrome, 45% of the vanadium and 41% of the gold; Kumba Iron Ore is the fourth largest supplier of seaborne iron ore in the world. South Africa

is also the fifth largest coal producing country. In addition, the market capitalisation of the 10 largest companies in South Africa grew by an average of 23 percent in the period 2004 to 2009. we need look no further than the part and wholesale of the lucrative and strategic assets of the country that are limiting state revenue and the ability of government to influence the economy to bring about job creation. Arcelor Mittal, SASOL, ACSA, the VA & waterfront in Cape Town are cases in point.

Government and the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) must buy out Nedbank and convert it into a strategic national asset and a lever that could be used to solve the problems of poverty and unemployment.

richard october is paWusa’s Head of organising and Communications. He writes in his personal capacity.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is gravely disturbed by the report (City Press 11 July 2010) about Thermopower Technology, which is violating

environmental standards, poisoning the local water supply and undermining the workplace health and safety standards.waste management is one of the most significant challenges facing South Africa. The release of toxic waste and the pollution of the environment pose a danger to the health of the community, and every worker and resident has a role to play in waste management, either in the workplace or in the community.The Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993, section 8, states that every employer must provide and maintain a working environment that is safe and without risk to the health of its employees, eliminate any potential hazard to the health and safety of his employees, before resorting to personal protective clothing, and further to conduct a risk assessment to determine all the risks that are connected to all

the working activity in the workplace. The Act further states that the employer must inform, instruct, train and supervise all the tasks that are hazardous to the health and safety of his employees. According to workers’ complaint these statutory requirements were not adhered to by the employer. The environment within the company was not safe for workers to work in, but the key question is: is an inspector from the dol going to make an inspection of the factory?The Environmental Regulations in the workplace section 5 states that the employer must ensure that every workplace must be ventilated, either by natural or mechanical means, in such a way that the air breathed by the employees does not endanger their health and safety. The time workers exposed to the hazard must be regulated as per the risk assessment conducted. when the employer is not able to eliminate the hazard, then he can provide respiratory protective equipment which must be monitored and changed at

stipulated intervals.did the company have proper ventilation equipment to extract the fumes out of the factory?Hazardous Chemical Substances Regulations section 5 states that employers must conduct an assessment of potential exposure, conduct routine air monitoring medical surveillance, designate places as respirator zones, and implement measures and procedures for handling hazardous chemical substances, personal protective equipment.where are the records of the assessment of potential hazard, and if any is available what recommendations were put forward, and how were procedures followed to eliminate the potential hazard? COSATU demands that production at the plant stop until all health and safety laws are being implemented in full. The health and safety of the workers and the surrounding communities must be the overriding priority. Jacqueline Bodibe is Cosatu’s Health and safety policy Coordinator

cosaTu should oppose the sale of nedbank to international investors

Comments on the City Press article on “living under a cloud of toxic waste” – what the workers say.


Below are extracts from Jay Naidoo’s autobiography titled Fighting for Justice: A lifetime of Political and Social Activism. The chapter extracted below – which is aptly

narrated under a section of the book called A Giant has Arisen: workers on the move – is a reminiscence of the moment of the founding of COSATU as well as an account of the sentiments, fears, doubts and expectations carried by the delegates in the launching Congress. Above all, the chapter gives an insight into Naidoo’s interpretation of this historic event. It is now 25 years since COSATU was founded and this book could not have come at a more appropriate time.

It was the last weekend of November 1985. Unresolved differences had produced a day weighed down with difficulty and fraught with danger. The venue was Howard College campus at the University of Natal, a liberal university perched high on the ridge overlooking downtown Durban. It was one of the few places we could use that was secluded enough for us to escape the watchful eyes and intrusive presence of the security police. A sense of euphoria filled the hall as the 760 delegates from the 33 unions representing 460 000 members massed around to register. But there was also anxiety and tension. There were a number of unresolved issues. The air was thick with political tension and suspicion. I was very nervous. If elected to a leadership position I was going to have to pull together disparate elements that seemed to be always at loggerheads with each other. At the same time, I shared the excitement of something great being born. we were writing a new chapter in the history of labour and politics in South Africa....

we were casting the federation in a mould of militant political unionism that would forever be our hallmark. But we also needed to send a clear message from COSATU that politics was the business of the constitutional structures: we should focus on building a powerful shop-floor base to give content to the constitution, rules and policies to guide the federation to take on the employers and the apartheid state. Trade union democracy and its right to independent political action were jealously guarded.

One key debate was on the role of women in the federation. In the process of unity talks the issue of gender was marginalised. At the inaugural Congress there was a determined push from delegates for the new federation to embrace gender equality. But we faltered as the candidates’ slate represented different groups who were still dominated by men, and although there was support the most we achieved was to redesign the COSATU logo so that it also reflected the role of women. However, the challenge of gender representivity was flagged on our agenda, but it would be eight long years before Connie September, a fiercely independent fighter for women’s rights from the shop floor of the South African Clothing and Textile workers Union, was elected as the first woman in the top leadership of COSATU.... By this time the seeds of gender representivity were sown across the ranks of the democratic movement and a determined push was being fought for the sharing of leadership positions equally.

“Non-racialism was the social fibre woven in into the fabric of the

movement we were building.”

Elections were held on the last night. Elijah Barayi was elected President, and I the General Secretary. It was a supercharged environment. Barayi and I and other national office bearers were carried on to the stage on people’s shoulders while the whole hall rang with celebration as the delegates chanted the inaugural song

iCOSATU sonyuka nayo [COSATU is rising up] masingen’ enkululekweni [Let us go with it to freedom]

The relief from the tension and stress of the days before was visible. Barayi was a fiery speaker. Brought up in the political maelstrom of the Eastern Cape, he had been influenced by Reverend Calata, a former Secretary General of the ANC in 1936 who laid the basis for the leadership of Nelson Mandela and his comrades in the 1940s. Barayi had also participated in the 1952 Defiance Campaign, whose major success was on the rebellious shores of the Eastern Cape. ‘You must all know that a lion has been born’, he told the delegates after his election. ‘To the South African government, I say your time is over...we do not apologise for being black. we are proud of it. As from today Mandela and all political prisoners should be released’....

Non-racialism was the social fibre woven in into

the fabric of the movement we were building. Years later, after one of our mass rallies, Cyril jokingly recounted being in the audience when a drunken mineworker balancing precariously on a wooden box was screaming ‘ikula ka rona’ – translated loosely as ‘This is our “coolie”; he is our leader.’ while ordinarily a derogatory term denigrating Indians, ‘coolie’ was now being used as a proud acclaim. In all my years in the labour movement and our struggle against apartheid, I was never once made to feel my ‘Indian-ness’. we held our big rally at Kings Park stadium on 1 December 1985. Although there were only about 10 000 workers there (fewer than we expected), the atmosphere was electric; people were singing and dancing and there was a sense that our organisation was coming together. There was also a very heavy police presence.

In his opening speech, Cyril introduced the newly appointed office bearers. Barayi spoke. He simply rolled up the speech that had been written for him by Marcel Golding from the NUM, who had stayed up much of the night to write it. Barayi used the roll of paper like a baton, making a spontaneous, revolutionary speech: ‘P.w. Botha, I am giving you six months to get rid of the pass laws or COSATU will call the people to burn their passes’.

On the back of an excited mass of our supporters, Barayi went on to attack the Bantustan system and singled out Chief Buthelezi, accusing him of being ‘the running dog of the apartheid state.’ Barayi’s speech, while striking a chord with the crowd, had not reflected on the challenges we faced in building a sustainable organisation.

I felt this was a mistake. It was not my style. My political approach was more like Amilcar Cabral, the revolutionary leader opposed to Portuguese colonial occupation in Guinea-Bissau, who in 1964 wrote a brilliant essay Revolutionary Thought in the Twentieth Century – and the famous quote: Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories.

As I took centre stage as the first General Secretary of COSATU, I was conscious of how fragmented we were, with no viable structures – not even a bank account or a single employee. COSATU was born during a State of Emergency – at a time when P.w. Botha argued that ‘ordinary law and order was inadequate.’ Otherwise known as the Groot Krokodil (Big Crocodile), Botha was breathing heavily down our backs....

Jay Naidoo - Fighting for Justicea lifetime of Political and social activism.

Book Review


Michael Moore is famous for having produced films such as Roger and Me, which is a tale of how a town (Flint- Michigan) once renowned

as an industrial heaven effectively became a ghost town after General Motors shut down its plant facilities and retrenched more than 30 000 workers. Another of his film, Sicko, takes a swipe at the privatization of the American healthcare system and how this has left the poor effectively with no medicine to make them feel better.

Capitalism: a love story is essentially a film about a nation’s relationship with the capitalist system. The movie details the post world war II American prosperity. The argument is that the destruction of most European economies owing to the war made America the nation of possibilities. The “good deal” that American capitalism provided to many during these years through full employment, retirement benefits and many other things convinced many that this was a true love affair and that no one ever had it so good.

Moore draws a contrast between these good times of the affair with capitalism and the current bad times punctuated by neoliberal capitalism. There are many striking scenes in the movie. The scene where workers are literally in tears after discovering that the so-called “partnership” that existed between workers and the bosses was a hollow one is most captivating. At this point, workers discover that a company that they considered “second family” and have always defended (they were told that what is good for the company is good for workers) would readily dump them to save profits. The film shows that the attempts made to plaster the struggle between the working class and capitalists soon show cracks when weighed against profitability. It attacks the notion that workers and capitalists can reconcile their clearly diametrically opposed interests.

Moore shows how the neoliberal policy package that was so fiercely championed by Reagan has had adverse impact on the living standards of the working class. It is shown how wages were driven down and social spending curtailed. The image of a pilot who has to queue

for food stamps is one that sticks in your mind long after you have actually watched the movie.

To be sure, there are other poignant scenes such as the depiction of how ordinary people lose their homes through home repossessions by the Banks. How the poor are duped into refinancing their homes, only to lose them later due to some of the conditions spelt out in the small print that no one ever cares to read. Moore exposes the shocking details about the “dead peasant” scheme where an employee becomes more valuable to a company when dead than alive.

The film has creative ways to debunk some of the myths about the system. For one, it shows how the notion of a “free” labourer is a misnomer. Many people are forced to work in conditions not of their own choosing. The divorce of many people from what they previously owned has left them no choice but to sell their labour power.

Like many of Moore’s films, Capitalism: A Love Story has received widespread criticism, most notably from the American right. They argue that the film is “pure propaganda” and that the film unduly criticizes capitalism for the evils that are caused by too much state intervention.

Coming from the right, this criticism is almost predictable. what is noteworthy is how Moore shows the dangers associated with the ascendance of finance capital and how this at times comes at the cost of industries. The many instances where Moore depicts how the bourgeoisie engage in an outright destruction of capital and the collapse of factories are memorable. The idea of the state being a mere executive body running the affairs of the capitalist class is given weight in this movie. The revolving door between the Treasury and the major banks shows the extent of the stranglehold of finance capital over the American state.

But what of the other critiques? For one, the film was disappointing for its tiptoeing approach around the question about what kind of a system

is needed to replace capitalism. The best that Moore does is to give us “democracy” as an answer. whilst many would understand that democracy is a class laden concept, one is left wondering what informs Moore’s fears about spelling out the word socialism. Indeed many are not off the mark for suggesting that democracy as we know it is not a genuine alternative to capitalism as it is the very democracy that brought Bush to power in 2004.

whilst it is interesting to see catholic priests denouncing capitalism as an evil that cannot be regulated and that has to be abolished, the greater part of the movie borders on suggesting that more regulation will certainly rid capital of its evils.

Although the film is largely educational, it does not go into depths explaining how the capitalist system works. How is that then on the one hand we have a class that owns the means of production and another that owns nothing but its labour power. How is it that the system fosters the development of a collective consciousness amongst workers? It would be a crime to judge this film on these expectations. These probably fell outside the scope of the film.

Moore’s films are always educational, entertaining and certainly thought provoking. Capitalism: A Love Story does not disappoint in this regard. The film is suitable for young activists who are interested in knowing more about the effects of the capitalist system on the lives of the ordinary people.

Capitalism: a love story michael moore

Film Review


Salutation to the workers here and there!In my tenure to date

I know I’ve made my mark,the effects which are felt far and wide

all MY PEOPLE are in placeand executives who know to doexactly as they are told!

By no means am I an autocratIt’s just . . .

I like to run the show!

Yes! We do it my way!In our very regular gatherings,its at least 20k to my friends

and at least 25 to my very best friend.A full bonus? PLEASE!

Its just not on the cards!because fruitless and wasteful expenditure!

You do the math!Point is, around here,

I call the shots!

Cross me if you dare!You will be suspended!You will be dismissed!Some camps would cry,

CORRUPTION! NEPOTISM! VICTIMISATION!I just see it as my,

strategic alignment with the board.Bring Cosatu and yes please bring Vavi.

I am untouchable!I am the CEO.

By marcelle, employee of BLUE IQ

MEMO FROM THE CEO

Written WordThink of Her


Written Word

To advertise in the Shopsteward contactNthabiseng Makhajane

Tel: 011 339 4911 Email: [email protected] For more information

at any moment I beg that you think of her

Please suppose you were her for only nature decides

whether you are born there or here

Turn your imagination to realityThere you are digging through clay

in a rural river valley. A tiring job of making calabashes

to be broken to pieces by metropolitan police Pinning their practice by laws

law enforcement on the illiterate.Accused of ignorance and failing to read the city signs

“natural” laws of trade point the seller to the market The law says NO HAWkERS

Sending grandmothers home to haunt the six grandchildren from

her dead children with the images of a crying grandmotherSurely what we call crime at times

is a misunderstanding between civilisations

If your imagination moves Please move with me

To the household across the river Where a fourteen year old is trapped

in a rape marriage called Shobediso or Ukuthwalwa A life sentence where she has to endure bearing children

for her live-in rapist.a forty year old retarded male

Who was meant to be an eternal bachelor Until his family bought him a genital toy from a poor family.

So poor that they can sacrifice the happiness of their own daughter for two goats.

I beg your imagination not to pause But go here and there

Looking for her For she suffers in different places and different ages

Think of Her

By majesty mnyandu


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