Information Digest - Number 10 - Focus on COSATU Campaigns Conference
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: Mar 1991
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/110194 , vital:33246
- Description: Three hundred delegates from COSATU’s 14 affiliates and nine regions met on the 9th and 10th March to discuss COSATU’s Campaigns programme of action for 1991. The Conference decided that the major campaigns for the year will be: Campaign for a Constituent Assembly and Interim government closely linked to a Campaign for Workers Rights in a new Constitution. Campaign for job security and job creation entitled: "Jobs for ail - no retrenchments" Campaign for the extension of the Labour Relations Act to farm, domestic and public sector workers as weil as workers in the Bantustans.
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- Date Issued: Mar 1991
Information Digest - Number 8
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: Feb 1991
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/110183 , vital:33244
- Description: More than two years of worker struggle, mass action and negotiations resulted last Thursday 14th February in the scrapping of the 1988 amendments to the Labour Relations Act. The State President has to sign the new Act within ten days of it being passed by parliament. Some of the most important changes contained in the new LRA are: The 1988 definition of the "unfair labour practice" is gone, removing strikes and lockouts from this definition. It will now be easier to use the Conciliation Boards and the Industrial Court to help resolve disputes. It will no longer be presumed that a union 0 is responsible for an illegal strike of its members. An employer can’t interdict a strike without giving 48 hours notice or, if shorter notice is given, without informing the union. Unions with public and private sector members can now register. COSATU will be organising regional workshops for organisers to look at the implications of the Act, and how to apply the new provisions. COSATU has stated that the scrapping of the amendments are only the first step in the process of creating a workers LRA. Immediately on the agenda, in terms of the agreement reached with employers and the state last year, is our demand for rights to be extended to farm workers, domestic workers, public sector workers, and workers in the bantustans. June is the deadline which has been set for real progress to be made in these areas. COSATU is also calling for the restructuring of the Labour Appeal Court and the National Manpower Commission.
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- Date Issued: Feb 1991
Information Digest issue 8
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: Feb 1991
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/119167 , vital:34708
- Description: More than two years of worker struggle, mass action and negotiations resulted last Thursday 14th February in the scrapping of ^ the 1988 amendments to the Labour Relations Act. The State President has to sign the new Act within ten days of it being passed by parliament. Some of the most important changes contained in the new LRA are: The 1988 definition of the "unfair labour practice" is gone, removing strikes and lockouts from this definition. It will now be easier to use the Conciliation Boards and the Industrial Court to help resolve disputes. It will no longer be presumed that a union 0 is responsible for an illegal strike of its members. An employer can’t interdict a strike without giving 48 hours notice or, if shorter notice is given, without informing the union. Unions with public and private sector members can now register. COSATU will be organising regional workshops for organisers to look at the implications of the Act, and how to apply the new provisions.
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- Date Issued: Feb 1991
March against privatisation
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: Aug 1991
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/134985 , vital:37224
- Description: Section 77 of the Labour Relations Act protects workers participating in this action against victimisation. You should leave your workplace at 13:00 and go and join the march. COSATU supports the restructuring of state-owned enterprises and local government to improve their capacity to deliver basic services. We want a strong government to build our economy to provide jobs and improve our lives. But privatisation will NOT help achieve these ends
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- Date Issued: Aug 1991
Planning for a new South Africa
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/135328 , vital:37258
- Description: COSATU has adopted the Freedom Charter. But if we look carefully at the Freedom Charter, nowhere does it say how everyone will share in the country’s wealth. This Is because a Chartrr is a statement of beliefs and a guide to policy. It is not a detailed programme.
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- Date Issued: 1991
ROB report to the COSATU Western Cape Regional Congress
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: Mar 1991
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/135365 , vital:37261
- Description: In this report we have focused more on policy issues than on an assessment of problems in the region, as we need to use our Regional Congresses in preparation for the issues which will be debated at National Congress. The government and the bosses are also trying to stop us making further gains. How do we respond? STATE OF THE NATION In the past year, a number of gains have been made by COSATU, some demands have been won, but many new areas of struggle have opened up. In the past year, a number of gains have been made by COSATU, some demands have been won, but many new areas of struggle have opened up. In October 1990, the SCN accord was signed, which gave us back the old Unfair Labour Practice definition, and also set the scene for introducing new legislation for farm, domestic and public sector workers. Since then, a number of unions have been meeting with sub-committees of the National Manpower Commission as well as the Commision for Administration (CFA) to argue for basic rights and legislation for these workers. COSATU now has a national Public Sector Forum under the COSATU Organising Department, and we are gearing up for this struggle as well as the struggle for an entirely and progressive Labour Relations Act.
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- Date Issued: Mar 1991
Southern Africa perspective - In South Africa: The Bloody Campaign Against Organized Labor
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/169033 , vital:41677
- Description: A year after African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, South Africa’s Black trade unions, particularly the million-member Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), remain at the heart of the movement for political democracy and economic and social change. Union activists have been instrumental in revitalizing mass opposition to apartheid — launching ANC branches, organizing local consumer and utility boycotts, and leading strikes over wages, job security and workplace racism that cost the white-run economy over four million work days during 1990. But labor’s role in the struggle for political and economic democracy has increasingly made the unions the target of state-sponsored political violence. Black labor’s resistance to oppression goes back to the 1920s, when the militant Industrial and Commercial Workers Union built a national membership of over 100,000. But it was not until 1981, after a wave of illegal strikes forced the apartheid regime to lift the ban on Black unions, that labor began to emerge as a major anti-apartheid force. With Mandela’s African National Congress and other organizations still outlawed, Black workers increasingly saw their unions as a vehicle for their political aspirations.
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- Date Issued: 1991
Stop privatisation - Join the campaign
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: June 1991
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/135389 , vital:37263
- Description: Privatisation is when government hands over the management or assets of government services to private interests. Privatised services don't provide well for the poor, who can't pay, because private interests must make profits. Government says it will ensure the poor get good services through contracts and regulations - but it doesn't have capacity to enforce them. Privatisation makes it harder to maintain cross subsidies. Cross subsidies mean rich communities or industry pay more, so that poor households can pay less. Getting rid of cross-subsidies tends to make the prices for services for the poor go up. Privatised companies don't take the broader economic needs of the country into account, for instance by buying goods locally as a way to create jobs, and providing affordable services in remote regions.
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- Date Issued: June 1991
VAT Summit
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: Aug 1991
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/135438 , vital:37267
- Description: We welcome you to this Summit to discuss VAT. By yesterday afternoon, 22 organisations had indicated that they would be attending. COSATU is very gratified that so many organisations have felt the need to come together to discuss this pressing problem. COSATU has called this summit out of deep concern about the implications of VAT especially for workers and members of lower income groups, that is the vast majority of South Africans. We believe that unless we can reach consensus on this tax, we will be facing a disaster of national proportions. There will be a decline in the standard of living for all, and for those not protected against cost of living increases, starvation will stare them in the face. The Inkathagate scandal and the fact that the majority of the people in South Africa are taxed without representation, already angers our people. If tax changes are introduced without the widest possible consultation and consent, heightened conflict could jeapordise the transition process in its current delicate phase. The government should not underestimate the volatile character of unpopular taxes- this is a lesson which Maggie Thatcher had to learn the hard way! It will only be through the unity of organisations from all walks of life, that we will be able to successfully achieve modifications to the tax system. That is why we called this meeting. We sincerely hope that from this meeting, we will be able to develop a common approach.
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- Date Issued: Aug 1991
Biggest strike in T&G history
- Authors: COSATU, TGWU
- Date: July 1990
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/115514 , vital:34151
- Description: Cleaners in T&G Natal are angry and want to see change now! So cleaners from 11 different companies came together and decided to make demands to the bosses. On 25 May about 3000 cleaners came out on strike, but by the middle of the strike about 7000 cleaners were on strike. Most of the strikers were women. The most important demand was for a living wage. In the Durban area the wage determination gives cleaners R379 a month. But many bosses pay less than R379 and these bosses know it is against the law. On top of the low wage the bosses make cleaners buy their own uniforms, but the wage determination says the bosses must buy these uniforms. All of the strikers come from contract cleaning companies like Sneller, Supercare, Pritchards, Regent, Mrs Mop, Clean-It, Keep Clean, North Coast Cleaners, Floline, and Durban Property Services. These companies send cleaners out to clean in other companies and get money in return. But cleaners see little of the money their bosses make from their hard work.
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- Date Issued: July 1990
COSATU Regional education programme
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: 1990
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/154403 , vital:39695
- Description: This document should be used by ail of us involved in Education as a basis for discussion on organising education in the Federation. We have pulled together all the relevant information and reccommen- dations which we hope will assist Led- comm, Educators and our constitutional structures in understanding what our tasks are in the locals and in affiliates. The Redcomm agreed that an Education Programme must go beyond being just a number of workshops and seminars. It must be a dynamic process which must contribute to the strengthening of our structures, improving the quality of our debates and promoting leadership of the working class in our struggle for democracy.
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- Date Issued: 1990
DIMES Review - Vol 3
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: Mar 1990
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/135457 , vital:37268
- Description: In 1652 the Dutch came to this land. Initially he sought to arrest refreshments for his ships that went to the east. Soon he realised that the land was good for them to settle. In settling he infringed on the way of life of the peoples living on this land destroying the social and cultural fabric of a peaceful society. Slowly but surely the wars of dispossession began. The land that was once the black mans was now in foreign hands. All that was in abundance was reduced to scarcity .People resisted but they were put down . Our history is shameful that it is drenched in blood. The Act of Union instead of bringing people together seperated and we remain seperated today. The 1913 Land Act instead of giving people back their land took it away from them. From 1910 to 1970 something like 200 laws were passed legislating against black people. The numerous pass laws restricting movement of people from one place to the other heaped indignity upon indignity on the black people. Workers suffered, they always do! They have to turn the wheels that produce the energy that makes South Africa turn. Over the years, with the dispossession of land, African people were drawn into wage labour. This was not a voluntary process. The goverment brought about Laws that asked money from people called taxes - hut tax, poll tax, dog tax etc. Prior to the formation of the Industrail and Commercial Workers Union strikes were a rare industrial relations exercise. With increased unionisation workers started to become aware that the laws passed by the government was to facilitate an economic end. That is why the ICU became embroiled in politics. Workers were affected by Apartheid laws that acted as leeches, sucking blood of the workers and draining them of their energy. They demonstrated against these laws. COSATU was launched in the same vein challenging the State to scrap apartheid - pass laws. Today we do not live in a new South Africa,the new is yet to come. The South Africa we live in is however, old and dying - decay has set in. History is a constant reminder of her shameful past - a past that will never be blotted out but can only act as an impetus to strive towards change. The Group Areas Act, the Population Registration Act, the Seperate Amenities Act are all geared to political and social separation of the masses. We have become victims of these laws
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- Date Issued: Mar 1990
The National minimum wage reader
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: 1990
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/173584 , vital:42386
- Description: Low wages are a cause of poverty. They are unjust and they lead to economic inefficiency. Low pay is not the result of "market forces" or of individual productivity. It is the result of the vulnerability of certain sectors of the workforce and the cost structure of low-wage industries. A National Minimum Wage is a practical solution that has been adopted in many countries. It is one of the demands of the Freedom Charter. The National Minimum Wage can be developed by COSATU as a powerful campaign tool in the fight for a living wage . The National Campaigns Conference, held in May 1990, asked the Living Wage Working Croup "to establish what National Minimum Wage should be suggested to develop a program of action to achieve a National Minimum Wage". The conference agreed that the level of the National Minimum Wage will be decided at the second National Campaigns Conference in August 1990. This reader pulls together all the documents and resolutions that have guided the Living Wage Working Group in its work on the National Minimum Wage.
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- Date Issued: 1990
Work in Progress issue no.52
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: 1988
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/173573 , vital:42385
- Description: As this edition of Work In Progress was going to print the state effectively banned 17 organisations and an undisclosed number of individuals, and severely restricted the Congress of South African Trade Unions. By doing this the government of State President PW Botha has escalated its ongoing war against the people of South and Southern Africa. Precisely why the state chose to act this way at this time is not clear. Visible resistance to apartheid in the townships has declined under the burden of emergency rule, and popular political and community organisation has been severely weakened. One possibility is that government is attempting to limit the massive resistance expected against the October local government elections, including the boycott call made by a number of those organisations effected by the latest clampdown. But whatever the reason, there remains no excuse whatsoever for believing that ‘reformers’ within the state hold any power. If the distinction between ‘militarists’ and ‘reformers’ is real, then the militarists have so obviously won ascendency that talk of ‘reformers’ wielding influence in government is absurd. There is even less excuse for those elements which stubbornly hold to the belief that the Botha administration has a reform programme. There is no doubt that it has plans to change the face of South Africa. So did the Nationalist government of Verwoerd. But it was never suggested that this involved ‘reform’. Change can be for the worse - and this is what the changes being made by Botha’s militarists involve. South Africa is a society at war. Government is at war with the majority of South Africans and Namibians, with the Angolan nation, and with the majority of frontline states. In Natal, it seems unwilling or unable to use the might of its laws against the vigilante perpetrators of a bloody and enduring civil war. On the labour front, its proposed amendment to the Labour Relations Act, combined with emergency restrictions on Cosatu, aim to close down trade union organisation or render it impotent. This war against the working class has another side, seen in Botha’s new economic deal, the wage freeze and moves to privatise substantial areas of the public sector. Many of the articles in this issue of WIP deal with facets of this war - from the ANC’s armed struggle to Botha’s economic war against the working class; from the Maritzburg civil war to allegations of riot police on the rampage in townships. Government’s 24 February banning of organisations and individuals, and the restrictions on Cosatu activity, must be seen in this context of a society at war with itself.
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- Date Issued: 1988
Behind the barricades
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: 1987
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/172098 , vital:42159
- Description: I saw a badly injured and handcuffed man pushed down the stairs of Cosatu House in central Johannesburg during this week’s police siege. After hitting the bottom of the stairs head first with a dull thud, he lay still. A young policeman moved up to him and hit him once on the rib with rubber pick-handle. The man didn't stir. He was dragged on the ground to a police truck before being thrown in head first.
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- Date Issued: 1987
Congress of South African Trade Unions Education Conference
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: Oct 1987
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/135230 , vital:37250
- Description: The education struggle has always had an important place in our liberation struggle. For as long as can be remembered, the oppressed and exploited have been fighting against bantu education and for control over our own education. As our struggles intensified, so our education demands became clearer. In the late 1980s the demand is for people's education which serves the needs of the oppressed. In the early 1980s the demand was for equal education. The growth of working class organisation in the factories and townships, coupled with the Frelimo and MPLA victories, encouraged deeper discussion of the role of education in the struggle for socialism. After the historic National Education Crisis Committee (NECC) conference, there came a clear and united call for people's education and for democratising all educational institutions so that students, teachers and parents could build joint control over education. In 1985 COSATU was launched with the words: "A giant has risen." COSATU has since grown very quickly, challenging the bosses and taking organised workers to the frontline of the struggle. The first National Congress in July 1987 showed that COSATU mergers and campaigns had made the federation much stronger. However, the conference noted that education structures in COSATU and within many affiliates remained weak. It was decided that an Education Conference be called to give direction and a new push to worker education in the federation. The conference looked at the main areas covered in our resolutions : COSATU Courses, Peoples Education, Media, Women and Culture. This booklet gives a record of the discussions and strong resolutions taken at the conference, where every union and every region of COSATU was represented. When we read this booklet, we must ask ourselves: Have we implemented the resolutions taken? How much progress has been made? We have a short time left until the next Education Conference (in October 1989) where we will assess what progress has been made. This booklet is for discussion and debate. It must be a tool that we use to build education in the unions. It must be a weapon for turning our resolutions into reality; our theory into practice; our commitment into struggle.
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- Date Issued: Oct 1987
COSATU constitution as amended at COSATU 2nd National Congress l987
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: 1987
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/109708 , vital:33182
- Description: We the Trade Union representatives here present firmiy commit ourselves to a unified democratic South Africa, free of oppression and economic exploitation. We believe that this can only be achieved under the leadership of a united working class. Our history has taught us that to achieve this goal we will have to carry out the following tasks. To organise the unorganised workers and build effective trade unions based on the democratic organisation of workers in the factories, mines, shops, farms and other workplaces. Organise national industrial trade unions, financed and controlled by their worker members through democratically elected committees. Unify these industrial unions into a national worker controlled federation. Combat the divisions amongst the workers of South Africa and unite them into a strong and confident working class. Encourage democratic worker organisation and leadership in all spheres of our society together with other progressive sectors of the community. Reinforce and encourage progressive international worker contact and solidarity so as to assist one another in our struggles.We call on all those who identify with this commitment to join us and the workers whom we represent as comrades in the struggle ahead. We call on all trade unions to strive to unite their members in their ranks without discrimination and prejudice, and therefore resolve that this federation shall determinedly seek to further and protect the interests of all workers and that its guiding motto shall be the universal slogan of working class solidarity: "AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL".
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- Date Issued: 1987
COSATU press clipping service - Fight poverty & exploitation
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: 1987
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/109719 , vital:33183
- Description: The Congress of SA living wage campaign will be launched towards the end of this month. Already various regions report that police are refusing permission for public launches to be held. Initial plans by some regions to launch the campaign at the end of this week, to coincide with the commemoration of the Sharpeville and Langa massacres, had to be shelved when permission to hold a mass rally was turned down. Cosatu has vowed to make this the "biggest challenge to bosses and their profit system". The struggle is also seen as more than just an economic one. "It is a struggle against apartheid- capitalism which is built on ultra-cheap, ultra- controllable and super-exploitable labour.
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- Date Issued: 1987
Political Economy - South Africa in crisis
- Authors: COSATU
- Date: July 1987
- Subjects: COSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/117195 , vital:34487
- Description: THE Central Executive Committee of COSATU took a decision in 1986 that active discussion and study of the South African economy was a priority. This decision was prompted by the very serious problems of unemployment, retrenchment, inflation and poverty that we now face. It was also prompted by an understanding that organised workers must be able to propose and fight for solutions to these problems. In addition sanctions are now becoming a reality. The need to thoroughly understand the economy is even more urgent. One of the biggest problems for any person trying to understand the South African economy is the question: Through whose eyes do we study it? We can look at the economy through the eyes of the capitalists or we can look at it through the eyes of workers. Depending on which set of eyes we use, we’ll see a very different picture. The newspapers, radio, TV and education system all look at the economy through the eyes of the capitalist. They talk of economic laws* which are efficient and benefit everyone. And when the economy goes into a recession* or into a crisis* they argue that the economic laws are being interfered with. They want people to think that the economy is something controlled by laws that workers cannot change. In this booklet on the South African economy we will look at the economy through the eyes of workers. We will see how politics and economics have combined to the benefit of the capitalists. In doing this we will undertake a study of the political economy * of South Africa. The aim of this booklet is to provide a starting point for a study of the South African political economy. We will be looking back into our history to understand the very close link between politics and economics. The purpose of such a political economy study is to allow us to better understand just how serious the present crisis is. Being clearer on this will also allow us to begin discussing the real and effective solutions to the crisis. This is important because many of the solutions being proposed at present will benefit capitalism but will lead to small changes for the mass of the people.
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- Date Issued: July 1987