Impression of the Cosatu 10th National Congress

In this article Martin Jansen* argues that Cosatu’s 10th National Congress was another example of the extent to which the federation has shifted away from mass struggle and challenging capitalism.

Backdrop to the Congress

The 10th Cosatu National Congress was held during 21-24 September 2009, in Johannesburg. The congress came nearly two years after the historic ANC Polokwane conference where the neo-liberals under the leadership of Thabo Mbeki were defeated by the left within the Tri-partite alliance. Cosatu, along with the SACP, played a central and important role in the victory at Polokwane, having mobilised since 2005 in defence of Jacob Zuma against corruption charges and his ousting as the country’s deputy president.

The congress also came at a time when the country’s economy had been battered for a year by the global economic crisis and an estimated 500 000 jobs had been lost, nearly ten times the rate of job-losses during the reign of the “1996 Class Project” over the South African economy. With these two factors at the back of my mind and greeted by the congress slogan “Consolidating working class power in defence of decent work and ocialism” on the publications and the big banner as I entered the hall at allagher Estate, I took my seat at the congress with some political optimism that historic decisions were to emerge that would take working class ruggle forward.

10th National Congress

satu congresses always make a big impression on the uninitiated by their sheer scale and size, along with mass ormity of clothes and colour, the décor and the inging by delegates. The 10th congress was no different but significantly had an even stronger ANC flavour than before, with huge banners in front displaying the presidents of the ANC since 1912 up to present day. This was accompanied by a special exhibition at the main entrance of the hall and, as one delegate put it, illustrated the “ANCification” of Cosatu. During the congress, I was also intrigued by a new phenomenon of competitions for delegates, where individuals win microwaves and TVs, with the draws appening and announced from the platform, taking up very valuable congress time.

The congress programme, reports and resolutions were contained in several professionally prepared publications and neatly packaged in smart wheel travel cases along with congress T-shirts and caps. But beyond and underneath the gloss there was much to be disappointed about Cosatu’s 10th congress. It hardly reflected the harsh realities of working class life in South Africa. Delegates emerged virtually empty handed, without any campaign or programme of action other than words on paper and memories of speeches and ceremony. The fact that soon after the congress it was officially announced that South Africa is the most unequal society in the world, with more than half our people now living in poverty and a million jobs lost within the first nine months of this year, is an indictment of Cosatu and the Tripartite Alliance.

Cosatu’s 10th national congress paid hardly any serious attention to these realities and in its congress declaration only saw fit to state: “In the short term we support the Framework Response to the Global Economic Crisis. The main objective of the programme should be to save and create jobs; stimulate production and economic growth, as well as to cushion the unemployed and the poor from the effects of the global economic crisis.” Yet this very response has done virtually nothing to defend and save jobs. Moreover, the congress did not decide on anything that calls on Cosatu’s affiliates and 1.7 million members to organise, unite and struggle to defend jobs. It is this very framework agreement coupled with political complacency – a business as usual approach by trade unions in relation to retrenchments with their reliance on the LRA – that has allowed capital to embark on its jobs bloodbath unabated.

Cosatu wants a capitalist solution to a problem capitalism can’t solve

Arguably, the job losses during this economic crisis have led to such socio-economic devastation for the South African working class that it has surpassed the harm caused during the period of the “1996 class project”. This reality and Cosatu’s failure to come up with a mass campaign to defend jobs and fight poverty rendered the congress slogan hollow and mere cynical rhetoric. Genuine socialism can only come about with and through active mass struggles of the working class from below in response to conditions that affect them. The effects of the economic crisis offered an important opportunity to take the struggle for socialism forward at all levels, ideologically, politically and organisationally. The congress effectively endorsed a sham capitalist “solution” to the crisis and job losses, contradicting its pro-socialist slogan. The failure to fight, campaign and struggle to save jobs has effectively rendered Cosatu complicit in the socio-economic disaster. An historic opportunity has been lost to revitalise the labour movement, link up with other impoverished sections of the working class and take the mass democratic struggle for socialism forward.

Cosatu seems to be directing its political “struggle” efforts, particularly around economic policy, towards the Tri-partite alliance and the ANC government, to which it has committed excessive political loyalty. This was exemplified by a couple of issues. One was the much reported tussle at the congress around who will head economic policy development and implementation, the Cosatu deployee, Ebrahim Patel, or Trevor Manual. Another was Cosatu being virtually mute around the fundamental aspects of the economic policy debate, namely, which class economic policy should benefit, the capitalist class or the working class. Instead, Cosatu was content to tinker with aspects of the capitalist economy such as inflation targeting and interest rates. Yet another was the absence of a struggle campaign around job losses. Taken together these gave one the impression that this exclusive orientation to the Alliance has caused the federation not to want to rock the boat of the Zuma led ANC government.

Ironically Cosatu’s 8th National Congress, held in 2003, adopted the programme entitled “Consolidating Working Class Power for Quality Jobs – Toward 2015”. This programme highlighted that Cosatu needed to:

1. Build the power of the organised working class locally and internationally,

2. Strengthen the tripartite alliance and,

3. Intervene in socio-economic policy in the short term to stem the job-loss bloodbath and fight for quality jobs (my emphasis).

The 2015 programme also committed the federation to recruiting 4 million members by the 10th National Congress in 2009.

Congress resolutions

Whilst the secretariat reports offered a review of the federation and it affiliates, its patent failure to achieve its commitments made six years ago in the 2015 programme are not admitted nor analysed. Similarly, previous congress resolutions are hardly reviewed and it’s as if the congresses are about showcasing Cosatu and its leadership’s posturing and oratory. Cosatu also needs to review its processes in preparation for congresses that seem to remain affiliate oriented, with dozens of resolutions submitted for the congress to consider. It was impossible for most delegates to read and seriously engage all resolutions, let alone for congress to consider, debate and adopt all the resolutions. Not surprisingly, most resolutions were forwarded to the CEC.

Several interesting and important resolutions generated good discussion and at times heated debate. These included resolutions on:

• Young workers – with a commitment to focus on organising young workers, including establish- ing youth desks and allocating special organis- ing staff.

• Climate change – historically a neglected area of trade unions and working class organisa- tions and it will be a huge milestone if Cosatu does make serious follow-up on this resolution beyond media pronouncements.

• Xenophobia – the resolution focused on combat- ing the scourge of xenophobia highlighted by the violent attacks during 2008. However it was not linked to the huge influx of African migrant workers into South Africa and did not focus on the need to organise them into trade unions.

A last gasp contribution by the writer ensured the resolution was amended at congress to encourage Cosatu affiliates to organise African migrant workers.

• Ituc – highlighted the limitations and political weaknesses of the international trade union body and committed Cosatu to “transforming the international trade union movement into truly workers’ organisations fighting for the interests of workers”.

• Sex workers – long overdue and submitted by the police and prisons union, Popcru, called for the regulation of sex-work and generated lots of heated debate at the end of the congress. It too was deferred to the CEC.

With the “Polokwane victory” and by not coming up with a radical programme of mass action at its 10th National Congress to defend jobs, it seems as if Cosatu has decisively shifted away from its struggle orientation towards influencing the alliance and the ANC government towards introducing Keynesian measures to the South African economy. Cosatu hopes that by doing so jobs will be created to reverse the extreme poverty and inequality. Yet it is this very political approach that is self-defeating by undermining its only source of power, a politically active mass of organised class conscious workers. It is this same approach that encourages capital to proceed undeterred with terminating hundreds of thousands of jobs forever and condemning millions more South Africans to poverty and misery.

During the 1980s COSATU was at the forefront of the Mass Democratic Movement, along with the United Democratic Front, in the struggle against the Apartheid government and the capitalist class for freedom from oppression and exploitation. At the time, COSATU’s radicalism, militancy and strength of organization elevated it to being the most revered and respected trade union organization in the world. Millions of workers in South Africa and the world looked towards COSATU as a shining example of struggle against capitalism and advancing the struggle for socialism. Today, COSATU is a shadow of its former self, absent from mass struggles. The main focus of its activity has shifted away from struggles on the ground, workplaces and communities to the boardrooms of co-determinist forums such as NEDLAC, and tripartite alliance structures.

The several strikes around annual collective bargaining and the vaguely formulated, ineffective and sporadic jobs and poverty campaign during the period from the 9th to the 10th congress do not reflect any radicalism on the part of Cosatu. Instead, they are routinist and bureaucratically managed trade union activity. These mass actions make no attempt to threaten capitalist class power and strengthen the working class. For as long as this continues and Cosatu fails to seriously reach out to other sections of the working class in communities and develop a radical programme of mass action against poverty, job losses and unemployment and for socialism from below, South Africa is doomed to a continued trajectory of worsening poverty and misery for the majority, with the main beneficiaries being white monopoly capital and their corrupt junior partners, the new black capitalist elite represented by the ANC. As Karl Marx once remarked, “in order for workers to submit and compromise it needs no organization at all”.