A Daily Compilation of Local, National and International Articles Dealing with Labour
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Numsa Media Monitor Tuesday 6 September 2016 A daily compilation of local, national and international articles dealing with labour related issues South African workers Amcu declares dispute with mines Karl Gernetzky, Business Day, 5 September 2016 THE Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) said on Monday it had declared disputes with all three platinum houses over its demands for a R12,500 basic salary, precipitating an internal dispute resolution processes that could precede further external mediation. Amcu would meet Anglo American Platinum on Tuesday and Impala Platinum on Wednesday, with no meeting yet scheduled with Lonmin, Amcu chief negotiator Jimmy Gama said in a statement. This could lead to about four weeks of meetings before the union declared another dispute and referred the matter to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). "We remain positive and optimistic progress will be made for the sake of the industry, our members and the country. We are looking forward to a progressive engagement that will lead to a settlement being reached," Gama said. In July Amcu again tabled a demand for a basic underground salary of R12,500 in the sector – representing about a 50% increase in this category. The union also put forward a demand of a 15% wage hike in higher categories Amcu and the companies have been tightlipped over the negotiations. Lonmin and Amplats did not immediately comment on Monday. "We remain optimistic that we can close the gap between the union and company with targeted internal mediation and hopefully still find a sustainable win-win solution soon," Implats spokesman Johan Theron said. http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/mining/2016/09/05/amcu-declares-dispute-with- mines Platinum sector wage talks stall Dineo Faku, Business Report, 6 September 2016 Johannesburg - The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union’s (Amcu) national treasurer, Jimmy Gama, yesterday said wage talks with the world’s three top platinum producers had deadlocked. The biggest organised labour union in the platinum belt planned met with Anglo American Platinum, the world’s biggest platinum maker, today and planned to meet with Impala Platinum tomorrow in a dispute resolution meeting to try and reach an agreement. It said it had yet to confirm a meeting with Lonmin, the world’s third biggest producer. “If during the above planned meetings no settlement is reached the union will have a right to refer a mutual interest dispute with the Commission of Conciliation Mediation, and Arbitration for conciliation purposes,” Gama said.
“We remain positive and optimistic that progress will be made for the sake of the industry, our members and the country. We are looking forward to a progressive engagement that will lead to a settlement being reached.” http://www.iol.co.za/business/news/platinum-sector-wage-talks-stall-2064823 NUM to march at Sibanye shaft on Tuesday over retrenchments Karl Gernetzky, Business Day, 5 September 2016 THE National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Monday it would march on Sibanye Gold’s Cooke 4 shaft on Tuesday, demanding the Department of Mineral Resources intervene to prevent imminent retrenchments at the operation. The NUM is a calling for Sibanye Gold to "surrender the mining licence to any responsible company that will be willing to continue operations" at Cooke 4, accusing Sibanye of failing to follow due process in retrenchment talks. Sibanye Gold announced in July that about 1,700 jobs were at risk at its Cooke 4 gold and uranium mine near Westonaria, which had consistently been incurring losses. The shaft also employs about 850 contractors, the NUM said on Tuesday. Sibanye Gold spokesperson James Wellsted said on Monday the Department of Mineral Resources had been consistently informed about developments at the shaft. The 60-day consultation period was now nearing an end, and it was expected that about a 1,000 jobs could be accommodated at other operations, Wellsted said. http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/mining/2016/09/05/num-to-march-at-sibanye-shaft- on-tuesday-over-retrenchments NUM planning Sibanye Gold march Heidi Giokos, Independent Media, 5 September 2016 Johannesburg - More than 1 500 members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) together with 850 contract workers from Sibanye Gold on the West Rand will march against retrenchments and the closure of a shaft on Tuesday. The union said on Monday that it was deeply worried that Sibanye Gold was planning on closing down the operation “by not following proper process”. NUM branch secretary Bonginkosi Mrasi said in a statement that members were demanding the gold producer call on the Department of Mineral Resources to intervene.
“The NUM calls for Sibanye Gold to implement Section 189 of the Labour Relations Act of 1995 in alignment with the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development (MPRDA) Act of 2002 Section 52, which states that if the company anticipates retrenching 10% or more employees, it has to inform the Minister of Mineral Resources. This drastic action by the company will leave hundreds of mineworkers in a dire situation,” said Mrasi. The NUM said it would fight tooth and nail to make sure that its members were not retrenched “cheaply”. http://www.iol.co.za/business/news/num-planning-sibanye-gold-march-2064519 Union asks Sibanye to give up licence Dineo Faku, Business Report, 6 September 2016 Johannesburg - The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has called for Sibanye Gold to surrender its mining licence to any company that can operate its underperforming Cooke 4 operation, the future of which is under review. The NUM yesterday said 2 350 employees, including 1 500 members and 850 contract workers, planned to stage a protest today against the retrenchments and the closure of the mine. In a statement, the union said it was deeply worried that Sibanye wanted to close the shaft without following proper process.
“The NUM members demand that Sibanye Gold must allow the Department of Mineral Resources to intervene on retrenchments and closure of the mine through section 52 of the Mineral Petroleum and Resource Development Act (MPRDA),” the statement read. Sibanye was consulting with labour unions on the future of the Cooke 4 underground mine. The mine is bleeding cash despite the record increase in the gold price, which has risen 21 percent since the beginning of the year, as investors sought a safe haven, helping gold companies make record profits. The NUM called for Sibanye to implement section 189 of the Labour Relations Act of 1995 in alignment with the MPRDA of 2002, section 52, which stated that if a company anticipated retrenching 10 percent or more of its employees, it has to inform the Mineral Resources Minister, who at the moment is Mosebenzi Zwane. Dire situation
“This drastic action by the company will leave hundreds of mineworkers in a dire situation and the surrounding communities on the West Rand,” the NUM said.
“The NUM is calling for Sibanye Gold to surrender the mining licence to any responsible company that will be willing to mine Cooke 4 operation. Sibanye does not care about the lives of mineworkers. It cares about profits of its shareholders.” Cooke 4 is an old shaft that has become difficult to operate. It has had many underground fires over the years and is a high-cost operation. The company impaired R817 million at Cooke 4 operations in the six months to June. The write-down was based on negative cash flow projections for the remainder of the life of the mine. Sibanye indicated that despite efforts of all stakeholders, the Cooke 4 operation had been unable to meet production and cost targets, and had continued to operate at a loss. Its spokesman, James Wellsted, said Cooke 4 had been through a prior consultation period in terms of section 189 of the Labour Act and section 52 of the MPRDA in 2014 and subsequently issued further section 189 and section 52 notices. http://www.iol.co.za/business/companies/union-asks-sibanye-to-give-up-licence- 2064817 Cosatu echoes calls for Jacob Zuma to discipline Mosebenzi Zwane Natasha Marrian, Business Day, 5 September 2016 TRADE union federation Cosatu has changed tack on the politically linked Gupta family, and thrown its weight behind its tripartite allies the ANC and the SACP in calling for action to be taken against Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane. This follows the fiasco caused by Zwane after he said that the Cabinet had decided to ask President Jacob Zuma to institute a commission of inquiry into why banks had dumped the Gupta family. Cosatu had initially defended the Guptas when the banks shut their accounts, saying the move was “politically motivated”. However, it has done an about-turn and on Monday said the Gupta family should have approached the Competition Commission or the courts if they felt hard done by the conduct of the banks. Zwane, who is also the ANC’s provincial treasurer in the Free State and does not sit on the party’s national executive committee, is looking increasingly isolated after being roundly criticised by the ANC, the SACP and the Presidency. The debacle adds to the growing view that the ANC is no longer central to government policy and decision-making because ministers are running rampant without official sanction. Cosatu spokesman Sizwe Pamla said the federation’s stance was that any decision taken by the banks would affect their workers negatively. At the same time, the federation felt that the Guptas were “also responsible for what had happened”, he said.
“They created an environment that allowed the banks to treat them with the level of suspicion that they did,” Pamla said. Zwane’s conduct was problematic as it had proven that he was doing the bidding of the politically connected family, he said.
“It can’t be that it was a mistake or overexuberance. Why overexuberance over this issue when we have not seen him pay the Lilly mineworkers the money that he promised them?
“To us, everything that he has done has tended to give credence to suspicions that he is doing the Guptas’ bidding,” he said. The ANC in the Free State appealed for calm. The party’s provincial structure said the minister had been deployed by the president and it trusted that Zuma would deal with the matter appropriately. ANC Free State spokesman Thabo Meeko said Zwane was among the “strongest ministers in Zuma’s Cabinet” and that he had the full confidence of the party in the province. Zwane and his spokesman could not be reached for comment. The national ANC and the SACP have also called on Zuma to act against Zwane. In interviews last week, ANC national spokesman Zizi Kodwa described Zwane’s actions as “appalling and outrageous”. The SACP said Zwane’s comments contradicted its own call for a judicial commission of inquiry into state capture by business, including the Guptas. The party said his conduct showed how an individual Cabinet minister could use his/her position in the executive to serve private business interests, break policy coherence and cause confusion. The party called on Zuma to act against Zwane, who was appointed in September 2015 and controversially accompanied the Gupta family to visit Glencore offices in Switzerland to negotiate the purchase of the Optimum Colliery. http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2016/09/05/cosatu-echoes-calls-for-jacob-zuma-to- discipline-mosebenzi-zwane Join Forces Rather Than Stone Us, Vavi Tells Unions News24, 5 Sept 2016 The National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) of South Africa claims that a new labour federation, under the leadership of Zwelinzima Vavi is simply a "copy and paste" of its position. The NTUC in a statement criticised Vavi, former general secretary of Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), and other leaders from the new labour federation for "copying" its stance of being politically independent. This follows media reports last week, that Vavi and others would be starting a new labour federation, which is non-politically aligned. However, Vavi told Fin24 on Monday that if the NTUC feels that they share the same ideals, then the union should join the federation. "All those that identify with our principles should join forces with us, instead of throwing stones at us." The new labour federation will be based on the principle that workers' movements are independent of their bosses or political stances, said Vavi. There will be a focus on meeting workers' needs which includes the protection of their rights, the demand for a minimum wage and jobs. Unions must be democratic, and controlled by workers in practice and not just written in their declarations, he said. Vavi added that he wanted unions that fight inequality and poverty and those that are opposed to imperialism and are "socialist oriented", and who want to build an "egalitarian society". But the NTUC spokesperson Maston Phiri said that the federation was not "unique" in its approach. "They just reintroduced our position," he said. The most "pressing" issues NTUC has with the new federation is that it is using "political independence" as a tool to promote itself. "The federation says it is welcoming workers regardless of the political parties they are coming from," said Phiri. The NTUC, founded in 2014, represents over 2 500 workers, across different sectors. So far Vavi said the federation represents over 2 million workers under 57 different unions. "It's just a drop in the ocean, but we are happy," said Vavi. "We must stop the fragmentation of unions, South Africa has a record number of trade unions," he said. The numbers of workers within unions are declining, indicating that unions are not doing what they should to inspire workers to join, he added. About 76% of workers do not belong to unions. City Press reported that Food and Allied Workers' Union (Fawu) would be joining the federation, which also includes The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa). http://allafrica.com/stories/201609051437.html South Africa #OccupyLuthuliHouse: 'The ANC is a house divided' Luyolo Mkentane, The Star, 6 September 2016 Johannesburg - What could have been a bloodbath at the ANC’s headquarters in the Joburg CBD was averted on Monday when the police separated two warring factions that almost came to blows. This followed a tense stand-off over the #OccupyLuthuliHouse campaign, which lasted about four hours, between a small group of disgruntled ANC members and those who invaded the inner city to defend the offices from “hooligans”. This was as the tensions within the governing party over President Jacob Zuma’s leadership style, which has seen his administration veering from one scandal to another, spilt into the open. The #OccupyLuthuliHouse organisers were resolute in their demand that Zuma and the entire ANC national executive committee must resign. The police formed a human chain along Simmonds Street near Beyers Naude Square to separate the opposing groups, who taunted each other with Struggle and derogatory songs. The pro-Zuma faction taunted and jeered at the anti-Zuma group. The Zuma backers were vocal in demanding that “makuliwe” (let’s fight each other). But the heavy security detail, which included members of the SAPS’s Tactical Response Team and the Presidential Protection Services, as well as those from the Joburg and Ekurhuleni metro police departments, prevented any blood-letting. When asked why their officers were deployed outside their jurisdiction, EMPD spokesman Wilfred Kgasago said it was because they “have cross-border agreements”.
“If there is any probability or possibility of something arising which would be too big in a metro outside our borders, there is nothing wrong with us assisting whenever we are requested. Tshwane has done it, Joburg has done it.
“The fact that it was not a government event does not matter. The bottom line is that there was a potential dangerous situation,” he added. At one point during the fracas, it looked as if all hell would break loose when Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) chairman Kebby Maphatsoe tried to reach out to the #OccupyLuthuliHouse campaign leaders, who included former ANC Youth League deputy president Ronald Lamola, ANC Joburg member Sasabona Manganye and organiser Gugu Ndima. The MK veterans pulled, pushed and shoved as they tried to get their controversial leader, Maphatsoe, to the campaign leaders. They shouted that they would not give the dissenters’ leaders a thoroughfare to Luthuli House to deliver a memorandum to ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe. Mantashe called on the MK vets not to give the “hooligans publicity” and pleaded with them to ensure that there was no bloodshed. Maphatsoe warned the dissenting voices that they would “not succeed in destroying the African National Congress” and that Zuma would finish his terms as party leader and state president. “Reactionary forces will never succeed. Unity is more important to us. The #OccupyLuthuliHouse organisers are raising petty issues,” he roared. Manganye said they had pleaded with ANC supporters from provinces, including North West, Mpumalanga and the Free State, to turn back home as they wanted to prevent another Marikana massacre. He said the heavy police presence around the Luthuli House precinct was “shocking”. Manganye described Zuma as the elephant in the room and someone who had brought the ANC name into disrepute. He cited the allegations of state capture by Zuma's close friends the Guptas, and the municipal election disaster that saw the ANC losing major metros. ANCYL deputy president Desmond Moela said they commended ANC supporters for “supporting and defending this house”, pointing at Luthuli House. Speaking to The Star, he added: “This is a revolutionary house, you cannot just come here and play.
“People must respect and understand that there are (party) processes that they must follow. President Zuma is not going anywhere. He’ll remain the ANC president until the next (elective) congress, and he’ll be the president till 2019.” Political analyst Professor Somadoda Fikeni said lessons that could be learnt from Monday’s protest were that “the ANC is still a house divided”. http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/occupyluthulihouse-the-anc-is-a- house-divided-2064828 ANC clique has rest of comrades in stranglehold Carol Paton, Business Day, 6 September 2016 THE ANC is unravelling at an alarming pace. Because the organisation is so big and dominant in our politics, and because it is the governing party, it feels as if the entire country has been thrown into chaos. It hasn’t. But these are the mad last days of a once great organisation spinning out of control, and it is not an easy thing to live with. The biggest consequence of this dysfunctionality at a political level is confidence. The lies, the mishaps and the contradictions have onlookers — citizens and investors — agog. At government level, the consequences are tangible and practical: policies can’t get through Cabinet; policy-making and decision-making are deferred or abandoned. Growth cannot get going. How long will this chaotic death spiral go on? That is not a question anyone can confidently answer. If things continue at this pace, along this course, by 2019 it could all be over for the ANC. It could be pushed out of power. This course is one in which the part of the ANC that is controlled by a powerful clique that includes the president, several key provincial leaders and the leadership of the leagues, also supported by the majority of the national executive and the majority of the Cabinet, has the rest of the ANC in a stranglehold. No decision this group does not approve can fly, no matter the context or the obvious political damage. One of the key characteristics of this group is that it has defined its own agenda, outside that of the ANC, and frequently departs from agreed-on ANC policy and decisions. So, for instance, Communications Minister Faith Muthambi was told some time ago to remove Hlaudi Motsoeneng. Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson was told to do a cost-benefit analysis of the nuclear project. Brian Molefe was told to sign agreements with independent power producers. Muthambi was told set-top boxes must be encrypted. All have been ANC decisions. None have been implemented. As an aside, it is a context like this that enabled Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane to claim his personal memo to Cabinet on action against the banks was, in fact, the decision of the collective. As it is well-known that Zwane has the support of the president in his crusade against the banks, the gamble was to put out the view as a decision in the hope no one would repudiate it. The behaviour of the Zuma clique is textbook factional behaviour. Here is a group, bound by a single objective — to hold onto power and keep it from others — that has developed its own quite separate agenda from that of the organisation at large. But textbook politics will also tell you that to succeed, you must be able to persuade society at large that your cause is theirs, and that your goals are theirs, too. In the Zuma case, this is becoming glaringly untrue. The consequence is that as Zuma and his faction continue on their path to annihilate the Treasury, manipulate the prosecuting authorities, attack the banks and control procurement in state-owned enterprises, they will overreach. They have probably done so already. The question is: do we need to wait for another three years until the general election for this to be plainly made clear? It is the most likely scenario. Various parts of the ANC have proposed ways out of the hole before then: an early conference; an agreed-on slate of leaders; a woman president; and a complete dissolution of all structures to start afresh. None of these remedies has the potential to halt the unravelling. There are now too many dynamics at play for unity and order to be restored. Early conference or late conference will make little difference. The ANC will emerge as a fractured, damaged and corrupted organisation, or possibly even split, and then limp on to the next general election. It cannot come soon enough.
• Paton is deputy editor. http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2016/09/06/anc-clique-has-rest-of- comrades-in-stranglehold International Allina nurses strike reveals gulf between workers and union Ron Jorgenson, World Socialist Website, 6 September 2016 The 4,800 nurses at five Allina hospitals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro region walked off their jobs September 5 on an open-ended strike determined to preserve healthcare and fight for safe staffing ratios. Workers from other unions such as teachers, government workers and communications workers joined nurses on the picket line. After nearly eight months of negotiations and a week-long strike in June, Allina remains determined as ever to terminate the union’s four healthcare plans and force all nurses onto its own corporate plan, placing the burden of rising healthcare costs on the backs of nurses. The company has also refused to entertain any compromise on safe staffing to ensure quality care for patients, or to provide a safe working environment for nurses who find themselves on the front lines of dealing with mental health cases. One nurse with 10 years at Allina’s United Health Hospital in St. Paul told the World Socialist Web Site, “In the beginning of our contract negotiations with Allina, I think some of us felt that it was logical to try to compromise. We recognized the changing face of health insurance and healthcare across the country.
“But as the negotiations—or the lack thereof—went on, I began to see things differently, especially Allina’s unwillingness to take some of our concessions and compromise with us. Now it feels a lot more like Allina is engaged in union busting, attempting to dismantle or divide the union.” These sentiments are developing widely among nurses and have resulted in the overwhelming rejection of three Allina contract proposals. Nurses are convinced that their only recourse is an indefinite strike. But there is the sharpest contrast between the determination of the nurses and the retreat by their union, the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA). At a noon press conference on the strike’s first day, MNA Executive Director Rose Roach told the assembled reporters, “We did compromise... as difficult as it was— and I can’t even stress how difficult it was—to say we were willing to do a transition into their health plans … and that wasn’t enough for them.
“We’ve already walked away from staffing ratios,” said Roach, and “we even made a compromise on their language about the charge nurses.” When a reporter asked what would be different about the current strike compared to the week-long strike in June, Roach replied, “We hope it will be different.” More than once during the course of the press conference officials intoned that nurses did not want to be on strike. In reality, the labor bureaucracy is bemoaning the fact that they were not able to prevent the strike. Traditionally, MNA nurses in the Twin Cities used to negotiate jointly with all six hospital chains. But this year, Allina, by far the largest, broke away to negotiate independently. The MNA leadership played into Allina’s hands by rapidly signing contracts covering 6,000 nurses at the other five hospital chains. There is a growing recognition by some striking nurses that this weakened the position of Allina nurses. One nurse told the WSWS, “I was here during the 2010 negotiations when all the nurses in the Twin Cities were united. Today, instead of 15,000 nurses out, we only have 5,000.” When asked how she thought the strike could be won, she replied, “What is critical is for the nurses to stand strong, and long enough, so that the public recognizes we are serious and we want to help our patients. And we have to be united to the point where Allina won’t be able to withstand our strength. Then other workers will wake up and realize that we count and they can benefit from supporting our struggle.
“What people need to understand in our case is that US Bank and other companies that are tied to the Allina board of directors are getting rich off of healthcare. Millions of dollars. And at the same time, Allina is telling us they don’t have enough money to meet our needs. But I think this is common throughout corporate America today.
“I want other workers to know we are not nitpicking over contract issues. The issues are the same for workers everywhere. What’s going on today is truly a struggle between all workers and corporate America.” The opening day strike coincided with Labor Day, an event that used to draw hundreds of thousands of workers together in cities across the country. But the bureaucrats of the Minnesota AFL-CIO and other unions only turned out token delegations, mostly comprised of the bureaucrats themselves. The labor officials and the MNA, unable to break down the insistence of nurses to defend past gains, are worried that their strike over healthcare and working conditions could potentially draw widespread support and ignite a movement against the corporate and banking elite in the midst of the national election campaign. It is for this reason that the bureaucracy is seeking to isolate the nurses from broad sections of workers who face a similar struggle over healthcare issues. MNA President Mary Turner alluded to this in answer to a question during the press conference, saying, “Our labor friends are going to be helping us.” Turner was not referring to the millions of workers but to the labor bureaucracy. Turner in the same breath also mentioned “our political friends,” referring to the Democratic Party politicians. Nurses will find that these “labor” and “political” friends will in no way aid their struggle. In fact, these so-called friends will only function to hinder it. In order to avoid the suffocation of their strike by the labor bureaucracy, Allina nurses must elect rank-and-file strike committees to direct the struggle. Above all, they must appeal directly to the working class in the Twin Cities and throughout Minnesota, tapping into the great discontent of the American working class and mobilize it in defense of the right to healthcare for all workers. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/09/06/nurs-s06.html Strike call fizzles out as Gabon resumes work Gerauds Wilfried Obangome, Business Day/Reuters, 6 September 2016 LIBREVILLE — Gabon’s opposition leader appealed on Monday for a general strike to protest against what he said was a fraudulent re-election victory by President Ali Bongo, but few heeded his call as activity picked up in the capital, Libreville. Jean Ping, a former AU Commission chairman who says he is now Gabon’s leader, said in a statement that his fight was not over following deadly riots last week. "I ask you from today onward not to use violence but to resist by blocking the country’s economy," he said, addressing all Gabonese. "I propose to cease all activity and begin a general strike." At least six people were killed and more than 1,000 arrested in violence after Wednesday’s announcement of a slim victory for Bongo, whose family has run the oil-producing central African country for half a century. An adviser to the interior minister said on Sunday that several dozen people had already been released. However, several Libreville residents said they had not seen or heard from family members since the riots. Gabon is statistically one of Africa’s richest countries with a GDP per capita of $10,000 a year, but oil wealth has flowed mostly to the elite, breeding widespread discontent. The Bongos have long relied on patronage to buy off dissent. But falling oil prices and production, long dominated by Total and Shell, have led to budget cuts in a country where many citizens have not enjoyed the fruits of oil wealth. In Libreville traffic resumed along the main boulevards as people returned to work on Monday, though some stayed at home for fear of renewed violence. "Jean Ping doesn’t have to tell me [not to go to work]. While the situation is sensitive I’ll stay home," said Hortense Toulangoye, a state worker. Another employee said he had not heard about the strike. The internet was operational again on Monday, five days after it was shut down in an apparent bid by the government to quell unrest, but access to social media was still limited. Some business activity remained hobbled by security concerns. Gabon’s sole oil refinery in the economic capital of Port Gentil has been shut since last Wednesday, according to Sylvain Mayabi, secretary-general of the National Organisation of Petrol Employees. It was not clear when the Sogara refinery, which processes 21,000 barrels of oil per day, would be back online, Mayabi said. French oil producer Total, which owns a 43.8% stake in the refinery, did not respond to requests for comment. Gabon produces 200,000 barrels of oil per day, according to the International Energy Agency, but its output is in decline. http://www.bdlive.co.za/africa/africannews/2016/09/06/strike-call-fizzles-out-as- gabon-resumes-work Comment and opinion Inside Labour: Fawu goes back to its real roots Terry Bell, City Press, 4 Sept 2016 THREE noteworthy and interrelated events were registered during Women’s Month 2016: the 60th anniversary of the great anti-pass march on the Union Buildings, the 70th anniversary of the first major strike by South Africa’s black miners and the decision by the Food and Allied Workers’ Union (Fawu) to withdraw from the Cosatu federation. What the three events, spanning more than half a century, have in common is one woman: Ray Alexander Simons. The founder member of Fawu, and one of the main Cape organisers for the 1956 women’s march, she was also an active supporter of the 1946 strike despite being, at the time, seven months pregnant with her first child, Mary. Known as “Mama Ray” to several generations of union activists, one of her favourite slogans, stridently voiced in the East European accent she never lost, was: “No corruption, no cover-ups.” Which is why it seemed singularly appropriate that Fawu elected to leave the party politically enmeshed Cosatu federation during Women’s Month. Given her history and her principled approach to trade unionism, Mama Ray would almost certainly have sided with the majority of members who decided last week to distance themselves from the corruption peppered political convulsions now sowing dissent within Cosatu and the governing ANC-led alliance. And, were she around today - she died in 2004 - she would probably be just as vociferous as she was in 1997 when, aged 84 and the honorary life president of Fawu, she tore into the union hierarchy at its bi-annual conference. This at a time when the union leadership had become involved in an extremely messy business involving dividends, commissions, shareholdings and the purchase and sale of Krugerrands. Such issues were not expected to be raised at the conference where the guest list included five Cabinet ministers, the deputy president and a clutch of ANC and Communist Party (SACP) luminaries. Rumblings of disquiet from the rank and file had been largely ignored and were not expected to emerge. But they had reached the ears of Mama Ray. Shorty before the conference, word also reached the Fawu leadership that Mama Ray might be, at the very least, somewhat critical in her welcoming speech. So only “approved” media were permitted to attend the conference. It was the first - and only - union conference from which I have been physically ejected. At the conference, Mama Ray discarded her prepared speech and later repeated to me what she had said, the recording of it having been confiscated by the union leadership. Her version was also confirmed by gleeful delegates who had made notes. Ray Alexander Simons’ message to the Fawu delegates was simple: “The union is yours." While the ANC had inherited “a corrupt government”, Fawu members had not inherited a corrupt union. To a standing ovation she roared: “No corruption, no cover- ups.” It was a rather naive hope as the internal battles continued. But so too did the legacy of accountability and democracy laid down by Mama Ray and the early builders of the union. It is this that seems again to have come to the fore in the debates about leaving the ANC-led alliance. Mama Ray firmly believed that the building blocks of a just and equitable future society lay within the ranks of the organised working class. As such, and despite her loyal membership of the Moscow-linked Communist Party and the ANC, she remained a committed non-sectarian trade unionist. A devout adherent to debate within the workers’ movement, she seemed never to allow her own convictions to interfere with the work of uniting workers And, along with privatisation of state assets, she vehemently opposed union investment companies and unions dabbling in the stockmarket.
“Trade unions should remember what their role is,” she chided. And she was a living example, having travelled through the farmlands of the Western Cape, sleeping on the floors of workers’ cottages as she recruited members to the union at “a tickey (three cents) a month”. Her message from that time resonates now: “Never confuse the union’s money with your own.” These days of corporate union credit cards, bodyguards and luxury hired cars would also have been anathema to her. At the same time, like so many of her generation who had invested so much hope in the 1917 Russian Revolution, she could not countenance the idea that the revolution could have been strangled in its infancy; that poisoned by nationalism, and crippled by economic anaemia, it could have become the mirror image of the very system it had so briefly overthrown. But she never allowed this almost religious conviction to interfere with the work of uniting workers. And this meant supporting open debate in the workers’ movement, especially in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet bloc. The Fawu decision indicates that the idea of principled unity across ethnic, gender and religious lines, of open and honest debate appears again to be stirring; that the legacy of Mama Ray and her cohorts continues to survive. http://www.fin24.com/Economy/Labour/InsideLabour/inside-labour-worker-unity-and- the-legacy-of-mama-ray-20160902 Treason from within: SA wonders each day what fresh Hell will be unleashed Judith February, Daily Maverick, 6 Sep 2016 The ANC alone cannot fix things. It has become too embroiled in its own internal quagmire. It is now incapable of leading and transforming itself, let alone providing societal leadership.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.” – Cicero This quote is attributed to Cicero, the Roman lawyer who himself railed against the excesses of the late Roman Republic in many of his prosecutions, most famously against Gaius Verres. Ironically, one of the charges against Verres was that he enriched himself through public construction contracts, most notably fixing the temple of Castor and Pollux. The Roman Republic eventually destroyed itself through corruption, disorganisation and bloody battle. But this is 2016 and we should have learnt from history. The past two weeks have been dismal for South Africa. We are on tenterhooks, not knowing whether Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan will be charged by the Hawks or fired in a Cabinet reshuffle, or both. One wonders each morning what fresh Hell the President might unleash, spurred on by his merry band of corrupt and compromised supporters. It’s an untenable situation, causing untold harm to the economy, policy paralysis and a split in the Cabinet itself. Last week we witnessed Blade Nzimande and Jeremy Cronin doing a sort of “fire us if you dare” routine under the full glare of the Press. How times have changed. Not so long ago, Nzimande was telling us that Zuma would be the savior of the post- Mbeki years. Characteristically, President Jacob Zuma has been virtually silent, a man more accustomed to operating in the shadows. His statement of supposed support for Gordhan was spoken with the proverbial forked tongue. The Hawks only act with impunity because they know they have political backing. The smoke and mirrors has also caused many including the EFF’s Julius Malema to start muddying the waters. If Gordhan has nothing to hide, he should present himself to the Hawks, Malema and others say, while still others cry that Gordhan believes he is above the law. The problem with this argument is that on the basis of the letter Gordhan received from the Hawks, he did not commit any criminal offence. Appearing before the Hawks would not only be sanctioning a form of legal harassment but would be akin to Gordhan surrendering his own rights in terms of the Constitution. No rational citizen would do that. But we should not be surprised at the ham-handedness of the Hawks. Nor should we be surprised that the pliable and lily-livered NPA head Shaun Abrahams would be prepared to do the president’s bidding in trying to remove Gordhan from office. Both Abrahams and Hawks head Mthandazo Ntlemeza were handpicked, after all – and not for their skill. Where there is a vacuum of leadership and commitment to constitutional principles, is it any wonder then that there is room for all manner of men and women to step into the breech? It is the environment that Zuma and “his” part of the ANC have created, as far back as Polokwane. Anyone who believed Zuma would be able to provide our country with the requisite leadership was not paying attention during his years as MEC for Economic Affairs and Tourism in KwaZulu-Natal or during the tawdry Schabir Shaik trial or indeed, his rape trial. He was never good enough for South Africa, with poor judgment and an inability to keep away from unsavoury manipulators. That culture of corruption has simply been brought to the Union Buildings, with serious consequences for South Africa’s future. Into this vacuum, ministers and ANC leaders like Bathabile Dlamini, Lindiwe Zulu, and Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula felt most comfortable attacking the young women who protested at the IEC in support of justice for all rape victims, including Khwezi. That these ministers almost came to fisticuffs with those who disagreed with them shows just how far they would go to defend Zuma and also how low the ANC has sunk. Zuma’s Cabinet has become an incoherent free-for-all. It is into this vacuum then that Minerals Resource Minister, Mosebenzi Zwane, can step in and issue a statement confirming a Cabinet “decision” to initiate a judicial inquiry into the banking sector. Only much later did government issue a press statement saying that this was not a decision of Cabinet. At that point, Zuma, Gordhan and the minister “with the hole in her head”, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, were at the G20 in China. One wonders quite how Gordhan is meant to convince investors and the global community that we are trying to sort out the mess of SOEs, corruption and waste when accompanied by Zuma, who is opinion-free at best and at worst simply a poor ambassador for our collective national interest. Where there is a leadership vacuum it also provides deputy ANC secretary-general Jessie Duarte to spew forth in ignorance about the powers and constitutional position of the SA Reserve Bank. Into vacuums ignorance falls and the public debate becomes poisoned. Deputy defence minister, Kebby Maphatsoe, was comfortable leading a “defend the ANC” march as a counter to the “Occupy Luthuli House” one that took place outside Luthuli House on Monday. Of course, Maphatsoe also casually and carelessly accused former Defence minister, Ronnie Kasrils, of instigating “Khwezi” to bring a rape charge against Zuma. Kasrils sued for defamation and Maphatsoe settled, paying Kasrils R500,000. He also mouthed off and accused Public Protector Thuli Madonsela of being a “CIA agent”. Again, in the vacuum anything can be said and done if it obfuscates and ensures protection for the president. And so it goes. In the public discourse, the vacuum encourages a lack of thoughtfulness and nuance regarding our intractable challenges. Everyone is seeking a platform; everyone is seeking a soapbox to peddle the obvious. The challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment take a back seat in the internecine battles of the ANC, fuelled by those who seek only power and access to state resources. We seem unable to have even the simplest national conversations without them imploding into retribution and race baiting. The ANC alone cannot fix it. It has become too embroiled in its own internal quagmire. It is now incapable of leading and transforming itself, let alone providing societal leadership. What #OccupyLuthuliHouse has shown on the streets of Johannesburg is a party tearing itself apart. Luthuli House now needs rings of steel to protect itself from itself. It is a sad reflection of the state of the ANC and of our leadership itself. So if the ANC cannot fix it, then citizens must – divided as we are. It will take a mammoth collective effort from business, civil society and communities to rise up and speak out against the inaction fuelled by those who would consign our country to the dustbin of corrupt politics. It is not too late to do so and the election results have unleashed new energy that will need to be channelled carefully and strategically so that citizens can dictate the conversation about the future. Already, brave men and women are speaking up. Who can forget Sipho Pityana’s eloquent address at the funeral of Makhenkesi Stofile? Full of courage and passionate intensity, that message needs to be endorsed by business and communities and needs to be heard by our compromised Parliament. We are just about surviving the “fools and the ambitious”. Now it is time to deal with “the treason from within” through every constitutional means possible. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2016-09-06-treason-from-within-sa- wonders-each-day-what-fresh-hell-will-be-unleashed/#.V853_03lrIU Infighting not new to ANC Bo Mbindwane, The Citizen, 6 Sept 2016 When ANC infighting takes place, it is not always straightforward. It morphs into other topical streams, writes Bo Mbindwane. Many have opined as new the infighting inside the ANC as something President Jacob Zuma has brought upon all due to a desire for personal enrichment. But, of course, the ANC has always had infighting. Since it’s founding, the ANC has had positions, leadership, values and policy internal battles. The Freedom Charter was not spared from the bitter confrontations that saw Robert Sobukwe forming the PAC. ZK Matthews felt aghast at ANC members who signed the charter without party resolution. Before then, many ANC fights would erupt over participation in the 1937 Native Representative Council, which lasted until Chief Albert Luthuli boycotted his seat. Reading the April 5, 1969 Morogoro first Consultative Conference memorandum by Professor Ben Turok and the response to it by Dr Joe Matthews provides a window to past internal disputes. At this conference, ANC president Oliver Tambo made a call to the ANC, saying: “… Beware of the wedge-driver, the man who creeps from ear to ear, carrying a bag full of wedges, driving them in between you and the next man, between a group and another, a man who goes around creating splits and divisions. Beware of the wedge driver, comrades. Watch his poisonous tongue.” At the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East, Central and Southern Africa in 1962, in Addis Ababa, a young Nelson Mandela, arguing for the armed struggle, said: “A leadership commits a crime against its own people if it hesitates to sharpen its political weapons where they have become ineffective.” In this, Mandela was publicly going against the wishes of president Albert Luthuli, who wanted preparation for, but not launching, the armed struggle. Later in exile, there would be a James Stuart Report, the Umkhonto we Sizwe and Mbokodo battles. There was also infighting when the ANC launched its 1994 Reconstruction and Development Programme. Trade union Numsa had to be policy input “bribed” to join the 1994 ANC election campaign. Minister Jay Naidoo did not end up without a portfolio out of nothing but a lost battle. The programme ended up as a set of deliverables at first and was later removed from government vocabulary. This was a result of deep infighting over economic policy. When ANC infighting takes place, it is not always straightforward. It morphs into other topical streams like anticorruption, and so forth. Often, it is not what is topical that permeates through to the underbelly. At this point in the history of the ANC, there is a battle for policy and positions once again. The multiclass unity has fractured against the lowly educated within. The multiclasses within the ANC are, once again, battling for the soul of the ANC, as its 2017 elective conference nears. Either the current Foreign Policy, New Growth Path and National Development Plan will survive, or the return of the promotion of monopoly capital with macroeconomics that favour banks and financial firms – as we had between 1994 and 2008 – will result. The ANC today is confronted by the need to reintroduce ideological training to its youth, and certainly to those occupying positions or named stalwarts. http://www.citizen.co.za/1276086/infighting-not-new-to-anc/