South Africa: COSATU calls off public service strike

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jul2007/safr-j14.shtml

By Barbara Slaughter

14 July 2007

The longest public service strike in South African history has been called
off by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) after 28 days.
The dispute began on June 1, when workers from 17 unions took all-out strike
action in support of a demand for a wage increase of 12 percent across the
board. The final settlement was for a 7.5 percent raise and increases in
housing and health benefits.

Four teachers' unions, including the South African Democratic Teachers'
Union (SADTU), declared they were not prepared to accept the offer because
it is far short of their demands. However, SADTU has suspended strike action
until after the school holidays. Other unions also suspended the strike and
said they had to consult their members. The offer will now be implemented
across the whole public service sector.

The strike involved 700,000 workers—professional, skilled and unskilled. It
received widespread support amongst the rest of the working class in South
Africa. On June 13, hundreds of thousands of municipal workers took part in
a one-day solidarity action in support of the strike. They included taxi and
bus drivers, electricity and cleaning workers, and administrative workers
from border posts and airports. On that day, all the major cities in South
Africa were brought to a standstill because of mass demonstrations in
support of the public service workers' strike.

During the course of the dispute, striking workers faced violence and
intimidation from the forces of the state. Picket lines were repeatedly
attacked by police using tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades and batons.
Thousands of soldiers were deployed as strikebreakers in hospitals
throughout the country. Armed soldiers were stationed outside hospitals and
schools and near protest marches. More than 3,000 health service employees
were declared to be "essential workers" by the government and sacked for
breaking their contracts. There was a continuous campaign of vilification
against the strikers from the media and from the ANC government.

By its own admission, the COSATU leadership had anticipated that the strike
would be over much more quickly.* *On the 19th day of the strike, Zwelinzima
Vavi, COSATU general secretary, told a conference of his organisation, "The
strike continues...there is no sign that workers are getting tired; instead
they getting angrier, they are getting more united. They are more resolved
than at the beginning of the strike." He added that labour wanted the strike
to end as soon as possible so that "normalcy" could return to the public
services. He said he had never expected the strike to last 16 days.

It took 28 days for COSATU to hatch the final deal with the ANC government
and secure a return to work. The result is hardly a success given that the
annual rate of inflation in South Africa is now approximately 7 percent,
mainly because of recent fuel price rises. Moreover, clauses were included
that both government and COSATU leaders hope will undermine such united
action in the future.

One of these is a proposed "career plan," a so-called "occupation specific
dispensation," for certain sections of the public service. According to *IOL,
*this will reward "good performance, qualifications and length of service"
for these professionals. The intention of this plan is to separate the
professional workers from other layers and to cause divisions between the
professional workers themselves, leaving individuals to negotiate their own
"reward."

Another clause establishes a framework for setting up a "minimum service
agreement" with essential service workers. This will ensure that minimum
services will be maintained during strikes. The 3,000 "emergency workers"
who were sacked during this dispute have been reinstated with a final
warning. But the new clause is an attempt to make future strike action null
and void by resorting to the courts.

Under the agreement, the government will enforce the "no work, no pay"
principle and deduct salary payments for days on strike over the next three
months. Six days' pay will be deducted at a time, which, according to SADTU
provincial secretary Jonovan Rustin, will leave some teachers "penniless."

The anger and frustration felt by workers in South Africa against the
pro-market ANC government was clearly reflected in the length and militancy
of this dispute. Statistics recently published by the South African *Mail &
Guardian* show that in the first six months of this year, 11 million working
days have been lost as a result of industrial action. This figure is already
far higher than the previous year's record for days lost through strikes. In
1994, the figure was 3.9 million for the whole year, and there had been a
steady decline until 2005 when the figure was 0.5 million days.

A recent survey conducted by COSATU's research department showed that
between 1998 and 2002, workers' share of the national income dropped from 50
percent to less than 45 percent. During the same period, company profits
rose from just less than 27 percent to 32 percent. The figures show that in
2006, executive pay rose by 34 percent, whilst in the same period, workers'
wage increases ran at between 1 and 2 percent above inflation. Other studies
showed that the ratio of CEO pay to workers' pay is more than 50 to 1. The
majority of families in South Africa live below the poverty line.

From 1994 to 2003, unemployment doubled in South Africa. The current real
level of joblessness stands at between 37 and 41 percent. Living standards
of many workers have been driven down as permanent full-time jobs have been
replaced by casual, subcontracted jobs with low pay, no benefits and no job
security. Sixty percent of workers in the building industry are employed on
a temporary basis, as are 30 percent of workers in mining.

There has been no let-up in militancy following the return to work of the
public service workers.* *Further strikes are imminent as workers from the
chemical, petroleum, electricity and gold-mining industries prepare for
industrial action over wages. On July 9, 260,000 metal and engineering
unions took all-out strike action in support of a demand for wage increases
of between 9 and 10 percent.

It was this new wave of strikes that made it essential for COSATU to call
off the public service workers' strike when it did.

The strike has been seen by many as a show of strength ahead of the ANC
congress to be held in December this year. Some observers have commented
that the dispute was used by COSATU to put pressure on President Thabo Mbeki
and the ANC over the selection of the candidate for the 2009 presidential
elections.

On June 13, the BBC* *published an interview with Robert Schrire, head of
politics at the University of Cape Town, in which he claimed that in
organising the strike COSATU was posing the question, "Who is going to run
the country?" Is it the faction around COSATU and the South African
Communist Party (SACP) or that around Mbeki?

In fact, Vavi and the COSATU leadership were determined to prevent a direct
confrontation with the government. In a press release addressed to the ANC
policy conference held on June 27, the day before the public service strike
was called off, COSATU praised the ANC as "the party of liberation," adding,
"it represents [workers'] aspirations and hopes for a better life."

But there is resentment within the trade union bureaucracy that COSATU and
the SACP, as partners in the ANC alliance, do not play a more central role
in government. They feel left out in the cold by such policies as black
economic empowerment, which enriches a small layer around Mbeki. They
complain that they are not full partners in the government and cannot fully
share in the spoils of power.

Despite the fact that there are no differences in principle between the
opposing wings of the ANC, COSATU and the SACP are acutely aware of the
social chasm opening up between the impoverished working class and the small
select layer of super-rich and feel the need to deflect working class
opposition.

Whilst they criticise government economic policies for defending the
interests of the transnational corporations, they have no fundamental
opposition to the profit system. It has been recently revealed that both
COSATU and the SACP have made investments in the private health service
whilst at the same time criticising the privatisation of the healthcare
system.

In recent weeks, Mbeki has made it clear that he is willing to serve for
another term as president of the ANC, although the constitution does not
allow him to stand again as president of South Africa. His intention is no
doubt to ensure that his nominee is selected as candidate for the presidency
of the country.

The presidential candidate favoured by COSATU and the SACP is Jacob Zuma, a
man who has never opposed any of the government's pro-market policies. As
deputy president, he was Mbeki's second-in-command from 1999 until he was
deposed in 2005.

With his connections with the ANC's radical past and his rhetoric about
fulfilling the aims of the ANC's Freedom Charter, Zuma provides a useful
"left" figurehead to justify supporting the government and in this way head
off mounting social and political opposition.

Zuma went to great lengths to distance himself from the public service
workers' strike. On the day after the mass demonstrations in support of the
public service workers' strike, he told Agence France-Presse, "I don't think
it's doing any good for the country. I think that both parties should have
found a solution before the strike."

He said that such scenes damaged the country's international reputation as
it tries to cement its status as the continent's economic powerhouse and
ahead of the 2010 World Cup. "I think it has not looked good for the country
and these are matters that negotiators on both sides, labour and the
government, should have taken into account."

Neither Zuma nor any of the other ANC candidates for the presidency has
anything to offer the working people. The current strike wave has underlined
the urgent need for the development of a new socialist political movement in
the South African working class opposed not only to the ANC and all its
factions, but its pro-capitalist government partners, the SACP and the
COSATU leadership.

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