Namibian workers organise

In 1987, long before Namibian independence was even on the agenda, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) decided to produce a joint book on the Namibian trade union movement. At that stage the Namibian trade unions had just begun to assert themselves. The idea of the book was to provide information useful for both Namibian and South African workers on the history of the working class struggle in Namibia. It was hoped that this would help to build a powerful working class solidarity between South African and Namibian workers. The International Labour Research and Information Group (ILRIG) - a research and educational service organisation specialising in working class struggles internationally — was commissioned by COSATU and NUNW to research, write and produce the book. Work on the book started in 1988. Between then and May 1989, two ILRIG workers visited Namibia a number of times - once with comrades from COSATU - and gathered a vast amount of information on the struggle in Namibia. Information came from workers, from trade unionists, from SWAPO, from documents and from observation. At all times in the process of writing the book, material was referred back to COSATU and NUNW for discussion and approval. The final chapter on solidarity was done at the end of August 1989, when a delegation of COSATU leaders visited Namibia to discuss setting up a permanent Working Committee with the NUNW. The book is coming at a time when Namibia is about to achieve her independence from South African colonial occupation under UN Resolution 435. The Namibian workers’ struggle for a living wage, for the right to strike, for decent houses, for jobs for all and against privatisation will not end with independence. The need for strengthening and extending trade union organisation in Namibia will not end with independence. The necessity for building solidarity between the Namibian and South African working class will not end with independence

A liberal journal for a conservative estimate

AIDS starts with a virus. Like all viruses, it’s a parasite fragile and impotent. It cannot reproduce except within human cells, It’s tiny. Over 500,000,000 HIV viruses could fit the dot on top of this i. In the wrong environment HIV dies. In the right environment, it dominates. AIDS is dominating South Africa with all ready 2.4 million people infected, with estimates of 20% of the working population being infected within four years. South Africa has willingly opened itself to domination. This time, not colonial political oppression or the cruelty of racial apartheid, but domination by a virus all of us saw coming. The Ministry of Health welcomed the virus by failing to impart a practical and realistic National AIDS strategy. Instead, entertaining us with a R14.3 million play called Sarafina 2 and a discredited new cure for AIDS Virodene

Draft COSATU Workers Charter prepared for discussion in COSATU, January 1992

In drafting this document we were guided by the following conception of the worker's charter: that it would be a document aimed for the transition - a dynamic organisational and fighting tool. We also envisaged that it could be changed through the course of struggle. This draft needs to be discussed by affiliates in preparation for the March CEC. This CEC should amend and/or endorse as a draft for COSATU to present to the Worker's Summit in May

Recruiters Guidelines

The purpose of this booklet is to touch in number of areas, which are important at this point for the recruitment campaign of the federation. It is not meant even by implication to provide details of how to handle the campaign what it does is to highlight issues and areas that we must think in the preparation for this campaign. More importantly is the fact that COSATU remains the biggest federation in South Africa and fastest growing international. Beside a loss of membership from + 2 million to + 1.8 million members. The decrease in membership is mostly because of retrenchments. The well known fact is that only about 40% of the workforce that is unionized. The aim of the recruitment drive is to access this 60% that is not unionized. The mistake must not be committed to think that the 40%, which is unionized, belong to COSATU. There are two other federations plus number of non-affiliated unions. Our commitment to One Country One Federation does not stop us to recruit from other unions as long as we remain under different bodies. This October campaign coincides with Red October campaign of the SACP and Health and Safety month of the federation this must be seen as strength than lack of co-ordination. One area that is link to recruitment is the servicing of membership. It is useless to recruit and fail to service membership because every campaign that we will take around recruitment we may find ourselves had to fight with disgruntled members and obviously it will be difficult to attract new members. This must say to us that members come first

Cosatu Living Wage Conference towards a socio-economic programme

There is now wide agreement that Cosatu should formulate a socio-economic programme to co-ordinate its present campaigns and collective bargaining and to influence the structure of the future economy. Our success in a Living Wage Campaign depends on the restructuring of the economy so that it can meet the needs and aspirations of the majority of our people

COSATU Executive committee press statement - 20 AUGUST 1998

The Executive Committee met in its normal session on 18 - 19 August 1998. It received reports on a range of socio-economic and political issues. As is always the case, discussions were conducted in a true tradition of the federation - comradeship, frankness, robust and constructive. A number of decisions were taken by the meeting, some of which are contained in this statement. The meeting received a report on meetings held with Old Mutual and Sanlam respectively. The meeting reaffirmed COSATU’s opposition to demutualisation on political and economic grounds and regretted the fact that the portfolio committee had gone ahead to finalise the bills dealing with demutualisation inspite of being informed about discussions currently taking place with the two mutual companies. We remain of the view that it would help the parliamentary process had this process been allowed to proceed to its final conclusion

COSATU Discussion document : Commissions

COSATU, along with other alliance partners, was very instrumental in the creation of national gender machinery that was put in place by the democratic state after 1994. COSATU was part of a very important meeting held in 1995 to discuss national gender machinery which was held at the World Trade Centre. This meeting concluded on a Commission for Gender Equality, the Office of the Status of Women and the mainstreaming of gender in society. The South African women’s conference held in Amsterdam from 13-18 January 1990 and tagged, “Malibongwe Women’s Conference” was a pivotal point in South African women’s history. This conference was able to discuss the preferred role of women in South African politics and society. The conference analysed the challenges faced by women and proposed a number of resolutions to address with women’s emancipation as well as gender equality. These focused on working women; education, health, culture, family, women’s unity, natal violence and repression. “The subsequent programme of action gave the notion of a struggle for ‘non-sexism’ greater prominence, and recognised that national liberation did ‘not automatically guarantee the emancipation of women.’” This was a pioneered the discussions on the establishment of national gender machinery in line with global democratic practice and the mainstreaming of gender across society and its institutions in order to avoid the “ghettoisation” or marginalization of women and women’s issues in South African society. These discussions were initiated by the Women’s National Coalition (WNC). As the negotiations for South Africa’s transition to democracy started two to three years before democracy, women found themselves marginalized once again. They quickly formed the Women National Coalition which was able to push for women’s inclusion in the negotiations processes as well s to fight for women’sissues to find their way onto the negotiations’ agenda. The Women National Coalition was able to do this very effectively as it had established a “Negotiations Monitoring Team which provided reports and information to Women National Coalition member organisations”. Through this coalition, a “Women’s Charter for Effective Equality” was developed built on the back of the “Women’s Charter” that was developed in 1954 by the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW). The coalition continued to exist and to provide leadership and to draw on the resolutions of the Amsterdam Women’s Conference. This ensured that an even broader consultation took place amongst women back home in South Africa to strengthen the Amsterdam resolutions and to put a plan in place for the implementation of new WNC resolutions, hence the constitution was able to include women’s concerns including the inclusion of a Commission for Gender Equality amongst the institutions referred to in Chapter 9 of the South African constitution. The Presidency was also given the mandate of being in charge of the gender programme and in this office the Office of the Status of Women was located