Aug-Sept 2014 K.indd

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www.cosatu.org.za • AUG/SEPT 2014

Organizing. Bargaining. Strategy: What Af fi liates are currently doing?

S outh Africa since 1994 has made great improvements in the lives of the working class, however, the country is still facing the triple crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality. ‘Precarious work is still experienced in various sectors of the economy. And therefore this means new skills are needed to organize better in Trade Unions to mobilize all vulnerable work ers and informal traders’, said Jane Bar ret, National Coordinator of the Vulner able Workers Task Team. COSATU has established such committees to lead new campaigns. Presenting during the national gen der committee [NGC], Cde Barret said ‘ We must challenge our assumptions in understanding the plight of vulner able workers, provoke new ways of empowering Organizers and Shopstew ards, and promote solidarity within and across Af fi liates and partnering organi zations’. ‘Provincial and Af fi liate based recruit ment programmes must be accelerated and sustained’, said Cde Barret COSATU has identi fi ed the following sectors of vulnerable workers which are farms, shops, restaurants and hotels, contract cleaning and security,

call centres, domestic workers, street traders, construction, petrol stations, home based workers, taxi industry, and municipal contract workers. Unemployment rate stands at 25, 5% as per Quarter two of 2014 sta tistics released in July 2014. And it is as a result of the ‘job-less growth’ the country experienced since 1996. Prior to the attainment of democracy, one of the instruments used by the apartheid government was the repressive labour laws and cheap labour. The introduc tion of the new sets of labour laws was, fi rst of all, a constitutional requirement and secondly a duty to redress these undesirable elements of the old dispen sation. interventions have had mixed levels of success but there are still many challenges ahead. Recently the International Labour Or ganization [ILO] hosted Ministers and senior government of fi cials from the world’s 48 least developed countries in Cotonou, Benin. Obviously, Sub-Saharan countries feature predominantly due to dire cir cumstances of poverty, under-develop ment, inequalities and unemployment. South Africa though many regard as a ‘developed’ country, the extent in which majority of workers are vulnerable is of ten under-stated. COSATU has resolved These legislative

in various constitutional meetings to consolidate work to organize, galvanize and mobilize all these workers into a formidable voice. The ILO meeting amongst others re solved that ‘Least developed countries [LDCs] should focus on jobs and decent work for inclusive growth and economic transformation’. Addressing the means by which to effect these needed chang es, the UN High Representative for UN-OHRLLS, Gyan Chandra Acharya, told the assembled delegates that “de velopment partners should be encour aged to do more by channeling aid to support productive capacity building in the LDCs, leveraging aid to encourage investment fl ows and facilitating trade and promoting technology transfer in a coherent manner.” COSATU 2015 Plan eloquently lo cates ‘quality jobs’ as a leading vision to organize all informal economy role players. How far are we in achieving all deliv erables Constitutional platforms have resolved on? Will astute organizing and servicing models we put in place across all provinces determine this from time to time!

Worker Issues

Organize or Starve!