Workers News - Cape Town report backs

I want to look at the most critical challenges we have to face as SAMWU in the coming period. Firstly, the wage campaign continues to serve as a unifying tool to all those who have to sell their labour in order to earn a living. This makes it possible for us to continue to champion the cause of millions of working people and more specifically thousands of municipal workers who still receive starvation wages. It must be seen as an appropriate springboard for the advancement of the broader objectives for social upliftment, the fight against poverty, homelessness and the realisation of our socialist goals. We have made victories such as agreement on minimum entry level. We hope the central issue of the huge wage differentials will now be addressed. A linked issue is that we must finalise Minimum Service Level agreements on essential services with all local authorities. The absence of these agreements impacts on our ability to exercise the right to strike. The need for us as leaders and members to ensure proper report backs are done and mandates given remains an area of work we need to strengthen. Secondly, the process of local government democratisation has to be pursued vigorously. As a union we face the most challenging period yet with various initiatives currently unfolding in many local authorities, such as the Igoli 2002 proposals for Greater Johannesburg, which are occupying centre stage. The framework agreement between Cosatu and Saiga is an important document that all leadership must understand. We must however take note that although the framework agreement does not specifically talk about waging anti-privatisation campaign, it does lay basis for engagement in furtherance of our public sector delivery option. We can therefore argue that it is anti privatisation in character. Although we have had setbacks at Nelspruit and Dolphin Coast, the fight is not yet over as we continue to pursue matter at the sectoral forum. There are important lessons we have to learn from these setbacks. The first is importance of building strong shopfloor structures. The second is that of maximising the collective strength of our members, organised labour and communities faced by effects of privatisation. The signing of the agreement does not mean a need to shift the emphasis in our campaign. We must strengthen our campaign and promote the public sector delivery option. Thirdly, the main challenge right now is ensuring a decisive ANC victory. The union has made resources available for the strengthening of the Alliance elections machinery through contribution to the fund controlled by the Federation; and seconding officials to work on elections fulltime. This will not be enough unless we all support programmes aimed at getting workers to vote for the ANC. These elections must not be viewed in isolation from our overall objectives of building a strong Samwu, Cosatu, SACP and ANC. The integration of election work in our daily programmes in this period leading to June 02 is very important. We must also prepare for post election challenges. The Cosatu Special Congress and programme to build the federation; the consolidation of Alliance's transformation agenda; the fight against job losses and retrenchments; HlV/Aids, defending the peoples manifesto etc. In SAMWU, the organisational strategic planning session in July is the platform we hope to utilise in strengthening internal organisation. A series of workshops will be convened before this national session. These would include Local Government Restructuring, Financial Administration etc. It will not look at campaigns or broad policy, but at how the organisation can be developed and how our structures are working. The main focus will be on how we strengthen our organisation and make it a better tool to implement policy. The above represents some of the important issues the union has to deal with. We must above all ensure that all union work serves to strengthen our organisation, build the federation and Alliance structures and raise working class consciousness around issues faced by us and the workers of the world