Address by John Gomomo, Cosatu president, on behalf ofthe labour constituency

Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, leaders of Cosatu, Nactu and Fedusa, distinguishedguests, comrades and friends.

Two years ago, we came together to launch Nedlac. We committed ourselves to utilisethis institution to promote growth, equity and participation on behalf of workers such asJabu Xulu and Cynthia Gumede. Through it we would ensure the effective participation ofcivil society in decision-making on a range of issues.

As labour we never saw Nedlac as a replacement for Parliament, as some argue. Nor doesit take away the right of government to govern, as one minister would want the country tobelieve. Instead, it provides a platform for the governed to engage with governmentdirectly, and for government to explain its policies and to justify them.

The alternative, as we have said very often, "is for the new democracy to flounderon the rocks of continual strife and conflict over all matters of production anddistribution". Approached correctly, Nedlac can and has in most cases played apositive and empowering role to Parliament and government.

The last summit resolved to identify priority policy areas and to develop a broadframework for their implementation. Progress has been made on a number of process issuesin terms of the effective functioning of meetings, and of the formal Nedlac processes. Wewould be less than frank if we were to acknowledge that any progress has been made inforging a common strategic agenda, and a common view of how to tackle our country's majorchallenges.

Our input today must be located within the needs of workers and the broader workingclass. The question that workers are asking is whether Nedlac's role is only to deal withprocess issues or whether its role should extend to its real mandate-that of reachingconsensus and agreement on socio-economic issues that will alleviate poverty, inequalitiesin wealth and incomes, create jobs, build houses and provide basic infrastructure. I hopeto take back answers to workers in this regard.

At the last summit, the Deputy President informed us that government was stilldiscussing its proposals on macroeconomic issues. We were promised that once the proposalswere ready, they would be made available to the parties at Nedlac. This has not happened.

Instead, we have seen increased reluctance by government to place policy proposals fordiscussion and, as far as is possible, to reach agreement in Nedlac. As organised labourwe find this totally unacceptable, and we pledge to tackle such ministers and such anapproach to policy. We acknowledge that the exception has been the Minister of Labour, whohas been prepared to engage us in discussion on policy matters.

While we remain committed to Nedlac and pledge to defend the existence of theinstitution, we are disappointed with the conduct of business and government. In fact,some of us are fast losing our patience-not with Nedlac, since this would be playing tothe agenda of those who want to destroy it but-but with government and employers, sincethey only pay lip service to Nedlac, but elements would be very happy if we walked out. Infact, they would prefer it but have no guts to say so. They do not want an effectiveNedlac but a toy telephone.

Our message to them is that Jabu Xulu and Cynthia Gumede are ready to defend their rolein policy formulation. In consultation with the communities and students from as farafield as Uitenhage, Bolobedi, and KwaMashu, they are ready to take whatever action isrequired to force business and government to respect the letter and spirit of the NedlacAct and the founding declaration.

I know that I will be accused of creating straw targets. Let us take Gear as but oneexample.

In spite of the resolution of the last summit, as well as the position that wasoutlined by the Deputy President to place government proposals on the table-which positionwe fully supported-in practice, what happened? We learnt of the existence of thisstrategy, not through it being placed on the negotiating table, but when it was announcedand declared to be non-negotiable in Parliament by the Minister of Finance.

Business, for its part, realising that this was "Growth For All" dressed instruggle language, welcomed this approach and called on the government to implement itwithout delay. Their battle cry became: government must govern. The same defenders of theright of government to govern would not support that right if government was to implementthose policies set out in the reconstruction and development programme (RDP) aroundhousing, anti-trust policies, labour rights, a national public works programme, and amassive investment in the human potential of our people. It is at such moments thatsections of business discover the virtues of consultation and negotiation.

As labour we remain opposed to the basic thrust of the Gear strategy. We reject itsapproach to fiscal and monetary policies, which continue to see major cuts in governmentspending on social security and basic infrastructure, as well as continued rising interestrates. The effect of these policies is to choke the much-needed economic growth andemployment creation. It will also perpetuate the gap in wealth and incomes between therich and the poor.

After almost a year after the unveiling of the famous Gear-the reverse gear for oursociety-the promised jobs have not materialised. Only last week, a senior bureaucrat inTrevor Manual's department acknowledged what we have been saying all along: that theprojections of Gear on jobs will not see the light of day. Were it not for the seriousnesswhich we place on job creation, we would be saying to government: "We told youso!"

There is a vast difference between programming a computer to project jobs and the realthing. Predicting that business will invest in jobs is a far cry from getting them toinvest. All they will do is to ask for more. We hope that this will make governmentrealise that business pays lip service to transformation. They would prefer to have Jabuand Cynthia bear the brunt of transformation alone.

The irony is that those who told us that this programme was cast in stone, as well asthose who have been calling for its immediate implementation, are now asking us to helpthem implement it.

Our response is a simple one: "Se kganang se nthula morwalo. A sisoze si nincede.Qhubekani ngo kwenu. Uma ni funa uku sebenzisana nathi, vumani ukuba iGear mayiphume kubuye iRDP."

In case you have forgotten, here are the main pillars of the RDP:

• The basic needs of our people.
• Rebuilding the economy and promoting the rights of workers.
• The eradication of poverty.
• Job creation for our people.

If we really want to succeed as a nation, we have to respond to the verdict of theelectorate. Unlike business, who were cynical of the RDP, dismissing it as a wish list,the masses voted for a better life as contained in the RDP and not Gear. The same goes forbusiness's "Growth For All". It could never have seen the light of day in anelection.

The past few months have seen speculations about a presidential job summit. We have nowheard that the Minister of Labour is looking at October this year as a possible date. Wewish him success in his new endeavours.

We are aware that both the Labour Market Commission and Gear call for a presidentialjobs summit. We have no in-principle problem with a forum which will look at the problemsaround unemployment and job creation.

We, however, wish to place on record that, in our view, what drives business andgovernment's approach to the jobs summit is to get us to help with the implementation ofGear. This is where their proposals for job creation are to be found. We refuse to becoopted into the implementation of Gear.

What is needed-if we are going to have a successful summit of any kind-is for theparties to agree on a broad framework for the summit, its aims and objectives, terms ofreference, etc. By the time a summit is convened, we will have forged consensus on most ofthe issues underpinning a strategy for employment creation. Rushing into a summit with theparties holding positions which are diametrically opposed to one another is a sure formulafor deadlock. This we should avoid.

We have taken note of the draft declaration placed before us. As labour we are ready toadopt it. I, however, need to outline our understanding of the declaration.

For us "global realities" are not about a set of tired arguments about why weshould cut social spending, remove exchange controls, reduce company tax to even lowerlevels, privatise state assets, retrench public sector workers and deregulate the labourmarket. For us the global realities include:

An unequal access to resources by developing countries.

• A constant attempt by some business to shift resources to where wages are low.
• A systematic attempt to discredit, and weaken, the state and the public sector as a provider of social services, as a force for modernising the economy, and a protector of the weak and vulnerable.
• A set of policies followed by the Bretton Woods institutions, which promote an agenda of rising income inequalities, and a lowering of social protection.

South Africa must unite with other developing countries to challenge this pattern ofglobal policies. Our response to these realities must not be to lapse into a fatalism, andmerely accept the bitter consequences for humanity of these uncaring policies. We also donot argue for policies founded on closing our borders, and cutting ourselves off from thepotential benefit of economic activity across the world.

We seek in place of the current form of globalisation, and the subservient attitude ofgovernment to the power of capital in the global market, to promote a developmentalapproach to the integration of economic activity.

What does this mean in practice?

It means support for efforts to build an explicit social dimension into trade policies,so that open markets go hand in hand with the promotion of trade union rights inIndonesia, the ratification of the core ILO conventions in the United States and theelimination of child labour on the Indian subcontinent.

It means support for efforts to write off third world debt, whose level and repaymentterms keep poor and developing nations from accumulating capital for growth, and resourcesfor social programmes. In our own country, we need to consider the appropriateness ofrepaying foreign debt that was accumulated to finance the maintenance of racialoppression.

It means support for efforts by developing countries to implement appropriate policiesin the areas of trade tariffs, regulation of capital and financial markets, and the roleof public sector corporations, which are geared to fostering the building of a strongmanufacturing base in their countries, instead of the emphasis of neoliberal solutionswhich causes deindustrialisation and the loss of jobs and incomes.

Above all, the needs of our society to develop the human potential of our people,reduce the wage gap, eliminate inequalities and foster programmes to create jobs for allat a living wage, must be at the very centre of our efforts in the next 12 months.

In so far as specific goals for the period ahead is concerned, we propose thefollowing:

Job creation through areas such as public works and mass housing programmes, jobsharing, training the workforce, increasing productivity and land distribution.

• Redistributive fiscal policies through measures like social spending and tax policies.
• Breaking the concentration of economic power and promoting small and medium-sized enterprises.
• Improved worker rights: dealing with collective bargaining, strong union rights, investing in the training of the workforce, ending the apartheid wage gap and the disclosure of information.
• Industrial democracy, through a range of shopfloor and board mechanisms.
• Promoting economic development and worker rights internationally.

I want to conclude with an issue which is pertinent to Cosatu. This is the issue of thecurrent deadlock on basic conditions of employment. As Cosatu we want to warn bothgovernment and business that the game that they are engaged in will not in itself resolvethe dispute. Instead, it leads to the escalation of conflict and may have the effect ofundermining industrial relations.

We reject the assertion by the Minister of Labour and his ministry that what we areengaged in are new negotiations and that the bill is different from the previous oneswhich we have been negotiating for over a year.

In so far as business is concerned, they are free to continue to refer us to lastyear's positions. If this is what they prefer, we are ready to meet them on thebattlefield on 2 June 1997. No amount of litigation or any amount of intimidation willhalt the strike. The only thing that may stop it is an agreement on the core issues raisedby Cosatu.

I hope that the issues that we have raised will be taken into account as we moveforward in seeking consensus. I thank you.