COSATU General Secretary Vavi has received support from the trade union federation amid reports that he is slated to be disciplined by the ANC for statements he has made in recent weeks.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
6 September 2010
The leadership of the SACP and COSATU met on 6 September 2010, in a bilateral meeting to discuss issues of common interest and how best to take forward the struggle for Socialism.
The meeting was a follow up to the bilateral held on 26th April early this year. It coincided with a day in which the public sector unions were to announce the suspension of a successful, militant and widely supported strike action which had lasted more than three weeks.
A comprehensive post-mortem of the strike will be made in the future, on the political implications and lessons to be drawn and how to maintain the momentum of militancy and resilience displayed by the public sector workers. This will include a broad discussion to heighten the momentum of a living wage campaign.
The meeting acknowledged that during the course of the strike some statements were made by both organisations directed to each other which did not stand to benefit the working class struggle in the long term. A commitment was made that such public spats will not be repeated in the future for they stand to benefit no one.
It was agreed that both organisations will continue to work towards ensuring that they strengthen each other. The current political environment and the challenges confronted by our country demands that these two formations must not drop their guards.
The meeting agreed that the most immediate challenge is to ensure that the Alliance and its individual partners including the ANC are strengthened. We look forward to the ANC`s forthcoming National General Council, which will carry out a mid-term review of how well we are confronting our many challenges. We are encouraged by some of the ANC Discussion Papers and hope they will provoke lively and constructive debates.
We also hope that the NGC will not be abused by people wanting to push any ill-conceived agendas for a `regime change`. The National Democratic Revolution is faced with the real danger of being hijacked by demagogues and a new tendency that has emerged in the movement post Polokwane who use revolutionary fiery slogans to woo the masses when their real intention is to secure political power as a pre-requisite to amass wealth for themselves, and whose main target is the President.
The meeting was concerned that whilst government continues to make interventions to improve the lives of our people, these interventions are likely to be unsustainable if they only tinker with the fundamental ownership patterns which largely remains colonial in content and form.
In this context the meeting asserted that central to the strategic tasks to be undertaken by the two formations is to place the discussions on the new growth path on top of the country`s agenda. In this context COSATU will be launching its proposals on the new growth path on 14th September.
The meeting declared that COSATU and the SACP cannot be aloof and fold their arms when there is every sign that once again capital stands to benefit more from the democratic dispensation. It was noted with concern that billions of rands continue to be diverted from both the private and public funds like the PIC and the IDC to fund narrow BEE self enrichment project which has nothing to do with improving the lives of the working class and the poor.
The SACP`s Red October campaign will on among others demand that NEDLAC convenes a session of public and private financial institutions to account on how they are using and investing the public funds under their control.
The two General Secretaries will urgently meet to process the following:
Develop terms of reference for a programme towards Socialism,
Develop a brief document reflecting on the theoretical discussions that took place during the meeting which can inform future engagements.
Convene a meeting of the Socialist block in South Africa and in Africa
Prepare our input and approach towards the ANC NGC
Ensure synergy between our programmes including taking forward the process of a daily newspaper and mass political education programme targeting the youth/ young workers.
Develop a plan towards a joint Organisational Development programme whose outcome will lay down a clear process of Assessment and evaluation of our programmes and effective accountability mechanism.
Provide an outline of the resources that will be required to support the SACP and a plan to mobilize those resources.
Develop an approach on how we should defend the progressive strand in ANC policy and its continued bias towards the working class.
Consciously build the unity of the Alliance on the ground around the vision of the freedom charter and a programme to drive the five priorities.
Articulate a vision that will draw the broadest section of people, particularly the middle strata. The vision should demonstrate that there is a common cause between the working class and the black middle strata and to an extent the emerging black bourgeoisie to fight for the radical transformation of our society.
This can take the form of campaigns like the financial sector campaign, agrarian reforms and breaking the stranglehold of white monopoly capital.
Ensure that the SACP-COSATU bilateral meetings are also convened at a provincial level to pursue working class driven programmes.
The meeting agreed that if these tasks were to be taken to their logical conclusion it will require more coherency between the two socialist formations and this will include having meetings at least once a month.
Malesela Maleka, SACP Spokesperson, 082 226 1802
Patrick Craven, COSATU Spokesperson, 082 821 7456
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