There’s power in the union

Copper mining remains the dominant economic activity in Zambia, a situation that has not changed since 1928 when large-scale mining was introduced in the country. According to a World Bank report released in June 2015, the sector today accounts for more than sixty-five percent of Zambia’s export earnings and eleven percent of its gross domestic product. The mining sector has also seen the largest number of industrial accidents and fatalities in post-colonial Zambia.

The widespread privatisation of the Zambian copper mining sector in the 1990s led to the (re)emergence of foreign mining companies in the country, including several state-owned companies from China. China’s increasing presence in Zambia has also given rise to a number of concerns. Some Chinese mining companies have been accused of maintaining lax safety standards, paying low wages to local employees—especially if compared to other foreign mining companies—and of physically abusing their workers. For these reasons, critics have accused the Zambian government of weakening its safety standards to attract foreign investors, of failing to monitor compliance with safety and labour laws, and of underfunding local regulators.

These critics allege that this has triggered a ‘race to the bottom’ in labour standards. By ‘race to the bottom’, they refer to a tendency where the government reduces the monitoring and enforcement capacity of public regulatory institutions, or enacts lax safety laws, in order to attract foreign investors. They not only argue that the Zambian government weakens safety standards through funding cuts, but they also claim that current regulatory standards are obsolete and that the government intervenes in the decision-making process of regulators to protect Chinese companies from paying penalties when they fail to comply with local regulations.

In April 2005, fifty-two Zambians were killed in an accident in an explosives factory jointly owned by the Beijing General Institute for Research and Metallurgy (BGRIMM) and the Non-Ferrous China-Africa (NFCA) Mining Company—both state-owned companies—in Chambishi in Zambia’s Copperbelt Province. One year after the accident at the BGRIMM plant, five Zambians were shot and injured by gunshots fired by their Chinese manager while they were protesting against low wages and lax safety standards at the NFCA Chambishi mine. In August 2008, more than five hundred Zambian workers attacked a newly built Chinese-owned Chambishi Copper Smelter and burnt down the kitchen of a Chinese-resident. One Chinese and three Zambians working in the kitchen were seriously injured. The protesters claimed that they had been told that the management was going on vacation and abandoning collective negotiations in which workers had demanded changes in safety standards and a reduction in work hours. In another accident that attracted a lot of media attention in 2010, a Chinese supervisor at the Collum Coal mine in Southern Province shot thirteen Zambians. The workers at the mine were complaining against the state of safety standards in the mines and their low wages. These accidents and protests have raised serious debate about labour and safety standards in Chinese mines in Zambia.

The formulation of safety and labour regulations in Zambia is based on a state/business-centred approach that ignores the role of non-state actors, such as trade unions, mine workers, local NGOs, and international organisations.

A 2011 study by Human Rights Watch (HRW) has highlighted, Chinese mining companies in Zambia still have further reforms to make in order to strengthen their efforts to mitigate accidents. These include improving the safety conditions of workers hired by subcontractors, reducing the number of casual employees, and cutting the number of working hours.

Trade unions have organised protests, and pushed the issue into the public agenda. In response to these protests, some Chinese mining companies have altered their safety policies and normalised their relations with unions. Furthermore, under mounting public pressure, the Zambian government has introduced labour laws and established structures to strengthen its safety regulatory standards in the last decade.

http://www.chinoiresie.info/regulating-chinese-investment-in-zambian-mines/

The need for union unity

Namibia has more than 40 registered unions and three union federations - the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW), the Trade Union Congress of Namibia (Tucna) and the recently formed Namibian National Labour Organization (Nanlo).

Of these three, only one - the NUNW has bargaining powers - while the other two can only endorse whatever would have been agreed on, although this does not happen quite often.

Nantu is affiliated to NUNW but there is another - the Teachers Union of Namibia - that is affiliated to Tucna. The two do not sit together to plan on how best they can represent teachers. Likewise, public servants are represented by Namibia Public Workers’ Union that is affiliated to NUNW and the Public Service Union of Namibia that is under Tucna.

The division in the labor movement is largely political. The NUNW is linked the ruling party Swapo. It was formed in 1970 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania during the liberation war. NUNW is affiliated to the World Federation of Trade Union (WTFU). Some of its affiliates are the Namibian Food and Allied Workers union (Nafawu), the Namibian Transport and Allied Workers Union (Natawu), the Metal and Allied Namibian Workers Union (Manwu), and the Mineworkers Union of Namibian (MUN).

Tucna was formed as a merger between two major legislative organizations namely the Namibia Federation of Trade Unions (NAFTU) and Namibia People’s Social Movement (NPSM) in May 2002. Tucna is a member of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

Nanlo was formed about two years ago by the former NUNW general secretary Evilastus Kaaronda. Just like the other two, Nanlo also has affiliates have members drawn from the same constituencies.

Already these powerful affiliates, despite representing same constituencies and harboring same demands, do not agree on many occasions. The division became clear Tuesday after the Namibia Public Workers’ Union leaders accepted the government’s 5 percent salary increase, which the teachers’ union that is demanding an 8 percent salary increase has refused to accept. Although teachers have their own union, they are considered as civil servants together with other government workers represented by the public workers’ union.

Practically, it means that the two unions have to agree on their demands since they both belong to the National Union of Namibian Workers. This is not happening since the public workers’ union leadership accepted the offer, with their general secretary Peter Nevonga saying that they understand the country’s economic situation.

Nevonga met President Hage Geingob Tuesday in Windhoek where he told the head of state that their members have accepted the 5 percent offer. The teachers’ union leaders also met Geingob Tuesday in a closed door meeting that lasted more than two hours but came out with no agreement.

Labor experts Herbert Jauch said the dividing line between the NUNW and Tucna is the question of political affiliation that causes the two federations to operate as rivals and competitors to each other with little prospects of co-operation around common workers’ interests. Workers, Jauch also said, need to assess if the old divisions between unions are still relevant today or if there are possibilities for co-operation, while the labour movement needs to ask itself how it can reach those tens of thousands of vulnerable workers who are still not unionized.

“Failure to address these key challenges might see trade unions losing their relevance as a uniting force to spearhead workers’ interests in Namibia,” Jauch concluded.

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Cosatu Eastern Cape Strike Call

Cosatu Eastern Cape is finalising its mobilisation working with its affiliates for the upcoming one-day national strike , 7th October . 

This is in response to many challenges facing workers within our Province and across the world. Workers still continue to work under appalling and unhealthy and unsafe working conditions in both public and private sectors. In our Province ,there are still companies that are using labour brokers and refusing even to comply with the latest so called regulations by government. Farm workers are worse off as they are not treated as human beings with their rights being violated on a daily basis by the farmers.

We will have a march on the 7th October , gathering at North End stadium in Buffalo City Metro at 1000 and proceed to the Department of Labour to hand over our memorandum of demands to both Border Kei Chamber of Business and the
Department of Labour Management. 

The following will be amongst the list of our demands:

1. An immediate stoppage of outsourcing by all Provincial Departments

2. An end to the use of private lawyers on ordinary disciplinary cases by the Provincial government
3. Payment of all outstanding service benefits to workers
4. Filling of all vacant funded posts
5. Demand the total banning of labour brokers
6. Demand the Provincial Government to put an end to the planned building of E-toll gates on the wild coast road
7. Demand compliance with Occupational Health & Safety Standards in all workplaces
8. Fight for the scrapping of the Taxation Amendment Law
9. Demand the implementation of NHI
10. Demand the implementation of Free Education.

Issued by COSATU Eastern Cape

Support Swaziland Strikers

Riot police in Swaziland are under fire for using rubber bullets and teargas against striking workers. A strike at Swaziland Plantation has entered its second month amid clashes between police and workers.

Swaziland Agriculture and Plantations Workers Union (SAPWU) Chairperson Sibusiso Masuku told the Swazi Observer newspaper the police had taken a violent stance against the workers. Masuku explained, 'The riot police are just pawns used by the Plantation Forest Company administration to fight against us, we feel safer when they are not present as we do not understand their way of thinking.' 

In June 2015, Swaziland was listed as one of the top ten worst countries in the world for workers' rights. It was grouped alongside some of the worst human rights violators on the planet, including Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Guatemala, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Fighting Capitalism in Ghana

A study that used the Gini coefficient index in its measurement of the extent to which the distribution of income deviates from a perfect line of equality carried out in 2014 by the Ghana Mine Workers has revealed that 90 per cent of mine workers share of wage income is less than 10 per cent of the highest paid person. Such a wide disparity in wage inequality, according to Mr Prince William Ankrah, the General Secretary of the Union, had been a long held view in the mining industry of Ghana which the study had confirmed.

Mr Ankrah said:”The reward for labour in the mining industry in Ghana and for that matter Africa should not only be just wages but fair and equitable wages. “We have trumpeted this injustice and discrimination on many platforms but very little attention has been received. Responses from the industry’s stakeholders have been hypocritical or at best rhetoric,” he said adding on the international front comparing with their peers like South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, and Namibia all in Africa, Ghanaian workers were short-changed in every aspects. The Union, he said, wanted stakeholders and the world to know that “the discrimination, the alienation and the injustice must stop…To us, the dawn of a new struggle is beckoning and the Union is prepared to heed the call to change the destinies of its members.”

Mr Kwarko Mensah Gyakari, the National Chairman of the Union, said the unacceptable level of income inequality and uneven remuneration system that had persisted for a long time was a dangerous threat to the stability and sustainability of the industry. He said another worrying phenomenon creeping into the industry at a faster pace, which needed urgent response, was the issue of massive outsourcing of work. “Today, employment in the industry is fast transforming from long and permanent status to a more precarious fixed term contract and casual work. Currently, some labour brokers whose only duty is to facilitate employment have turned themselves into employers and abusing workers’ rights. We want to caution such organisations to end the practice now or face the wrath of the Union.”

Confirming this, Mr Kofi Asamoah, the Secretary General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress, said in the last three decades despite a revamping of the mining industry, mining employment had declined and mining technology had become less labour intensive. He said however that given the current fiscal regime in the mining industry, one surest way for Ghana to retain significant amount of the mining rent would be through the wages and salaries that were paid to mine workers. “Rather, mine workers in Ghana are paid on the basis of so-called purchasing power parity in which compensation in the mines is pegged to the costs of living in Ghana. And the assumption is that Ghana has relatively low costs of living compared to other major mining countries.”

Socialist Banner applauds every effort by workers to resist employers and urges all to join and strengthen the trade union movement. But why stop at what Marx described “limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.”

“They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!" 

IT WAS A HEAVY HUMMER FOR THE WORKERS FROM THE SUPREME COURT IN ZIMBABWE!

Going back memory lane, we recall how the Korean wife of Charles Ray, the then US Ambassador to Zimbabwe had been spitting venom as she terrorized desperate workers taking advantage of the employment crisis gripping Zimbabwe. We also recall how Morgan Tsvangirai left workers in the cold by dumping the ZCTU and ventured into politics by launching the MDC Party in 1999. That was after he attracted imperialism’s ever winking eye by staging successful food riots and mass workers demonstration - the harbinger that ruined the then country’s intact economy from 1998. Since then, Zimbabwean workers who chose not to be brain drained continue battling at their work places. Day by day, we continue noting how lives of the workers who most of them earn salaries below Poverty Datum Line and the unemployed are worsening while workers’ unions including the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU) and Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) are taking no actions but political sides. In a nutshell, it is clear that these trade unions are simply defensive organizations of the working class with the limited role of protecting wages and working conditions and it is by their empty actions that their effectiveness ought to be judged. However, to rub salt to the starving workers’ wounds, the Supreme Court echoed a landmark judgement on 17 July 2015 that left tongues wagging!

The Supreme Court unleashed this newly-discovered power of employers by allowing the termination of employment by employers on notice without benefits. This judgement triggered massive job cuts as big business politicians with companies with a bloated workforce and had been struggling to pay workers were the biggest beneficiaries as they took advantage in cutting jobs. Before, the Labour Act made it impossible for the employer to hire workers on contract basis because if the worker is continuously offered for up to 3 months, there were deemed to have been permanently engaged and any plans to terminate their services would force the employer to go through the complicated and often expensive retrenchment route. Thence, state enterprises and parastatals also joined in this madness of getting rid of workers namely the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Coporation, Grain Marketing Board, CMED, Air Zimbabwe et cetera. Profit making giants like ECONET were not left out! Within a month, about 10 000 workers have since lost their jobs. Also taking advantage of this was the local Buddhist Congregation that had been in labour dispute with its employees for over a year over underpayment of salaries. This emerged after the Management Committee of the Buddhist Congregation planted a class struggle within the workers. For this reason, those paid less had to file their grievances via the ZFTU that ended up stewing on the worker’s peanut buttered salaries. It was a surprise to see the representative from the ZFTU endorsing the forced retrenchment made by this Management Committee on the 30th of April 2015 and before the Supreme Court judgement was announced. It boggles my mind that how come the issue of outstanding back pay that has been subject to an Arbitral Award of about $100 000,00 had not been dealt with first. Why did this muscled man at the Buddhist Congregation unsympathetically chose to fire the workers first before the issue of underpayments was resolved? And following to this, it was a pity that towards end of July, the workers were given $30 000 to share as their Arbitral Award and they were urged to accept this by their ZFTU representative who fooled them that there were lucky while vexing the uneducated worker’s minds with the Supreme Court ruling. From this, the ZFTU representative took $8 000 from the workers just for efforts he made: leaving the workers jobless. On their retrenchment packages, he too deducted $500 from each forced to quit employee. To the ZFTU, is this fighting for the worker’s rights? According to law, these employees has a right to claim their Arbitral award grossly as they had been battling to make ends meet on underpayment for years and applying the Supreme Court ruling was totally unconstitutional.

Though these toothless workers representatives threatened the government to stage street protests and civil unrest unless it was to stop the ongoing massive job losses. These workers representatives fooled workers that they would not sit and watch while they were being fired. Over 200 workers representatives on protruding tummies staged a meeting at Stoddart Hall in the high density suburb of Mbare where they vociferously denounced the Supreme Court ruling pointing out that employees would embark on massive and crippling strikes to stop the job cuts that definitely would cause untold suffering to the sacked workers. Further, they reached at a resolution to on massive demonstrations as well to ensure that Cde Mugabe invoke Presidential Powers to restore order in the labour market as employers are willy-nilly firing workers cheaply without the provision of retrenchment packages. Amazingly, promises by these workers unions to stage nationwide went with a goose chase and up to now nothing has been put in place to save the workers from the calamity! 

It is apparent that the Supreme Court ruling was a declaration that permanent employment is no longer guaranteed as employees are destined to be engaged on contract. Even if one has worked for 30 years he/she can only get three month notice pay which is downright peanuts. Latter, it was then the government through the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare indicating that it would amend the Labour Act hastily so as a panacea to the working class plea. We are not aware if these to be made amendments would bring a smile to the let down worker’s face requiring job security, labour market security and a living wage… However, as workers are bound to the wages system the amendments to be made won’t rescue them from the very jaws of exploitation. Obviously, the workers would remain in chains within this wage system where they enter into contracts with employers whereby the value they create for their bosses is more than the value they receive in wages. Thus how the current system makes profit through exploitation!

It is open that the current insane system discards improving the conditions of the majority working class but simply oils the functions it was adapted to perform while enabling the pursuit of profit for private gain regardless of other external outcomes by a privileged minority. We can only get rid of this unfair sucking system by establishing a society which can be organized democratically in the interest of all the people regardless of race or creed. Such a society can only be organized on the basis of common ownership, democratic control and production solely for use – a moneyless stateless society where employment will be a thing of the past and where nobody would be bossed. Thus real socialism! Let us speed the day! 

  B. Musemwa 

 

Together we can win

"Nothing has changed. We are still being paid under the apartheid wage structure." explained  David Sipunzi, newly elected head of the NUM, South Africa's biggest mine union. He was referring to the fact that lower-paid miners were overwhelmingly black and often drawn from rural areas far from the shafts - a system that has prevailed for decades.

Sipunzi added he aimed to bring Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) back into his union which left over a decade ago. "We are not enemies, we are both workers. The enemy is the employer. If we are fragmented we are not going to win the battle with the employer."

WORKERS UNITED CANNOT BE DEFEATED 

Solidarity with Gabon Workers

The forestry sector is Gabon’s second source of foreign exchange after oil. There is rising anger among trade unionists and environmentalists after a wood company, Rain Forest Management (RFM), sacked 38 fixed-term workers last month in Mbomao, Ogooué-Ivindo province. RFM, a Gabonese wood processing company with Malaysian investment, is one of several exploiting the rich natural forests in Gabon.

The workers had been locked in a lengthy dispute over working conditions, lack of contacts and legal working hours, among other complaints. The dismissals were linked to worker protests over poor working conditions, unsanitary housing infested with rats, cockroaches and snakes, demands for legal working hours and payment of wages on time.

According to the Entente Syndicale des Travailleurs du Gabon (ENSYTG) union, RFM refused to negotiate with them and workers who were planning to take part in trade union meetings were threatened and intimidated. After numerous threats and charges of intimidation, as the employees were returning to work, RFM called on police to evict them from their company-supplied dormitories, claiming that the workers had violated company rules.

Léon Mébiame Evoung, president of ENSYTG, told IPS that the workers were simply calling on the company to respect basic rights and provide a pharmacy and an infirmary that should be managed by competent Gabonese health professionals. RFM failed to meet any of these demands, said the union official. Instead, it decided to execute its earlier threat by firing all protesting workers.

Marc Ona Essangui, founder of the environmental NGO Brainforest and president of Environment Gabon, a network of NGOs, told IPS in an online interview that he could not accept such “gross suppression” of workers’ rights. “I strongly protest against the dismissal of these workers, which is clearly linked to their strike action,” he insisted. Such anti-union activities, he added, violate International Labour Office (ILO) conventions 87 and 98 (on freedom of association and the right to organise and bargain collectively, respectively).

Forests Monitor, an NGO that supports forest-dependent people, “although Gabon’s forests are often described as being relatively undamaged and offering great potential for long-term sustainable timber production, it is clear that industrial forestry within the current policy framework threatens their future integrity and the country’s biodiversity.”

The NGO notes that “production levels are already considerably above the official sustainable production estimates and are set to continue rising”, meaning that “the contribution which forestry sector revenues make to the country’s population as a whole and to people living in the locality of forestry operations is questionable.”

On its website, the World Resources Institute (WRI) notes that “nowhere is the pressure (on resources) more intense than in Gabon, a nation with 80 percent of its territory covered by dense tropical forest. With resource use demands spiralling in recent years, Gabon urgently needs better forest management planning if the government is to achieve its goal of becoming an emerging economy while preserving the country’s natural resources.” A WRI report titled ‘A First Look at Logging in Gabon’, compiled by seven Gabonese environmental organisations, “Gabon has vast forest resources, but rapid growth of logging activity may threaten those resources. If managed properly, Gabon’s forests could offer long-term revenues without compromising the ecosystems’ natural functions.”

However, the authors continued, “(we) found information about forest development unreliable, inconsistent, and very difficult to obtain. We believe that more public information will promote accountability and transparency and favour the implementation of commitments made to manage and protect the world’s forests, which would significantly slow forest degradation around the world.”

RFM’s woodworking factory lies at the centre of three national parks – Lope, Crystal Mountain, and Ivindo – and to the east of Libreville. The park area is a small fraction of the land marked for development on a WRI map. The wood used by RFM is locally sourced. Established in 2008, RFM produces windows and doors for the Gabonese domestic market. It exports semi-finished products to Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The company employs more than 700 workers, with a Gabonese majority.

Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWINT), which is circulating an online petition to help the strikers’ return to their jobs. 

http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/03/anger-seethes-in-gabon-after-wood-company-sacks-protesting-workers/

Solidarity or Loyalty?

 Numsa, the metalworkers’ union, South Africa’s biggest union has been expelled from the main trade union federation, Cosatu.  

Numsa, which has more than 320,000 members, has complained that the alliance has betrayed its leftist roots and failed to represent the interest of the workers, describing the battle in Cosatu as one between the forces of capitalism and forces of socialism. Ahead of May elections, Numsa refused to endorse the ruling party, which it has been highly critical of, and called on Mr Zuma to step down over a scandal involving R246m of taxpayers money spent on his private Nkandla homestead.

Numsa leaders have raised the spectre of the union forming its own political party and are planning to launch a workers’ movement, the United Front, which they say is needed to act as a “weapon for uniting the working class.” They have hinted that they could contest local government elections in 2016 when the ANC’s hold on key municipalities, including Johannesburg, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth, is expected to be severely tested.

The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) has grown rapidly to become the dominant union in the important platinum sector. Amcu is locked in a bitter rivalry with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the traditionally dominant union in the industry and a key Cosatu member, and is steadily increasing its representation at gold mines. It led an unprecedented five month strike at the world’s three top platinum producers – Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin – this year as workers have become increasingly frustrated with their salaries and poor living conditions.

Black migrant workers from the country side provided cheap labour to the mines for decades. The profits benefited mostly white South Africans and foreigners and recently also a handful of black South Africans. Poor miners have seen little of the benefits but suffered the most. The migrant culture ripped apart their family structures and caused various issues, HIV/AIDS being not the least.  Numsa is standing up for miners, although we cannot be sure if it’s done in the best way.

Maybe this is a sign of emerging normality in South African politics. It would be a shame if the ANC went more or less unchallenged for another 20 years (look how long it took post-independence India to lose its fealty to the Congress Party).

From here 

Swaziland bans trade unions

Swazi Minister of Labour and Social Security, Winnie Magagula, has announced a Cabinet resolution deciding that, pending legal reforms, all federations should stop operating immediately. All trade union and employer federations will be effectively banned, a clear violation of ILO Convention 87, ratified by Swaziland, guaranteeing freedom of association for workers and employers. Federations were called upon to submit reports of their operations to date, including their prepared audited financial statements to the Commissioner of Labour.

Tripartite bodies such as the Wages Council, Labour Advisory Board, Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration Commission, Swaziland National Provident Fund, Training and Localization Committee and the Social Dialogue Committee will stop functioning as a result.
Article 5 of ILO Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize recognizes the right of workers’ organizations to establish or to join federations and confederations of their own choosing.

The Swazi government has ignored repeated calls from the international trade union movement to respect rights guaranteed under international conventions ratified by Swaziland. Instead they have suspended workers’ right to freely associate and to carry out trade union activities completely.

http://www.industriall-union.org/swaziland-bans-trade-unions

AMCU's Strike

Next week the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union will move to strike at two of the world's top three platinum producers. Their members are demanding a "living wage," which would imply a doubling of salaries,12,500 rand ($1,200) minimum monthly wage.

"That 12,500 is nothing compared to these profits. Why do they invest this profit in London instead of investing back to where the workers are?" said AMCU president Joseph Mathunjwa.

Last week, Thebe Maswabi, who chairs Amcu’s branch at Anglo American Platinum, rallied workers to break away from Amcu. Mr Maswabi was particularly scathing about Amcu’s leader, Joseph Mathunjwa, whom he accused of enriching himself at the expense of workers. Mathunjwa has managed through loans to exercise control over many people, even senior managers, according to people close to his dealings. Yet, they describe him as a capitalist at heart, who is forever seeking money-making opportunities. Critics say, for example, that he will sometimes drive an agenda — such as pension fund membership — because there are brokerage fees to be gained. Mathunjwa is described as a smooth talker who comes across as sincere and a supporter of capitalist practices. “In this manner, he normally wins the trust and support of managers, sometimes to their own detriment,” they said.

Amcu’s achilles tendon — its poor organisational ability — has opened the door for worker committees seeking to take advantage of the gaps. If Amcu is now not delivering as these workers expected, then the union will be rejected. And these workers are unlikely to want to revert to NUM, which would leave the gap open for a new union.

Said one labour analyst: “It would not be surprising if the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) takes advantage of this situation, and forms its own union in opposition to the Amcu and the NUM. The EFF is very active in the area, particularly among the unemployed and the youth,”

From here

Dump the ANC !

Following on from the earlier call from NUMSA to disaffilate from the ANC, further developments have arisen.

In a speech to the eighth Pan African Congress at Wits University, suspended Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said workers should consider how they were being represented in government.
“Workers around the world, not only in Africa, have always elected political elites that have implemented policies that do not serve their political and economic interests...Perhaps we need to think very hard about how we should politically organise workers to represent their own interests in the state”

Author and political commentator, William Gumede says “The ANC has unfortunately moved towards a leadership serving the elites and it is now difficult for ordinary rank and file workers to have a direct say in policy direction. Ordinary supporters are being excluded out of the economy while the elite live in a bubble. The social gap is becoming too wide.” He said the clash of classes was also playing out in the unions, which was why some of them, such as the National Union of Mineworkers, were under pressure. The conflict of different class interests could cause further fracturing in trade unions, in Cosatu and the ANC. Gumede estimates that about 40% of the ANC is deactivated at present – either through disillusionment, sidelining, factional battles or apathy.
 He said a strong Cosatu could have fought to take over the ANC from within. If that were not possible, the option was to move out of the alliance and lobby from outside. But, says Gumede, this is a “scary and difficult” consideration for anyone trying to chart a path away from the alliance. They would be cut off from patronage and resources from the state and state-owned enterprises, and would have to survive with no money for a while until they could establish themselves.

Rejected, the ANC and SACP !!

It is gratifying to Socialist Banner to witness at long last the ANC and the South African Communist Party being rejected by the workers, although it is not before time and need not have been as a result of the bloody slaughter of the miners’ union members by the ANC government.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, which calls itself  “the biggest union in the history of the African continent,” with 338,000 members, announced after a special congress that it would seek to start a socialist party aimed at protecting the interests of the working class.

"It is clear that the working class cannot any longer see the ANC or the SACP as its class allies in any meaningful sense," said Numsa leader Irvin Jim. “”..the ANC does not have an agenda for the working class. Why must we support it? If the ANC is not willing to support the interest of the working class, what must we do? That's our challenge. That's why we are being hated. We say ANC must ban labour brokers, do away with the national development plan and stop privatising public roads. Why must we fear to say that when the ANC by its own nature is a multiclass organisation?" said Jim.

 It would now recruit openly in all the mining industry and welcome rival union National Union of Miners members who wanted to join Numsa. "We are no longer going to reject any worker who comes [from the NUM] to Numsa. If people want to take that as poaching, well, workers are not rhinos but human beings. The focus on Numsa membership must be rejected. [Cosatu] Public sector unions are recruiting among themselves. They [those opposed to the idea of Numsa recruiting in other sectors] can go to hell. We will recruit workers that come to us and want to belong to the organisation."

Hopefully, this will be the first step in the creation of one big industrial union for mining workers.

Socialist Banner, however, wonders just what is meant by the intended socialist party and sincerely hopes that it will not be yet another reformist organisation but truly revolutionary in its aspirations. 

Egypt's workers unions

The independent trade unions that have sprung up across Egypt over the last 17 months face an uncertain future, caught between Islamists and the military and operating under labour laws that have not changed since Hosni Mubarak was in power. The dictator’s downfall, however, gave union activists more room to operate. Workers have set up over 500 independent syndicates in recent months. The majority have affiliated with two autonomous labour bodies, the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) led by Abu Eita, and the Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress (EDLC) headed by former steel worker Kamal Abbas. EFITU, formed just five days into the uprising against Mubarak, claims an affiliated membership of 281 independent unions comprising over two million workers. The younger EDLC covers about 250 independent unions. The pair, separated primarily by their policies of incorporation, has emerged to challenge the state-backed ETUF, which still claims nearly four million members.

“The government and business owners don’t want to respond to workers’ demands or give them rights, so they are opposed to seeing workers establish independent syndicates,” says Kamal Abu Eita, a leader of the independent union movement.

Under Mubarak, all unions were required to be part of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), which propped up the regime by blocking any industrial action that would undermine the state’s authority or supply of cheap labour. Membership in the state-controlled body was mandatory for most public sector employees, and union dues were automatically deducted from their salaries. Activists say the colossal labour organisation worked to prevent its four million members from holding strikes or negotiating for better salaries. It also mobilised large numbers of workers for pro-government rallies and bussed them to polling stations during general elections to vote for the ruling party.

“Successive regimes recognised the power of organised labour and used ETUF to control it,” Tamer Fathy, an expert on labour movements tells IPS. “It was basically an arm of the regime since its creation in 1957.”

ETUF is proving to be a multi-headed hydra. The mammoth organisation was weakened by rulings that dissolved its executive board, put its leadership under investigation for corruption, and pulled the plug on 15 million dollars in annual government subsidies. Yet its core remains intact. The interim board appointed to administer ETUF is stacked with members of its old guard, while the federation continues to benefit from undemocratic systems set up by the former regime. One example of this – facilitated by state institutions – is mandatory membership dues. Workers who join independent unions are obligated to pay ETUF dues, even if they cancel their membership.

“There’s really no way around it,” explained Nihal El-Banna of the Centre for Trade Union and Workers’ Services (CTUWS), a local labour rights group. “Many professions in Egypt require a licence, but when you go to renew it you must submit a document that proves you paid your annual (ETUF membership) dues. Without this, you can’t renew your licence.”

Cracks first appeared in ETUF’s hegemony six years ago when factory workers in the northern industrial town Mahalla El-Kubra defied their stooge government union leaders and went on strike to demand unpaid bonuses. Their defiant action resonated with the exploited working class, igniting a wave of wildcat strikes that enveloped every economic sector – and has continued to this day. The nascent labour movement provided fertile ground for the birth of Egypt’s first independent unions, but little nutrient to sustain them. The four unions that emerged while Mubarak was in power faced hostile workplaces, constant intimidation and harassment from ETUF, and a barrage of legal challenges.

“There is no existing law to govern independent unions, only a declaration of freedom of association issued in March 2011,” explains Nihal El-Banna “We still need a legal charter to define and organise independent unions – for instance, what they should look like, or the minimum number of members for them to be recognised.”

Many activists believe Egypt’s two main powers, the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, are trying to rebuild ETUF as a counterweight to newfound syndical liberties. They claim the generals – opposed to organised labour – have sought to contain worker movements by criminalising strikes and preserving Mubarak-era labour laws.

“The military would prefer a single, official trade union federation that the state can control,” says El-Banna.

Muslim Brotherhood leaders once supported trade syndicate pluralism, but now favour a model that prohibits workers from organising more than one union within any given enterprise. Legislators affiliated to the Islamic group have attempted to hijack the proposed Trade Union Liberties Law – originally intended to support independent unions – and transform it into a bill that bars union pluralism.

But defiant labour leaders point out that they did not wait for Mubarak’s permission to establish independent unions, and they have no intention of waiting for his successors to approve them.

Going beyond the unions

Who is the labour candidate in the Egyptian presidential election? The answer is no one.

Despite the presence of the left wing candidate, labour lawyer Khaled Ali, who repeatedly denies the accusation of being a ‘socialist’, and advocates a ‘strong private sector’ working hand in hand with a state-run public sector, neither Ali nor any other candidates can claim to speak for Egypt’s working class, simply because the working class does not have yet formal entities, organisations, parties, and unions that can claim their representation.

In the West and elsewhere, there exist labour unions and parties that have a grassroots presence in the workplace and include millions of workers and civil servants in their membership. The rank and file members are engaged in daily struggles over improving work conditions via negotiations, agreements, or strikes against the management. The extent of grassroots support can always be measured by the degree of response to strike calls issued by those unions’ leadership. If you are in the United Kingdom for example, and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) issues a call for a general strike on any given day, you can safely expect industrial actions to take place that day. This is not to praise the politics of the TUC but to highlight the existence of a structure that can mobilise the working class, articulate their demands, and claim their representation.

There is nothing of that sort here in Egypt yet. While we have witnessed millions of Egyptian workers going on strikes or staging protests since 2006, it still lacks a national organisation that can coordinate the strikes, claim class representation, and raise political demands on behalf of the workers in the current political arena. Socialists are non-existent and those on the Left do not have enough of a presence among the working class. 

The Federation of Independent Trade Unions, announced in Tahrir Square in the midst of the 18-day uprising, has grown to include more than 200 independent unions, with two million workers. Yet, the federation is still green, with uneven support. The federation has been active in ‘intervening’ in and ‘extending solidarity’ to strikes, but it would be a farce to give the federation credit for ‘instigating’ the industrial actions in the first place. Though the federation lent its support for the November 2011 mini uprising, its presence in Tahrir was largely symbolic, and included one tent and a banner. The 11 February 2012 general strike call was another test for the federation’s strength, yet it once again exposed its weakness. Though the federation endorsed the anti-SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) general strike call, not a single strike took place. Strikes which occurred on that day were already scheduled in advance by the strike leaders, and we cannot credit the federation with this action.

The increased friction between strikers and the military police, which include crackdowns and military tribunals for strikers, means an increasing number of workers are turning against the army, even when they started their struggles over bread and butter issues. In cases like the harbours and airports, the strikers had clear demands about the demilitarisation of the management and the sacking of military generals and advisors who ran the business. Strikers in Suez also marched, calling for the execution of the National Democratic Party (NDP) tycoon who owns a ceramics factory and stands accused of involvement in the ‘Battle of the Camel’. Gas workers smashed NDP billboards in downtown Cairo, demanding the return of the NDP local office building back to their company, since the NDP had taken it over illegally under Mubarak. Among the demands of the public transport strikers was the purging of the management of police officers. These are some  examples of a ‘political’ dimension that is taking shape in the strike wave, but the Federation still fails to relate to it.

The Federation is roughly one year old, and the unions under its umbrella are still incapable of providing representation and a unified political voice in the current revolution. This is not a pessimistic look at the future of the federation. It takes years for unions to build their support and cement the channels of coordination between the different sectors, but there will always be limitations on the extent of the revolutionary potential those unions have. Unions, at the end of the day, are built to "improve" the conditions of exploitation, not  "abolish" exploitation once and for all - here is the task of a mass socialist party. As long as the most militant sections of the current strike - those who are leading the mass strikes in sectors in direct confrontation with the military - are not organised into a socialist party, you can expect the workers’ voice to continue to be absent in the current political process.

solidarity

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) has pledged support for Nigerian workers in their fight against anti-labour policies of government and private sector employers. Head of Communication Department of WFTU, Alexandra Libeli, expressed this view while addressing a delegation of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and informal sector workers weekend in Lagos. She reaffirmed the commitment of the federation of trade unions to campaign against imperialism and exploitation of workers under any capitalism rule.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201204090229.html

Union Lessons

More than 200,000 Kenyan teachers went on strike Tuesday to protest the diversion of government funds meant to hire more teachers and ease classroom overcrowding. The money has instead gone to the ministry of defense, whose spending is not publicly scrutinized.

"Children of this country are not enjoying equal opportunities," Wilson Sossion, who heads the Kenya National Union of Teachers said. "This is the struggle. We are not doing it this time around for a salary increment. We are doing it for the poor child of this country and for the poor parent of this country."

The union wants the government to give full-time jobs to 18,000 teachers hired on temporary contracts and hire an additional 9,040 teachers. Some 79,000 teachers are needed to reach the internationally recommended teacher to student ratio of one teacher to 35 students. Kenya's public schools see an average of 50 students for every teacher, though some classes have only one teacher for 100 pupils. The union projects a shortfall of 115,000 teachers in the next couple of years as the population increases.

Nearly 10 percent of 13-year-old Kenyan students cannot complete a math problem meant for 7-year-olds, according to research done earlier this year by Uwezo, a pressure group that aims to improve literacy among children in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Britain suspended payments to the Kenyan government intended to help poor schoolchildren after $45 million in international donor money went missing.

For a One Big Union

From the ITUC 2010 annual survey of violations of trade union rights.

Trade unions in Africa suffer from a general lack of respect for their organisations and their activities, both from employers and the authorities. This seriously hampers the free enjoyment of trade union rights. Demonstrations and strikes are often dispersed by the police, who often resort to violence. Sometimes trade union leaders are targeted directly, as shown by the assassination attempts on three union leaders in Burundi and Chad.

Violent repression of striking workers marked the year in South Africa. On several occasions, police and security guards fired at striking workers, most of whom were protesting about pay issues. During the year, a total of 16 workers were reported as having been injured.

Teachers in both Algeria and Kenya organised mass rallies connected to their struggle for better working conditions. In both countries, activists were injured in clashes with the police and many were arrested, and in Kenya, the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) subsequently ordered 90,000 teachers in senior and managerial positions to leave the teachers’ unions.

In Egypt, the Real Estate Tax Authority Union officially became the first independent union in over 50 years to be established in the country. However, since its inception, the union has suffered from interference in its internal affairs, with its members being intimidated, harassed and even assaulted, whilst the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, which is the only legally recognised national trade union centre and has close ties to the ruling party, has tried to pressure the authorities into withdrawing the recognition of the union.

Zimbabwe’s abysmal record of violence and repression of trade unions and their members caused the ILO to send a Commission of Inquiry to the country in February. During the year, trade unionists continued to be harassed by the police and supporters of Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, whilst mass dismissals of striking workers took place, numerous unionists were arrested, several workers were severely beaten by the police while others were shot, and one union leader’s home was raided.

Trade unions are the butt of constant harassment and repression in Swaziland, where the State of Emergency has been in force for over 35 years. Arrests of union leaders and beatings of protesters are not uncommon.

Violations of human and trade union rights are also a matter of serious concern in Sudan. The law only allows one trade union federation, which is controlled by the government and engages more in disciplining workers than protecting their interests. Unionists who operate outside the official union live under constant fear, and 2009 saw no improvement of the situation.

The demands of workers and their representatives are frequently ignored or rejected by employers or the authorities throughout Africa. Furthermore, even where a collective bargaining agreement has been concluded, it is often not honoured. This problem applies in particular to countries like Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania. The authorities also discriminate against independent or representative unions. In Benin, for instance, the government has favoured “patriotic” trade unions and associations and has refused to consult with the representative organisations. Unions have been unduly denied registration in Algeria, Swaziland and the Central African Republic, whilst in Equatorial Guinea the refusal has been systematic.The right to strike is frequently infringed in practice. Workers regularly suffer from retaliation for having participated in strikes, which are often broken up by the police. In Côte d’Ivoire, for example, the authorities took repressive measures against thousands of striking dock workers, leaving 60 people injured, several of them seriously. Strikers were also assaulted in other countries including Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria and Tanzania. Nearly 700 workers were arrested during the year for participating in legitimate trade union activities, mainly in Algeria and South Africa.

The South African Freedom Day

South Africans mark Freedom Day on Tuesday and South Africa still has a lot to achieve before all South Africans are really free, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Monday.

"We cannot ignore the 58 percent of South Africans who live in poverty, who cannot really benefit from political freedom as they face a daily struggle to survive," spokesman Patrick Craven said in a statement.He said massive inequality had made South Africa the most unequal society in the world."Such inequality mocks our struggle to build a free, fair and equitable society. Neither can we celebrate freedom when our society is scarred by such high levels of crime and corruption."

He said there was a continued restructuring of the working class into a two-tier labour market.

"We suffer from the gross exploitation of workers, as capitalists seek new ways to enrich themselves at the expense of the working class and dodge around the labour laws." He explained that the first layer of workers enjoyed most of the rights contained in the constitution."They are covered by collective bargaining and enjoy better work security and better pay."

The second layer was of super-exploited workers without any rights or freedoms."For them, joining a union is a personal risk and upward job mobility is an illusion. It is a large and growing army of workers employed in low-paid, temporary, casualised jobs or employed through the enslaving labour broking system."

"The black working class, despite government provision of thousands of new houses, are still located far away from workplaces, forcing workers to spend a lot of the little wages they receive on ever-rising transport costs."

Workers bore the brunt of the recent capitalist crisis, caused by the greed of capital.In the first nine months of 2009 the country lost 959 000 jobs.

Craven said the only way for workers, their families and communities to win real and total freedom was for them to get organised in strong, fighting trade unions.And while Socialist Banner fully supports the efforts of the working class to unionize and resist the encroachments of capitalism , we need to heed the observations of Karl Marx and qualify the limits of trade unionism . Socialist Banner reminds the South African worker that only socialism will bring true emancipation from wage slavery and free the working class from capitalist exploitation.

"...the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system! "

From a Zambian comrade

Two contributions from comrade Kephas Mulenga in Zambia:

SOCIALISM AND TRADE UNIONS

Becoming a member of the WSM entails the acceptance of the class struggle—political
consciousness envisages working class political solidarity. But must a member of the
WSM participate in trade unions?

It is empirically justified that a working class person must join a trade union in
order to improve his working conditions.

The moral principle of trade unionism is labour arbitration and not class antagonism
as such. Trade unionism intensifies economic and labour reforms and this restrains
working class political solidarity. It is the case that a member of the WSM needs
not to participate in a trade union or labour movement…because trade unions restrain
working class political solidarity. Because the working class has not yet achieved
its emancipation from the limiting conditions of wage employment, we must expect
that a member of the WSM may find it socially unjustified not to participate in a
trade union in the sense that the moral principle of trade unionism is labour
arbitration and not political revolution as such.

We are of the opinion that trade unions are not vehicles of working class political
solidarity otherwise than as movements of labour arbitration.

In Africa trade unions have become a vital source of class pressure. It is a fact
that trade unions in Africa are controlled by political charlatans—they tend to be
more politically vocal. It is my contention that a member of the WSM in Africa must
not underestimate the significance of racial and cultural prejudices (nationalism)
that remain to transcend all political and class barriers.

SOCIALISM AND REVOLUTION

The political subject of scientific socialism is conceived as an intellectual and
theoretical detachment. Thus the definition of class struggle and revolution remains
so much exaggerated in situations where the political subject of scientific
socialism remains so far removed from the entrenched political and academic
conventions. It may come to pass that working class political consciousness is not
so much politicised in Africa today. What I am trying to emphasise is the fact that
working class self-consciousness has not yet attained its political and social
emancipation from the limiting cultural and tribal prejudices (nationalism).

Nationalism is a cultural and political limitation in as much as African economic
underdevelopment comes to presuppose racial and cultural antagonism between Africa
and Europe. Thus the dilemma of African economic underdevelopment comes to be
conceived through racial prejudice—black consciousness is the language of African
nationalism. The extent to which the working class in Africa can achieve its social
and political emancipation may come to depend upon the existing historical
conditions. Socialism can only be realised in conditions where the working class has
achieved its emancipation from the limiting political and cultural limitations.
Though we may take it for granted African economic underdevelopment is a direct
product of European neo-colonialism, yet we are ready to point out that nepotism,
tribalism and corruption are also contributing to African economic underdevelopment.
Political independence in African was a hybrid of bourgeois black nationalism and
not of peasant revolution as such.

The fact is that Africa will never attain its economic development from within the
existing mode of capitalistic economic and production relations based upon the
exploitation of man by man.