Abridged+resolutions+of+the+COSATU+Central+Committee

=Resolutions and Declaration=


 * //of the//**


 * 4th Central Committee of the Congress of South African Trade Unions**


 * Ekhuruleni, 17-20 September 2007**

=__ABRIDGED__=

__Contents:__

 * Introduction**
 * Resolutions**
 * Alliance Pact**
 * On COSATU**
 * ANC Leadership**
 * Assessing the NDR**
 * Ninth National Congress Affirmed**
 * Building Blocks of the Alliance Pact**
 * Alliance Pact: Process, Mobilization, Problems**
 * SABC Board Nominations (Emergency Resolution)**
 * Declaration of the 4th Central Committee**


 * Introduction**

This is a shortened version of the as yet unpublished official draft of the **Resolutions and Declaration of the 4th COSATU Central Committee**, which is 26 pages long and which contains nearly ten thousand words. This version is designed for printing as an eight-page booklet, and contains slightly more than four thousand words.

It has been prepared mainly from the “Resolved” portions, only occasionally quoting the “Noting” and “Believing” parts. All bullets, numbers and letters have been stripped out and the text adjusted to read continuously, and consequentially. To achieve this, the order has sometimes been slightly changed. So have some of the paragraphs. Some duplications have been removed.

This shortened version has already been sent to the subscribers of COSATU Today, in parts. This was to assist with the large amount of work that is called for in the resolutions, and the short time-frame. The work includes conscientising people about the Alliance Pact proposal, and about the ANC leadership debate, prior to the ANC’s Polokwane conference in December.

The booklet is designed to assist the conscientisation process. It is designed to be sufficient to stimulate discussion, whether taken whole or in parts. It is designed as material for study circles. It is absolutely not intended as a substitute for the full official record (this should be available soon, but is not yet). It is intended to satisfy the intention of the resolutions, particularly where they say:

“We must use our internal media to discuss and popularise progressive policy proposals, including producing pamphlets and leaflets to disseminate information to our members and the community.”

“We need to communicate more effectively with our membership, and to popularise our decisions, including through compiling simplified documents reflecting on positions of COSATU.”


 * //Resolutions//**

//4th Central Committee Resolution, September 2007, abridged//
The Alliance has not been functioning the way it should. It becomes functional and effective only during election campaigns. In between elections, Alliance meetings are held mainly for the purpose of managing crises and preserving the status quo.

In situations where the Alliance did succeed to meet and agree upon a programme, it was never implemented. An example is the declarations of the Ekurhuleni 1 and 2 Alliance Summits.

COSATU has taken resolutions to build and strengthen the Alliance but has failed to implement them. An example of this is the resolution on swelling the ranks of the ANC.

The ANC, in turn, has increasingly drifted away from its historical positions, particularly on the transformation of the economy. In its lower structures the ANC has become weak.

The 9th National Congress resolved that Alliance must enter into some form of pact that would enable the Alliance to influence government. This pact must strengthen and unify the Alliance so as to turn the second decade of democracy into a decade for the working class.

The Central Committee now resolves that the Alliance must be reconfigured along the lines of the ‘Framework for an Alliance Governance and Elections Pact’ discussion document.

COSATU must ensure the implementation of Ekurhuleni 1 and 2 Alliance Summits declaration, as they set the framework for the engagement with the ANC. There must also be coordinating and mandating processes so as to take members on board.

An urgent Alliance Summit must be convened after this Central Committee to engage the concept and content of the Alliance pact. The elements of the pact must include the common vision within the Alliance on the NDR.

The pact concept must be understood in the context of the implementation of the COSATU 2015 Plan, the ANC 2014 Plan and the SACP Medium Term Vision (MTV).

COSATU and its affiliates must determine how many of their leaders are active in the ANC and Party structures. This issue must be a standing item on the agenda of all affiliates’ meetings.

To implement the congress resolution on swelling the ranks of the ANC, all affiliates must identify members in all wards and put a plan in place to coordinate their participation in the ANC and SACP.

Affiliates must do more to educate their members politically to understand the challenges of the conjuncture and why there is a need for an alliance pact.

The federation must revive the popular movement for transformation. This must include mobilisation of issue-based social movements with a progressive agenda, to ensure that the transformation project benefits the working class.

If the pact project fails, COSATU will convene a Special Central Executive Committee to map the way forward.

//4th CC Resolution, September 2007, abridged//
We have to build consciousness around a working class transformation agenda, and contest all sites of power, to assert working class hegemony. Ours must be a developmental agenda addressing the key issues facing the working class. We need to intensify the Jobs and Poverty Campaign, and campaign for an Alliance Pact.

A new developmental strategy cannot succeed without an appropriate macro-economic policy, including fiscal, monetary, industrial and trade policies. These must be part of any Pact. We must campaign against current monetary policies of the Reserve Bank, call for amendments to its mandate, and ensure broad representation.

The Federation’s power must be used to assert national health care programmes, to advance to a National Health Insurance system, and to democratise retirement funds.

We must have programmes to ensure effective solidarity action across the Trade Union movement. We must develop a strategy to promote trade union organization in the whole SADC region. We will build an even wider international counter-hegemonic bloc and campaign to isolate the IMF, World Bank, G8 and oppose the inappropriate economic policies they continue to advance.

We need to be strong at the level of workplaces, and need to ensure proper servicing of members. We need to build workplace organisation, proper mandating procedures, and a reporting back culture. We need to relook at the September Commission and organisational review proposals on these issues

We must put a time frame to implementation of all our organisational resolutions and ensure that affiliates comply (e.g. Cartel resolution). Resolutions on the role of COSATU in disciplining affiliates must be implemented. There needs to be closer collaboration between public sector and private sector unions in fighting job losses. The next CEC must devote substantial time to assessing implementation of our organisational and socio-economic resolutions.

We need to finalise a code of conduct to protect our leaders, and to ensure that they conduct themselves with integrity, so as to overcome cracks in the Federation, and the Alliance.

We need to communicate more effectively with our membership, and to popularise our decisions, including through compiling simplified documents reflecting on positions of COSATU. We need an ‘ear to the ground campaign’ to reconnect with members and the broader community, and to combat social distance which is emerging even with shop stewards. We must implement our resolution to provide resources for locals and extend advantages of IT to them.

We must campaign for the implementation of labour legislation, and fight to protect our gains. There must be a major initiative to transform the living and working conditions of people living on the farms.

We need to revive the Mass Democratic Movement and to ensure that the entire country is organised, including all the rural areas. We must advance our relationships with churches. We particularly need to organise vulnerable and difficult-to-organise sectors such as old people and the unemployed.

We need to engage with the upsurge of independent sporadic community struggles and link these struggles to the broader NDR. If we don’t do this, counter-revolutionary elements could take the lead.

We need to take forward our campaign for the working class to recapture the soul of the ANC, and to defend progressive policies of the ANC. Workers need to reclaim the ANC at the level of branches. We have a responsibility to unite all democratic forces, including those who have different interests.

We need a programme to deepen working class consciousness. We need to start study groups at all levels of our organization, in the Alliance, and the broad democratic movement. Socialist schools should involve everyone, including community organisations. We need to assist in setting up Party units.

We need to engage more aggressively with the media, including the SABC, and establish our own forms of communication, including print media.

//4th CC Resolution, September 2007, abridged//
Those nominated and finally elected to the NEC of the ANC should be committed to building the unity and cohesion of the liberation movement around the Freedom Charter vision, and should be cadres who have the following attributes: · A commitment to a radical NDR and thorough-going transformation of society · A proven commitment to the Alliance and asserting the hegemonic position of the working class as a primary motive force · Are committed to the unity of the ANC, the Alliance and the democratic movement, · Are committed to make this decade truly a decade of workers and the poor and galvanise the progressive forces of the liberation movement and working with progressive elements of civil society · Have an anti imperialist and internationalist character · Have a struggle record and are politically experienced

We insist that elected leaders are not allowed to serve on boards of companies, as this will compromise their role as leaders serving the people and the working class.

Deployed cadres from the federation must in no way impact on the character and independent profile of the federation. Regular and structured accountability of leaders elected from the ranks of COSATU to political and public office will be enforced. A mid-term Alliance review of the work of government and the performance of deployees to political and public office will be convened.

COSATU will contribute, in a non-sectarian manner, to the ANC’s nomination and election process and outcome through COSATU cadres who are directly involved in ANC structures in preparation for its 52nd National Congress to be held in December 2007 in Limpopo.

The Central Committee therefore identifies and recommends to its cadres who are in ANC structures the following candidates for the top six position of the ANC NEC; President, Jacob Zuma; Deputy President, Kgalema Motlhanthe; Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe; Deputy Secretary General, Baleka Mbethe; Treasurer General, Matthews Phosa; National Chairperson, Nkosazana Zuma, Makhenkesi Stofile.

The Central Committee further mandates the CEC of COSATU to draw up and recommend a list of additional members to serve on the ANC NEC, that an another woman candidate be identified by the CEC for one of the top six positions, in addition to those already recommended, and that the CEC manage any problems that may arise in consequence of the 9th Congress resolution on the leadership question in the ANC.

//4th CC Resolution, September 2007, abridged//
The shortest route to socialism in our country is via a democratic state. But it will be a democratic state that will at once be required to implement economic measures going far beyond bourgeois democracy.

We re-affirm the broad thrust of the 9th National Congress Resolution, with particular reference to the pronouncement that there should be thorough preparation for the transition programme from capitalism to socialism. The radical aspect of the NDR remains high on the agenda of the working class and must become the guiding force for a coherent Alliance programme aimed at eliminating poverty.

We insist upon a radical national democratic state that deliberately acts to constrain and even shrink the sphere for capital’s operation, in the interests of attaining our developmental goals, as opposed to a capitalist state which functions primarily to reproduce and expand capital.

The state must thoroughly implement the clauses of the Freedom Charter, including nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy. We remain conscious of the inherent contradiction in allowing the logic of private capital to co-exist within the NDR. The conditions must be such that, while private accumulation is allowed to continue, the logic of a radical NDR must surpass it.

The next CEC must assess the possibilities presented by the conscious pursuance of a radical national democratic state. The CEC must draw lessons from the experiences of Latin American states in general and the current developments in Venezuela in particular.

In the spirit of asserting the working class’ leadership role on the NDR, and of mobilising society and progressive forces against the current macroeconomic framework, COSATU and the SACP must not only continue to strive to build organisational strength, but also ensure that our ideas progressively become the dominant ideas in society as a whole.

//4th CC Resolution, September 2007, abridged//
We are engaged in protracted struggle to deepen the NDR and to construct socialism. The forthcoming ANC conference is an important moment in that long struggle. We require foresight and committed leaders and a mobilised base to pursue the struggle to its logical conclusion.

We reaffirm resolutions that the Alliance must be the centre that develops policy; is responsible for deployment of cadres; and holds comrade accountable. Leadership accountability rests on active participation by members. Therefore Alliance members must be empowered with information and should be actively involved in the development of policy.

The Alliance must build a Policy Institute to develop and monitor implementation of alliance policy decisions. The ANC must also develop internal policy capacity and to that end implement the 51st Conference Resolution to build a Policy Institute.

A programme or pact articulating key areas of intervention and policy instruments must be developed. COSATU must develop specific proposals that must be in the Pact to take forward our demands, the Freedom Charter and the RDP.

The disproportionate influence of government officials and leaders in ANC decision-making structure undermines the centrality of the organisation in driving transformation. A mechanism must be found to address these issues at local, regional, provincial and national level.

We will ensure that at least half of COSATU’s 1.8 million members become active ANC and SACP members. In return members of the ANC and the SACP should join COSATU unions. We must audit the number of our members and leaders are active in ANC structures. A report must be tabled in COSATU constitutional structures, starting with the forthcoming CEC. This drive must be combined with the intensification of political education to deepen the class consciousness of our members.

Between October and December we embark on a mass campaign including convening socialist forums, locals meeting and shop steward councils to debate COSATU’s proposals to the ANC Conference. We must invite members of the alliance and other progressive formations to these meetings, and discuss with the SACP the use of Red Forums in October as part of building momentum towards the ANC National Conference.

We must use our internal media to discuss and popularise progressive policy proposals, including producing pamphlets and leaflets to disseminate information to our members and the community. We must also intensify our engagement in the public discourse, including bourgeois media outlets.

COSATU’s internal organisational capacity must be strengthened and internal democracy enhanced to ensure that leaders do not undermine decisions of constitutional structures.

We must double our efforts to campaign for a change in the electoral system at provincial and national level, so as to include a constituency element. We must also lobby for the termination of the floor crossing legislation.

//4th CC Resolution, September 2007, abridged//
COSATU’s Ninth National Congress resolutions called for a review of Alliance structures and operations, the development of an enforceable alliance pact that will bind all parties, and agreements on deployments and quotas for representation at all levels with each of the Alliance partners retaining the power of recall.

Commitment to the full implementation of the Freedom Charter constitutes the minimum basis for our vision towards realising the NDR.

The Alliance pact is to be developed through a consultation process involving rank and file membership, general mass participation, other progressive civil society formations as well as convening appropriate forums such as a conference of the left.

We wish to convene a bilateral meeting with the ANC ahead of the December conference to develop the pact, which will then form the basis for the Alliance manifesto for the 2009 elections, and to launch a mass-based popularisation campaign with other civil society organisations.

Enforcement of the pact is paramount to ensure accountability of the leadership to the electorate. It must therefore contain minimum prescribed targets for assessment, and compel the release of necessary resources to meet delivery targets.

The pact should contain agreements on minimum fiscal and monetary policy, public corporation and public ownership policy, trade and industrial policy, labour market policy, social protection and basic needs, public service, land and rural development, all mainstreaming gender as interlinked with class and race factors, plus transformation of the judiciary and access to the courts.

The pact should regulate the relationship between the ANC and Alliance partners as well as the relationship between Alliance partners and the Government. The pact should also clarify that in accordance with the objectives of the NDR the type of State that we seek to achieve is a socialist one.

The CEC will develop guidelines on deployment policy, and protocols with detailed criteria in respect of quotas for representation of women, youth and working class as well as appropriate restrictions on comrades serving in both the State and business. We support 50/50 quotas on gender representation in legislatures so long as it achieves real transformation of gender relations. We reject tokenism.

The CEC should determine and propose quotas for deployment of alliance partner representatives to Parliament and the various legislatures and councils, with individual alliance organisations having the right to recall their deployees. We call for the establishment of Alliance deployment committees to determine the composition of Cabinet, provincial executive councils and mayoral committees.

//4th CC Resolution, September 2007, abridged//
The Alliance does not currently have the political authority to keep government accountable. It has failed to resolve the debate on the political centre. It does not have clearly defined and known protocols. The content and direction of the NDR should be determined by the masses.

The proposed Alliance Pact should be seen in this context, as an instrument of struggle to be placed on the hands of the masses. The content of the Pact shall be based on, and guided by, the Freedom Charter, critical aspects of the RDP, and all the relevant economic policies of the federation including the Alliance Ekurhuleni 1 and 2 Resolutions.

The Alliance should be reconfigured to have its structures functioning coherently at all levels to interface with each alliance partner, and to be bestowed with the authority of being the Political Centre which can decide on matters of deployment and recall, and the overall strategic direction of the NDR.

There should be an annual Alliance Summit, used as a mechanism for progress assessment, evaluation and accountability, and to identify areas requiring support and intervention.

Alliance Ten–a-Sides will be responsible for monitoring implementation of the pact and the Programme of Mass Mobilisation. There must be consistency in attending meetings by all leaders without exception, and implementation of all decisions with equal commitment.

The Alliance Secretariat shall be given the resources and the authority to manage the operational processes of implementing the Pact and other aspects of the Alliance Programme, including a consistent programme to mobilise society behind it.

The CEC will be convened to finalise conceptualisation of the Pact. This will include developing an implementation schedule for all the processes of the Pact, and commissioning research on the experiences of other national liberation struggles, including their relationship with the bourgeoisie.

The CEC will finalise the process to develop an Alliance Protocol. This would include such things as leadership, deployments and recall, communication, organisational cooperation, and managing differences, multi-mandates, opportunistic use of alliance structures, and discipline.

The CEC will mobilise structures of the federation and engage other alliance partners and civil society, including the intelligentsia, with a view to have them inform and own the content of the Pact.

The CEC will set up a media campaign to communicate its message about the pact. This will include utilising its own internal machinery, engaging the other external media, and mass workshops through affiliates and provinces on the content of the Pact.

2008 will be the year to finalise both content and processes on the Pact, including bilaterals between COSATU and the SACP and with other alliance partners. The principle of a pact should find expression in the ANC January 8th Statement and in the 2009 election manifesto developed jointly by the alliance.

Under no circumstances should our mobilising capacity and the struggle for socialism be compromised by the Pact. The mobilization process for a Pact will in itself be such that it acts as an early warning signal for the acceptance or rejection of the proposals.

If the Pact proposal is rejected by any critical and strategic partner including the ANC, a determination will be made at that point informed by the obtaining material conditions.

//4th CC Resolution, September 2007, abridged//
The Congress of South African Trade Unions notes the absence of working class representatives on the final short-list of candidates for the Board of the SABC submitted to the President by the parliament. There is a clear preponderance of figures from the world of BEE business, while there are none from the trade unions and the ANC's Alliance partners and wider civil society.

COSATU has been consistently calling on the SABC to increase and improve its coverage of labour and working-class issues, including a daily labour news slot and a weekly TV current affairs programme on labour and the working class, produced by a dedicated SABC labour desk.

We have also demanded a working-class perspective on the news, on such issues as poverty, development, HIV/AIDS and other developmental challenges facing our country and an end to the monopoly on commentary from business and neo-liberal spokespeople.

We note that the funding of the SABC relies upon government funding, and even more heavily upon advertising. This tends to undermine the independence of the public broadcaster

COSATU therefore rejects the proposed shortlist of candidates to the SABC Board as narrowly-based, partisan and completely inadequate to meet the requirements of the public broadcaster, and seeks an immediate review. We call for the acceptance of the original submission by the ANC Study Group on Communications which included working class representatives.

COSATU calls for an urgent meeting of the Alliance leadership, so that we can raise the issue before the President accepts the names submitted. COSATU also calls for regular consultation between SABC management and the representative union within the SABC, amongst others, in relation to the composition of the Board.

COSATU most specifically calls for the direct representation of labour on the SABC Board to ensure that the voice of the working class is fully and properly represented.

In addition, COSATU calls for a review of the funding system for the SABC in order to protect the integrity and independence of the public broadcaster.

//Ekurhuleni, 17-20 September 2007, abridged//
This is the time to intensify the struggle on all fronts and not to drop our guard. In light of the contestation on the direction of the NDR and the world order and as we prepare for the ANC Conference, decisive working class action is necessary.

We face the challenge to change economic policy in favour of the workers to ensure that the next seven years of the second decade of freedom bring substantial benefits to workers and their families. We hereby commit to remain steadfast, determined to take the struggle to new heights. We are conscious that we are in a long struggle for change, and the coming ANC conference is but a milestone in that struggle. We are also aware that power concedes nothing without struggle and that our own power comes from disciplined, united and strong organisation.

We have assessed the strength of the organisation measured against our 2015 Plan and the 9th Congress Resolutions. Against this background, we reaffirm the need for a systematic Organisation Development and Organisational Renewal programme which in the first instance seeks to improve levels of representation in all sectors, so that we double our members to 4 million. We are encouraged by progress in all these fronts within the federation and in many of our unions but call on the federation and unions to redouble efforts to build strong and vibrant unions.

The priority of our recruitment campaign is to draw in the masses of rural, casualised and sub-contracted workers and to champion their interests. We recommit to the programme of organisational renewal to strengthen the organisation and improve service to members. We must translate the gains of the recent strikes into more members. We will also step up our efforts to unify the working class to realise our age-old aspiration of one industry-one-union, one-country-one-federation.

We support efforts to restructure our social security system, including the retirement fund system. This process must be guided by the principle of universal coverage and state constitutional obligation to provide social security. We reiterate our demand for a universal Basic Income Grant to plug the existing gaps in the social security network but more importantly as means to give hope to the hopeless.

We will agitate for changes in our labour laws to close loopholes exploited by employers to deny workers their rights. We will challenge recent interpretations that fundamentally alter the architecture of our labour laws, including the interpretation of ‘operational requirements’ in Fry’s Metal and Rustenburg Platinum cases. We will agitate for the adoption of Minimum Service Agreements between government and public sector unions, and to call for a review of the Labour Relations Act on this score. We will challenge all provisions, interpretations and practices that undermine the right to strike.

We will defend and support the progressive thrust of the ANC Policy Conference on organisational and policy issues. We aim to ensure collective leadership; involvement of members, the Alliance and ANC in policy formulations; and the return to the goals of the Freedom Charter and the RDP. We will embark on a mass campaign to involve our members in the policy debate between October and November. This will include Socialist Forums, local meetings and shop stewards councils. We will engage with ANC structures and other progressive formations to popularise our views and to mobile their support.

We will intensify the struggle for gender emancipation in our organisations and society in general.

The Alliance must truly become the vehicle and political centre under the ANC leadership. It must drive policy formulation, implementation and deployment and hold cadres accountable, and mobilise our people as their own liberators. The alliance machinery must be reinforced to ensure that it discharges this responsibility and a Protocol governing alliance relations must be developed. In addition, an Alliance Electoral Pact or Programme for transformation should be developed on policies required to achieve the goals of social transformation, employment creation and eradication of poverty.

We remain committed to the Jobs and Poverty Campaign as will execute the mandate from the 9th National Congress and the recent Jobs and Poverty Summit. We are concerned by the recent spate of interest rate hike, which we believe is anti-growth and anti-employment creation.