Statement/Declaration of the National Sacp-Cosatu Bilateral Meeting Build Working Class Power to Deepen National Liberation and Struggle for Socialism

26 July 2001

Today, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) held a successful national bilateral meeting. This meeting took place in the context of a series of bilateral and trilateral meetings between the ANC, SACP and COSATU. The meeting also took place as part of the lead-up to the ANC-SACP-COSATU Alliance Summit scheduled for 22 September.

In its agenda, this meeting discussed the following matters:

• A joint reflection and assessment on the current political situation and the context and its impact on the organised working class, the unemployed and rural poor from a working class standpoint
• The state, role and political capacity of the trade union movement
• The state, role and political capacity of the SACP
• A joint reflection on the relation between the struggle to complete the national liberation of black people and the struggle for socialism in our country and internationally

The SACP and COSATU agree that many important gains for working people and the poor have been made since 1994, including progressive labour and other legislation, outlawing of racism and repression, ongoing democratisation, and the delivery of basic services to millions of our people.

However, these gains are often overshadowed by massive job losses over the past seven years, one million in the formal sector. This week Statistics SA has announced that the official unemployment figure has now risen to 26%, with the expanded definition of unemployment now at 38%. Through casualisation, contracting out and outsourcing bosses are further seeking to subvert our democratic social, political and economic gains. Big companies are also not investing the profits produced by workers in job-creation and development.

The SACP and COSATU agree that, fundamentally, the difficulties we are encountering are a function of seeking to transform our society on the terrain of a society, and a world, still dominated by capitalism. However, the two formations agreed that as a movement we could have done better. In particular, the 1996 adoption by government of the GEAR policy, marked a significant policy shift and, in practice, an attempt to use capitalist means to achieve the goals of our shared national democratic vision. GEAR and the related privatisation programme have failed to achieve the fundamental restructuring of our society, and in many respects these policies have taken us backwards. We agreed that, while there are serious policy disagreements, the alliance remains united around its long term vision of a non-racial, non-sexist, united and democratic South Africa. The alliance is the only vehicle capable of achieving these objectives.

The meeting agreed that the way forward includes:

• The revitalisation of our organisations, including, in particular the ANC itself. Tendencies to bureaucratisation, the dominance of state technocrats in the policy process, and organisational careerism were dangers highlighted. We need to ensure that our formations are much more actively engaged on the ground, in the mobilisation of our mass base.
• Support for the COSATU campaign to defend and build a strong, extensive public sector, including publicly-owned corporations. Both COSATU and the SACP are opposed to privatisation of publicly-owned resources.
• The struggle against corruption and the abuse of public office. Our two formations will be working with the ANC to ensure that we are much more pro-active in dealing decisively with these problems. Corruption, particularly from those in public office, undermines our liberation struggle, and is essentially the plundering of public resources.
• The detailed elaboration of much more effective industrial sector policies and programmes including the transformation of the financial sector.
• The building of an extensive social protection net including major land reform, the provision of social services including affordable public transport, a basic income grant, and the transformation of existing resources, like the R2,3 billion a year Road Accident Fund.

The meeting expressed support and solidarity with striking workers, including those in Eskom and in the mining sector.

Further meetings are planned to carry forward our discussions and programme of action.

CONTACT
Mazibuko K. Jara SACP
Cell: 083 651 0271
Pat Craven - COSATU
Cell: 082 821 7456