RE: SADTU LEADERSHIP HAS SOLD OUT
We refer to your letter dated 06 September 2010 entitled “SADTU leadership has sold out”, wherein you concluded that the national office bearers, in particular SADTU President Thobile Ntola, must “come to explain to the membership the current confusion made around the suspension of the strike, and that Zwelinzima Vavi explains his unwarranted media utterances on the strike offer”.
We are taking this extraordinary step to respond to the branch chairperson against all protocols because we feel we owe you, and all other members of the COSATU unions who may share your sentiment about a ‘selling out leadership’, an explanation when that is demanded.
As you are aware, SADTU, together with all other public sector unions’ majority of who, in terms of membership, are affiliated to COSATU, started negotiations with the state in October 2009. You will also be aware that government’s opening offer was a 5.2% wage increase, with no improvement on the housing allowance. The unions’ opening demands was for an 11% increase and a R2500 housing allowance, amongst others.
In May 2010, after six months of negotiations, the unions declared a dispute. Government, over six months, improved its offer to from 5,2% to 6.2% and the housing allowance from R500 to R620. The unions had in the course of negotiations also dropped its demands to 8.6% and R1000 for housing allowance.
COSATU leadership were not involved in these negotiations. The leaders of all the public sector unions also do not sit in the Public Sector Central Bargaining Chamber (PSCBC). They are represented in the talks by their union officials.
At this stage of the negotiations, the leadership called on the President of the Federation, comrade Sidumo Dlamini, to intervene to try and unlock an impasse. The President of the Federation proceeded to arrange a meeting with the Minister, Richard Baloyi, which took place on 4 August 2010. The President invited the COSATU General Secretary, who insisted that the Minister of Finance be part of the meeting, since it is he who holds the government purse.
Before the two COSATU leaders engaged with the two government Ministers (of Public Administration and of Finance) the COSATU General Secretary asked a question to the President who had interacted with the COSATU public sector unions and asked: what is the settlement demand of the unions?
The response was that the unions are willing to settle at 7% and R750 for housing. For many hours we pushed the two government leaders towards this “settlement demand”. Eventually the government relented and agreed in principle, subject to further calculation on their part to ascertain that this would be within their affordability range.
From the meeting we went to report to the leaders of the COSATU unions who confirmed that indeed in their previous discussions they did raise 7% and R750 as one of the scenarios for a possible settlement.
We participated in the protest marches held on 10 August 2010. The plan in terms of our discussion was that the government would convene the PSCBC on the evening of the 10 August 2010 to table the 7% and R700 formally. This did not happen because the government was still calculating the affordability of the compromise emerging from the meeting with the COSATU leadership, as explained above. You will recall that the COSATU unions had given government up to Thursday 12 August 2010 to improve the offer or face a protracted strike.
Indeed the government presented the revised offer to the PSCBC on 11th October 2010. It was at this time that the COSATU General Secretary, informed by the processes outlined above, participated in the SABC Morning Live programme and recommended that the unions consider the offer favourably. Again it is important to state that he had done so not because he was eager to sell out or to act as a government spin-doctor as the letter alleges. The processes outlined above informed this call.
Nevertheless as we said to the unions at the time, we had a responsibility to recommend the offer, as it was we who had induced the government to make a move on the basis that this was to settle the dispute and avoid a protracted strike action. It would be absolutely be hypocritical for us to turn around and be the ones who reject the offer first considering the effort we put to secure the 7% and R700.
Indeed all union leaders would have spoken in the media and their structures recommending the government revised offer. We did make it clear however to government and to one another as leaders that whilst we must protect our integrity with the government we must be loyal to members if they decide to reject the 7% and R700 housing allowance.
Indeed all unions later reported that the 7% and R700 were roundly rejected by members. This meant all attempts to avoid a protracted strike had failed. The strike started on 12 August 2010.
The COSATU CEC met on 23-25 August 2010, which was the 12th day of the strike. The CEC decided not to allow a defeat of the strike. All unions of COSATU issued secondary notices, which in terms of the LRA, should be 7 days. This was a historic decision! Never in the 25 years history of COSATU did the unions pull a sympathy strike on the scale envisaged. What many don’t know is that this was not an easy decision. Some unions asked questions – “what is so special with the public sector workers?” They were referring to many occasions when other workers in the private sectors earning far less pay than the public servants had embarked on strikes lasting up to 6 months without any form of support from the rest of the COSATU-affiliated unions. The argument however won a day that COSATU can’t afford to have over a third of its members defeated by a single employer as that would create a precedent and set the tone for all other negotiations in the private sector.
Bearing in mind all the above, the COSATU leaders were crossing fingers that this resolve for a sympathy strike would not be tested, in case our threats became a damp squib due to lack of enthusiastic support across all COSATU unions.
Going back to the CEC, we must state that the Secretary General of the ANC, comrade Gwede Mantashe came to the CEC and held a meeting with some of the leaders of the public sector (NEHAWU and SADTU), together with the President of the COSATU.
The Secretary General wanted to know what offer could settle the strike. He was told that a 7,5% increase and an R800 housing allowance would settle the strike. We want to emphasize again that the comrades who answered the question were not motivated by eagerness to sell out. This was the 12th day of the strike. They were acutely aware of how difficult it was for government to move from 6,5% to 7% and from R630 to R700 for the housing allowance in the earlier political intervention led by the COSATU President and the General Secretary. They put figures across that they thought would be a good area for a settlement.
The Secretary General went away to work for this. In the meantime COSATU unions’ negotiators drafted a draft agreement of what came to be known as the COSATU draft agreement for settlement of the strike. The COSATU President and General Secretary complimented the Secretary General’s intervention. In a combined but parallel process they knocked at every door of the highest offices.
Eventually government agreed to revise its offer and was ready to present it on 1 September 2010. This means government was prepared to sign on the COSATU union’s drafted settlement, which was for 7, 5% and R800.
Even before the government could present this, the COSATU General Secretary, after realising that chances were high that this would be rejected by members, opened a parallel discussion with the Minister of Finance urging him to move further to 8% and R850, 00 for housing. The push for this continued in the marathon discussion between the COSATU President and General Secretary with no less than 6 government ministers on the evening of 2 September 2010.
It was in the early hours of 3 September that the Ministers received a call from someone more senior than them. At that moment negotiations stopped, never to be continued again. Government ministers, in the face of the call they received, simply folded their files and declared there was nothing more they could do. The government was accusing unions of tricking them into believing that the strike would end after they improved the offer from 6,5% to 7% and R630 to R700 and later to 7,5% and R800. Now the unions were saying that is also not good enough and were asking for 8% and R850. Our integrity was in their eyes was in tartars. They were ordered to stop engaging with us, as it was a waste of time. We were seen as not being honest and or even informed by other political objectives.
Faced with this situation the all unions, including those not affiliated to COSATU, decided to allow government to formally present the improved offer of 7,5% and R800. Aware of all of this COSATU General Secretary again participated in the SABC’s Morning Live and made the statement that the unions have pushed as far as they could AND that there is no possibility of government improving its offer unless members push them in a strike of the same scale for another 2 to 3 weeks. It is this statement that makes Mthatha SADTU branch to accuse the General Secretary of speaking like a government spokesperson.
At this moment and a few days later, unions were facing two big problems. On one side there were no more negotiations taking place. This meant from the morning when Ministers were ordered to stop engaging, every hour and every day workers’ sacrifice were in vain. On the other hand the days were accumulating, meaning with members losing days of wages through the application of the no-work no-pay principle. Around that time the unions started to calculate that workers were now losing so much that even if government were to concede and provide the 1% now separating the parties, the losses incurred by workers in meant they would still be the bigger losers financially.
The strike itself was no longer as effective as it was in the first two weeks. Most of the government departmental workers had gone to back to work and were only coming out to participate in the marches. The numbers of workers in the picket lines were dwindling. Some nurses started to moonlight in the private hospitals and only joined the picket lines during the day. Only SADTU and NEHAWU were effectively out on strike across all nine provinces. The pressure was mounting, with media growing hostile after government claimed a number of deaths in public hospitals.
A danger was looming that if the unions did not make a strategic retreat and sign the agreement in terms that they could still dictate, the strike might fizzle out in the fourth and fifth week. Government would then punish the nurses and all other workers it sought to declare as essential service workers. From this point NEHAWU, DENOSA and SADNU were carrying a bigger risk for possible mass dismissals if this scenario unfolded into a reality.
It was at this point that all unions convened their National Executive Committees, which eventually decided to suspend the strike.
In short it is not the SADTU President, the NEHAWU General Secretary or the COSATU General Secretary or anyone else who sold out!
The only mistake the leaders committed was to twice propose a settlement area without canvassing this properly with their provincial structures. Secondly the provincial leaders were not in our view properly briefed all the time about the political interventions taking place. The public criticism of the ANC Secretary General has an element of truth even though it was unfortunate because it was made in public and was seen to be reinforcing a rightwing element in society. In future consideration must be given to the provincial leaders sitting directly in the negotiations.
We however insist that the leaders of the public sector unions were not necessarily wrong to try finding a solution informed by the reality they were facing as leaders sitting across a fire.
You will probably say that is what they were elected for – to face difficult moments and provide leadership. To us the fundamental question is whether the union leaders acted in the best interest of members under the circumstances or not? Or did they simply collapse because they were motivated by reasons of pursuing their narrow careers in government as alleged in the letter of Mthatha SADTU branch. In our view they held out for their members’ right through under very difficult conditions.
We hope this letter will clarify the matter
Yours comradely
Zwelinzima Vavi
General Secretary
c.c. COSATU NOBs
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