Opening address by the COSATU President, Sidumo Dlamini, at the Trade Union BRICS Forum, Garden Court Hotel, Marine Parade, Durban, 23rd-25th March 2013 Sidumo Dlamini, COSATU President, 23 March 2013 The chairperson of the session The leadership of South African Council of Trade Unions The leadership of CUT Brazil – the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) The leadership of the All- Chinese Confederation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) The leadership of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and all Indian Trade Unions Congress (AITUC) The leadership of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR) and the Confederation of Labour (KTR) Invited Guests from the continent and all over the world Comrades, activists, cadres and revolutionaries present here today Please accept revolutionary greetings from the entire leadership of COSATU and the more than 2 million members of COSATU. We welcome you in this great country of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Govan Mbeki, the country of Ruth First and Joe Slovo. We welcome you to this beautiful country, the land of plenty but whose plenty and abundance of wealth, like in your own countries, is still being enjoyed by a privileged few. Like in your countries, our wealth remains a distant dream for the workers and the working class as a whole. Comrades we meet here today under a heavy cloud of sorrow after the passing away of comrade Hugo Chavez, one of the most decisive leaders in the 21st century, who even when the imperialist forces criticised him bell, book and candle, he remained unfazed in implementing policies in favour of the working people. Comrades as we converge here today we are unhappy that even when our popular democratic and revolutionary governments meet, workers are not allowed a sit at the table of discussions about their future and yet business is being assured both a sit and a voice to influence the outcomes of these discussions. We have converged here today to claim that which belongs to the working people! We meet here under the dark cloud of a prolonged and deepened economic crisis. The leading forces in the capitalist axis is in a deeper crisis, the euro zone economy is contracting, the UK is experiencing a double dip recession and Japan has seen seven quarters of negative growth out of the last 15 of its capitalist life time. The recent ILO report points out that labour force participation has fallen dramatically, particularly in the developed countries and the European Union region, where the rate declined by close to one percentage point. The BRICS countries, as the leading emerging markets, are not becoming any better because their economies continue to be tied to the capitalist economies. We are also observing with interest an emerging new scramble for Africa underway as the major imperialist powers seek to ensure their domination of the continent’s resources and counter the growing strategic influence of China. The reality is that the ruling class is panicking. It has no policies to resolve the economic breakdown, but they do have a very definite strategy that is being ruthlessly applied. It is aimed at pumping new wealth into the ever expanding arteries of the profit system by driving down the social position of the working class. As a result of the merciless manoeuvre by the ruling class the world today is confronted by a painful reality that there are currently 73.8 million young people unemployed worldwide and the ILO predicts that the slowdown in economic activity will likely make another half million youth jobless by 2014. The ruling classes all over the world are seizing on the economic crisis to carry out massive attacks on the living standards of the working class through imposing austerity measures. A study published by Plan International and the Overseas Development Institute notes that the austerity measures are either being implemented or under serious consideration in 138 countries, including 94 developing countries. This shift towards austerity has been most pronounced in the Middle East and Africa, where three-quarters of the region’s countries have seen their GDP contract by 5.3 percent on average. Cuts to state-funded social services like basic maternity care, immunizations, schools, and food assistance negatively affect women and children especially. However, the effects of uneducated, malnourished and ailing populations reverberate throughout the entire society. Comrades we meet here today to ensure that this man made economic crisis is turned around to present a turning point in the system of capitalist accumulation. We note that the system of private-sector led capitalist accumulation, based on the compression of workers’ share in national income, and in which finance is the dominant force has unravelled with the current crisis. We also note that the era of state-driven accumulation in which industrial capital is a leading force is on the rise. This model of accumulation has shown profound vitality throughout the current crisis, and is embodied in varying degrees, by the economies of East Asia and those of the BRICS. We have seen that a key feature in the accumulation system of the BRICS countries has been their strong support for manufacturing growth. Another feature is the specific role of the state in their economies. As an example, in all the BRICS countries there is a significant role played by the state in the financial sector. When the private-sector driven financial system in the advanced capitalist economies halted credit all-round in 2007, in BRICS countries state banks intervened to sustain credit lines to targeted industries, and some went further to manage exchange rates in order to limit export contraction. But some did not do so. We are encouraged by the fact that BRICS countries account for almost 20% of global manufacturing production, which is equivalent to the share of US manufacturing production. These countries are engaged in highly sophisticated manufacturing exports and produce a range of products, from capital goods to consumer goods, especially electrical and electronic equipment, clothing and textiles. Between 1990 and 2009, gross fixed capital formation in China grew by 766%, India grew by 352% and Brazil grew by 78%. The advanced capitalist economies performed significantly lower than this. The question however is where do the workers and working class feature in the socio economic performance of the BRICS countries? In the US, gross fixed capital formation over the same period grew by 56% and in the Euro-Area, it grew by 21%. This indicates the extent to which industrial capital accumulation has geographically shifted on the global scale. But does this represent a seismic shift in the geopolitical balance of forces? Can we make a claim that BRICS represents a counter hegemonic block to the USA – led capitalists axis? All we know is that these a key feature of the BRICS countries is that they combine two economies that were at the centre of the socialist bloc: Russia and China. We also know that BRICS represent a challenge to the “Bretton Woods prescriptive paradigm. Part of the things which this meeting will confront is whether South Africa was invited to be part of BRICS because we stand to influence the structure and pattern of global capital accumulation in our pursuance for a just world or it is because South Africa possesses critical raw minerals that some of our partners in BRICS so desperately need. We will look closer to this question during our deliberations, not with a negative view which seeks to patronise our government but with a concern for real possibilities that genuine partnership can be exploited by imperialist interests under the guise of unity of the developing countries. One of the things which this meeting must also raise is how we should push for a programme in which the overall political economic perspective of BRICS countries can express a reconfiguration of the balance of forces in the global economy. While we may agree that BRICS countries represent an alternative economic bloc but we remain uncertain about their ideological coherency. We need to spend more time to understand the balance of class forces within each of the BRICS countries and the common ideological outlook which will require to be deepened as an anchor of a qualitative alternative growth path to be pursued by our countries. One of the proposals which have been put before us as the labour movement has been the National Development, whilst our ally the ANC has adopted it as work in progress, as COSATU we have allowed our structures at all levels to discuss it comprehensively. We have not yet rejected or accepted it. What will guide us is whether the National Development Plan commits to fundamentally address the colonial and apartheid character of our economy whether the NDP seeks to address the interrelated contradictions of race, class and gender which remains a dominant feature in our economy and our society. We are currently preparing to engage with our allies on this matter. We are also aware that many of the trade unions present here are also engaging with their governments in their own countries. We need to share lessons amongst each other. The fact of the matter is that the change we are looking is a function of the state of the balance of forces in each country which will ultimately determine the social character of accumulation in these countries which, at the minimum should ensure “the progressive realization of socio-economic rights through fair labour practices, social security for the poor, universal access to basic services and ongoing programmes to defeat poverty”. Comrades, at the centre of the reasons we meet here today is to ensure that as the revolutionary trade union movement we strengthen our ties. The focus must be to ensure that this emerging alternative economic bloc is based on an accumulation path that is pro-poor, defends the power of the working class and contributes towards deepening democracy on a global scale. We must push for a model of accumulation that is characterized by a strong state-driven industrial sector, and is dynamically linked to a competitive industrial private-sector. We must push for conditions where the state directs development through a number of policy levers and interventions, where public ownership of strategic sectors, in part and in whole, such as banking and the mineral sectors, is complemented with a flexible and developmental approach to macroeconomic management, regulatory interventions to guide industrial capital accumulation, skills development and training and building technological capabilities and innovations. This is the path of development that we should pursue during, and beyond, this current global economic crisis. The state must seize control and ownership of decisive means of production, as in a typical state-capitalist model. We need to advocate for a decisive break with private monopoly capitalism. But even this must not be seen as an end in itself but direct building blocks to building a socio-political environment with the following dominant features among others: a) Where there is socialisation of the means of production in industry, energy/water supply, telecommunications, construction, public transport, wholesale and retail trade and import-export trade, the concentrated tourist –restaurant infrastructure, and the agricultural cultivations. b) Where there will be abolition of private ownership and economic activity in education, health-welfare, culture and sports and in the mass media. They are completely and exclusively organized as social services. c) Where there is socialization of land and the mineral resources. Where state production units will be created for the production and processing of agricultural products whether as raw material or consumer products. d) Where there is socialization of land and mineral resources. State production units will be created for the production and processing of agricultural products whether as raw material or consumer products. e) Where industry and the largest part of agricultural production will be carried out with relations of social ownership, central planning, workers' control over the whole spectrum of management and administration. I thank you Amandla!
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