CapeArgus.gif Support from workers will drop, COSATU warns ANC Amy Musgrave, from Johannesburg, in Cape Argus, 24 November 2015 COSATU is fed up with decisions taken at ANC policy conferences and tripartite alliance meetings not translating into government policy. The federation has also questioned who the real beneficiaries of the developmental state really are. In a secretariat report prepared for COSATU's national congress currently under way in Midrand, it says the federation has to decide how it can get state bureaucracy on the side of workers instead of it being controlled by individual members. "It is not obvious that consensus policy positions that emerge from alliance deliberations find expression in ANC policy directives, and neither is it obvious that ANC policy directives will find expression in government policy, and neither is it obvious that government policy will be implemented by state bureaucracy. "Further complications arise because in each of the links in the policy-making chain, there are various layers through which power shifts," the document reads. It says COSATU needs to re-assess its engagement strategy and avoid being managed through constant internal engagements while "reactionary policies" continued to be imposed by the state. The main state department COSATU blames for this imposition of "reactionary policies" is the National Treasury. COSATU has even gone as far as warning the ANC that its support from workers will drop massively in next year's local government elections if Treasury goes ahead with its reforms for retirement savings. The changes have already resulted in 86 000 public servants resigning to get access to the pensions as they believe that their money will be "nationalised". Treasury has denied it is nationalising retirement monies, but instead is trying to instil a culture of savings among workers. It plans on implementing the changes in March 2016 after agreeing to a moratorium. "The government must never interfere with the provident funds and the workers' funds without consulting us. It is our money. "It is a deferred salary which we must be allowed to use when (workers are in trouble)," COSATU president S'dumo Dlamini told delegates yesterday. He warned the federation would apply for a strike notice if the National Treasury insisted on going ahead with reforms and not consulting workers more on their concerns. Another gripe COSATU has with the National Treasury is that it has allegedly continuously proved to be a stumbling block to a comprehensive social-security plan, and has delayed the implementation of the National Health Insurance. According to sources close to minimum-wage discussions, the National Treasury was opposed to the minimum wage until recently arguing it will lead to job losses. Delegates will also discuss the possibility of developing a clear programme to ensure that COSATU deployees in the government stick to what is expected of them. Often these cadres end up following an ANC line instead of what workers want. "One of the mistakes we committed in the past years has been to execute our programmes successfully, but fail to make systematic follow ups," the document reads. "Another mistake we committed includes our failure to implement an aggressive workers' political education programme which has resulted in a new layer of leadership which operates outside a political compass that is based on the discipline of understanding how each of the alliance formations operate including the required discipline." The congress continues in Midrand on Tuesday. LABOUR BUREAU From: http://www.iol.co.za/business/news/support-from-workers-will-drop-cosatu-war ns-anc-1.1949793#.VlQEInYrK00 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
