Zwelinzima Vavi - Suspended Head of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) HARDtalk

European security in a generation. Time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk. South Africa hold elections in May, and

complaints from workers are getting louder. Unofficial figures show that

nearly half of the working population doesn't have a proper

job, so what happened to the post` apartheid dream of work and

education for all? My guest today it is Zwelinzima Vavi, the now

suspended head of the site to, the powerful trade unions Alliance. Is

it holding back South Africa's progress? `` COSATU.

Zwelinzima Vavi, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you for having me.

Is it not the case that it is the trade unions in South Africa that is

stopping the country's progress? I don't think so. I don't think you

can say that the poverty and growing inequalities in South Africa are as

a result of the unions. That would be a very incorrect answer to give.

Let these plain what they mean unemployment, terrible in South

Africa. Unofficially it is 35%. For young people in South Africa, as

high as 50%. Your policies are not helping to get people working. We

are not in government. The ANC is in government, we have been shouting

from the rooftops, arguing that the current bonuses do not help us to

resolve the crises. A knee`jerk reaction based on emotions and

blackmail by the big business in South Africa, we haven't been

listening to that. We think that the main source of the challenges, the

triple crisis of inequalities in poverty, are as a result of

structural deficiencies we inherited from the apartheid past, and we

believe that those structural deficiencies had not been properly

addressed so far. Let me put this to you, you are making a bad situation

worse. One example, teachers in South Africa. A recent report by a

think tank in the country, said that think tank in the country, said that

maths teachers in primary schools in South Africa are amongst the worst

in Africa. Worse than Uganda or Tanzania. It has been said,

unionised teachers are not being held accountable for their

underperformance. That is one example. The unions are getting in

the way of basically allowing bad teachers to be sacked. If I had my

way, do you know what I would propose for South Africa today? A

deal on accountability. Accountability, not only of the

teachers in the public sector workers, and the hospitals and

municipalities, but also that we need a broader debate on

accountability of leadership. The day in the public or the private

institutions. Be a responsible for... You are talking about the

scandal over the Homestead for President Jacob Zuma that has cost

the public purse something like $20 million. I will raise your links

with the ANC in a moment. But to continue this issue that the unions

are not allowing for teachers to be sacked. What do you say to that?

That is wrong. The Labour relations act in South Africa allows any

employer to sack any underperforming employees, including teachers. That

is not the case, though. Official statistics show that half of South

Africa's children from the working poor leave school after 12 years

with few skills and no hope of jobs, because they are basically not

getting the right skills and training in schools to do their jobs

that the country needs. You can't blame that on trade unions. It is,

by the way, the very trade unions that have insisted that over the

past five years, one of the priorities ought to be addressing

the issue of education. You have mentioned already, we are

cooperating with the countries in our region who have far less

resources than South Africa has. If you don't address that functioning

of the system, you may give up on ever finding a solution to the

crisis is of unemployment. This is one where the unions can exacerbate

the situation. You demand a decent living wage for all the workers who

come under the COSATU umbrella. COSATU is the national Federation

and Alliance of many unions, who represent workers in many unions. On

this insistence on a minimum wage, even for unskilled workers, it means

that there is a huge pool of unskilled labour can't get jobs

because they have been priced out of the market. If you were to speak to

any South African employer, the least you the most important... I

bet it would not mention the wages. It would not say, we can't employ

more people, we can't expand our companies because labour is priced

out of the market. Nobody would say so. They would raise important

issues. They will raise the electricity prices, they will raise

the availability of water resources, they will raise the... Economics

tells you that you need lower wage jobs to keep people employed

formally. I put to you what the minister for national economic

planning has said. He said, there are too many forces who want to

thump their chests, and what this country needs is a labour market

that operates efficiently. I agree with that. That means that we must

fix the education system, they shall be workers have the skills that are

demanded by firms, particularly in the manufacturing sector. Make sure

that our manufacturing system is functioning, our schools are

functioning, and it means that every school must have a laboratory, it

must have all the instruments that you need to ensure that they are

empowered to give the skills that are into demand. Mining accounts for

50% of South Africa's exports. The strikes that we have seen in recent

years are costing the South African economy $36 million per day. That is

just one figure. What are you doing as a recognised trade union leader,

to try to get control of this. Do you accept that there is a problem

with strikes just running amok in some parts of the mining sector? Of

course, that has been a problem. Of course, I have participated

personally in processors to try to stabilise the mining industry.

Including signing an argument with all of the government and business

to ensure that there are greater levels of stability. I think that we

have done well in stabilising the issue of strikes. What we see now is

a legal strike, a protector strike, putting the demand through the

union... For a higher minimum wage? For a higher minimum wage. That is

naturally in any democracy. There are times when employers are unable

to find a solution in negotiations, but what is more important in the

context of the South African labour legislation is that most of the

disputes between workers and their employers are concluded without the

need to exercise power through strikes or lockouts. You do accept

that some of the strikes have scared off investors. Gill Marcus, the

governor of the South African central bank, said last year that an

increasingly fraught labour relations environment and high wage

reforms in the mining sector is likely to affect South Africa's

credit ratings. Investors are being put off coming to South Africa. I

don't think it is a crisis of people not wanting to invest in the mining

industry as a result of the strike in the platinum sector, but I do

accept that the strikes could have been resolved. I don't think any

strike should last more than three weeks, because if you exercise

power, it should be at a time when you know that the gap between what

is on the table is such that you need power in the form of a strike

to shift parties around. It is unfortunate that the strike has gone

two months. This has been going offer a while, and it has cost South

Africa hundreds of millions of dollars, and it is not that easy to

just turn up the production again. A long time ago, if the parties

involved in the negotiations were having a relationship, you must

remember this is the new union that is organising the strike. This is

its first national strike ever. That is in its ten years of existence.

You are talking about the National Association of Mineworkers and

construction union, which is not affiliated to COSATU. I am raising

that issue in the context that before the strike happened this

year, there had been many other worker strikes that would have

damaged the relationship between the parties. I feel that at a broader

political level, they should have been interventions `` there should

have been interventions from eight broader level of government and a

broader private sector, to force a settlement between those two

parties. One of the biggest regret about the COSATU divisions, for

example, is that COSATU was unable to jump into that opportunity and

play a strategic role to ensure that the strike doesn't go on for so

long. There have been grovelling is of discontent between members of

COSATU and the ruling ANC. Take the metal workers union. That says it

wants to sever the connections with the ANC. Is the ANC becoming a

liability for? COSATUFrom their perspective, they have come to that

conclusion, that the ANC is no longer a reliable friend. They can

no longer be biased towards the interests of them. The society has

been hijacked by the elites, and so the union has come to that

conclusion. That is that particular metalworkers union we are talking

about. What do you think? The only force that has the interests of our

people at heart, a disciplined force of the left, with a bias towards the

working class and the poor, it is the ANC. That is what Jacob Zuma

said. I agreed with him fully when he said that. The ANC was pursuing

restructuring education, healthcare, fighting rural poverty, ensuring

that there is rural development, and fighting corruption. With the

adoption of the new development plan by the ANC conference in September,

which is now a mainstay policy of the ANC for the next five years, I

will question that statement wholeheartedly. I will say, the

economic policies that the government have chosen now,

unfortunately it doesn't put them in the camp of a Labour friendly pro`

worker proposition. You are posted at national development. The idea of

that is to create new jobs. What is wrong with that? Do you disagree

with the national development plan? The people will accept it. The issue

is whether it is feasible using the instruments that have been chosen by

the government, that that 11 million jobs will be created in 2013. This

is where I come from. You disagreed with the national development plan.

It says, let's have a private and public partnership to get South

Africa working again. The key architect is Trevor Manuel, he was a

highly acclaimed Finance Minister in South Africa from 1996 until 2009.

This is a man with huge experience. Are you saying he has got it wrong?

The diagnosis and the identification of the programme, the objectives,

they are things that we will share, we will say they are spot`on in

identifying the programmes. The enjoyment is chosen to address those

programmes, we will disagree with them. `` instrument. Give me one

brief example. The policies that they have chosen. I do not agree

that this unemployment rate should preoccupy itself with an inflation

targeting policy, setting that inflation between three and 6%. You

can only achieve that if you lose the planned instrument, with high

interest rates, to drive the inflation down. I think the

preoccupation must be to set targets for employment, for poverty

reduction, for inequality reductions. I do not agree that in

the case of the public, which would be privatising everything, I think

we should be building a developmental state which will use

the instruments. Use the instruments by the apartheid government. You

disagree with the president 's comment that the ANC best represents

the interests of the working class. Let me put a point to you by a

member of south Africa's workers and socialist party. He says our

impression from COSATU workers, is disillusionment. Their

disgruntlement is shifting to an active search for all eternity. Is

this going to render COSATU irrelevant? They are going to look

for the more radical answers. Those, who say, nationalise our

resources. I have warned that. The leadership sadly finds comfort with

the status. I am not part of a movement to challenge the

fundamental foundations. Then, workers will start looking forward

to relatives. If COSATU leaders defend what is happening, which is

clearly wrong in the highs of the overwhelming members of its own

unions, then it will find itself completely in no man's land. The

founding secretary general of COSATU said in an article on the south

Africa Sunday Times, on March the 23rd, that" like ghosts, they hang

lifeless in COSATU bedrooms, for the first time in the history of

COSATU, we have no one to turn to in our leadership". They have come to

recognise in its last Congress that unless we address worrying

organisational trends internally, unless we begin to address the

social gap, that is developing between them and the leaders, and

the members on the ground, you are going to have to content with things

coming all over. Your days could be numbered? It depends on what we do

about this. What are you doing? We are in a terrible situation. I come

from the school of thought that says we have two be putting programmes

together to address it. How can you? There is nothing wrong with that.

But how can you do that? When you have been suspended since August

2013 as Secretary general of COSATU? Because of an affair you had with a

COSATU employee which violates rules. And there have also been

questions about financial impropriety. You deny the

allegations completely, and you are taking COSATU... You are selling

them in the courts, and the cases going through. I do not want to go

into the nitty`gritty, but there are two points: Would you be vindicated,

and are due to busy involved in this infighting in COSATU to lead the

workers? One of the main issues of discussions in south Africa today

among trade unions is whether there should be a Congress. A federation

that is a reliable friend of all the marginalised and oppressed people

all over the world. A federation that is regarded to be holding the

moral composts of south Africa today. A friend that speaks truth to

power `` compass. How can you do that with infighting? And you are

suspended? I think people were uncomfortable with the trade union

movement that is truly independent, that is mobile. Around sound values

of our people, we put people first. They said that the organisation is

divided. It is weakened. You believe that you have been set up in a trap?

And that has led to your suspension? The mistake I committed in having an

affair was blown out of proportion. For political reasons. If that was

people acting on the basis of a sound moral basis, people will have

no issues whatsoever with the same things happening everywhere else.

You think it was a trap? The fact that COSATU headquarters was sold

for less than half market value, is this a trap for you again? Again,

that is absolutely nonsense. It trap by who? It is wrong that one person

alone is acting outside of the collective is the leadership, and

can determine the price of anything. Who is setting the trap? Is it

because you are seen as a critic of ANC, and the President? Is that what

the reason is? When you speak to power, you make many friends but

also a few enemies. When a political analyst at the electoral bill for

democracy said last year that your suspension strengthens the

President's faction in ANC, was he right? I would not put it that way,

but surely those who find comfort in the leadership would say about the

current status call of where the country is drifting too would be

very happy with the applied federation, and they will not raise

a single finger about the bigger standards that are unfolding in

south Africa today. A respected political labour analyst, Terry

Bell, says that the supposedly controlled shields of the workers

were merely stepping stones for world and privilege for the few.

These talks of the expense accounts of union bureaucrats. I have raise

that issue. We raised it before, and we have said that we should be

setting ourselves up to ensure that we are transparent. When you said at

that last COSATU congress, you said that" I have access to luxuries that

many in our constituency do not, workers feel that the unions and the

leaders fail them by not prioritising their bread and butter

issues" . Absolutely, if the union does not do anything, they had to

speak about them and not us, they will not be hitting the problem. The

problem in south Africa, partly, is that there is social distance. The

reason why we ended up with these unions is that the workers could not

identify with leaders, any more, because they seem preoccupied with

some of the issues leading to political office, being a member of

legislation, while they were feeling that the issues of their bread, and

butter, were completely being sidelines. Briefly and finally, what

is the future for you? Will you set up a new party? There have been

rumours. No, I have two say this, I am committed to saying this, I am a

loyal member of the ANC, but I know they have values of traditions,

which are not compared to trade for anything for the position of General

Secretary. That is the ANC that I know that liberated South Africa on

the basis of its principal of our people first, selflessness, and our

people first, and not asked first. That is the ANC that I am committed

to serve as a member. Zwelinzima Vavi, thank you very much for coming

on HARDtalk. Good morning, we may be in the early

throes of spring, but temperatures have not dropped away too much in

the night, and today starts in