Cosatu says its upcoming conference will discuss strategies aimed at fighting the government, which it accuses of refusing to honour collective bargaining agreements.
The government and organised labour have been on a collision course since finance minister Tito Mboweni pencilled in huge cuts to the public sector wage bill in his Budget Review in February. A few months later it reneged on a three-year wage agreement it had signed with public sector employees.
The ANC-led government, a traditional ally of the labour federation, has historically been strongly committed to collective bargaining for the management of labour relations.
“However, recently its response to serious structural pressures, primarily in the form of slow economic growth, national debt, high unemployment and continual lobbying from free market adherents, is attacking and undermining collective bargaining,” Cosatu said in a document subtitled “Government Gone Rogue” released ahead of the conference.
Cosatu will hold its three-day collective bargaining, organising and campaigns conference starting on Monday. Apart from discussing the challenges facing collective bargaining, next week’s conference will also discuss the consequences of the fourth industrial revolution on workers’ jobs, transformation of the economy and the global Covid-19 pandemic.
The estimated 332 delegates from Cosatu unions who will attend the virtual conference will also discuss the collapsing of regional bargaining councils into one large bargaining council and efforts to ensure more workers are covered by collective agreements, specifically those in the informal economy.
The government has refused to implement the last leg of a three-year wage agreement signed in the Public Sector Co-ordinating Bargaining Council in 2018 for 1.3-million public servants, because it does not have the money to do so.
Implementing the deal will cost R37.8bn. The issue is now the subject of arbitration and court proceedings.
Cosatu notes in the document, under legal strategy, that its biggest battles are set to be won in the courts and on the streets.
“This means that the federation needs to develop a strategy on how to litigate in support of [its] objectives. The strategy needs to be flexible, adaptable and comprehensive enough to allow the federation to enforce legislation, discipline capital and navigate the new normal.”
Cosatu general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali lashed out at the government for abandoning the developmental state, reneging on wage agreements and falling short on service delivery. “We never thought that the government would say in 2020 ‘I am not going to honour an agreement I signed with you’.”
Cosatu first deputy president Mike Shingange said the conference will also discuss political developments within the governing tripartite alliance, stressing: “This is a debate that we can’t avoid [because] the state is leading the charge [against] workers.”
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