We owe it to the 1976 generation to create a more just and equitable society that grows the economy, and creates jobs as well as provide quality health, education and social welfare.
This week, we commemorated the June 1976 student uprisings. As usual we spoke glowingly about how through their heroism they changed the course of history.
They reminded the country apartheid would not be destroyed through deputations and reliance on the banned organisations only, but those inside the country also had to play their part to confront the might of the state if we were to attain our long-cherished freedom.
We bemoan the fact while we have attained the freedom and democracy that some had laid down their lives for, we have yet to attain economic freedom.
It was this awakening that helped revive the underground structures of the liberation movements and swelled their ranks in exile. Some joined the trade unions, helped revive their militancy and reminded workers they were not just workers, but also citizens who should combine shop-floor activities with activism at their places of residence.
Indeed, some of the strikes in Durban and the Witwatersrand while following in the footsteps of earlier trade unions, Sactu in particular, workers also saw how students united in action, had been able to shake the system. Correctly, they regarded workplaces as an extension of apartheid subjugation.
They had no political rights as citizens in their own country. Some had been stripped of their citizenship and were now citizens of what was known as the TBVC states. Others were regarded as being temporarily in urban centres who were granted one-year contracts provided they had permission from their tribal chiefs.
It was the same at workplaces. They had no right to belong to a trade union of their choice, no right to collective bargaining and were not allowed to belong to pension funds or medical aid schemes. Paid maternity leave was a foreign concept. Women workers were not allowed maternity leave. They could take leave, but were not guaranteed their jobs upon their return. Strike action often resulted in dismissals.
It was for this reason that when the ANC released “The constitutional guidelines for a democratic South Africa”, the third Cosatu congress devoted time to discuss them. In its deliberations, the congress emphasised that in addition to the political issues raised by the ANC, it stressed the need for a constituent assembly to draft the new constitution and to develop a new economic policy.
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Even after the unbanning of political organisations and during the Codesa negotiations, we kept our eye on the ball. We stated only the constituent assembly, comprising the duly elected representatives of the people, should be entrusted with unfettered powers to draw a final constitution and Codesa should only deal with the broad constitutional framework and principles that should guide such a body.
We instead proposed to the ANC policy conference the need to adopt an economic policy for the new government. It is a known fact we lost the debate with only minor references on economic policy on the ready to govern document included. It is these references that are often used to justify some of the deviations, be it on privatisation or the expanded role of the state in economic activity.
Propelled with the fighting spirit of the youth of 1976, of no retreat no surrender, the 1993 Cosatu special congress, which agreed to release 20 of its national leaders to Parliament under the banner of the ANC, adopted the Reconstruction and Development Programme with a set of social and economic policies to transform South Africa into a more just and equal society.
Conceived initially as an accord between the ANC and Cosatu for a labour-driven development programme, following inputs from alliance partners, the draft adopted at the special congress focused on meeting the basic needs of the people: jobs, land, housing, water, electricity, telecommunications, transport, a clean and healthy environment, nutrition, health care and social welfare.
Economic policy is a contested terrain.
It is a matter of public record the programme was canned in its infancy ostensibly to ensure alignment by departments. While this seemed like a plausible explanation, it soon became clear a new policy framework was in the making.
The South African Foundation, a business organisation, fired the first salvo when it released a document titled Growth For All. It was growth for all in name only.
In reality, it was about growth for big business and the elite, and crumbs for the rest. It attacked all agreements business had supported earlier during the negotiations of the LRA, including the right to strike and collective bargaining.
Instead as we said at the 6th Cosatu national congress, they advocated standard neoliberal solutions: economic deregulation; reductions in the deficit; trade liberalisation in the form of lower tariffs; rapid privatisation; lower corporate taxes; and increased labour market flexibility, including dual labour market policies.
Today’s woke youth would say, if economic trickle down was a person, this would have been it.
While the government pretended to disagree with the content of the document, they were secretly working on a similar one. Whereas policies emerged through the ANC, even its then-acting secretary-general, Cheryl Carolus, saw it for the first when it was presented to the alliance secretariat. Even then, they were never given the document, but only told in broad terms its purported content.
Zwelinzima Vavi, the-then deputy general-secretary of Cosatu who was at the meeting, said they were told: “Guys, we have them by the balls, this document that we are unveiling tomorrow, will be a game changer. Business will not like it at all. You guys should support it.”
To his horror, when Gear was unveiled by the then-minister of finance, Trevor Manuel, it was the Growth For All document with minor changes to spruce up the offending crude neoliberal language and to dress it in redistributive language. Thabo Mbeki, then-deputy president, quipped: “Call me a Thatcherite.”
While he may have been preempting the criticism he knew was coming, it may also be that he too recognised elements of Thatcherism in it.
Social equity and job creation
While the SACP cautiously welcomed it, Cosatu rejected it outright. At a function to mark the 75th anniversary of the SACP, I described it as an “unworkable and unwinnable” plan that “poses serious difficulties for the working class and the country as a whole”, I went on to say “Gear could never have emerged from the ANC before the 1994 elections”.
To add salt to the wound, the government said Gear was non-negotiable. It was clear they could not defend the document, except by adopting the language of the erstwhile oppressor who had no regard for consultation and negotiations.
Here was a party that had sat down with its erstwhile enemy to negotiate how to bring about a democratic society, saying to its partners, who had marched alongside the ANC when the talks had deadlocked, Gear is cast in stone.
While we were shocked, we were not surprised. The government had earlier disregarded the MERG document – Making Democracy Work – drafted by progressive academic economists, commissioned by the ANC’s Department of Economic Planning.
We did not only criticise the policy but together with Fedusa and NACTU, we tabled an alternative document at Nedlac titled Social Equity and Job Creation that proposed among other things:
- A public and private investment policy geared towards job creation and growth.
- An active industrial policy to develop the manufacturing sector along with social adjustment measures to provide for the social costs of restructuring the economy.
- A redistributive fiscal policy based on a strongly progressive tax system to redirect spending towards social services for the poor.
- Demands for worker participation, both on the shop floor in the form of union-based workplace forums, and at sectoral and national levels.
- Twenty-four years later, Gear lies in tatters. It has not delivered on its core objectives: economic growth, employment creation and redistribution. While there were elements of growth during some of the Mbeki years, many workers lost their jobs.
School-leaving youth and graduates continued to roam the streets, swelling the ranks of the unemployed. Inequality has continued to rise unabated. The only meaningful redistribution has been in the looting of state coffers and enrichment of few connected individuals.
There is broad agreement in the country even before Covid-19, the economy was on its knees and it is likely to get worse unless drastic steps are taken. The president, minister of finance and alliance have started making noise for a need to go back to the basics even if one is not sure what that means. Even if it is simply rhetorical, as citizens we should seize this opportunity to call for broad consultation on a new economic policy framework.
For those who bemoan the Codesa outcomes on the economy, here is an opportunity to agitate and mobilise for a change in direction.
Certainly, the government and ruling alliance have a role to play, as they have a mandate to govern, but in the tradition of the drafting of the Freedom Charter and the constitutional guidelines, the people’s voices should be heard.
It is time we bring to a halt the piecemeal approach to social and economic reform. We should press the reset button. Reforms must mean more than just expenditure cuts, the sale of state assets and rolling back the gains workers have made in the labour market.
It must be about acknowledgement that our economy is not growing. It is incapable of creating and sustaining existing jobs. The inequality between blacks and whites, men and women, rural and urban would need to be addressed if we are to call this a new beginning.
It should be policy and not statements at rallies and summits that show the country is concerned about the many youth and women who are unemployed. It should be investments in health, education, social welfare, water and sanitation that underpin our commitment to the improvement of quality of life.
In this regard, we should not look to the looming adjustment budget for answers. That should be short term to respond to the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
What we should look to is a series of consultations along the lines of the process followed to amend the Constitution to make it possible for expropriation of land without compensation. It could also be consultation with different stakeholders, including political parties and those outside of Nedlac.
It should not be a bureaucratic process led by National Treasury, but a political process led by the president with specific timeframes as time is not on our side.
We owe it to the 1976 generation to create a more just and equitable society that grows the economy, create jobs, provides quality health care, education and social welfare.
A society where those who work for the state or stand for office are there to serve and not to line their pockets and those of their relatives and cronies.
A society where those who are found guilty of stealing from the people will not be rewarded with positions in other spheres of government, diplomatic posts and as public representatives, but rather sent to jail to serve heavy sentences.
A society where women and children do not live in fear of sexual assault and murder.
A society where business is committed to the reduction of inequalities in society and the workplace with investment in the productive sector of the economy and not just playing “Fah-fee” on the stock market.
Let this be the year in which like the youth of 1976, we say: Thus far and not any further. Who knows? The much-vaunted new dawn may soon be upon us.
– Mbhazima Shilowa is a former premier of Gauteng, trade unionist and Cope leader.
