Numsa Media Monitor A daily compilation of local, national and international articles dealing with

labour related issues

Monday 19 September 2016

South African workers

Death threats spook SABC staffers

Stephan Hofstatter, Sunday times, 18 Sept 2016

ABC staffers are living in fear of their lives amid a wave of threats, intimidation and harassment.

Journalists Foeta Krige and Suna Venter were told this week to skip town after receiving a threatening text message on Wednesday after a sinister break-in at Venter's house.

This is the latest in a string of threats to persuade them to drop a Constitutional Court case against the public broadcaster.

The case comes as details have emerged of threats received by staff at the SABC's offices in Polokwane.

The Polokwane staff have been accused of trying to sabotage the move of radio station PhalaphalaFM to Thohoyandou and carrying "negative stories" about Venda King Toni Mphephu Ramabulana.

Towers of terror at SABC

Mphephu Ramabulana hit the headlines this week when it emerged the Venda Building Society Mutual Bank, in which he controls a large stake, loaned President Jacob Zuma R7.8-million to pay for nonsecurity upgrades at Nkandla.

Krige and Venter are among the "SABC 8" who applied to the court on Monday to have the broadcaster's policy of refusing to air protest footage declared unconstitutional.

They have reported receiving a string of threatening SMSes in the last three weeks.

They wrote a letter to SABC management this week, asking for an urgent investigation.

They said the threats started two days after a parliamentary portfolio committee meeting with the broadcaster's executives last month at which they were labelled "liars" and "traitors".

"Several of the messages contain or refer to facts that were contained in highly confidential correspondence," said the letter, which was sent to acting CEO James Aguma.

"It is thus clear our communications are being intercepted and the content leaked in order to perpetrate the act of intimidation," they wrote.

It is suspected that the break-in at Venter's Johannesburg home may be linked to the threats. Police confirmed that one investigating officer was handling both cases.

Venter's house was broken into early on Monday shortly before papers were filed at the Constitutional Court. Nothing was stolen.

We are so rattled that it is becoming a challenge to calm everyone down

Two days later, Venter and Krige received an SMS that read: "OK YOV WERE WARNED (sic)." They were advised to leave Johannesburg immediately for their safety.

Venter, Krige and fellow SABC journalists Thandeka Gqubule, Busisiwe Ntuli, Krivani Pillay, Jacques Steenkamp, Lukhanyo Calata and freelancer Vuyo Mvoko were fired in July after objecting to the SABC's policy on protests.

All except Mvoko were reinstated after the Labour Court set aside their dismissal on July 26.

Steenkamp quit on Monday but on Wednesday was told to leave without serving his notice.

"It's obviously linked to the supplementary affidavit that we filed in the Constitutional Court this week," he said.

The SABC 8 say that although the broadcaster accepts that its protest policy is unlawful, the SABC and Communications Minister Faith Muthambi continue to defend it.

They want the court to declare parliament in breach of the constitution by not holding the SABC accountable and to instruct the National Assembly to institute an inquiry into a litany of complaints.

These include surveillance, "constant harassment", editorial interference and censorship of news items critical of Zuma, the SABC and Mphephu Ramabulana.

Questions that need to be asked to save the SABC

The affidavit filed by Gqubule, the SABC's economics editor, also accused chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng of trying to block an interview with Princess Masindi Mphephu who interdicted last week's scheduled coronation of Mphephu Ramabulana.

The issue of Mphephu Ramabulana's disputed kingship is the source of smouldering tensions at the SABC's Limpopo office, with journalists complaining of receiving threats about its coverage.

The Sunday Times has seen a letter written by a senior SABC staffer dated August 24 sent to his managers that tells of "receiving calls left right and centre, some not so polite, from some authorities that we were carrying negative stories about the coronation. We are so rattled that it is becoming a challenge to calm everyone down."

The letter also related how a union member at an SABC labour meeting in Polokwane had read out a list of people who objected to plans to relocate parts of PhalaphalaFM to Thohoyandou. They were branded "saboteurs" who were going to be "dealt with".

SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago declined to comment on the Constitutional Court case.

"The matter is sub judice and, as such, the SABC will not engage in any media discussions around it."

He did not respond to questions about threats to SABC staff.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2016/09/18/Death-threats-spook-SABC-staffers

Nehawu to take Parliament pay-scale concerns to the CCMA

Khulekani Magubane, Business Day, 17 September 2016

PARLIAMENT’s labour worries are far from over, as the National Education Heath and Allied Workers Union at the legislature said it would pursue pay scale grievances at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) despite ending their strike last week.

The union expressed concern over an apparent lack of promotions in Parliament at senior management level and top management level. In its 2015-2016 annual report, Parliament reported two promotions to the level of senior management and none for top management.

Nehawu on Thursday called an end to its strike in Parliament following discussions with management of Parliament facilitated by the CCMA. Suspended staff were restored and those facing disciplinary processes were given written warnings.

The end of the strike sees the union making various compromises as Parliamentary staff members belonging to the union return to duty at the legislature. The matter of salary deductions, as part of Parliament’s "no work, no pay" policy, remains under discussion.

Nehawu’s Parliamentary chair Sthembiso Tembe told Business Day that the low figures in promotion to senior and top management positions worried the union.

"We want our members at lower levels to be [in] higher positions. There seems to be a ceiling. Most of those taken in there seem to be promoted from outside when people from inside understand how the system works and the challenges it faces," Tembe said.

Tembe said the union would still pursue a number of matters at Parliament with the CCMA, including matters pertaining to security and protection staff who the union says are not being paid consistently with their experience at the legislature.

"We are pursuing that issue and it is with the CCMA at the moment. The issue was created by the same management. Security and protection officers is a serious issue. They decided to employ security personnel at the highest level," he said.

He said the gap among these staff members was so huge that protection services working in Parliament for years were earning R180,000 annually while newer personnel doing a similar job earned R300,000 annually.

Last week Secretary of Parliament Gengezi Mgidlana said while not all the issues which led to the strike were resolved, a moratorium would be instituted on pay deductions to allow for discussions on how to continue with them and how to reverse those already imposed.

"We are not deducting now and we are still continuing the conversation. The nature of the relationship between the union and Parliament means there will always be issues on the table but that does not mean that things should be allowed to collapse," said Mgidlana.

Nehawu deputy secretary Zola Saphetha and Mgidlana will monitor the implementation of the agreements between the union and Parliament. The Western Cape provincial branch of Nehawu and management of Parliament, excluding Mgidlana, will provide progress reports to the presiding officers.

http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/labour/2016/09/17/nehawu-to-take-parliament-pay-scale-concerns-to-the-ccma

Legislate illegal mining, ANCYL asks Minister of Mineral Resources

eNCA/ANA, 16 September 2016

JOHANNESBURG – The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) on Friday asked Mineral Resources Minister, Mosebenzi Zwane, to immediately address illegal mining activities, saying it was taken aback by his handling of the recent accident in Langlaagte, west of Johannesburg.

In an open letter, ANCYL secretary general Njabulo Nzuza highlighted legislative matters that the League wanted Zwane to quickly resolve, saying the it had grown rather impatient with the slow pace of transformation in the mining sector.

Nzuza said Zwane must address the issue of a state-owned mining company, the highly-contested Mining Charter, while challenging him to make public his position on the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Bill.

“Moreover, our impatience with this process is related to the more strategic need for the nationalisation of mines that we have historically been calling for,” Nzuza said.

“In the context of this objective, we want to see a systematic move towards legislation that will see the state-owned mining company, as soon as it is operational, taking up ownership and control of greater mines in the country.”

At least three illegal miners died and seven others were arrested last week after they got trapped underground for days at a disused gold mine in Langlaagte.

It is suspected that there are multiple groups that operate at the closed mine shaft at Johannesburg’s oldest and disused gold mine. The department of mineral resources (DMR) has since decided that it would soon seal the shaft.

Nzuza said the DMR should be open to exploring alternatives instead of punitive measures against illegal mining.

He said the very rise of illegal mining was an indictment on the criminality of the mining industry in so far as development of mining communities was concerned.

“Your department seems to have tied itself together with the Chamber of Mines in advancing the perspective of bringing the full might of the law without looking at alternatives,” Nzuza said.

“We note and are mindful of the concerns you are raising, that is deaths and diseases. From where we are sitting, we find that hypocritical given the fact that even in the formal sector there are deaths and diseases that bedevil workers; with miners being exposed to hazardous fumes, gas, and collapsing shafts.”

Nzuza said mining companies were guilty of serious environmental degradation and air pollution that condemn surrounding communities to health hazards, and were guilty of low levels of investment in socio-economic projects in mining towns.

“They also have a tendency to displace local labour by employing foreign nationals whose pressured circumstances make them susceptible to super exploitation, Nzuza said.

“This is the structural tension that produces desperation to the extent that people risk their lives trying to scrape through the disused mines to make a living.”

https://www.enca.com/south-africa/legislate-illegal-mining-ancyl-asks-minister-of-mineral-resources

Sadtu’s top five reasons for teachers calling it quits

Julia Madibogo, HersalLive, 16 September 2016

Teaching is not an easy profession‚ and dealing with troublesome pupils adds to a teacher’s day-to-day stress.

While some instances of teachers being attacked by learners in classes have surfaced recently‚ the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) said teachers often do not report abuse.

“What we know is that incidents happen but are under- or poorly reported because teachers are ashamed and there is fear‚” the union explained.

“We would like to see more counselling and psychological services being provided to schools so that both teachers and learners are able to cope better.”

According to Sadtu‚ the top five reasons teacher quit their jobs are:

1 Low salaries

2 Lack of support from the department in terms of providing counselling services‚ which leads to depression

3 Depression‚ which erodes the professionalism of the teacher.

4 Abuse‚ which affects self-esteem of the teacher.

5 The status‚ or lack thereof‚ afforded to the profession.

http://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2016/09/16/sadtus-top-five-reasons-teachers-calling-quits/

ANC/Alliance

Do to Cosatu what voters did to the ANC in metros, Vavi tells workers

Mpho Raborife, News24, 17 Sept 2016

Johannesburg - Workers must do to Cosatu what voters did to the ANC during the local government elections, expelled Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Saturday.

"We need in the trade unions what happened in Nelson Mandela [Bay], Tshwane and Johannesburg," Vavi said in a speech prepared for delivery at the provincial congress of the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw) on Saturday.

"The only way we can do this, comrades, is to ensure that we have a strategy to reduce the majority of Cosatu unions from 52% to below 50% so that workers will not be subjected to another sweetheart deal."

He said workers needed to come together and take a stand against what he described as a "passive and obedient labour desk of the ANC-led alliance".

Cosatu had cost the working class by getting into a "cosy" relationship with the ruling party, and the ANC had failed to transform the economy, by wasting opportunities to do so, he said.

"The government did not even seek to reverse the impact of imperialism/colonialism. The owners of the economy and land remain those who gained ownership of wealth through dispossession and the barrel of the gun."

Vavi said the ANC-led government had undermined all the progressive policies it should have implemented by adopting neo-liberal economic policies and lacking the

political will to address questions of poverty, inequality, unemployment and corruption.

He said the scourge of corruption went hand in hand with a neo-liberal economic agenda.

"The whole fiasco about privatisation and tendering opened up the doors for the most unscrupulous tenderpreneurs to emerge as millionaires overnight, and then be congratulated for de-racialising business through phoney BEE deals."

The unwillingness to tackle unemployment, poverty, inequalities and corruption was witnessed by South Africans on a daily basis, he said. However, the responsibility for "normalising" corruption lay with the country's current national leadership, he said.

He called on workers not to allow the trend to continue during the ANC's upcoming 2017 elective congress.

"We cannot afford a repeat of this fiasco in the coming 2017 round of public sector negotiations.

"All the Cosatu unions will be so preoccupied about who becomes the next leader of the ANC and how this next gang will distribute patronage and how the new generation of leaders...will gain materially from this change or no change of ANC leadership.

"The workers still suffering from years of neglect will be the last thing on their minds," Vavi said.

The working class was currently faced with the deepest crisis it had experienced since the overthrow of apartheid, he said.

More than 20 years after the birth of the country's democracy, there were still high levels of unemployment, the absence of basic infrastructure for large sections of the population, crises in both the education and health services, as well as levels of inequality that should have stayed in the past.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/do-to-cosatu-what-voters-did-to-the-anc-in-metros-vavi-tells-workers-20160917

Cosatu to rattle allies over Cyril

Qaanitah Hunter, Sunday Times, 18 Sept 2016

osatu is set to officially break ranks with President Jacob Zuma when the federation meets tomorrow, throwing its weight behind a campaign to have his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, succeed him when his term ends in 2019.

Zuma and his backers are known to prefer the president's ex-wife, AU Commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, for the job.

Should the Cosatu central executive committee officially decide at its special meeting tomorrow that it will campaign for Ramaphosa, it would confirm a split within the faction that supported Zuma in Polokwane and Mangaung.

Cosatu has already "endorsed" Ramaphosa for the top job, but recent turmoil within the alliance has further confirmed its decision. The meeting comes after two of the federation's most influential unions, the National Union of Mineworkers and the South African Democratic Teachers Union, publicly expressed their support for Ramaphosa to take over from Zuma.

We can't be expected to use our resources to campaign for the ANC during elections and be told not to talk about leadership succession

This view could receive strong opposition from Zuma's cheerleaders in Cosatu, who include its president, S'dumo Dlamini.

Union leaders also want the meeting to adopt a single voice on political developments, as the federation has in the past communicated conflicting messages - especially on allegations that Zuma's cabinet has been captured by the Guptas.

Union leaders are expected to add their voice to the debate on whether Zuma's scandals cost the ANC votes in last month's local-government elections.

The meeting comes as union leaders have admitted they are worried about Cosatu's diminishing influence owing to internal faction battles.

"You can't demand that a skinny man flex his muscles. He doesn't have muscle," said NUM general secretary David Sipunzi.

"We lost 400,000 members at once when Numsa was expelled. We recently also lost Fawu [the Food and Allied Workers Union]. And therefore there is very little muscle to flex."

The battle for the soul of SA

Bereng Soke, general secretary of the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union, said the ANC had to follow tradition in allowing its deputy president to succeed the incumbent when the time came.

"We don't deputise for the sake of it. You deputise because you see potential in a person to be a leader," he said.

The ANC has barred its members and affiliated organisations from discussing succession, but a defiant Sipunzi said they would not keep quiet about the matter.

"We can't be expected to use our resources to campaign for the ANC during elections and be told not to talk about leadership succession."

Cosatu affiliates say their lobbying for Ramaphosa should start in earnest, as they believe he is well placed to take over, and has learnt from Zuma's mistakes.

Said Sipunzi: "Those people who say trade unions are outsiders and outsiders must not engage in leadership speculations of the ANC must also say: 'We don't care [about] your dirty votes, workers.'

"They must say it because that's their language of late."

Cosatu leaders said they could not turn a blind eye to Zuma's role in the political turmoil in South Africa.

They said they would discuss the recent public spats between some of Zuma's ministers and his own ill-fated decisions, especially on state-owned enterprises.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2016/09/18/Cosatu-to-rattle-allies-over-Cyril

Cosatu could back Ramaphosa to unify ANC

Hlengiwe Nhlabathi, City Press, 18 Sept 2016

Cosatu is putting together a list of at least six names of senior ANC leaders that would be capable of leading the party into the 2019 elections.

But Cosatu boss Sdumo Dlamini insists the federation’s focus at its special central executive committee meeting tomorrow to discuss this “delicate issue” would not be on an individual leader, but on a collective leadership.

A number of Cosatu affiliates have punted Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to succeed President Jacob Zuma.

The chosen leadership, Dlamini said, was one that had to have the capacity to unite the tripartite alliance and whose policy inclinations were to the benefit of the working class and the poor.

Those were the principles adopted by Cosatu in 2005 in deciding on names of leaders. At tomorrow’s meeting, Cosatu will have to decide whether it will stick to the same principles or abandon them going into 2017.

However, Dlamini – known to be a close Zuma ally – raised concerns that backing a particular name at this point was tantamount to backing a particular faction.

“The alliance must work towards lifting the process out of factions,” he told City Press in an interview this week.

This meant striking compromises to ensure the 2017 conference is not contested for the sake of the unity of the ANC.

Two factions currently exist in the ANC. One, led by the so-called premier league, supports Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and the other is strongly lobbying for Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa’s name dominated Cosatu’s congress last year as affiliates believed it was tradition for a deputy to succeed a president, and that he would help to unify affiliates. The SA Democratic Teachers’ Union and the National Union of Mineworkers have both resolved to support Ramaphosa. It is understood the National Health and Allied Workers’ Union and the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, in almost all provinces, share this view.

Members of the SA Communist Party used the party’s last congress to lobby for Ramaphosa, despite their discomfort that he is a capitalist. Its leaders had

increasingly been unhappy with Zuma’s leadership and it’s understood he has been informed of this.

Meanwhile, Dlamini said the issue of succession formed part of a chapter of a document to be presented at the central executive committee meeting, which charted a way forward on the federation’s approach for the next 10 years.

“We will discuss Cosatu’s position. We are aware that other unions are speaking out and they have a right to. But Cosatu should now take a position,” he told City Press in an interview this week.

Despite this, Dlamini said Cosatu could not be gagged, but would need to tread carefully.

Ideally, Cosatu as an interested party should convey its view on succession internally with the ANC and not publicly, to avoid division.

Dlamini is worried about how succession discussions could further divide the federation, as was the case when it came out to publicly back Zuma.

“Everybody wants to hear what Cosatu has to say about Ramaphosa. We really don’t want to behave as if we don’t care what the impact of a Cosatu pronouncement on ANC processes will be,” he said.

“Yes, I do worry that currently, a succession debate is inherent with divisions, not only with the ANC, but with almost all alliance formations.

“You can’t be reckless when handling that discussion.”

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/cosatu-could-back-ramaphosa-to-unify-anc-20160917

ANC must tolerate dissent, expulsion should be the last resort: Zizi Kodwa

Lubabalo Ngcukana, City Press, 16 Sept 2016

ANC national executive committee member and national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa has called on the ruling party to deepen its internal democracy and tolerate different views instead of resorting to expel dissenters.

He said the strength of the ANC that allowed it to last for 104 years was due to its ability to tolerate different views.

Kodwa was speaking today during the Nelson Mandela regional consultative conference held at the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium in Port Elizabeth. The conference was meant to assess the state of the organisation after it lost the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro to its rivals, the Democratic Alliance, last month and to chart a way towards a regional elective congress later this year and consolidate lost ground.

“In political terms there is something called dissent ... in a political organisation you do not expel dissent. It’s not like it is a body. You can expel a leader of a dissent, somebody who represents that dissent view. But you must know that it’s a view. You expel one member another one emerges,” Kodwa said.

Addressing more than 200 delegates, he said dissent should be defeated politically.

“It must not be easy to expel someone from the organisation. It must not to be easy to expel just one person. Because one person matters in the organisation. For example Cosatu sat and we could see [as the national executive committee] that its general secretary [Zwelinzima Vavi] was going to be expelled because he had transgressed all rules in the federation’s code of conduct.

“But politically as the ANC we advised Cosatu quietly that they should not expel Vavi and to find a way politically and so on. The [central executive committee] of Cosatu sat. They expelled Vavi. Where is Cosatu today,” asked Kodwa in reference to the troubled federation’s current turmoil.

Kodwa said the expulsion of members in the party cost the organisation because some expelled individuals would form their organisations and take away from the ANC’s membership.

Vavi is already working with former affiliates of Cosatu to form a new federation.

Former ANC Youth League president Julius Malema formed the Economic Freedom Fighters after he was expelled from the ANC in 2012.

Without mentioning Malema by name, Kodwa said though they did not promote ill-discipline in the organisation, expelling someone should be the last resort and that it should be people who were “beyond repair” who were expelled.

He said one of the debates taking place nationally in provinces in the wake of the recent local government elections was the next national elective conference of the ANC.

He said next year’s conference would not be held under normal circumstances and it should be used to unite the party.

“The reasons for that debate is because the past two conferences [Polokwane in 2007 and Mangaung in 2012] have not been able to unite the party. In fact what we have seen after the 2007 conference is a lot of offspring coming out of the ANC and that has weakened the social base of the ANC.

“We are getting smaller bit by bit because everybody coming out of the ANC does not find people outside but takes a chunk from the ANC members. That is why the issue about carelessly expelling anybody in the ANC we must take that into account. We must learn from our own mistakes whether we want another offspring to come out of the ANC at this stage,” Kodwa said.

He said tough decisions had to be taken to unite the ANC even if they would not be liked by individuals – the decisions had to be good for the organisation.

Later in an interview with City Press, Kodwa said the decision to expel Vavi and Cosatu’s former president Willie Madisha, who later joined Cope, were not wrong. He added that the ANC also did not regret its decision to expel Malema.

“Even the expulsion of Julius ... we don’t regret that decision. But the question for us is what are the lessons? Because as they leave they leave with a part of the ANC. What is the impact of that in the ANC, that is the point we are making ... We must

tolerate dissent and not think that it is ill-discipline and think of expulsion as the first thing,” Kodwa said.

Tomorrow, party stalwart and former president Kgalema Motlanthe will address the conference delegates on organisational renewal and factionalism. Motlanthe is one of the few ANC leaders who were against Malema’s expulsion from the ANC.

http://city-press.news24.com/News/anc-must-tolerate-dissent-expulsion-should-be-the-last-resort-zizi-kodwa-20160916

Zuma’s ‘sins’ highlighted

Avuyile Mngxitama-Diko & Siyamtanda Capa, HeraldLive, 17 September 2016

Analyst warns that ANC likely to lose further support in 2019

President Jacob Zuma’s unforgivable sins will lead to the ruling party losing major ground in parliament after the 2019 general elections, and not even an early elective conference will stop its downward spiral.

This was the view shared by political analyst and former ANC leader Zamikhaya Maseti when addressing ANC delegates at the party’s Nelson Mandela Bay consultative conference.

He spoke of Zuma’s eight cardinal sins which had led to the ANC losing key metropolitan municipalities in the country, including the Bay.

Yesterday was the first day of the two-day conference being held at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.

“All these cardinal sins will stay with the ANC whether Zuma goes or stays,” he said.

Maseti listed a number of scandals linked to Zuma – the Gupta family landing at the Waterkloof air force base, the Nkandla upgrades, the firing of former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene and the Constitutional Court judgment which was scathing of the president.

Many of the hundreds of ANC delegates clapped in agreement with Maseti during his speech.

“You saw all these damages and no one bothered to stand up and say ‘not in the name of the brand’,” he said.

“I felt paralysed when the ANC used its majority in parliament to defend Zuma over the issue of Nkandla.

“You are in this problem because Zuma has committed a number of unforgivable sins.”

He said the fractured state of the ANC in the metro was not isolated, but a national problem, and the party needed to ask itself tough questions about its future.

Maseti said Zuma’s “sins” had crippled the economy.

“The reality is that South Africa could be downgraded to junk status.

“When Nene was fired, this country lost R99-billion.

“If we are downgraded to junk status, most of you middle-class people will not afford your houses.

“You will have to move back to the Red Location,” he said.

ANC national spokesman Zizi Kodwa, who gave a political overview of the organisation, said the ANC had been divided since the 2007 Polokwane conference.

“The past two conferences since 2007 have not unified the ANC. The calls for early conferences, be it national or regional, are based on factions,” he said.

“People are calling for early conferences while they know they have names [of their preferred successors] already.

“We need to unify and build the organisation before that,” Kodwa said.

He said one of the biggest mistakes had been the expulsion of former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi from the labour federation.

“As the ANC we could see that Cosatu was going to expel Vavi. We advised them quietly not to expel him, but they went ahead.”

But Cosatu representative Nkosana Dolopi disagreed, saying they stood by their decision.

Dolopi said the ANC and its alliance partners were in trouble because they lacked decisive leadership.

“In the next few months, we are going to be exposed in Jo’burg, Tshwane and this [Bay] metro because of corruption.

“We were wishy-washy when it came to dealing with corruption. The opposition was firm and resolute. They ran with their programme even if it meant going to court.”

Former president Kgalema Motlanthe and Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas are among the speakers expected to address the conference today.

http://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2016/09/17/zumas-sins-highlighted/

Motlanthe: ANC faces death

Lubabalo Ngcukana, City Press, 18 Sept 2016

Johannesburg - Former president Kgalema Motlanthe has warned the ANC that if it did not get its house in order, it faced being irrelevant and would eventually die.

Motlanthe was speaking during a two-day regional consultative conference of the ANC at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth yesterday, where he addressed about 300 delegates on factionalism and renewal.

“Renewal cannot be just tampering with the structures. It means we must think very deeply about what the challenges are that our people face today. The ANC exists for one purpose only, and that is to address the problems of our people.

"If it [the ANC] is no longer addressing the problems of our people, we might as well begin writing the obituary of the ANC,” Motlanthe said.

He said it would not be the first time a glorious liberation movement lost its hegemony with the people, as this was what happened to other African countries’ liberation parties after they had been in power for 20 years.

Motlanthe said like empires and all living organisms, organisations also “rise and fall” because the rule of nature was that everything was in motion.

“Nothing is static. Nothing is permanent. That is why, when you are elected, you must understand that the platform of leadership that you have is not permanent.

"You serve in that capacity because members say so. Renewal must therefore be a function of understanding where we are, where we are heading to and what the challenges are,” he said.

For the 104-year-old ANC to continue to survive, it needed to adapt and have a long-term view to the future, as reliance on its struggle credentials was not enough for it to renew itself, said the former president.

“The minute we fail to adapt to the concrete conditions and the challenges of today, the organisation becomes irrelevant. And people realise they can continue with their lives and have progress without the ANC.

“That would be the end of [the ANC].”

As a governing party, the ANC was in a position to influence lucrative contracts that should go to the deserving people in the country.

But this was not the case, because some leaders managed to arrange that these contracts were being given to people with proxies from them as leaders in government, said Motlanthe.

“Once you do that, even if you get away with it, the reality is that this country will stagnate. And whatever we inherited, whether it’s infrastructure or whatever, will diminish,” he said.

His advice to the Nelson Mandela Bay region was for them to focus on rebuilding their branches and to ensure that they were properly constituted before they went to a regional elective conference.

In a what could be viewed a veiled attack at President Jacob Zuma, who enjoys singing during party gatherings, Motlanthe said it was only when the organisation was united, healthy and allowed thorough debates on what the challenges were – instead of singing – that it would find solutions.

“If we come together like this and we spend 80% of our time singing and glorifying the past, we will emerge with nothing.

“We will emerge from here not with any clarity, but with more confusion. There is no substitute to identifying the real problems,” Motlanthe said to loud laughter.

Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas, who shared the stage with Motlanthe, had earlier weighed in on the singing issue.

“Politics are being suffocated by song. For the few years, we have been singing, but we have not addressed some of the core challenges we are facing,” Jonas said.

He said the recent election results confirmed what everybody already knew – that the movement was in trouble.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/motlanthe-anc-faces-death-20160917

South Africa

Why Sars unit was targeted

Jan De Lange, City Press, 18 Sept 2016

Johannesburg - The attacks on an elite investigative unit inside the SA Revenue Service (Sars) – branded as “illegal” and “rogue” – started the moment the unit began investigating a giant cigarette smuggling ring which included companies that, at one stage, involved the president’s son Edward Zuma and his nephew Khulubuse.

Smugglers and racketeers do not only have members of the Hawks and the intelligence community in their pockets, but have succeeded in getting the investigative unit – one of the most effective tools in the fight against tax evasion and organised crime – closed down.

Moreover, more than 50 top investigators and officials have left Sars during the last year or have been driven out of their jobs.

This orchestrated programme to destroy Sars’ anti-corruption capacity – which involved planting mendacious reports in the country’s biggest Sunday newspaper – also shows marked similarities to the modus operandi employed to work General Johan Booysen, one of the country’s best detectives, out of his job as head of the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal.

These are just a few of the allegations made by two former Sars officials in a book being launched on Wednesday.

In the book, Rogue: The Inside Story of Sars’ Elite Crime-busting Unit, Johann van Loggerenberg and former Sars spokesperson Adrian Lackay write that Sars started investigating tobacco smugglers in 2013.

Another company investigated by Sars at the time – but which is not identified by name in Van Loggerenberg’s book – is PFC Integration. The company is owned by Paul de Robillard, a one-time business partner of the president’s son Edward.

Until November 2011, Zuma was also a director of Amalgamated Tobacco Manufacturing (ATM), another company that was in Van Loggerenberg’s cross-hairs.

Rapport previously reported that Zuma was also a shareholder in ATM until March 2012.

Another of the elite unit’s targets was the Mpisi group, under the leadership of Jen-Chi Huang, a Taiwanese businessman form KwaZulu-Natal. Huang accompanied President Jacob Zuma on a state visit to China in 2010. Huang and Zuma’s nephew Khulubuse have often had business dealings.

The book makes it clear that the onslaught against Sars began after Huang lost an extended court battle to have warrants set aside which had been issued for the seizure of alleged smuggled goods, held at Mpisi properties in Durban and Bedfordview, on Johannesburg’s East Rand.

In the same month the case was before the court, the first reports appeared in the Sunday Times in which Belinda Walter, a lawyer who had represented certain tobacco companies and previously had a relationship with Van Loggerenberg, alleged that he had unlawfully shared tax information regarding businesses and individuals with her.

After that, media reports made various extraordinary claims against Van Loggerenberg and Sars, including that they had run a brothel, spied on people “unlawfully” and had contravened security legislation.

The existence of this supposed rogue unit is still being investigated by the Hawks, but in the book Van Loggerenberg denies the unit was ever unlawful or that it operated in an unlawful manner.

Van Loggerenberg said they had often stumbled across leads and information that other state agencies would have preferred to hide.

Sars’ investigation into the tobacco industry followed in 2013, after it began suspecting that 40% of the cigarettes being sold in South Africa were being produced illegally or were smuggled into the country. That means tax losses of between R4 billion and R5 billion every year.

Van Loggerenberg writes that a joint team comprising some of Sars’ most senior and experienced investigators and officials began investigating and conducting inspections. “We also looked at the smaller players – but soon realised that they were only small in relation to what they were declaring to Sars, and big when it came to smuggling,” Van Loggerenberg writes.

“It was then that we realised we had come up against the interests of people with more influence and power than we could dream of in our wildest dreams.”

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/why-sars-unit-was-targeted-20160917

International

GM, Canada Union in Final Talks Ahead of Strike Deadline

Fortune, 17 Sept 2016

General Motors and the Canadian union Unifor began the final stretch of talks on Saturday, divided ahead of a looming strike deadline over union demands that the U.S. carmaker commit to new vehicle models at its Oshawa, Ontario plant.

The union said GM was chosen as Unifor’s strike target for the talks, with any deal setting the pattern for the next round of talks with other manufacturers, including Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ford Motor Co.

A four-year contract covering some 20,000 Canadian autoworkers at Fiat Chrysler, Ford and GM expires on Sept. 19. If GM and Unifor do not reach a deal, workers would go on strike as of 12 a.m. EDT Tuesday.

GM’s plant in Oshawa, just east of Toronto, is on the verge of shutting one of its two assembly lines, with several vehicles either already produced elsewhere or expected to move in 2017.

Unifor has said it has made no progress in getting a new vehicle commitment for Oshawa.

GM on Friday said only that it remains focused on working with Unifor to reach a “mutually beneficial and competitive new agreement,” but did not reiterate its previous stance that it will make future product decisions for Oshawa only after a labor agreement.

A strike at Oshawa, which assembles the Chevrolet Impala, Buick Regal and Cadillac XTS sedans as well as some other overflow work, would not cause much hardship for GM.

But if workers at its Ingersoll CAMI plant, who have the same union but a different contract, support the strike and refuse to install engines and transmissions diverted from U.S. or Mexican plants, it would be more damaging for GM. The CAMI plant assembles GM’s strong-selling Chevrolet Equinox and the GMC Terrain.

Unifor, which represents more than 20,000 autoworkers, has said its top priority is securing production of new vehicle models. Pensions and wages are also on the table.

Nearly all of Canada’s auto industry is in the province of Ontario, which some automakers have found more expensive than other places, such as the southern United States and Mexico.

Between 2001 and 2013, some 14,300 jobs were lost in vehicle manufacturing in Canada, according to Hamilton’s Automotive Policy Research Center.

Automakers, however, had agreed to make investments during bargaining.

The U.S. United Auto Workers has said it will support its Canadian counterpart, but declined to say whether it would refuse work at American GM plants in the event of a strike north of the border.

http://fortune.com/2016/09/17/gm-canada-auto-strike/

Comment and opinion

SACP seems to have regained its senses

Mcebisi Ndletyana, Sunday Independent, 18 September 2016

Marginalisation has made the party find its tongue, but it needs to show it is not merely posturing, writes Mcebisi Ndletyana.

Times are tough. Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan is not the only one who could lose his job. Apparently the entire communist contingent in the cabinet could also be out on the street. Who would’ve imagined that Jacob Zuma would one day contemplate putting SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande out of work?

For the SACP, the patron-client relationship between Zuma and the Guptas is not just a manifestation of “state capture”, it is indicative of “corporate capture”, which is supposedly a more comprehensive description. The communists obviously reckon they have all this figured out.

That’s impressive. One has to ask, though: Why now?

The patron-clientelism of the Zuma presidency is as old as the administration itself.

Zwelinzima Vavi, then-general-secretary of Cosatu, noticed it in the second year of Zuma’s presidency.

Vavi warned at Cosatu’s congress in 2010 that South Africa was turning into a predatory state. The political elite was feeding off state resources without care for the welfare of the republic.

This was a betrayal of their hope that Zuma’s presidency would be a great advance for the interests of the poor and working people.

Vavi felt betrayed by Zuma, who had seemed to be one thing, but turned out to be something else altogether.

While Vavi made these observations, the communists were quiet. I doubt they didn’t see what Vavi was seeing.

They moved in the same circles and had offices in the same building.

The communists not only chose silence, but sought to silence those who spoke out.

Among those they tried to stifle was David Masondo, then-chairman of the Young Communist League.

Writing in City Press on September 5, 2010, Masondo, warned that: “BEE is increasingly becoming too narrow, amounting to ZEE... Only a few can be misled to believe there is no link between Zuma’s rise to the presidency and his family’s rise to riches.”

What Masondo had diagnosed was neo-patrimonialism.

After that article, life in the SACP was not the same for Masondo. He was driven out.

The SACP was not only determined to silence criticism of Zuma, it enthusiastically supported his re-election as ANC president in 2012.

By this time, Vavi was an outright critic of the Zuma presidency. That made him highly unpopular with the SACP and some fellow members of the labour movement.

Vavi found life increasingly unbearable in Cosatu.

The labour federation exploited his indiscretions and fabricated misdemeanours.

The goal was to hound Vavi out of Cosatu, clearing it of contrarians so that it could be a cheerleader for the Zuma presidency.

The SACP approved of the purge and Blade Nzimande went further, calling, in public discussions, for a law against “offending the president”.

In other words, the SACP was complicit in creating the patron-clientelism that defines the Zuma presidency.

Today they’ve turned into vocal critics and provide what they purport to be the most trenchant analysis of this pathology.

Why were they silent for seven years? Where were their analytical powers when the rank and file were confounded by what their president had turned into?

The party was silent because it was part of the hegemonic faction in the ANC. Its leaders enjoyed influence in the government, and the perks of office. Ideology was blunted by the comfort offered by power. The SACP did not stop the rot. Its criticism now stems from its being marginalised.

The SACP was useful to Zuma only to the extent that it shored up his presidency.

Zuma needed the SACP and Cosatu in the lead-up to Polokwane in 2007. Once in office, Zuma consolidated his power base in the ANC.

He bought loyalty with patronage. He has three provincial barons - Ace Magashule in the Free State, David Mabuza in Mpumalanga and Supra Mahumapelo in North West - firmly behind him. They have installed their acolytes at the helm of the ANC Youth League and the Women’s League.

The chairman of KwaZulu-Natal, Sihle Zikalala, is working to unite a divided province in support of a proxy to succeed Zuma.

With the support of four provinces and two leagues, Zuma doesn’t need the SACP.

Nzimande’s exclusion from the inner circle probably also had to do with Zuma’s new acolytes.

Because they have ambitions of their own, they wouldn’t have been happy with his closeness to Zuma.

Now facing a possible return to the cold, the SACP is at its weakest.

It has served in the government since 2009 and is also guilty of the sins of incumbency. It lacks moral authority. And it can’t hope to enlist Cosatu in its sudden fight against the predatory elite.

Cosatu is in tatters. The SACP helped to drive the largest union, the metalworkers’ union, out of the labour federation.

Cosatu has gone silent. What an irony: the moment that supposedly represented the height of leftist influence induced its decline.

That said, one is pleased the SACP has regained its senses. It’s to be hoped the SACP has learnt its lessons. One is: the comforts of power blunt one’s revolutionary edge.

The party cannot wring concessions out of the nationalist ANC without an independent power base.

Think back to the early 2000s: An out-of-government SACP, leading a united Cosatu, halted the government’s privatisation programme through sheer organised power.

Staying out of government is not enough. The SACP must rebuild the labour movement. That means bringing the metalworkers back into Cosatu.

Nzimande owes National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa general secretary Irvin Jim and Vavi a phone call. Without rebuilding the federation, the “trenchant analysis” the SACP has offered us is mere posturing.

We are watching!

http://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/opinion-sacp-seems-to-have-regained-its-senses-2069553

Inside Labour: Economic crisis: Dealing with symptoms, not causes

Terry Bell, Fin24, 16 Sept 2016

POLITICIANS, economists and several labour leaders keep telling us that we need more growth and greater productivity in order to claw our way out of the present economic crisis. At the same time there is increasing acknowledgement - especially in the labour movement - of the job loss impact of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”.

Among the latest to raise concerns about the rise of the robots and the loss of jobs is Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union president Joseph Mathunjwa and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. But this is in the context of the generally uncriticised call for greater productivity and more economic growth.

Yet this seems a ridiculous position to hold, since the major cause of the ongoing crisis is overproduction and overcapacity, caused by greater productivity and consequent economic growth. This is because productivity is merely the measure of how much more product or profit is produced per worker.

The measure of economic growth also often reflects a country going deeper into debt, since sales in the retail sector are part of the growth calculation. And when many such purchases are of imports, national indebtedness rises.

But there have been benefits of greater productivity and growth. However, they have flowed largely to a tiny minority of the world’s growing population. The rich, quite simply, have got richer, in the process creating an ever widening pool of often hungry and increasingly desperate and angry people.

Strongly policed and protected islands of affluence are starting to emerge in what is beginning to look like a spreading and turbulent sea of discarded humanity. Against this background, and often motivated from within the labour movement, have come calls to radically alter a political and economic system that seems bent on self-destruction.

For many it seems a case, as the exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky wrote in 1938, of capitalists "tobogganing towards disaster with their eyes closed". But the eyes of those in charge of this increasingly destructive ride are closed only to any idea that there is an alternative to the economic vehicle they control and benefit from.

They are also aware that the capitalist toboggan has skirted the abyss several times in recent history, although they tend to downplay the trail of physical and ecological damage it has caused in the process. The historically fairly recently developed capitalist vehicle, based on competition and the accumulation of profit, has proved remarkably resilient, but at the cost of the lives, dignity and humanity of millions of men, women and children.

Mesmerised by illusions of everlasting economic growth

Those who sit astride this vehicle seem mesmerised by illusions of everlasting economic growth and greater productivity. And they have successfully persuaded - often by co-option - large segments of labour from attempting seriously to challenge the system.

This is done by claiming that, while there is no alternative, there are remedies: more regulation or less regulation; less or more nationalisation or privatisation. But an increasingly cynical and angry public are no longer so accepting of these failed measures, so new remedies have to be proposed.

The latest, most carefully considered and well-presented putative solution comes from Olivier Scalabre of the Boston Consultancy Group, one of the world’s leading business consultancy companies. To counter fears about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, he has announced the “Fourth Manufacturing Revolution”.

By using the latest technology, he points out that it will be possible - and possibly desirable - to decentralise. Using such technologies as 3D printing, manufacturing will be possible not only on a national or regional, but even local, level. It sounds seductive, being able to “bring home” manufacturing capacity previously outsourced to countries such as China, Bangladesh, Turkey or Vietnam.

But the problem is that the concept is again based on the illusion that greater productivity and economic growth will be to the benefit of all in a system incapable of ensuring this. Organised labour, in particular, must realise that the Scalabre proposal is just another measure that tries to deal with the symptoms and not the cause of our economic woes.

http://www.fin24.com/Economy/Labour/InsideLabour/inside-labour-economic-crisis-dealing-with-symptoms-not-causes-20160916