Food for debate!The ANC will hold its policy conference in June and its National Congress in December. It has released 13 documents for its branches to discuss. These documents analyse the situation and then make proposals on how to respond to this situation.Write in and give us reports on what is happening in your ANC branches and how you are influencing debates.
Document 9 – Challenges facing workers and unionsKey points from the documentGlobalisation has grown market power and reduced the power of nation states and subordinated “national working classes to global processes of accumulation.” It says “a national democratic revolution has to succeed in its tasks before the political economy conditions exist for mobilising for a socialist transformation.” Moving now to a socialist economy in South Africa is “ill-timed, flawed theoretically and is essentially adventurism based on the hope of achieving socialism by proclamation.”
If there was a “socialist revolution tomorrow the new state would face exactly the same challenges and need to follow much the same path as is now being proposed as the programme for the Alliance” because of the conditions imposed by globalisation. The strength of a State to take on globalisation depends on the class forces in it. Currently the national bourgeoisie is weak while the working class is weak and “organisationally unsound”. The only solution according to the ANC is to:
continue with the Alliance and strengthen mass participation and involvement.
build a developmental state
ensure that trade unions become stronger. Trade unions must do this by:- being capable of “advanced analytical and policy work”- having many more and more skilled organisers- ensuring workers obtain high level of skills and mobility- expanding “their capacity beyond the workplace to assist workers in times of transition”.- unions need to “expand their capacity beyond the workplace to assist workers in times of transition”.
Food for debate!The ANC discussion documents cover:1. Economic Transformation 2. Legislature and Governance3. Transformation of the judicial system 4. Peace and stability 5. International relations 6. Revolutionary morality: The ANC and business 7. The RDP of the Soul 8. Transformation of the media 9. Challenges facing workers and unions 10. The working class and organised labour 11. Social transformation 12. Strategy and Tactics13. Organisational ReviewDownload copies from the ANC’s website – www.anc.org.za or get copies from your ANC branch.Cosatu is finalising its response to these documents. Watch out for them in your Cosatu offices.
Preparations for the ANC conference Xolisile Copiso
ANC branches have begun to discuss policy documents prepared for the June conference and the December congress. But Queenstown local organiser, Xolisile Copiso worries that Cosatu’s decision to “swell the ranks of the ANC” is no good unless members are clear what it is they should say. Until Cosatu releases papers in response to the ANC documents, he encourages union members to use Cosatu’s 9th congress resolutions in their branches to influence the policy direction of the ruling party.
The ANC is busy launching branches in order to prepare for the coming ANC policy conferences. The current Strategy and Tactics discussion document is supposed to form part of the discussion at these newly launched branches and the secretariat report must set the tone for the issues for discussion. I’m an ANC member but what happens in some branches including mine is a shame! Branches are used to manipulate members to elect people to the Branch Executive Committee (BEC).
Some BEC executives are unable to provide political input to create space for debate so that strategic decisions can be taken that will advance the poor and build the movement. Many branches are constituted of elderly people who are easily manipulated to vote for certain individuals to the BEC (with no disrespect intended). Can we honestly say that all the ANC branches have the capacity to debate and engage with the challenges that the ANC has and to give progressive policy direction as required by the movement?
Our AGM took place on March 21. It had to discard the secretariat report because it was no different from that of the councillor. It did not deal with the fundamental organisational challenges that are faced by the ANC from the branch level to the national level. When the members challenged the BEC report, the BEC could not move because they had not sat to compile any report about their activities and about work done. The fact is, no work had been done to advance the movement except on transportation of school children which had benefited the BEC members.
Are we voting cattle?In what direction are these branch leaders taking us if they are unable to articulate what the ANC seeks to achieve and the work done for the movement? Are we just voting cattle? Unless we re-look at our recruitment strategy in the branches and instil the culture of political debate, we are going to be easily measured and found wanting by the opposition. The ANC will not always win the elections based on its history but on how it manages to change the lives of the poor through progressive policies that continue to be biased to the left with qualitative leadership to implement them.
The coming policy conferences are in need of leadership and membership in branches that have foresight and open minds to engage on issues for the purpose of providing strategic solutions rather than providing cul-de-sac solutions. (Hayi umkonto ogwaza ekhaya)Cosatu has always encouraged its members to join the ANC in order to ensure that it continues to be a disciplined member of the left. Thulase Nxesi, general secretary of teachers’ union, Sadtu, was emphatic in the City Press of March 25 on the matter but what puzzles me is that I have yet to see a member of Cosatu’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) attending a branch meeting or being a branch delegate to an ANC conference (I stand to be corrected). What impact are they making at the branch level if any? The working class must lead on all fronts and the SACP has taken a resolution to be where the people are. That in simple terms means if the people are in the ANC then the SACP is there.
The only way to gather support and give proper direction is through the masses. But requesting members to swell the ranks of the ANC without proper ideological clarity and guidance will allow them to be manipulated to follow a liberal agenda. Even if the CEC of Cosatu critiques the ANC documents to influence the ANC, these critiques will only be effective if they find expression through the masses at branch level. Whose responsibility is it to do that between now and the conferences? In the meantime, let’s use the political resolutions from the 9th Cosatu congress to guide us at ANC branch level. These progressive resolutions include those on:
combating centralisation and patronage
confronting and debating growing class contradictions within the ANC, including the current accumulation path which is creating a black bourgeoisie and the need to maintain a pro working class, pro poor agenda and the leadership within the ANC and the Alliance.
The importance of the process of policy development and its implementation being collectively decided.If we can’t help the masses at the branch level to see the contradictions that are developing between ANC policy and practice, then we must forget!