Cosatu leaders must not forget aim of Obama visit

LEADERS of Cosatu are driving a wedge between the labour federation and its constituency, the workers. Nothing better illustrates the disjuncture between Cosatu’s interests and those of workers than four questionable positions taken by the elite Cosatu leaders recently.

First, they have rejected national Treasury’s national youth wage subsidy proposal meant to whet the waning appetite of companies to hire younger workers.

The government has set aside a budget of about R5-billion to aid companies to implement the project.

The proposal, which has the backing of President Jacob Zuma’s cabinet, may well be the trick to alleviate the plight of hopeless youths who are behaving like suicide bombers.

Planning Minister Trevor Manuel has a scary but accurate phrase for the ongoing destruction of young people through drugs: chemical warfare.

There is a real possibility that the proposed scheme, which Cosatu rejects, can give young people an opportunity to be survivors of the chemical warfare and to learn a skill or two in the work place.

We all know our education system is woefully incapable of providing industryrequired skills.

And yet, Cosatu continues to shamefully veto the idea of a youth wage subsidy.

It would be better if they had an alternative instead of spending time squabbling about how Cosatu House, their plush headquarters in Johannesburg, was bought.

Cosatu has claimed the subsidy scheme would displace older and permanent workers, erasing the prospects of decent jobs.

Such an argument ignores the real possibility that once they have entered the labour market, skilled younger people could carve their own spaces. They will have a sound CV.

Companies will also find them indispensable. It costs companies a lot of money to train workers.

Only companies run by foolish managers would spend money giving younger workers experience and thereafter offload them to competitors.

Protecting those already employed and failing to give younger workers a chance in this almost gloomy economic climate as Cosatu is doing, is disastrous.

It’s not in Cosatu’s long-term interest to grow its membership and influence.

Alas, Cosatu decided to filibuster national Treasury’s proposal at the National Economic Development and Labour Council – a quartet consensus-seeking body representing labour, business, government and community.

But Cosatu’s stance has not stopped companies, especially restaurants and smaller enterprises, from sourcing younger employees from the integrated Southern African regional labour market.

While workers from the region are taking up what Cosatu sees as “indecent” jobs, South Africans are jostling for space in the ever-growing social grants queue.

I’m sure it won’t be long before there is a bargaining chamber or protests to increase social grants amounts!

Secondly, Cosatu has for years objected to the Reserve Bank’s strategy of inflation-targeting, arguing instead that the government should rather have an employment target.

Cosatu got what it wanted. For the first time the government set a target to create 11 million jobs by 2030. And what is Cosatu’s response? Well, some of its leaders are giving the National Development Plan, which contains the target, a shaky middle finger.

Third, during the De Doorns strike on the Western Cape wine farms, some Cosatu leaders campaigned for the boycott of South African wines in international markets.

The rationale was that wine connoisseurs in crucial European and other markets – which South Africa has worked hard to establish – should not enjoy wines produced out of sweat and blood of underpaid workers.

While Cosatu was correct to fight for better wages and should continue to do so, some of those who were part of the campaign redirected the farm workers’ strike to harm South Africa’s long-term economic interests and those of workers.

Such a campaign had a real prospect of destroying jobs which Cosatu allegedly seeks to protect.

Only a labour federation that has lost its way could behave in such a morally hazardous way.

Last, Cosatu in Gauteng has decided to oppose US President Barack Obama’s visit to South Africa for reasons that have nothing to do with the interests of workers.

Cosatu does not appreciate the fact that of the two US parties Obama’s Democrats are the closest to the left ideologically.

Obama and the Democrats are the better devil, so to put it, compared to the war-mongers once led by George Bush.

Since coming into office, Obama has resuscitated the ailing America’s economy and even risked being called a communist when he introduced a plethora of state regulations to tame the wild instincts of America’s casino capitalists at Wall Street.

It can only be in the interest of Cosatu’s members – and unemployed prospective members – that the American economy is bouncing back.

This means South African products produced by Cosatu members will find a market.

Now, on whose behalf do Cosatu leaders speak when they protest against Obama’s visit which is partly aimed at boosting economic ties between the US and South Africa?

Cosatu continues to shamefully veto the idea of a youth wage subsidy

Mpumelelo Mkhabela is the editor of the Sowetan