SOUTH AFRICA: Pro-poor campaign launched that challenges ANC's record

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

JOHANNESBURG, 22 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - A coalition of South African pressure groups on Monday launched a campaign against the loss of jobs and growing poverty in what is being perceived as a challenge to the government's development policies.

According to a senior Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) official, the initiative includes the South African Council of Churches and the AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) among other prominent activist groups.

"The campaign will, at the moment, remain focused in [the province of] Western Cape, which has experienced a drastic loss of jobs, particularly in the clothing and textile industry. We have been working with many of the NGOs around the issue of jobs losses for a long time, particularly in this province; we are merely formalising the existing arrangement," COSATU president Willie Madisha told IRIN.

COSATU's Western Cape secretary, Tony Ehrenreich, added that the drive was aimed at mobilising support for COSATU's strike action against job losses, scheduled for next month.

"In the last 12 months about 12,000 jobs were lost in the clothing and textile manufacturing sector; 1,500 in the metal industry, and at least 7,000 in the public sector following the restructuring of the local and provincial governments in the Western Cape," he said.

The campaign is expected to be launched in other provinces over the next few weeks.

Madisha underlined that unemployment had risen from around 16 percent in 1994 to about 26 percent at present - "if we only count workers actively seeking paid jobs; if we use the expanded definition, which counts as unemployed those who are too discouraged to search, this figure jumps to over 40 percent. This is far higher than any other comparable country."

The campaign follows a spate of popular protests across the country this year against the slow pace of delivery of basic services.

COSATU is a member of the ruling tripartite alliance, which includes the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party, but strains have emerged over issues such as the government's initial reluctance to provide AIDS treatment, to publicly tackle the human rights record of the Zimbabwean government, and its pro-privatisation stance.

Political analyst Aubrey Matshiqi said the new movement "could develop into a political movement in the future", as the union has found it difficult to address its more "left-leaning" agenda within the ruling alliance.

"At the moment there is some uncertainity about what the new movement's role should be," explained Matshiqi, as the trade union movement was torn between members who were pro-ANC and those aligned to a more radical ideology who believe in severing ties with the ANC.

However, Madisha asserted that "the new campaign is not political, nor is it aimed at challenging anyone [the ANC or other left social movements]". He also dismissed news reports describing the campaign as the "new United Democratic Front", a coalition of organisations launched 22 years ago to fight apartheid.

COSATU had been calling for a movement to address these concerns for a "very long time," he added.

A document released last week by the labour movement noted that the slow pace of delivery had led to the growth of "issue-based social movements."

"Our own structures have sometimes been unable to lead these actions, but that does not stop them - instead, ANC and Alliance members march as concerned residents or youth. It is quite clear that in most cases the demands of our people are genuine ... They also demonstrate that some of our councillors have lost touch with their constituencies," the report noted.

According to COSATU, workers' share in national income has dropped from 51 percent to 45 percent, "with a widening gap between the minimum wage and the vast returns reaped by management - even today, one worker in four in the formal sector earns less than US $154 a month; some 40 percent of union members earn less than $386 a month," the COSATU report pointed out.

"In many cases, employers have undermined the quality of work through outsourcing and casualising jobs. Outsourcing and casualisation has three other objectives: first, it is a way of holding down wages and conditions; second, it is a means for employers to sidestep their responsibility to their employees; and lastly, to weaken workers' organisation", COSATU claimed.

Despite the government's struggle to create jobs and tackle deep-rooted poverty 10 years after the end of apartheid, the ANC increased its majority to close to 70 percent of the vote in general elections in 2004.

IRIN was unable to get comment from the ANC on the new pro-poor coalition.

[ENDS]