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Title: Economic Policy from Below Author: Warren McGregor Date: 2019 Language: en Topics: South Africa, trade unions, reformism, critique Source: https://zabalazabooks.net/2020/03/26/economic-policy-from-below-an-anarchist-critique-of-the-cosatu-unions-radical-reform-project/ Notes: **** This pamphlet is an extract from the book Strategy: Debating Politics Within and at a Distance from the State – Eds. John Reynolds & Lucien van der Walt published by the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU), Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa
Whereas many union movements in the world entered the 1990s in a state
of political crisis, South African unions not only continued to grow
very rapidly – the South African union movement was among the five
fastest growing union movements in the world at the time – but also
developed an alternative policy framework that bucked the neoliberal
trend.
Centred on the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and
within it, key unions like the National Union of Metalworkers of South
Africa (NUMSA), the unions developed an ideological and strategic
orientation described by scholars (e.g. Eddie Webster and Glenn Adler,
2000) as “radical reform” or “structural reform.” The thinking of the
main unions in South Africa remains, to this day, profoundly shaped by
the “radical reform” (RR) model.
The aim of this input is to examine the RR model, which was an attempt
to build on the many key progressive gains won by workers and their
organisations through struggle in the 1980s, and push through to a
deeper transformation in the 1990s. This input defines the key
components of RR, and then examines why this innovative response to the
parliamentary transition and to capitalist globalisation was not
successful. This requires looking at issues of neoliberal capitalist and
state domination, the impact of RR on the unions, and the effects of the
institutionalisation of trade union activity and dispute processes that
have taken place. It raises deeper questions about the unions’ politics
as well.
Therefore, this section provides some ideas on:
the concept is based.
development of the approach.
RR came from the COSATU unions, not the ANC or SACP, and was a strategic
trade union and working-class approach to socio-economic transformation
of newly-democratic South Africa and the role that organised labour
would play in this transformation. It was developed in the fires of
struggle against late apartheid and capitalism in South Africa by COSATU
and its affiliates and can confidently be considered an example of
economic policy development from below that was developed through
engagements with the ideas and desires of the rank-and-file in
conversation with their elected leaders and officials.
Locally, the black working-class majority and its organisations were
defeating the last vestiges of apartheid and racist capitalism, and
engaging the newly developing institutions of a democratic South Africa.
These struggles had incubated the development of powerful and militant
working-class organisations, keenly aware of their power and historical
role and responsibility.
At the dawn of the 1990s, COSATU entered into a formal alliance with the
ANC. There was then a mighty, radical, mass-based and street-mobilising
working class, closely linked to what was then a radical nationalist
party, ANC, which was on the verge of state, power, as well as allied to
the fastest growing communist party in the world at that time, the SACP.
According to the labour scholars Webster and Adler, writing in 2000,
radical reform (RR) is a “left version of social democracy.” [1] Social
democracy is the idea that the working class can win the existing state,
using means like parliament, corporatism and expanded state control of
the economy to shift society towards socialism through a series of
reforms. A social democratic party is usually a mass party, as it needs
maximum numbers to win elections.
What makes RR a “left” version of social democracy is that it was driven
by mass, radical unions, who were willing to use rolling mass action to
win RR; and, secondly, RR included many demands that were designed to
give workers and unions direct power over economic decisions, including
in company boardrooms and on the factory floor. The core ideas were
that:
that benefit the black majority, but the working class and poor
especially.
ended, in ways that empower rather than oppress the working class.
Unlike the “low road” of China, based on low wages and brutal
suppression of unions, the new South Africa should follow a “high road”
closer to Germany, with high-skill, high-wage, high-productivity
workplaces in which black workers, in particular, would be empowered.
frontiers of capital by giving workers and unions a greater say in the
economy, fighting for policy reforms in the state like universal
pensions and a great change in education that would protect labour from
markets. At every stage, the working class would win – through the state
and through bargaining – more power, leverage and skills.
it aims at codetermination of industry via tripartite bargaining and
consultative forums with employers and the state.
economy” including cooperatives.
for socialism, each of which would allow further conquests, more
”building blocks,” so that the ultimate outcome would not just be
capitalism (even if on “German lines” with co-determination and
welfare), but rather a transfer of power to the working class, i.e.
socialism.
Therefore RR is radical in that it seeks a future socialist
worker-controlled society and economy, but reformist in its approach to
transformation, in that it does not seek immediate revolutionary
processes, but aims to build worker power by engaging the state and
capital in organised industrial forums – e.g. NEDLAC and Industrial
Bargaining Councils – pushing for increased worker control over economic
management by consistently improving the conditions of work for labour.
Reformism is a political strategy focussed solely on winning reforms,
and it rejects revolution. In its social democratic version, it is
argued that the effect of many reforms is a peaceful shift to a new
society, removing the need for revolution.
What makes RR a more powerful application of the classical social
democratic model, as per the ideas of key scholars, was COSATU’s
presence in a formal alliance with the governing party, the ANC, and the
SACP. The ANC’s certain long-term electoral mandate promised consistency
regarding governance and policy development. COSATU would have vital
access to key decision-makers in the legislative and executive arms of
government, access developed not only by formal alliance, but also
through comradely personal relationships developed through years of
struggle. COSATU and its affiliates would also be able to use this
Alliance to send key worker leaders into government as ANC electoral
candidates. Further, COSATU would have access to a range of forums
beyond parliament to present and win RR proposals, e.g. the Tripartite
Alliance itself, ANC congresses, the SACP, NEDLAC and Bargaining
Councils.
As such, COSATU could assert pressure on the ruling party to adopt
progressive, working class orientated policies of RR, in three key ways:
employers, both the state as employer, and the private sector.
necessary, mass worker protests and contestations “outside” the Alliance
on the streets and at workplaces.
This approach to developing working class power and encroaching worker
control rests on a few key assumptions, some of which I mention below.
Firstly, it assumes that the union movement is and will continue to be a
vibrant, creative force able to respond (i) analytically to
non-progressive ideas pushed by the state and private sector, and (ii)
physically, via mobilisation, to the actions of the state and private
sector and to do so quickly enough to either halt or change the
situations facing the working class.
It also assumes that the state is an institution of governance that is
able to be manipulated by different class forces – whether capitalist or
working class – depending on the relative strengths of these classes in
relation to each other. It thus also assumes that class is determined
solely by economic relations of ownership of productive means.
Thirdly, RR assumes that ANC policy trajectories can be shifted in
favour of policies advocated by the labour movement. COSATU thus
acknowledges there are various ideological forces competing inside the
party, but it does assume that the ANC, as the self-proclaimed party of
the majority of people in South Africa, must then have a working-class
bias or sympathy, and that eventually the ANC will come around to
meeting the desires of working class people.
Importantly, RR is predicated on a large, organised, united, militant
labour movement strong enough to coerce the state and private capital in
a pro-worker socio-economic direction. RR also rests on continued ANC
rule and a large section of the organised working class united in its
desire for longterm and unfettered ANC rule.
Last, it assumes a somewhat one-way direction in change: each victory
allows another victory, each building block allows another one. The
assumption here is that more and more blocks can be won, until the
system is basically socialist.
Ideologically, COSATU’s RR can be located in the sphere of social
democracy. As such, its political orientation, including anti-capitalist
rhetoric and its working-class bias, is within this framework, even if
its political rhetoric draws on Marxism-Leninism and nationalism. It
sees a particular role for the union movement, to be sure, but it views
progressive transformation as being achieved through the state. It
adheres to a stageist approach to achieving socialism, i.e. the idea is
that capitalist economic growth (under the ANC) will develop the forces
of production, which will enable the shift to socialism. What labour
then has to do is make sure this development is used to benefit and
empower the working class, so that the transition to socialism becomes
possible. Its economic foundation is Keynesian as it seeks a state able
to intervene in financial, commodity and labour markets in a way that
benefits all classes.
Overall, while COSATU developed a wide range of RR proposals on
everything from the chemical industry to pension funds, none were
adopted in any serious way by the state or capital. For example, in the
main case when a RR proposal was formally accepted – a proposal for
reconstructing Spoornet – the state simply ignored the agreement.
Achieving some of the desired ends of the RR strategy has faced an ANC
increasingly founded on neoliberalism, which COSATU has been unable to
shift despite the application of the RR strategy. This helps explain why
COSATU keeps asking for a reconfigured Alliance, and for making the
Alliance – not the ANC – the centre of policy.
The RR strategy was developed in the contexts of the late 1980s and
early 1990s. This was a time of rapid changes in the world. The balance
of forces was shifting against the left and the working class
internationally, and the local context was a transition that involved
major compromises. The new phase of capitalism everywhere was
neoliberalism – this was not even new in South Africa where the National
Party had privatised ISCOR and SASOL.
It was the end of the era of Marxist states and the foundations of
social democracy and trade unionism in the advanced industrial countries
were under severe attack. This was the advent of the era of
neoliberalism, structural adjustment and free-marketism, not only as
regards socio-economic development. Nationalist parties across the
poorer countries were embracing neoliberalism. Socialism and trade
unionism were considered anachronistic and a wall impeding freedom –
admittedly an attitude fostered by the propaganda of ruling and
capitalist classes emboldened by their victories against organised
labour and the Left. COSATU was growing, but it was an exception to the
international trend, and while the SACP was growing, most communist
parties worldwide were collapsing.
By the late 1980s, South Africa had become isolated from much of the
rest of the world. As such, much of the foundations of RR betray a sense
of South African exceptionalism, discounting the dramatic changes that
were taking place on various international stages. Its ideas for
development and the role of organised labour in the process of societal
change seem outmoded when related to international changes. The focus
was on South Africa, but South Africa was not an island, and even within
South Africa, conditions were arguably challenging for RR.
As time would show, the ANC came under massive pressure to adopt
neoliberalism, and did so decisively with GEAR in 1996. The confidence
that the ANC would be open to radical projects like RR was shaken.
Meanwhile, South African private capital, after flirting with ideas of a
new deal for workers, turned back to neoliberalism, gutting jobs, using
precarious labour, and expanding internationally.
At the same time, the unions’ capacities and dynamism declined, even as
their numbers swelled. By the early 2000s, COSATU had outsourced most of
its political education to the SACP, as its own programmes were in
crisis. Growing bureaucracy and corruption in unions weakened
structures.
Links to political parties work both ways: fights inside the ANC spilled
into COSATU, and a growing layer of COSATU leaders saw a job in the ANC
as a profitable exit plan. The vibrant, creative, contested and
relatively democratic education forums that had been established by the
unions during the 1970s and 1980s, were to be reduced to classrooms of
workers getting either technical training on the basics of shop-steward
work, or narrow ideological and political education.
Increasingly, COSATU’s voice in the public declined, as the ruling party
acted as the political filter for the voice of the organised working
class. The lack of critical political education has contributed to this
situation, imposing an economism on the unions as the ANC has been
allowed to dominate the political terrain. Since the ANC itself and the
larger Alliance are seen as sacrosanct, COSATU focuses on working with
the ANC. In practice, this means – in seeing the ANC as leader of a
“national democratic” (NDR) phase of South Africa’s post-apartheid
trajectory – that COSATU responses are limited in scope. They cannot
envisage the ANC itself as a stumbling block on the road to a
proworkers’ society. They often tend to be about criticising certain
leaders and policies – not the party. This has led to being entangled in
factional battles within the party. This has dramatically reduced the
political influence and authority COSATU has on the majority working
class and its imaginations, many of the members of which have either
sought other unions, political parties and organisations, or have
disengaged from political activity altogether.
The RR programme was ambitious, but some of its key ideas were actually
quite vague strategically, perhaps because the routes to
co-determination and socialism are not easily spelt out strategically.
It was never quite clear why the ANC – as a multi-class party working in
a capitalist state – should be expected to prioritise the working class.
Capitalism, as the unions admitted, was a mighty force with a relentless
drive to profit at the expense of workers – how then would worker and
union partnerships with capital through co-determination and NEDLAC not
end in unions assisting capitalism? Also, the stageist approach meant a
long-term alliance with the ANC, which brought its own problems (as we
have seen earlier in this chapter).
COSATU’s pathways to achieve co-determination are also not clear. How
would this happen? What would it mean? How would workers do this without
being made into agents of capitalism? The use of industrial Bargaining
Councils, a positive development won through struggle, became an end in
itself, rather than a means to push industry in a pro-worker and
co-determinist direction.
The desire for tripartite bargaining institutions – structured forums
for dialogue with bosses and an unclear desire for eventual
co-determination – has fostered the institutionalisation of union
activity. In the neoliberal era, these forums are continually under
attack and rendered powerless as they are turned into mere consultative
arenas, with little to no decision-making power. So unions have become
increasingly integrated into forums that are increasingly pointless.
Additionally, effective engagement in these forums requires a specific
and high-level skill set, meaning outsourcing of research and legal
representation and an increased bureaucratisation of the union. RR
policies are technical and cannot be easily developed from the
ground-up. They get given over to specialists, which then means ordinary
workers have only a limited idea of what is actually being proposed and
little space to change it.
Engaging the state and bosses, in the Alliance, parliamentary caucuses
and boardrooms cannot be done by all members of a union. As this, as
well as the tripartite structures mentioned above, is a major factor of
the RR strategy, much power becomes centralised in the hands of leaders
of the organisation due to the high-level needs of these forms of elite,
individualised engagement. This has led to increased distance between
rank-and-file members and elected leaders and a growing bureaucracy and
authoritarianism in unions.
The 1990s also saw a huge “brain drain” from the union movement of some
its most capable leaders and activists to the ANC, particularly at
election time. This has had the obvious negative effect of a reduction
in the capacity of the movement to respond – with effective RR proposals
– to the socioeconomic changes that took place under ANC rule. Another
unfortunate effect has been the increasing numbers of union members
viewing union work as less a “calling” than a stepping stone into
long-term employment in the state or even private sector.
COSATU is also part of a fracturing and fragmenting labour movement.
Many new unions have been formed as breakaways from established unions,
or as altogether new worker organisations. There has been much
discussion of the external local and international conditions that have
caused this. However, new worker formations must also be considered as a
direct response by workers to the problems they perceive in the
established unions, which are no longer attractive to them. Thus
fragmentation must also be seen as a challenge by workers to trade
unions and unionism.
Despite the definition offered above, both the literature and the
application of the RR strategy shows a distinct lack of ideological and
strategic clarity. There is no clear definitive end goal that is
established and thus intermediate milestones are not clearly
articulated. Much of this can also be related to a clear lack of
critical political education in the workers’ movement, thus not allowing
for open discussion and debate amongst workers of their organisations’
ideas and strategies, which, in turn, means that workers have little say
over the directions their organisations take.
Workers and their organisations have responded to their increased
impoverishment and lack of ability to impact society. I have mentioned
that fracturing and fragmentation of unions should also be considered as
internal worker responses to a distinct lack of union militancy and
democracy. These too, though, face serious challenges. Many of those who
have left COSATU have formed a new federation, the South African
Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), and new unions. Many of these new
formations are workplace, city and region based. Some worker leaders,
particularly those from NUMSA, have also formed a new political party to
contest state elections.
Yet, these newer formations exhibit real similarities in organisational
structure to the formations that their members have left – for example,
big man politics and a centralisation of power are also found in these
newer formations. In addition, there seems to be no real ideological
shift developing in these new organisations. For example, they may be
very critical of COSATU’s alliance with the ANC, but most still see
their political futures through the lens of political party power and
the state, and many concrete SAFTU and NUMSA proposals remain very much
in the RR framework. This limits the imagination of what a trade union
can do (and has done) as regards social transformation.
[1] Webster, E. and G. Adler. 2000. “Introduction: Consolidating
democracy in a liberalising world – trade unions and democratisation in
South Africa.” In Webster, E., and G. Adler. (eds.). Trade Unions and
Democratisation in South Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University
Press.