TUC solidarity with South African miners

Solidarity with South African miners

Speech by Kay Carberry

3 November 2012

TUC Assistant General Secretary Kay Carberry gave the following speech at the annual meeting of Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) on 3 November, after Peter Bailey from the National Union of Miners.

(Check against delivery)

I must start by thanking Peter (Bailey) for that inspiring and informative address. I was privileged to attend the COSATU Congress in South Africa in September, and it really was an incredible experience - especially as it was just days after our own rather more sedate affair in Brighton!

I must also thanks the organisers of this afternoon's event, too. The TUC has worked with ACTSA since its formation, and of course before that in the days of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. We consider ACTSA to be one of our key partners in the struggle for democracy, justice and workers' rights, not just in South Africa, but also in Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

The question now is - what should British trade unionists and others be doing about what's going on in South Africa, and in the mines in particular?

You'll be exploring these issues in more depth in the panel session in a few minutes. I just want to sketch out some broad principles, and tell you where the TUC is on these issues.

The TUC Congress in September adopted a statement of solidarity with the unions and workers of South Africa: I think copies have been distributed, so I won't go into it in detail. But the reasons behind adopting such a statement are worth recalling.

First, of course, the absolute shock and horror that our delegates felt seeing the images and hearing the stories coming out of Marikana. All our health and safety campaigns demand that no one should go out to work at the start of the day and end up injured - and certainly it's unthinkable that someone should not come back home at the end of their shift. This is so fundamental that it really doesn't need saying that no one should have to lose their life as the result of an industrial dispute. This hits directly at the heart of trade unionism.

Second, we have a long and proud record in the UK of solidarity with trade unions around the world, but especially in South Africa. When they drew up this statement and put it to delegates at Congress, the General Council wanted to send a message of support to their sister organisations in COSATU, like Peter's union.

We are all too aware of the challenges being faced by South African unions, but I'd just like to record here and now the admiration that the TUC feels for the members, shop stewards and leaders of the South African trade union movement - people like Zwelinzima Vavi who was re-elected as General Secretary of COSATU at their Congress. Brother Vavi is of course a former NUM official, from a miner's family - and he knows what it's like to be fired by a mining company, as he was himself in the 1980s.

Brother Vavi has shown true leadership over the last few months. I don't know how many of your read his recent speech to the COSATU rally in Rustenburg - if you haven't, it is worth reading on the Cosatu website. It is electrifying - and it's also informative and helpful to all of us, because it draws together many of the issues we need to bear in mind.

Vavi stressed that what underpins the Marikana tragedy, and what is going on in the minefields at the moment, is the fundamental inequality between the business owners and the workers. At heart, it is a basic lack of respect for the people on whose backs the riches of the mining industry have been built.

That is what explains the poverty pay that skilled workers are getting in a wealthy industry, and it explains their living conditions too - the hostels and shanty towns that many people thought would disappear along with apartheid.

But what Vavi also did at Rustenburg was to reinforce the underlying truth of trade unionism. He showed how such inequality can only be challenged if working people organise, if they band together in trade unions willing to challenge inequality at work and in society. And this means a united trade union movement, not fragmented forces. Vavi stressed that the mass sackings that are going on in the minefields at the moment - like the sackings he went through after the 1987 strikes - can only be resisted and rectified by a united trade union movement, not by, as he put it, 'a piecemeal approach with each Union or each workplace acting in isolation.'

He also reminded his audience, and us, that while it is the unions who can tackle the employers, engage with the politicians, and represent their members generally - these unions are, fundamentally, nothing without their members. His call to unions to put members and workers first was one we all need to hear and put into action.

So, in my few remaining minutes - let me turn briefly to what we can do in the UK.

We must, above all, offer our solidarity to the workers and unions in South Africa. That means trusting and not second guessing our colleagues in COSATU and the NUM: taking our lead from them, hearing their calls, working with them.

We must make sure that people are aware of what is going on in South Africa. The media were quick to report the killings and the disputes, but they often miss the underlying economic and social inequalities that fuel the news. It's our job to make sure people understand that deeper reality.

And, when we are asked to challenge the people who run some of the companies that the NUM and COSATU are engaging with - many of them based in London and listed on the London as well as the Johannesburg stock exchange, we need to be ready to use our influence in support of our fellow unions.

At the COSATU Congress in September, there was an overwhelming feeling that workers in the South African mining industry need our support, a determination that this is a struggle we in the global trade union movement must help them win.

But there was also confidence that, united, this is a struggle that will be won. Again, I congratulate ACTSA for calling this conference, and thank you all for listening.