"To be able to push through our own economic demands, government."
1992 1992-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 15 →
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al Congress] and the SACP [South African Communist Party]. To be able to push through our own economic demands, we must remove the state and install a democratic goverment.
Now, there is CODESA [the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, the negotiations forum with the government]. And you are probably aware that there is a breakdown in CODESA at the moment on the question of the interim government— how the state sees it and how we see it—as well as on the question of a body to draw up the constitution. That is one of our major focuses at the moment, to dislodge that deadlock.
We see that for two reasons. One is that political rights—one person, one voteaffects us whether we are trade unionists, workers, or whatever, as people in this country, because our people have never had rights before. created is by providing services in the community-for example, electricity. Most of the African people in this country live in houses where there's no electricity. And there is a very serious shortage of housing as well. Just look at any of the cities. You'll see that there's a major squatting problem.
So we feel that if we look toward those areas of providing basic necessities for people, that in itself can go a long way in job creation. Building houses, providing electricity can go a long way in boosting the economy.
SA: I remember that when COSATU was formed, one of the planks in their program was to demand a shorter work week, while keeping the same pay.
AR: Yes.
SA: To what degree do you still raise that demand?
AR: The reason I don't mention it is because it has been an ongoing demand. All of our unions, in their wage demands at (continued on page 17)