[16 SOCIALISTACTION SEPTEMBER 1992 (continued from page 14)…]

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16 SOCIALISTACTION SEPTEMBER 1992 (continued from page 14) participate in a national convention. And we said, instead of a national convention, we're calling for a constituent assembly.

SA: And so, at this time, 10 years later, how do you view the call for a constituent assembly?

MT: The call for a constituent assembly is only relevant insofar as it has the capacity to galvanize, for one specific goal, all components of the liberation movement participating as one entity. In that kind of scenario, we see our participation being relevant.

But once it is used to emasculate the liberation efforts of our people, you cannot participate in such phenomena, because they are not aimed at redressing the situation, but are meant to entrench the white-privilege government.

SA: What are the major slogans that AZAPO is now putting forward?

MT: As of now, we're putting forward slogans as an alternative to CODESAsuch as the "Solidarity Front," which would be comprised of all elements outside of CODESA who are against oppressed masses at heart. At the community level, regional level, and even the national level.

SA: What would be the activities of the Solidarity Front?

MT: Those elements making up the Solidarity Front must be able to come together on one basis only-to push and galvanize the oppressed people toward replacing the government.

SA: What major activities is AZAPO participating in?

MT: Mass action, demonstrations— SA: Around what issues?

MT: On issues of the day, like the dispossession of our people. That is the main issue we should highlight. If we forget that issue, then we are doomed. These are issues that are not addressed by CODESA.

SA: By dispossession, do you mean of the land?

MT: Land, in particular. Because it is through land that all other things become relevant. There is no way you can gain political power without land. There's no way you can gain economic power without land. Or that social responsibility has any meaning without land.

SA: What do you propose for the redistribution of the land?

MT: Land distribution is not something we can formulate a blueprint for now. We can just give the general picture.

You may well know, since you belong to a socialist group, that land forms the basis of wealth. And for you to talk meaningfully about the socialist order, based on the proper redistribution of wealth, you must have land as the basis of that. There is no way that you can redistribute land, and the subsequent wealth underneath our feet, without socialist perceptions.

SA: On another topic, am I correct that AZAPO raises the slogan of "Black majority rule?"

MT: Yes, the social question arises here from the national question ... [tape is muffled] of the Black majority.

SA: Is there any contradiction, in your opinion, between Black majority rule and nonracialism?

MT: We talk about "antiracialism." We see ourselves as an antiracialist organization. We see ourselves as bringing about a situation through which race does not play a role in society.

SA: What is your position on self-defense against the violence by Inkatha and the police?

MT: First and foremost, we must make it clear that we in AZAPO put the question of violence squarely, without any hesitation, on the doorstep of the government. This government is very violent.

Now, the kind of violence we are seeing today is made to look like "Black on Black" violence. But it is not. It is fifthcolumnists who have been coopted by the government, and who are on the payroll of the government, used to perpetrate violence on behalf of the government in order to make our people war-weary and unable to fight for their demands.

SA: How can the Black community defend itself?

MT: There's no way they can defend themselves except to keep all the structures that they've created as a result of the activities of the government in place. You can not begin to even think about the dismantling of the people's liberation movements—particularly their armed forces.

... If you demobilize yourself by disarming your own armed forces, you are then playing into the hands of the govemment.

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SOUTH AFRICA TODAY ... there is never a situation where an official negotiates on behalf of the workers and makes decisions without a mandate fron the general workforce." ...COSATU (continued from page 14) the national level and the plant level, have been raising it—and still raise it.

We have never achieved yet the 40-hour work week, but we see that as one way of opening up more jobs for other people to come in. There has been a lot of resistance to that. But there have been some victories. Unions have managed to bring the working week down from 50 or 48 hours to 46 or 44.

SA : In individual industries?

AR: Yes, in individual industries and individual companies. You see, COSATU has developed quite rapidly over a short space of time. We only launched COSATU at the end of 1985. So we had to organize ourselves and structure ourselves to design programs that would put us in a position to be able to fight around these demands in a more powerful way.

When we united as COSATU, our affiliates were still bargaining at the plant level. So central bargaining became one of the major demands in our "living wage" campaign. To win a demand like the 40-hour work week, we need to bargain at a much higher and broader level. Because at the plant level, you get one plant agreeing to, like, 44 hours a week, the other sticking to a longer week; it will depend on the balance of forces in that plant whether they're going to win the demand or not.

SA: OK, now you're speaking about making these demands against the employers, whereas a moment ago you mentioned the idea of bringing in more labor-intensive investments. Do you agree with those people who say that it's necessary to downplay the demands of the workers in order to attract investments from abroad?

AR: There's been a debate in COSATU, and at our last economic policy conference this issue was discussed. An investment code was discussed, and a certain guidance was tabulated, but these aren't detailed programs. But one thing we do believe is that foreign investment will be necessary to assist in rejuvenating the economy and bringing in higher forms of technology because our industry is quite far behind. But we don't see that happening entirely at the cost of workers.

SA: Since I've been in South Africa, I've heard a lot about the "social contract," that is, a long-term overall accord between the unions, the employers, and the government. To what extent do you-and COSATU—think this would be desirable?

AR: The social contract is in debate at the moment. There has been no resolution as to whether we will go into a social contract or not because there are various schools of thought in COSATU as to the issue. Part of the debate is whether it enhances the struggle for socialism or whether it dampens it. For one thing, it unifies COSATU.

SA: What does?

AR: I mean that COSATU has adopted socialism as its guiding slogan. Now, there are various schools of thought on socialism itself—or the road to socialism. That's fine. That's healthy. But about the social contract itself-that debate hasn't been resolved.

Now, in the national economic negotiations forum, certain demands are to be put forward by COSATU. Here are some of the issues we're raising-housing, job creation; we're very concerned about retrenchments. And we have the view that capital does things the way it sees fit.

We wish to bring in the question of taxes as well. You heard about the VAT [Value Added Tax] strike we had last year. It was a massive strike.

We want to reopen those types of issues. Now, that might appear as if we already want to engage capital in South Africa in a social contract. But what will actually come out of the negotiations forum are agreements that will have to be made into law.

SA: Let me try to tackle this question from another direction. In this country today, I often hear the media and the politicians speak of the "New South Africa." Do you think that the employers and working people can indeed be "partners" in building this so-called new society?

AR: If we're going to talk of employers and workers being partners, or cooperating, in building the New South Africa, then we're talking about a social contract. That's my understanding.

SA: I agree.

AR: Then we are sort of subjecting our sectional interests to national interests. That is basically what underlies the social contract. Now, I don't think at this stage we have a clear definition for building the New South Africa how we're going to do that or what our different roles are going to be in that.

There are some definite views as to what needs should be met for the people of South Africa-the oppressed and the deprived. There is a legacy in this country of terrible social imbalance. Wealth and security are for the white community, whereas in the Black community there's been years of neglect.

So we feel that any new government that comes to power is going to have to have a bias toward that section of the community—if we are to have a real meaningful peace. But peace can't just be structured into agreements, contracts, or constitutions. It must be derived from satisfaction.

SA: Let me turn to something else— the prospects for a merger between COSATU and NACTU [National Council of Trade Unions]. Now, when we first started talking, you mentioned the Tripartite Alliance between COSATU, the ANC, and the Communist Party. Do you think that COSATU's alliance with these other two groups might be an obstacle toward forming a unified trade-union federation with NACTU?

AR: I would not see that as the only obstacle. If, say, we withdraw from the alliance, that does not solve the political problems that exist between us. In my own opinion, the basic causes of why we exist as two different federations—or the reasons why we have not come together to form one federation—are political differences.

SA: What are those differences?

AR: By and large, in COSATU, there is strong support among the membership and leadership-I'm not saying everyone-for the ANC and the SACP.

This dates back to the MDM [Mass Democratic Movement of the late 1980s] days when we were launched. We took the Freedom Charter as our political program, and went into an alliance in the MDM, or the UDF [United Democratic Front], which the state correctly said then was a front for the ANC-although we were denying it then!

NOw, similar has had tendencies within it representing all the political organizations. But seemingly, in my opinion, the strongest faction within NACTU is the PAC [Pan-Africanist Congress] supporters. So whether we withdraw from the alliance or not does not remove that problem. That force remains within COSATU, and that other force remains within NACTU. At the moment, NACTU is not part of a formal alliance with the PAC, but it operates in that fashion.

So I don't think it's as simple as that— to say that if we withdraw, we'll have unity within the next year. There are a lot of questions to solve and a lot of problems to work through.

The other thing, through our own experience, is that when we launched COSATU we had 36 unions. It was a very painful process to put those unions together through mergers-to form industrial unions.

And I think in looking at the question of unity, you musn't overlook that. It will be one of the most difficult areas to overcome; should we come together, all of the unions in various industries will have to merge to form industrial unions. There's a questions of leadership, a question of politics, a question of resolution—-and there's always the fear, when the smaller union enters the merger, of being dominated by the other.

SA: In areas where there are parallel unions affiliated with both NACTU and COSATU, has there been an increased tendency to work together?

AR: No, I wouldn't say there has been an increased tendency to work together. But there is one instance, in fact, in which one of the NACTU unions is talking merger with NUMSA [the metal workers' union affiliated with COSATU]. That is their metal union, MAAWUSA. Seemingly, it is going to withdraw from NACTU, because there are agreements structured already between them to form one union. And there's no talk from NUMSA of withdrawing from COSATU. It's very obvious that NUMSA is the biggest union in COSATU, and it's much larger than MAA WUSA.

Of course, there is "poaching" at stake, though that's a terribly negative term, where our affiliates go off and organize in a specific industry occupied by NACTU. But they've been doing it for quite some time-and it's still going on. That's a source of tension between NACTU and COSATU.

SA: In the United States, the issue of trade-union democracy has increasingly come to the fore. Perhaps you've read about the situation in the Teamsters union, where a highly bureaucratized leadership SOCIALIST ACTION Eric Miller was recently replaced in union elections. What steps are being taken to ensure democracy and rank-and-file control of the unions in South Africa?

AR: I have not seen the constitutions of unions in the [United] States, but the constitutions of unions in COSATU must be firstly based on workers' control. The key office-bearer positions must be occupied by workers. And the powers of selection and leadership function are covered by the constitution.

And a certain form of structure must exist in each union that draws out the participation of workers in the branch, regional, and national structures. There is always a bias towards the workers, minimizing the powers of full-time officials. In fact, the only full-time person who is an office bearer would be the secretary-treasureI.

Now, I've seen that within the ICFTU [International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, dominated by the AFL-CIO] the presidents and vice presidents of this federation in a lot of cases are full-time people. That is not allowed in our situation.

There is one exception. The president of the NUM [National Union of Mineworkers] is a full-time person. But there is concern about that in the other affiliates, because it is seen as a threat to the principle we have always upheld.

I would say that the only guarantees we have to keep the unions under the control of the workers is in our style of working, based on the constitution. And, of course, our negotiations, conducted in the plants and on the national level, are conducted by the workers themselves with the assistance of the unions. But there is never a situation where an official negotiates on behalf of the workers and makes decisions without a mandate from the general workforce.

There was an example of that last year, when SARHWU, the South African Railways and Harbour Workers Union, had their national negotiating team—which was comprised mainly of workers as well-enter into an agreement on wages without referring it back to the general membership. This created massive discussions in the union. The entire leadership was suspended and kicked out. Workers occupied the offices and took over the whole union.

This action was very drastic. But it was a message to the leadership as to how the workers will react if they violate workers' control.

SA: In the United States, the old tradition of a rank-and-file negotiating committee is now the rare exception.

AR: I understand. But we will fight for that practice to remain here. The danger is of cooptation-when the union becomes totally bureaucratic and the workers don't have a say anymore. And then it can go in any direction. It can end up in the hands of the Mafia, as some of the unions in the States have.

I'm very glad to hear what you've been telling me about the Teamsters union, because it's very important for us and for the international workers movement to know that our unions internationally are emerging into vibrant fighting forces. SEPTEMBER 1992 1

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