Theme: Protecting workers rights is critical to sustainable development

President of BMWU

Members of the National Executive Committee of BMWU

Leadership of the NUM

Fraternal organisations and invited Guests

Esteemed delegates and comrades

On behalf of COSATU NOBs please receive warm and fraternal greetings from the federation. We wish to extend sincere appreciations to BMWU for the invitation and opportunity to address this important gathering. We firmly believe that you couldn’t have chosen a better theme than Protecting workers rights is critical to sustainable development.

Dear Comrades,

The world is undergoing the most extreme changes in history, with the geo-political tensions, climate warming, wars of imperialist conquest and intensified search for more spheres of profit and plunder underway. While all this is happening, the working class is not complacent, but actively engaged in the struggle for deeper alternatives, social justice and meaningful development for the people.

The struggle of workers is about workers for themselves as a class and as the force with the means and capacity to rescue humanity from the savage clutches of capitalism. Mineworkers are the frontline detachment in that struggle and we forever salute the bravery and resilience of mineworkers.

We shall not hasten to say to you dear comrades, we are grateful to the workers and people of Botswana for continuing the fight for a better Africa and a better SADC in the various struggles you wage and the supply of leadership to our various organisations, like the ITUC Africa and SATUCC. We look up to our working relationship dear comrades to make these organisations work for workers and build a solid momentum.

The context in which we are operating and the challenges we face require that we correctly placed and properly diagnosed. The reality of our continent stares us in the face everyday.

According to world vision, “282 million people are undernourished in Africa. That’s 46 million more people compared with 2019. Conflict, hunger, poverty, displacement and the continuation of the COVID 19 pandemic create a climate in which children are at risk of violence and exploitation”.

Further, according to the SOS-USA, 226.7 million people are starving in Africa. The countries most affected by extreme poverty and hunger are mainly those located south of the Sahara. One in four people suffers hunger there – which means that the share of the world’s hungry is highest in Sub Sahara Africa”

These two paragraphs illustrate the gravity and the extent of the crisis our people in general, workers in particular are faced with. The triple crisis of poverty, unemployment, and inequalities are the elephant in the room. No trade unionist can avoid mobilising and organising against these conditions as its workers who sustain extended families and communities. Their incomes are affected severely by the crisis of poverty and starvation.

Towards this end, the development of Africa is not a choice or luxury, but a fundamental necessity for our common survival. As we organise workers and march against low wages, we are at the same time rolling back the frontiers of poverty and suffering.

In this regard, what is the role of a trade union and even more, a progressive trade union movement? This talks to us directly. We organise in the workplace as we organise in the community against poverty, Gender Based Violence, hunger, crime and corruption, landlessness, unemployment, lack of skills, disease and lack of access to health. These are simultaneous struggles, not either or.

We take this opportunity to further extend salutations to mineworkers in the whole region, be in in Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC, Angola, etc, they are the game changers of the whole regional political economy. They sacrifice their lives, “they go deep down in the belly of the earth”, citing words from Hugh Masekela’s song.

They extract the hard rock, but earn nothing, but peanuts for their life and death work. Their work shines in the capitals of western countries, particularly our former colonisers. But they die like paupers, with nothing left for their children, families and communities. The communities who live around the mines are a painful reminder of the stark contrasts in our societies. In the words of Karl Marx, “the accumulation of wealth on the one pole corresponds to the accumulation of misery on the other”. This is the essence of the class struggle.

Therefore, organisation, class consciousness and mass mobilisation are key ingredients in the way we must build and develop the foundations of the new society we are building. No trade union can fight against capitalists on its own, it needs the mobilisation of class alliances and social forces to widen the network of forces for change and their power.

The history of mineworkers was long recognised by philosophers, socioiologists and economists as key to the development of society and the expansion of the productive forces. But do mineworkers understand the power and impact of their work as a social force for change and development? This takes us to the organisation of working with other workers in building strong, united and effective federations. This goes further to illustrate the importance of working class internationalism, the building of workers alliance across borders, nationalities, races and regions of the world. Because indeed workers must unite to break the chains of oppression.

Our internationalism as workers is not narrowly about the workplace, though the workplace is central to us changing the world. But we are found wherever workers and people are oppressed, which is why we are deliberate about eSwatini. That ruthless and greedy monarchy must feel the power and wrath of workers from Botswana and from the whole region.

The Palestinian crisis has opened a can of worms about the extent to which imperialism is desperate and savage. The daylight massacre of children and women has exposed the reality of 75 years of occupation of Palestine by Zionism and imperialism in general. This is our struggle too. We shall never remain silence while racism, occupation and land dispossession happen to other human beings.

Our task is to build an effective solidarity movement to unite all forces opposed to all forms of injustice and oppression, wherever it happens and whoever does it.

Even more important to us, is the fact that Botswana is the headquarters of SADC and SATUCC, which makes it to be of direct interest to us and our work. This is why we need to talk closer comrades about what is the best way to build and sustain an effective regional trade union movement. How can we ensure a sustainable organisation with capacity and resources to wage and sustain a struggle.

We once again, take this opportunity to appreciate the moment of exchanging ideas, sharing information and strategies, as well as developing a common programme of action against unemployment, poverty and for a capable and developmental state that delivers to its people.

Towards this end, the struggle for the beneficiation of our mineral resources on our continent to extract maximum value for the people and communities is very important. We should stop being producers of raw material, but of finished goods to meet the needs of our people and our continent.

Finally, COSATU wish the BMWU fruitful deliberations and look forward to the outcomes of this important Congress, as we seek to together build a regional movement for workers rights, sustainability and meaningful development for the people.

Amandla!