Cosatu applauds the tabling of the Insourcing Bill at Parliament

Cosatu applauds the tabling of the Insourcing Bill at Parliament.  The Federation eagerly looks forward to its passage into law and implementation by organs across the state.

This progressive and, indeed, long overdue Bill requires state organs to insource security, cleaning, gardening, catering, transport, administrative, healthcare, maintenance, information technology, auditing amongst other functions and, where this is not possible, to seek authorisation for such an exemption under specific conditions and criteria.  

State organs clearly specified by the Bill include national and provincial departments, municipalities, entities and State-Owned Enterprises.

This bold and timely Bill speaks to Cosatu’s principled demand to insource key functions performed by various state organs.  It responds to long-standing resolutions of the Federation and the ANC and the Tripartite Alliance.

The call to insource has been a cry for thousands of workers who have seen their hard-won labour rights continuously undermined, collective bargaining weakened and fragmented and conditions of service, including wages and pensions, deteriorate as they have been outsourced across the state over many years.  

Employers across the state have sought to outsource as a way to deflect labour matters to a private sector employer.  This has become a way to undermine the collective bargaining power of workers.  Workers’ strength lies in their ability to organise.  When workers are scattered, their ability to exercise their constitutional rights to form trade unions and collective bargaining is severely weakened.  This is not by accident but rather by deliberate intent.

They have done so as a way to reduce state expenditure and sacrifice the legitimate expectations of workers to be paid a living wage with a pension and medical cover.  They do so knowing fully well that the suppliers of such outsourced labour will suppress workers’ wages and dismiss those workers who dare to raise their voices.

Despite the mantra that outsourcing will save an overstretched fiscus of badly needed funds, it has not.  Outsourcing introduces the element and costs of profiteering into the state. All too often this is done at the expense of the very same workers who now see their already meagre wages suppressed by their employers to make way for their profit margins.

The third driving force that seen the explosion of outsourcing over the past three decades has been the insatiable lust for wealth by an emerging tenderpreneur class.  The state with an annual budget of over R2.7 billion and R1 trillion procurement allocation, is a tempting site for tenderpreneurs to feast from.

This has resulted in a chaotic stampede across the state to create endless opportunities to outsource normal day-to-day functions that the state has always performed.  This has been dressed up as linked to costs and performance but in reality, it has been driven by the pursuit of profits from lucrative tenders.

All too often these contractors have failed to deliver the very service or goods they were paid to do.  Weekly media headlines have exposed tenderpreneurs receiving heavily inflated tenders and all too often failing to provide any of the services they were paid to do.

Outsourcing has become a key ingredient of state capture and corruption across the state with incestuous collaboration by corrupt elements in both the public and private sectors.  It has not only weakened state capacity to deliver the public and municipal services that working class communities and the economy depend upon, it has bled the state of scarce resources needed to fund hospitals, schools, and policing amongst other frontline services.

This decapacitation of the state has severely impacted upon its ability to provide the most basic services and created a dangerous culture where any time that a state organ is asked to undertake a task or provide a service, the rush is to outsource it to the private sector.

If we are to win the war against the cancer of corruption, then such functions must be insourced.  We cannot continue to be shocked, condemn or hide from Sunday headlines of this or that politician or their family receiving a grotesquely inflated tender whilst failing to deliver the goods, and yet we fail to act on this hollowing out of the state.  This Bill provides a fair and common-sense path to end this fragmentation of the state.

The Bill provides the opportunity for a long overdue debate at Parliament.  The Bill opens the space for a discussion and more importantly binding legislative path to tackle this cancer of corruption decapitating the ability of the state to perform the most basic of functions, to assert and protect the hard-won rights of the most vulnerable workers, and to save the state scarce resources better needed for the delivery of frontline public services to working class communities.

It is critical that Parliament provide sufficient space for this engagement.  This is key to polishing rough edges where they may exist, to provide informed inputs from key organs of state, including law enforcement, and finally to ensure sufficient consensus that is key to ensuring passage by Parliament in a post-majority party era.

Cosatu supports this progressive and long overdue Bill.  The Federation will engage its Alliance Partners, all Members of Parliament and in particular from the African National Congress, progressive parties and those committed to the struggle against state capture and corruption.

This will be a journey, including as the Bill stipulates, requiring actions and resources to ensure the capacitation of state organs.  Critically, once adopted, it will require Parliament to exercise its oversight powers and hold state organs accountable for their full compliance to its progressive provisions.

Cosatu will mobilise its full support to ensure its expedited passage by Parliament and assenting into law by the President, Cyril Ramaphosa. 

Cosatu President Zingiswa Losi

*** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL.

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