I said hon Minister, listen! I said hon Minister Fikile Mbalula warned about these unions a long time ago when he was the president of the ANC Youth League and genuinely believed that disrespect and militancy were synonymous. He said: "Cosatu speaks left and acts right." [Laughter.] These days, when you enter the board room where union leaders are meeting employers, it becomes difficult to discern whether it is a collective bargaining discussion taking place or a shareholders' meeting.
All sweetheart unions are bound to be exposed and no amount of political rhetoric can hide it. As it happened in the 1970s to Tucsa, history is bound to repeat itself. It was a long road from 1973 to 1994. The struggle for independent and progressive labour movement continues. Aluta Continua!
Cope believes that public sector unions should not affiliate to any political party or a federation which is affiliated or aligned to any political party. [Applause.] Cope believes that civil servants should not be biased towards South Africans who do not agree with their political party affiliation or preference. All South Africans pay their taxes and deserve to be served equally without their political affiliation deciding on how they should be treated. Just imagine if you go to a police station and meet a police official from the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, Popcru, and you go to a hospital and meet National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union, Nehawu, nurse, how do you expect them to treat Cope members if they refer to Cope as cockroaches? [Laughter.] They can't be objective.
South Africa can only have labour stability if the labour market players act in good faith towards each other. Those who opportunistically attack the collective bargaining regime, which was sacrificed for, in blood and sweat, must understand that what will happen after the collapse of collective bargaining will be labour unrest and instability in the labour market. Vulnerable workers deserve an assurance of a minimum wage as negotiated by industry players. When vulnerable workers do not benefit from collective bargaining, expect them to continuously move from one company to another, looking for better wages.
These super-exploiting companies will never have loyal, experienced and skilled labour. What follows is that they will produce inferior goods and services, which will make customers move away from them and will become bankrupt. The behaviour and conduct of the stock exchange monitoring trade unionists have given the reactionary forces within our country an opportunity to attack the collective bargaining regime. Hon members, what you saw in Marikana and in the Western Cape will be like a Sunday picnic if the collective bargaining regime is allowed to collapse.
An attempt by NUM to be seen to be more militant in demanding 60% wage increase is short-sighted and dangerous. Num's labour aristocracy, which calls itself leadership, know that this demand is not achievable and it will be followed by a strike which in turn will be followed by retrenchments. This aristocracy have access to all information and skills that will enable them to be realistic. They must not go to negotiation as merely a process towards a strike.
They must learn from their Cosatu ... I nearly said comrades - colleagues ... [Laughter.] ... about the effect of trying to take over people's genuine struggle. In its desire to highjack the farm workers' strike in the Western Cape they made pronouncements about the end of the strike. When they tried to get workers back to work without a mandate, Jurie Scheepers, who was one of the strikers, told them: "Cosatu is not our boss, we are the people who suffer, not Cosatu."
The strike in the Western Cape might have been financed by the alliance through the Minister of Agriculture but the alliance was never allowed to be in charge and I hope that Cosatu learnt a lesson from that strike. That is why, hon Minister, Cope believes that the Inspectorate should be properly equipped and staffed. They should also be supplied with the necessary tools of the trade, like vehicles and laptops. It is important that the laws of the country should be respected by all employers irrespective of their origin and influence.
Last year in the 2011-12 budget, the Inspectorate was allocated R60 million in order to promote professionalisation of the service. Hon Minister, can you tell the House where the professionalisation of the Inspectorate is? In addition, how were these funds utilised? The fact that the Guptas did not want to be served by African workers at Sun City is both racist and unconditional. The Minister's silence in this regard was deafening.
The fact that the budget of the department - hon Makhubela-Mashele, the Guptas will never invite you to their wedding... [Laughter.] - has been increased in real terms should be welcomed. It is the contribution of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, CCMA, in being proactive that should be ... [Time expired.] [Applause.]