Johannesburg - Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini has called for this week’s congress to make a constitutional amendment that will undermine the autonomy of the federation’s affiliates.
Speaking during his opening address at Cosatu’s congress in Johannesburg yesterday, Dlamini called on delegates to propose that national leaders be empowered to intervene in beleaguered unions.
His comments come as many unions affiliated to the federation face fierce divisions, often over the misappropriation of union funds.
While the suggestion by the president was welcomed by some unions, Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said it would affect the constitutional autonomy of affiliates.
“It would be a controversial amendment, but it’s up to workers to decide,” Pamla said.
“The proposal is that the central executive committee of Cosatu – not the NOBs (national office-bearers) – is able to pronounce itself to say, for example, if Satawu is affiliated to Cosatu this is what we expect of Satawu.”
He said, at present, NOBs’ hands are tied and they could not intervene where it was sometimes necessary.
For example, with transport and allied workers union Satawu, NOBs weren’t able to resolve the union’s problems, despite “begging” the union to reconcile.
Nehawu president Michael Makwayiba countered that national leaders were already able – and did – intervene in the internal affairs and squabbles within unions.
“Cosatu already intervenes where there are issues, so it’s a non-issue,” he said.
National Union of Mineworkers health and safety chairperson Peter Bailey said the union had no “fundamental problems” with Dlamini’s proposal.
“We’ve always reiterated Cosatu must not be a toothless federation,” he said.
But Food and Allied Workers Union general secretary Katishi Masemola said he rejected the proposal as it would mean “the end to autonomy of affiliates”.
“No, no, no, we can’t have that,” he said.
Earlier, Dlamini called on congress delegates to assess the character of Cosatu – including issues of discipline, militancy and whether it represented workers any more.
The federation also announced this week it would review the issue of union investment companies, associated with comments from some alliance partners that Cosatu has a culture of “business unionism”.
Dlamini said the infighting which split the federation down the middle was evidence of Cosatu being “eaten away by some among us”.
He accused foreign companies of pumping money, in particular those from “North America”, to this end.
The expelled National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) has consistently said it is in talks with the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu) about forming an alternative federation to Cosatu.
But Dlamini thanked Nactu for instead shirking those associations off.
He thanked it and the Federation of Democratic Unions of SA for remaining close to Cosatu.
Acting general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali will present the federation’s organisational report today.
The Cosatu congress ends on Thursday.