Cape Town - Congress of SA Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi will not give up hope that divisions in Cosatu can be healed and it can unite in a fight for workers' interests, he said on Tuesday.
He told delegates at the Uni World Indaba in Cape Town that Cosatu was in the midst of an external campaign to undermine efforts to save it from splitting.
“We have experienced bogus security reports, surveillance from unidentified persons, allegations from 'unnamed sources' printed in the press and all manner of other tactics to publicly discredit the federation.”
He hoped that the assistance of the ANC and former federation leaders would result in the writing of a new narrative.
This narrative would be that it had avoided a total implosion, unity had returned, and members had a common desire to rebuild a democratic, independent, militant, and socialist-orientated trade union movement.
He said a split in Cosatu might further fragment the trade union movement at a time when only 29 percent of all workers belonged to any union.
“Regrettably we have become preoccupied with our endless boardroom fights that have nothing to do with advancing workers' interests when Rome is burning.”
A division in Cosatu was not just a set-back but an act of treason against workers' interests.
“Behaviour where union leaders act like bosses and believe that because they are elected they can make decisions without reference to the base must become a thing of the past.”
He said dressing up practices as “democratic centralism” would not pass anymore.
“Democratic centralism is only revolutionary if it is truly democratic and principled.”
Vavi received rousing support from the audience, made up of members from unions around the world.
Cosatu was paralysed and wounded by divisions that had spanned over two years and were the result of differing approaches to poverty, inequality, and unemployment, he said.
On the one end was a camp that favoured vigorous implementation of decisions taken at the federation's 2012 national congress.
Conversely, there was a “leadership camp” that Vavi believed had apparently drifted from a commitment to implementing these resolutions without seeking a new mandate.
An ANC task team has stepped in again to help the embattled trade union federation deal with internal friction.
On Monday, Cosatu president Sidumo Dlamini said it accepted the ANC's political intervention but that the decision to expel the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) stood.
“We have agreed to a political process to deal with issues in the federation,” he told a National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu) central executive committee meeting in Boksburg, on the East Rand.
“ But we are entering this political discussion based on an understanding that there is a central executive committee decision that Numsa is expelled from the federation.”
He said the federation would not change its policies to accommodate its former affiliate.
Numsa was expelled from Cosatu last month for breaching its constitution.
At a special national congress in December, Numsa resolved to not support the ANC in the general elections and to broaden its scope to include workers from other sectors.
Numsa and Cosatu have been at loggerheads since Cosatu suspended Vavi last year for having an affair with a junior employee, among other things. There were also allegations of fraud and corruption against Vavi. - Sapa