History has answered the question that long plagued the labour movement: an alliance with a nationalist government dilutes a working-class struggle, writes Mcebisi Ndletyana.
Organisations are indeed products of society. They’re neither ordained nor guaranteed permanence. Rather, they’re mutable, triggered by changes within society itself.
Some organisations mutate drastically, while others simply die.
Consider, for instance, the state of the mass democratic movement. It is becoming more fractured the older our democracy gets. The latest example is the formation of a new workers’ federation, the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu). It happened on April 22, 2017 - just five days before the 23rd anniversary of South Africa’s non-racial democracy.
Saftu is made up of splinter unions from Cosatu and led by former Cosatu leaders, including Zwelinzima Vavi.
The old progressive labour movement, in other words, is no longer the same. Even after the split, Cosatu doesn’t seem stable anymore. Just the other day, S’dumo Dlamini, president of Cosatu, attended Jacob Zuma’s birthday to wish him strength and urged him to hold on to his job. This was despite Cosatu taking a decision, a few days earlier, that Zuma should step down as president of the Republic.
As if that weren’t enough, leaders of the federation have invited Zuma to address their members on May 1, at the customary Workers’ Day commemoration.
Other unions are understandably perplexed by the decision. They’re asking what Zuma, a person who has debased and misled the liberation movement, can possibly say that is worth listening to.
Our organisational life is in a state of flux.
This has, in turn, left most among us bewildered.
The bewilderment is not unexpected. It has a measure of Cosatu’s meaning in the lives of the black working class. Its leaders had given their lives to improve the working conditions of black workers. Today’s labour movement is clearly not what it used to be. It would help some of us to stop viewing it through yesterday’s eyes.
Freedom has thrown up conditions that have changed the character of the movement and its leaders. Cosatu, for one, is part of the political elite.
This has meant co-option into officialdom, which has come with immense material gains and positions of power. As a result, the conduct of leaders is inconsistent with their rhetoric.
Their supposed radicalism is confined to mere talk.
What is required is a re-imagination. Workers need to evaluate their leaders based on what they’re doing today, not what their organisations used to be. Sentimentality has little practical use. At this moment in our history, sentimentality is even counter-productive. It conceals atrophy. This explains the rise of Saftu.
Saftu is occasioned by the moment. Its formation was an inevitable response to a long-standing question: whether or not Cosatu could function optimally in an alliance with the nationalist African ANC that was becoming increasingly corrupt? The alliance had made Cosatu silent against impropriety within government. Its leaders were silenced by patronage. But others grew restless, which led to their expulsion and the subsequent formation of Saftu.
In other words, Saftu is a beneficiary of history. History has answered the question that long plagued the labour movement: an alliance with a nationalist government dilutes a working-class struggle. And the new federation is likely to grow beyond its inaugural 24 affiliates and 700 000 members because of the dominant influence exercised by its biggest affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa.
Numsa has been growing impressively in recent years. Before leaving Cosatu, Numsa had surpassed the National Union of Mineworkers as the biggest affiliate.
Workers consider the Numsa leadership more responsive to their shop-floor needs. The union practises workers’ control. This is rare in most unions. National leaders hardly visit branches. Some haven’t convened annual general meetings in years, while others are just downright corrupt.
Numsa is likely to influence other affiliates to adopt its model. That won’t be hard to achieve.
The fact that some Cosatu affiliates have broken away to join Saftu suggests their attraction to the Numsa model. Resistance to reforms within Cosatu affiliates is also likely to drive even more affiliates to Saftu.
Cosatu may still be the biggest federation today, but it’s just not doing well. Even now, it still can’t make a clean break from Zuma’s infamy. And, unlike Cosatu, Saftu has vowed to shun political alliances. It will have its own workers’ party instead. But it doesn’t sound like Saftu has Blade Nzimande’s SA Communist Party in mind. Saftu is not guaranteed of political success, however. Numsa and Vavi’s foray into electoral politics was a flop.
They tested the waters through the United Front (UF). In Numsa’s stronghold of Nelson Mandela Bay, for instance, the UF managed to win only one seat in the 2016 local elections. In one Uitenhage ward, where the ANC had failed to register a candidate, the UF was even beaten by the EFF.
The UF couldn’t win a single ward in a community that is populated by Numsa members. That was a terrible electoral debut.
Perhaps one is judging the UF too harshly. The party didn’t have an ideal start.
It was stuttering, with several inaugurations. Some weren’t clear whether it was a party focused on workers or a movement that encompassed like-minded formations. It ended up resembling the latter. Black voters are looking beyond the ANC for alternatives.
The ANC is in a crisis of credibility. Today its liberation credentials count for little. In fact it is embittering that a party of liberation would surrender the sovereignty of its country to foreign interests and expatriate capital. Bathengis’ lizwe!
This presents a perfect opportunity for other parties. Things are no longer the same, nor should they remain unchanged. We’re becoming new with each day. Saftu’s formation testified to our constant newness.
The conditions are ideal. The fact that it already has 700 000 members on its very first day of life shows that the moment is calling it forth.
Saftu is a perfect development for the better. Our organisational life is renewing itself.
* Ndletyana is an associate professor of politics at the University of Johannesburg.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media