Johannesburg - Cosatu is calling for calm between the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and the SACP following a public spat between the two on whether the party had failed in its “revolutionary duty” to workers.
Cosatu national spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said on Wednesday that the CWU and the SACP needed to show restraint.
“This exchange of verbal hand grenades and savage invectives will only serve to embolden and also give comfort to our enemies,” Cosatu, which is affiliated to both the CWU and the SACP said in a statement.
CWU general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala told the media on Monday that the SACP had not acted as a “vanguard of the working class”.
“It has focused rather on being a populist and a commentary organisation guilty of not applying in depth scientific analyses regarding matters of the workers in South Africa.”
The SACP retaliated the next day saying the attack was “unprincipled, unwarranted and simply shocking to say the least''.
SACP Gauteng provincial secretary Jacob Mamabolo said: “Whilst we do not seek to engage our alliance partners, especially worker leaders in the media, this venomous and slanderous attack seems to bear great resemblance and to fit neatly into the current and existing scheme of factional gangs and networks in our movement.”
Pamla said Cosatu would speedily facilitate a meeting between two parties to help them resolve their issues “before they get out of hand”.
“We take exception to any suggestion or intimation that seeks to portray the leadership of CWU as dishonest or unprincipled, and we view that as an unmerited attack that can potentially weaken the union in the face of its members.
“There is no place in our revolutionary culture that allows for the trading of insults or that permits that our unions may be insulted with impunity,” he said.
@heidigiokos
Labour Bureau