Cosatu ended its four-day central committee meeting on Thursday with a declaration that avoided talk of “new tendencies” and “demagogues” and a failure to agree on burning issues such as succession within the ANC and what to do about socio-economic policies.
What was expected to be a heated plenary session to decide the labour federation’s position on whether ANC leaders in government were doing their jobs was deferred to Cosatu’s central executive committee due to meet behind closed doors later this month.
Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi on Thursday night denied the reason for this was that the federation was divided.
“We insist we are united as an organisation, but we are not an organisation that does not have a debate. There will always be discussions between unions,” Vavi said.
These discussions were to continue up until Cosatu holds its elective congress next year, “but it doesn’t signal in any way that Cosatu is not at one”, he said.
Vavi said the document that had emerged from the political commission on Wednesday could not be discussed in plenary as it was “badly written” and “did not reflect the rich discussions in the commission”. Independent Newspapers understands that these were quite heated.
The document broadly outlines a Cosatu battle plan to counter the ANC Youth League’s declared attempt to usurp Cosatu’s role as the “vanguard of the working class”, and to kick off talks about the succession.
ANC national working committee member Siphiwe Nyanda, during the plenary, slammed Cosatu for “contradictions” in the report, which called on alliance members to put a lid on premature ANC succession talk, while also attacking the “new tendency” gaining ground within the organisation ahead of the ANC’s elective congress in Mangaung in December next year .
Referring to this “new tendency” was in effect also talk about succession, Nyanda told delegates.
Fellow ANC leader Tony Yengeni raised concerns that the ANC would be excluded from discussions about Cosatu’s political direction if the talks took place in a closed central executive committee meeting. He was assured that the party would be invited.
Sources present at the political commission that sat on Wednesday, and which was the best-attended of all the commissions, said Cosatu affiliates were divided over whether the national democratic revolution -– shorthand in the alliance for eradicating poverty, unemployment and inequality – was on track or not.
Some argued it was on track, because the government had put in place programmes to address these problems, while others said the fact these problems persisted was proof that the revolution had lost its way.
The commission also discussed the language Vavi had used in his secretariat report – when he referred to malign “tendencies”.
“Some reckoned this tendency of labelling people with tendencies was a problem,” one delegate said.
Cosatu has used the “new tendency” label to refer to ANCYL leader Julius Malema and ANC leaders forming a “predatory elite” who are more interested in lining their own pockets than improving conditions for all.
Cosatu has also adopted the SACP’s label of “right-wing demagogues” to describe Malema and his allies.
In the declaration adopted on Thursday afternoon and presented as the “sum total” of its discussions, there was no reference to any of these labels.
Discussions about vexing socio-economic issues such as the expropriation of land, the nationalisation of mines and the government’s economic plan, the New Growth Path, were also deferred.
The labour federation did adopt a resolution on its living wage campaign, threatening mass action if its demands for higher wages for low-paid workers were not met.
Unions are set to start with wage bargaining in the coming weeks. – Political Bureau