Boksburg - Cosatu president Sidumo Dlamini has pleaded for a “ceasefire” between union affiliates to give the ANC's plan to help the troubled trade union federation a chance to work.
“Cease fire. Stop projecting Cosatu in negative terms. Stop the booing of your leadership, talk to one another. Talk to the comrade you've not been talking to for months... and ask them to coffee,” he told a National Union of Mineworkers shop stewards' council in Boksburg, on the east Rand, on Friday.
“If you have been insulting the ANC in public, go back... and say the ANC is helpful.”
Dlamini echoed similar sentiments expressed by African National Congress deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa that bad talk needed to stop for the Congress of SA Trade Unions to be helped by the ANC.
Ramaphosa earlier said the ANC felt pain because of the trouble at Cosatu and had decided to intervene to help prevent it splitting.
Ramaphosa said the ANC asked Cosatu to postpone its CEC to allow for a ruling party intervention to help bring unity and integrity back to Cosatu.
The ANC would within 30 days engage different unions affiliated to Cosatu to bring about peace.
Dlamini asked workers to give the intervention a chance.
“Give this process a chance. You have been at war with each other for the past eight months. Wait another 29 days... do this for Cosatu.”
He warned that it would be a painful but necessary process.
Cosatu, he said, would not tolerate any leader talking badly.
“Nobody should tamper with this decision. Some of us make a mistake by talking negatively,” said Dlamini.
“As Cosatu, we won't tolerate any leader that talks negatively because if you do so, you create doubt about the process.”
He said it was time to make a decision.
“We are indeed at a moment where we need to make a choice between life and death, and we choose life.”
Sapa