Johannesburg -
Cosatu leaders have threatened to bypass the leaders of rebel unions, which are boycotting the federation’s highest structures, and engage directly with the members of those affiliates.
This was because some of those unions had defied the mandates from their own national executive committees, which had told them to participate in Cosatu’s central executive committee (CEC).
The comments come as the federation ended a three-day special CEC meeting this week, to finalise preparations for its special national congress scheduled for July.
The number of unions boycotting the all-important meetings has been reduced to three: the Food and Allied Workers Union, the SA Catering Commercial and Allied Workers Union and the SA Football Players Union.
Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini said some of these unions were not holding national executive committee (NEC) meetings and therefore did not have a mandate to boycott CEC meetings.
“We know very well that in a number of (these unions) some are not even holding their NECs, so where do they get the mandate from to boycott? But you see them sitting in press conferences convened by other people and taking positions that their unions will not go to the CEC,” Dlamini said.
“But there are those who have the mandates from their NECs who said go back to Cosatu and argue. They say no… but the joint NEC of the other unions said we must not.”
Cosatu’s second deputy president, Zingiswa Losi, said members of the “renegade” unions were disadvantaged by their leaders’ decision to boycott, because they only found out about the resolutions taken at CEC meetings from the media.
This prevented members from engaging on the resolutions, Losi said. “We have called on our members now. A union is not leaders – it is members,” she pointed out.
Cosatu acting general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said the boycott was “baseless” and called on members to plead with their leaders to return to the CEC. The special CEC, he said, was “to achieve unity by all means but not at all cost”.
The Star