Johannesburg - Metalworkers union Numsa’s bid to be reinstated into Cosatu is over, a senior leader of the country’s largest union said.
However, he told Independent Media this week the matter would be up for final discussion at Numsa’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting later this month.
“Numsa’s NEC from July 23-25 shall conclude but we must be at the end of the road,” he said.
The unions that have supported Numsa’s attempts to get back into Cosatu after it was expelled last year for “poaching” members from the federation’s other affiliates, will hold joint NECs to determine the way forward.
Although these unions were unsuccessful in getting the expulsions of Numsa and former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi onto the agenda at Cosatu’s special national congress earlier this week, it is understood many of them do not want Numsa to give up its fight to be reinstated. They want the union and Vavi to appeal their expulsion at Cosatu’s ordinary national congress in November.
“My advice to Numsa is that they and Vavi must appeal at an ordinary congress because in a secret ballot they are likely to win their reinstatement into Cosatu,” Food and Allied Workers Union general secretary Katishi Masemola said.
“If you look at the eight unions and their membership we don’t have the numbers, but at lowest levels and structures of the unions on the other side, I am confident we can win.”
He said a post-mortem of the special congress would begin tomorrow and would include joint NECs of the unions with their national office bearers.
As Numsa supporters were defeated this week, Masemola maintained that this was not done fairly.
“If the voting was by secret ballot, we know we could have won at the votes (because) the unions on the other side of the current divide are not solid in terms of what their leaders are saying,” he said.
“Sizeable chunks of delegates in the SA Transport and Allied Workers Union, National Education Health and Allied Workers Union and some in the SA Democratic Teachers Union were going to vote with us but only in a secret ballot. We know the majority of the National Union of Mineworkers was going to vote with us in a secret ballot. Personally, I think in the ordinary congress we are likely to win, so there we will use a secret ballot.”
He said dissidents in unions that were anti-Vavi and Numsa had approached his faction since the special congress.
“They were clear that we made sense in terms of the debates. Second, even the (leaders) who were forced to make a ruling on issues of credentials – that’s an indication of the state of panic on their part.
“There was supposed to be a vote on how the vote should happen, so on that Tyotyo James (Cosatu first deputy president) made the ruling. For a congress it’s unheard of that voting happens by a show of hands.
“It is equal to block voting because those members of Nehawu, Sadtu, Satawu could not be seen with us for fear of reprisal and victimisation. That’s why we were beaten. The special national congress did not achieve its purpose. It has actually heightened divisions,” Masemola said.
Meanwhile, a document to be circulated to the dissident unions analysing Cosatu’s special national congress argues there was a “continuous attempt to pervert its actual purpose”.
“There were disputes about the timing, cost, agenda items, notice period, constitutional purpose and much more before it took place. It took almost two years to materialise,” it reads.
“By the time it did materialise, Zwelinzima Vavi and Numsa had been dismissed, thus ensuring a clear majority for the leadership faction. There is also substantial personal evidence to indicate some union leadership ‘screened’ their delegations to weed out dissent. This had not happened before on such a grand scale.”
The document says the special congress’s agenda was “deliberately designed to be unmanageable and to force the contested business on to the last day and consign it to history in practice”.
“There was also a dispute affecting the agenda, as the nine (unions) wanted the appeals of (Vavi) and Numsa to be included and heard. This was rejected by the majority even though it meant future appeals would be compromised because of what appeared in the main document.
“The insistence of not agreeing to a secret ballot affected outcomes, maybe not to the extent we would have liked, but given the pre-congress intimidation it was hardly surprising that delegates did not feel safe challenging their own leaderships.”
It says the biggest failure of the congress was its inability to address the unity crisis in Cosatu.
Further tension in unions like the NUM, Satawu, Nehawu and Sadtu would be exacerbated and purges, dismissals and inactivity would be business as usual.
“The militarisation of congress security was another negative feature and created a siege mentality, along with press exclusion… Every effort to try and inject alternative views was treated hysterically, including the existence of a booklet giving our view of the crisis, and the final statement we issued on the congress,” it said.
Labour Bureau