Cosatu’s battle lines drawn

Published Mar 2, 2015

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Lebogang Seale

Political Bureau

THE ramifications of a Cosatu split down the middle are due to be felt by its leadership ranks today when the labour federation holds its central executive committee meeting.

Almost half of Cosatu’s 19 affiliates said they would boycott today’s eagerly awaited central executive (CEC) meeting in a show of unity against the expulsion of metalworkers union Numsa.

The disgruntled unions held a joint media briefing yesterday to announce their boycott of the CEC meeting. They were unambiguous in their demands: no Cosatu without Numsa – an indication that the federation’s president, S’dumo Dlamini, and other senior leaders can expect to find the boardroom half-empty when they assemble today.

Siphiwo Atwel Nazo, the Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) president, said: “If it is that Numsa was expelled because of poaching (members from sister unions)… then we are all guilty. If now Numsa is expelled for poaching, why not expel everybody?”

The group of eight unions said it would be pointless to attend the CEC meeting in the current climate of conflict and divisions.

They appealed for the meeting to be postponed to allow the ANC’s task team to mediate. Concerted efforts to broker a truce by the task team have not borne fruit.

“We’re saying that without the task team completing its work (first), the continuation of the CEC will defeat the purpose,” said Fawu general secretary Khatishi Masemola.

He suggested that the disgruntled unions might have lost patience with the ANC’s task team, led by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“The reason why we are even making a plea for the CEC not to continue is that the ANC task team was supposed to have assembled us on Friday and Saturday. And because of their availability, they actually requested a postponement of a meeting that was to be attended by all the affiliates,” said Masemola.

In clear defiance of Cosatu, the eight unions also announced that they had taken it upon themselves to mobilise workers and communities around “pickets, marches and stayaways” that would culminate in “rolling mass action” in May. This, the unions said, was to protest against Cosatu’s failure to implement crucial resolutions taken at its 11th congress in 2012 in the face of unemployment, exploitation and poverty.

Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said: “We have resolved that we are not going to wait for a paralysis in Cosatu. In fact, we are going to beat Cosatu in the streets.

“Workers have not mandated us, as affiliates of Cosatu, to be beating each other in the boardrooms since the (2012) congress. So, we are sick and tired of meetings after meetings without programmes.”

He reiterated his accusation that Dlamini and SACP general secretary and Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande were behind Cosatu’s divisions.

Contacted for comment, Dlamini would only say “people must come to the CEC and stop marching to Cosatu”.

In addition to Fawu and the CWU, other unions backing Numsa are the SA Catering Commercial and Allied Workers Union, Democratic Nursing Organisation, SA Football Players Union, SA State and Allied Workers Union, and Public and Allied Workers of SA.

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