The crisis in Cosatu ,“ how should we respond?

Cosatu’s biggest union, Numsa with 340,000 members, has been expelled from the federation. Half of Cosatu’s affiliates have allied themselves with Numsa and are operating outside Cosatu’s fold. But does the crisis in Cosatu matter? Does it make any difference to class struggle in defending and promoting working class interests?

The crisis in Cosatu has been roughly 25 years in the making and has largely been political in nature.

Here I am referring to the politics and political orientation that the trade union leadership adopted after the defeat of the 1987 mine workers’ strike which coincides with the ANC/SACP’s shift towards a negotiated settlement with the apartheid regime and white monopoly capital (the big companies at the time like Anglo American, Rembrandt, Barlow Rand and Sanlam).

Today, we see the consequences of this politics. Workers and the working class have been devastated by the impact of neo-liberalism ushered in as early as 1996 by the ANC government that brought in privatisation/commercialisation, retrenchments of millions of workers and high unemployment, high cost user fees for basic services like electricity, water, education and public transport, outsourcing, sub-contracting labour brokering, casualisation of workers, leading to the lowering income levels and divisions among workers and the working class.

At the same time the trade union leaders, members and most working class people shifted to the right politically in that they abandoned their own organisations and power as the means to bring about change and instead placed all their hopes on the black middle class leaders of the ANC to ensure “A Better Life for All”.

And so the orientation of Cosatu from a fighting union federation directed by workers control rapidly fades. More and more trade unionists rely on the new labour laws and institutions for resolving disputes and conflicts with the bosses. The bigger social and economic policy questions are not the terrain anymore of trade union members but are left up to union leaders and experts to deal with at Nedlac jointly with the big bosses and government at Nedlac. Most Cosatu trade unions have started their own investment companies away from the control of union structures and free to play the profit-driven capitalist market game.

The political battle within Cosatu and the broader working class is far from over and will rage on for a long time. It is a battle that we must take seriously and fully participate in. Most of us on the Left support Numsa’s resolutions adopted at the special congress in December 2013, including the promotion of an alternative socialist party.

However, there are serious weaknesses within Numsa and its tactical approach.

First, Numsa and Zwelinzima Vavi have not broken away from the fundamental politics of the ANC and SACP.

Second, their approach to the political battle within Cosatu has been bureaucratic, allowing the fights to be confined to the Cosatu central executive committee and the mainstream media with very little rank and file participation. Ordinary union members of all Cosatu unions have not fully participated in the political debates that divide Cosatu, let alone given their mandates on decisions made.

We need to address these weaknesses and push for the fullest possible participation of ordinary union members of ALL unions. THEY need to collectively decide on the future of Cosatu.

We need to intervene in a way that supports and facilitates the empowering of rank and file union members. This must be guided by a maximum UNITY orientation towards Cosatu and not a seemingly easy option of creating new alternative pure unions.

It is currently wage bargaining season. The entire public sector is in dispute with the ANC government which is refusing to budge on improving its meagre 5% wage increase offer.

The workers affected by the government’s refusal and intransigence belong to unions like Nehawu, Sadtu, Samwu and Popcru who are most committed to the Alliance and unwavering in their support for the ANC. They dominate the Cosatu central executive. Surely this contradiction must be exploited? Numsa and the eight unions should all as part of the United Front champion the Living Wage Campaign adopted at Cosatu’s 2012 Congress and reach out to the members of the public sector unions at grassroots level – at workplaces, in communities.

We must have a revolutionary approach to addressing the crisis in Cosatu – to fully involve the rank and file members in taking control and solving all problems confronting the federation.

As Leon Trotsky once remarked – “The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historic events. In ordinary times the state, be it monarchical or democratic, elevates itself above the nation, and history is made by specialists in that line of business – kings, ministers, bureaucrats, parliamentarians, journalists. But at those crucial moments when the old order becomes no longer endurable to the masses, they break over the barriers excluding them from the political arena, sweep aside their traditional representatives, and create by their own interference the initial groundwork for a new regime.”

Perhaps it is this that all our middle class trade union leaders fear?

Jansen is director of Workers’ World Media Productions. This is an extract from an address at the May Day Festival at Community House on April 25. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. No inference should be made on whether these reflect the editorial position of GroundUp.