{"id":351,"date":"2012-10-07T21:16:14","date_gmt":"2012-10-07T21:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2012\/10\/07\/cosatu-congress-will-paper-over-the-cracks-terry-bell-2012\/"},"modified":"2012-10-07T21:16:14","modified_gmt":"2012-10-07T21:16:14","slug":"cosatu-congress-will-paper-over-the-cracks-terry-bell-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/2012\/10\/07\/cosatu-congress-will-paper-over-the-cracks-terry-bell-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"COSATU Congress Will Paper Over the Cracks – Terry Bell (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nApologies for the delay in sending this. It comes on the day the congress opened
\nwith unity revealed in non-contested nominations for national office bearers.
\nCOSATU CONGRESS WILL PAPER OVER THE CRACKS
\n(September 17, 2012)
\nAmid unprecedented media interest, Cosatu\u2019s eleventh national congress gets
\nunderway in Midrand on Monday. Many of the nearly 300 journalists, photographers
\nand members of camera crews accredited to attend the event are clearly expecting
\ndrama.
\nSuch expectations and interest are understandable, given the present turmoil in the
\nmining sector and the proximity of the ANC elective conference in Mangaung, let
\nalone the ongoing anti-union antics of former ANC Youth League leader Julius
\nMalema. Cosatu members, after all, often play prominent roles in ANC branches that
\nwill start their nomination processes for the ANC leadership before month end.
\nIt is also no secret that there are daggers drawn between different union leaderships
\non the basis of who supports and who opposes a second term for President Jacob
\nZuma. As such, the Cosatu gathering has been portrayed quite widely as a \u201cmini
\nMangaung\u201d.
\nBut the likelihood of such matters reaching the congress floor in any seriously
\nacrimonious sense are slim. Even slimmer is the much mooted chance of a challenge
\nbeing mounted against Cosatu general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi.
\nVavi has played the role of a serious critic and maverick from time to time, only to
\nconfound this by what has been described as politically schizophrenic expressions of
\nloyalty to the political status quo. But his apparently contradictory statements have
\nmerely been examples of the over-riding concept of unity at all costs that has for
\ndecades governed the broad church that is the ANC-led alliance.
\nThis approach has always meant that differences within the alliance, even on matters
\nof principle, should be resolved \u201cwithin the family\u201d, often by sweeping them under
\nthe carpet. It is a hangover from the clandestine organisation of the exile years when
\nthe sole object was the defeat of apartheid, a goal supported by elements of the
\npolitical Left, Right and Centre. As both a broad church and the major movement
\nopposed to apartheid the ANC also laid claim to be the only \u201ctrue representative of
\nthe South African people\u201d.
\nThis latter claim was never true, but it was also imported into the new dispensation,
\nwith claims that any who did not support the ANC or its alliance partners were not
\nonly mistaken, they were the enemy. If you are not for us, you are against us, was
\nand \u2014 to a surprisingly large degree \u2014 still is the attitude of many within the
\ngoverning alliance.
\nIt is this that has bred intolerance, arrogance and complacency at various levels and
\nhas helped to bring about much of the fragmentation and tension now tearing at the
\nfabric of the broad church. But unity for the trade union element of the alliance is
\nseen now as even more important than ever.
\nAs the almost daily protests and clashes around the country have shown, there is
\nconsiderable anger on the ground, the cause of it best summed up in two words:
\npoverty and joblessness. Marikana was merely the most bloody and tragic example
\nof what is happening from Khayalitsha to Kuruman and beyond.
\nThe desire to escape penury is the common motivation for the residents of the shack
\nfarms surrounding Marikana and other mines and the protestors who have thrown up
\nburning barricades across numerous streets around the country. They are the working
\nand workless poor who make up an unorganised army of the dispossessed, who
\nshould be the natural constituency of the labour movement.
\nThat the movement has lost touch with much of this constituency was highlighted by
\nthe ease with which Malema was able to exploit the anger, insecurity an frustration of
\nworking miners. As this has unfolded, there has also been a great deal of nonsense
\ntalked about wage levels, with former president F. W. de Klerk claiming that miners
\nearn in excess of R11 000 a month.
\nCosatu unions in particular were put on the back foot by such claims. And one of
\ntheir failings was not to adequately respond, even if only to point out that De Klerk\u2019s
\n\u201ccost to the company\u201d figure went well beyond wages and was an average that
\nincluded the many millions paid to executives and managers.
\nBelatedly there seems to be a realisation that the initial focus on attacking rival
\nunions was a mistake; that a united, coherent response to the bread and butter issues
\nthat affect both miners and other workers should have been the best way forward. It
\ncould have been stressed, for example, that while miners top the league for minimum
\npay agreements, their minimum, up to this year, was just R4 311 a month.
\nIn a country with a probably realistic unemployment rate of 40 per cent or more, the
\nnumber of dependents every worker supports also tends to be high. And all share the
\ncommon burden of the cost of food, transport, school fees and medical expenses.
\nSuch costs have generally exceeded wage rises, meaning that many workers have,
\neffectively, suffered pay cuts. Over the past three years a basic basket of groceries,
\nmeasured for several years by this column, has risen by 40 per cent. And this is
\nbefore the latest fuel price rises have fed through to the rest of the economy and
\nbefore the further increases in the prices of wheat and maize have fully been felt.
\nIt is this minimum or low-wage factor \u2014 and the poor living conditions and lack of
\namenities that flow from it \u2014 that provides fuel for the fires of rebellion and the
\ndemand for change.
\nTraditionally, disgruntled elements have turned to the major labour movement for
\nsupport. But it is clear that certainly the National Union of Mineworkers has lost
\ncredibility with a large part of its constituency \u2014 and the events that followed have
\nbeen a wake-up call for both NUM and Cosatu.
\nAs a result, the last thing Cosatu affiliates will want is a display of disunity at
\ncongress as they try, in fact, to get back to basics and rectify obvious shortcomings.
\nHowever, these are volatile times and a maverick element could always intrude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[61],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/global-labour.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}