Dinga Sikwebu on Numsa's Expulsion from Cosatu and Reasons for the Launch of the United Front

Has the giant fallen? The split within South Africa’s largest trade union federation, COSATU

Sakhela Buhlungu, Africa is a Country

Recent developments in the largest trade union movement in South Africa, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), have been nothing short of extraordinary and cataclysmic. It is now commonly accepted that the ‘giant’ whose arrival was so evocatively declared by (now South African Deputy President and then mineworkers’ union official) Cyril Ramaphosa in 1985 is on its knees. On top of that, all of its dirty linen is now on public display for all to see and scrutinize. The so-called expulsion of the National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA), one of its largest affiliates, was supposed to be a show trial aimed at asserting the authority of leaders allied to what has been until now the hegemonic ANC/SACP political current within the federation. But the significance of these events is much greater than was intended by those who staged the show trial. This has left many in a state of shock and sadness, with analysts and journalists scrambling for ways to explain the implications of the ‘expulsion’ of the federation’s largest and best resourced affiliate.

SACP helped push Numsa’s expulsion from Cosatu

Steven Friedman, Business Day

THERE was a time when the South African Communist Party (SACP) terrified supporters of a market economy. Today, it is more likely to frighten the left.

By expelling the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), the Congress of South African Trade Unions’s (Cosatu’s) central executive committee seems to have slapped the African National Congress (ANC) in the face: it ignored the appeal by its task team, led by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, for unity.

The rise and fall of Cosatu: From vanguard to sacrificial lamb

Jay Naidoo, The Daily Maverick

The Cosatu that Elijah Barayi led was answerable only to its members. It never flinched in the face of brutal repression from either the Apartheid state or the bosses. It was a fighting force of organised workers not just on the shop floor, but it militantly espoused the political aspirations in society. Still, it always connected back to the factory floor for its mandates and to report back. That independence, deep in its DNA, gave it the moral fiber and ferocious stamina to endure the battles it faced. Today, it’s a very different organisation.

Careerism is poisoning the lifeblood of Cosatu. Gone are the days when we were inspired by the passion for justice and human dignity. Volunteerism and discipline defined the struggles we fought. As a volunteer organiser in the late Seventies, I remember standing outside the factory gates or hostels from early morning till late at night discussing issues with exhausted workers coming off shifts.

Chris Vick speaks to Proffessor Suttner about the political effects of the Cosatu rupture

Declaration of the Numsa Special National Congress December 17 to 20, 2013

1. Introduction

Numsa's Special National Congress convened from December 17 to December 20, 2013. It was attended by 1,200 delegates representing 338,000 metalworkers from 50 Locals throughout the provinces of South Africa. Numsa was proud to announce in the Congress that it is the biggest union in the history of the African continent. In the last 17 months, since our 9th Congress in Durban, we have grown from 300,000 members to 338,000 members. We are ahead of schedule in our goal to organise 400,000 workers by the time of our 10th Congress in 2016.

How far the mighty Cosatu has fallen

By Sakhela Buhlungu, Sunday Independent

Johannesburg - ‘A giant is born!’ proclaimed Cyril Ramaphosa boldly as he opened the inaugural congress of Cosatu in December 1985. Fast-forward to the eve of the federation’s 28th birthday, and we are witnessing the same giant being reduced to a dwarf within a very short space of time.

How might we explain this cataclysmic turn of events for South Africa’s largest union body?

Conflict of Interest, Inc: Mining unions' leaders were representing their members while in corporations' pay

A Daily Maverick investigation has revealed a furtive conflict of interest, with mining houses footing the bill for top National Union of Mineworkers office bearers’ salaries. The hard-to-believe arrangement started in the late eighties as the means of protecting union leaders from the corporations, but it was retained over the years, creating a severe of conflict of interest. Unionists are being paid high salaries by the very people from whom they are supposed to protect their members. The 'arrangement' is just about to end, in spite of union leaders' unhappiness and an unpredictable labour and political backlash. By GREG MARINOVICH. The Daily Maverick

COSATU: a house divided

By Benjamin Fogel, Amandla!

COSATU is in the midst of the biggest crisis in its 27-year history. This crisis has arisen from an SACP-driven attempt to oust democratically elected COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, under the guise of corruption charges. The conflict's roots are in longstanding political contradictions and ideological tensions between COSATU and its Alliance partners – the ANC and the SACP. At stake is not only the leadership of COSATU, but its political and moral direction.

COSATU's history: coming full circle

Interview with Dirk Hartford, the first head of COSATU media and editor of COSATU News in the 1980's, about the implications of the current tensions in COSATU. Amandla!

Amandla!: What do you make of what is happening in COSATU now with the allegations against its General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi ?

DH: I think what we are seeing is a direct result of the decisive victory of the Zuma-SACP faction at the December ANC Congress in Mangaung. The SACP essentially triumphed at Mangaung, and now has more people in the ANC's NEC, government and Cabinet than ever before. They are on the offensive to take out any significant opposing voices in the Alliance. Julius Malema, the ANCYL NEC, and the Limpopo NEC are already history. Now they are coming for the biggest thorn in their sides, which has always been Vavi and the independent trade union or worker views that he reflects.

Unions: a need to get back to first principles

Terry Bell

by Terry Bell, Tery Bell Writes

On January 31, exactly 40 years ago, the modern trade union movement arrived on the South African scene. Its birth was heralded by a wave of strikes in Durban that had gestated over 22 days from the time 2 000 workers at Coronation Brick and Tile downed tools.

These strikes, that culminated in nearly 5 000 workers at three major plants declaring a dispute on that fateful day in 1973 were not only to demand better pay and shopfloor conditions; they also had a broad, anti-apartheid, political dimension. And, like the worker committees that emerged during the recent turmoil on the platinum belt, they had no fixed leadership or bureaucracy.

Workers' Power Thrives On Unity

Steven Friedman

Steven Friedman, RU Perspectives

The Durban strikes of 1973 empowered workers and helped destroy apartheid.

This month 40 years ago, South Africa learned an important truth which shaped our future - that people without power can challenge those who have it, but only if they act together.

The lesson was taught by the Durban strikes of 1973; they began a process which shifted power to working people and played an important role in defeating apartheid.

Notes from a Farmworkers' Strike

by Ben Fogel, Mahala

Politics is not only about the exploits of big men (and the occassional woman); it’s not only about Zuma vs Motlanthe or Malema vs Zille and the rest of this sorry, but entertaining coterie that our political class consists of. Politics begins with people being able to talk and organise in their own communities or workplaces, it begins with ordinary men and women, rather than the latest Manguang related shenanigans.

Western Cape winelands: The strike's over, nothing's solved

December the 4th marked the short-lived resumption of the Western Cape farmworkers’ uprising, after a 10-day break for negotiations which have seemingly come to nothing. Workers across the Boland went back on strike, but only for day, as it appears the strike has been called off by all “stakeholders”. Yet it is clear that it was COSATU's Western Cape branch, chaired by Tony Ehrenreich, that called off the strike without receiving a mandate from most stakeholders or the workers themselves. 

By BENJAMIN FOGEL, The Daily Maverick

The second round of the strike has been a disaster - a major display of weakness that could potentially set back the farmworkers' struggle for years. Disempowering the emergent political agency that has resulted from the unified action of farmworkers, wage negotiations are now to be conducted by unions on a farm-by-farm basis, while also including the unrealistic temptation of a profit-sharing scheme.

Zwelinzima Vavi Address

Cape winelands: Why the farmworkers defied Cosatu

Driving through the Hex River Valley after Wednesday’s chaotic protests feels like entering a ghost town. Yet when one manages to find residents and speak to them, it becomes crystal clear that the farm workers are planning to hold out for their wage demands – and that few of them know anything of the well-publicised promises that they would be back at work this week. By JARED SACKS, The Daily Maverick

Entering the Hex River Valley on Thursday morning was a surreal experience. Following Cosatu's well publicised statement on Wednesday, I had expected that most farmworkers would already be in the fields trying to recuperate their lost wages over the past two weeks.

The Farm Workers' Strike: It's Far From Over

by Anna Majavu, SACSIS

The mines and the farms are two enduring symbols of old white colonial theft, of the minerals and land. Because of the monopoly of the National Union of Mineworkers, whose leaders and officials have long preferred compromise and co-determination over worker control, it has been difficult for mineworkers to strike – until the Marikana massacre.

Ighsaan Schroeder on the COSATU Conference

Zwelinzima Vavi`s input to the Daily Dispatch/Fort Hare Dialogues, 5 September 2012

Thank you very much to the Daily Dispatch and University of Fort Hare for inviting me to speak at this dialogue.

It is a particular honour to be able, for the second time this year, to join my comrade of so many years, Emma Mashinini, one of the living legends of our revolutionary workers' movement, and to have the opportunity once again to urge everyone to read her excellent book - Strikes have followed me all my Life.

Let me also greet Richard Pithouse, one of our most progressive academics who has never shied away from confronting some of the harsh realities of capitalism in South Africa.

An open letter to Cosatu

By Jay Naidoo, The Daily Maverick

To my colleagues at Cosatu,

I have no authority to tell you what you must do, I know. But my conscience as one of your founding leaders begs me to reflect on the state of our country and nation. 

The Marikana massacre is a deadly body blow to the democratic social fabric, and it leaves my heart heavy with sadness. The weight of the disappointment is staggering as I think back to my political initiation as a teenager, listening to the powerful political narrative of Steve Biko. “We have nothing to lose but our chains.” He presented a bold, courageous and impossible vision of a free South Africa. We were inspired as a generation to stand up and be counted irrespective of the cost.