Cosatu split looms after ANC snub BALDWIN NDABA

A MAJOR split is looming in Cosatu following the trade union federation’s decision to dump the ANC ahead of the country’s general election in 2024.

Cosatu’s biggest affiliate, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), with more than 275 000 members, was at the centre of the call.

The move was backed by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), South African Municipal Workers Union and the Police Prisons and Civil Rights Union.

They collectively forced Cosatu’s 14th national congress held this week to vote on the motion. Out of 1 854 delegates at the conference, fewer than 800 voted on the motion.

A total of 543 voted in favour of ditching the ANC in 2024, while 194 wanted such a decision to be placed on suspension until all Cosatu’s union had ample time to discuss it. However, they failed.

The move against the ANC unfolded on Monday when scores of Cosatu members belonging to the four major unions barred the ruling party’s national chairperson, Gwede Mantashe, from delivering a message of support to the congress.

The delegates heckled the mineral resources minister for two days in a row until he left the congress venue at the Gallagher Convention Centre.

Ironically, SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila was welcomed jubilantly and delegates ululated when he supported the workers’ protest against Mantashe.

“Workers must not be nice to the government if it reneges on its bargaining agreement. It is actually disrespectful,” he said, in the presence of Mantashe and other ANC leaders.

Adding fuel to the fire, Mapaila also announced, to the applause of delegates, that the SACP would make a decision on whether to contest the election on its own in December.

His comments evidently irked Mantashe, who said: “The SACP served us with divorce papers in public. They should have served us with the papers and to allow us to react directly to their papers.”

After Mapaila’s address, Mantashe ruled out any partnership between the ANC and SACP in the 2024 elections. “We won’t be working together. We will be fishing from the same pond.”

He also admitted that if SACP went ahead with its threat, it would shrink the support base of both parties ahead of the 2024 polls.

Tensions at the congress grew when the four major unions pushed the gathering to vote on the motion to dump the ANC while the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) and others wanted more time for their members to deliberate on it.

Cosatu’s top leadership managed to convince the general secretaries of the 18 affiliate unions to put a hold on the motion, but that was rejected and the matter put to the vote on Thursday.

It was at that point that unions such as Sadtu, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa and other smaller unions walked out and failed to cast their votes, which resulted in the low turnout.

Speaking to Independent Media prior to the walkout, Sadtu general secretary Mugwena Maluleke said his union didn’t have a mandate to discuss the motion.

“We had robust discussions as an organisation but as Sadtu we are beginning to see a Cosatu that is going to rupture. We are beginning to see a positional attitude instead of an engagement and convincing or persuading one another.

“We are saying as Sadtu that we have a congress decision of supporting the ANC. So if the SACP takes a decision to contest, we will be compelled as an organisation to call a special congress of Sadtu that will then take a firm decision on that matter.”

Sadtu is expected to meet for its national general council from Tuesday to Thursday next week and the issue of Cosatu’s decision on the ANC will likely feature high on the agenda. The congress is expected to be addressed by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

On Thursday, in a dramatic sign of change in loyalty to the ANC, re-elected Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi warned the ANC government it should immediately implement the 2018 bargaining council wage agreement which it had reneged on. This is a major source of Cosatu unions’ anger and their decision to defy the ANC.

“We cannot normalise a 44% unemployment rate, rising levels of poverty and inequality. We will no longer tolerate municipal workers being sent home unpaid.

“We will not accept the retrenchments of postal workers. We will wage relentless battles in defence of workers’ hard-won labour rights and collective bargaining.

“No employer, be it government, SOEs or the private sector, will be allowed to undermine collective bargaining without facing the wrath of workers, our affiliates and Cosatu. Let this warning be heard loud and clear.

“We will not accept the abuse of any worker. They are not the slaves of any employer,” Losi said.

Her closing remarks were different from her opening statement at the congress on Monday, in which she urged Cosatu unions to rally behind the ANC government in the 2024 elections to avoid a DA-led coalition government.

She said a DA coalition government would undermine the interests of workers, but the outcome of the congress and its decision on the motion on the ANC changed her position.