Cosatu+will+have+to+make+friends,+win+influence,+Terreblanche,+Sindy

Sunday Independent, June 18, 2006 //Edition 1//
=Cosatu will have to make friends and win influence=


 * Christelle Terreblanche**

Trade union federation Cosatu has finally come to terms with the fact that finding friends outside of the tripartite alliance is crucial if it is going to influence the ANC government.

It will need broader civil society and working-class support whether it stays within the alliance or opts for the more provocative possibility among five scenarios for discussion it sketched this week - that of forming a workers' party with the help of the SA Communist Party.

Analysts agreed this week that the forming of alliances with civil society and social movement groups is an essential component of the three more likely options Cosatu has set out, but differed on whether this would be viable, given the mixed success Cosatu has had so far building such alliances in its Jobs and Poverty campaign.

All agreed however that the spectre raised of an independent workers' party was mainly posturing and "pulling at the apron strings" because most of its members were still too loyal to the ANC to allow for an independent challenge to power. The discussion document, "Possibilities for fundamental change", released ahead of Cosatu's September congress, states again frankly that the federation has been sidelined in the alliance and that its efforts in line with a 2003 plan - to step up unification of the working class to strengthen its position and ability to influence policy - were faltering. Indications were that there were wide differences within Cosatu on the options and the process by which it was arrived at.

Since the release, Cosatu's leadership has made it clear that no final decision is likely to be taken at the congress and that it is largely in favour of strengthening the federation's position to influence the ANC from within the alliance.

That means that the most likely options among the five scenarios are to drive the 2003 plan, called the 2015 programme, to build working-class power more vigorously to 4 million workers for a broad church of transformation; or that of forcing down a pact in the alliance to influence and direct a fully fledged developmental agenda from within.

The last option could entail that "the working class also begin to contest power in the manner that the SACP is beginning to propose" - that of contesting some elections on its own, but staying within the broad alliance.

Other more unlikely scenarios are that of "no change" within a "marginalised alliance", which restricts unions' role to mobilisation during elections; or a disintegration of the alliance, with Cosatu and the SACP splitting along ideological lines with some retaining loyalty to "personalities in the ANC".

The favoured options all imply that Cosatu builds alliances outside of the tripartite scenario.

Outlining option four, entailing a walk-out of the alliance and calling on the SACP to contest political power or start a new working-class party, the discussion document states clearly that it would mean "uniting labour, the SACP, social movements, civil society formations and the leftwing political formations committed to radical transformation and socialism" to challenge the ANC directly.

Richard Pithouse, a political analyst, said he believed it was "fantasy" for Cosatu to think that it could offer a left alternative, although there was "a definite possibility" of building closer relationships between Cosatu and the social movements, with overtures increasingly being made from both the SACP and unions.

Pithouse, who is involved with one of the largest social movements in the country, eThikwini's Shack Dwellers' Association, said there were already wide overlaps between its 20 000 members and the alliance partners, although curiously most retained a large degree of loyalty to the ANC.

"If there is to be a break in the alliance, obviously there will be some support from people in mass-based civil society formations and they will have to make an arrangement to work together," he said.

Idasa analyst Steven Friedman was more sceptical about Cosatu forming successful mass power alliances outside the tripartite alliance, which he said would mean co-operation and "finding good fits".

Friedman cautioned that a number of attempts to find such fits had faltered and that most of the social movements had "a very different culture" to that of the unions that could make effective co-operation difficult.

A good fit is however Cosatu's growing co-operation with the Treatment Action Campaign and its successful working relationships with other civil society organisations such as the Basic Income Grant Coalition and People's Budget Campaign.

In some provinces, such as the Western Cape, Cosatu's Jobs and Poverty campaign is fostering viable ties with civil society and social movement groups, resulting in, for example, a landmark moratorium on evictions from farms in Stellenbosch reached this week.

Scenario two, to step up the 2015 building of working-class solidarity through a membership of 3 to 4 million workers, implies superseding or amalgamating with other union federations.

The discussion document is frank about Cosatu's recent failures to effectively reach out to them while all three of the rival federations are in fact set to merge into a super-federation in October, with membership likely to equal Cosatu's dwindling mass base due to casualisation in the workplace and lack of effective recruitment.

Veteran political commentator Harald Pakendorf warned that Cosatu represented no more than half of all organised workers and that the Jacob Zuma saga showed it did not even speak with one voice.

"They should therefore be very afraid to cut all links with the ANC and to confront it antagonistically," he said, adding that the SACP itself did not have real support on the ground.

"If a workers' party does exceptionally well, it could get about 25 percent of the vote, said Pakendorf.

"This still leaves the ANC with 45 percent and it would be easy for it to form coalitions with the smaller opposition parties and even the Democratic Alliance."

It is also reliably understood that another option was being considered beyond the five scenarios.

The sixth possibility would see Cosatu and the SACP building their own coalition, to form a government of national unity with the ANC, which they believe would give them more leeway to influence the ruling party.


 * From: http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3297738**

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