Cosatu+plans+to+take+control+from+ANC,+Karima+Brown,+Weekender

Business Day Weekender, Johannesburg, 2007/04/28 12:00:00 AM
=Cosatu plans to take control from ANC=

//Cosatu members asked to identify ruling party leaders who will serve the cause of the workers//

The trade union federation is pushing for a high-level meeting with senior ANC leaders to discuss suggestions on economic transformation in the party’s draft policy proposals, writes **KARIMA BROWN**. Cosatu says it will judge them by the degree to which they promise real improvements in the lives of the majority

THE Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has unveiled an ambitious battle plan to keep the ruling party pro-poor after a special extended meeting of its central executive committee in Johannesburg last week.

Key tripartite alliance figures including African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe, deputy general secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) Jeremy Cronin and Deputy Finance Minister Jabu Moleketi addressed the Cosatu pow-wow.

The labour federation, who is in an alliance with the ruling party, is keen to capture greater control and wield more influence in the ANC following labour’s marginalisation under President Thabo Mbeki’s tenure. Cosatu is on record with its unhappiness about the ANC’s perceived bias towards business.

The ANC’s policy conference in June and its elective conference in December will be fiercely contested as Cosatu weighs in on debates around political and economic policy and the change of guard in the ANC’s top brass.

Significantly Cosatu has also departed from its traditional approach of staying out of the ANC’s succession dogfight, with labour leaders now calling on Cosatu’s 1,3-million members to “identify” ANC leaders who will “serve” the cause of workers and the poor as potential candidates to be elected to the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC).

Cosatu leaders are determined to “engage on all fronts” in an effort to tilt the ANC towards what it says is the party’s core constituency — the working class. Cosatu’s plan also includes calling for set quotas which will allow the federation’s members to be represented on the ANC’s NEC.

In order to arm Cosatu members who are also members of the ANC’s grassroots structures, the federation is to release a set of documents critiquing the ANC’s 13 draft policy proposals. “This will enable our shop stewards to engage in robust debate and influence policy positions within the ANC,” Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said.

In addition, Cosatu leaders have also called for a high-level bilateral meeting with the ANC’s senior leadership to discuss their “concerns” over economic transformation suggestions contained in the ANC’s draft policy proposals and the ANC’s draft strategy and tactics document.

“We are taking very seriously the task of engaging robustly with the ANC draft policy documents. The special central executive committee meeting was a third major forum where Cosatu has debated these documents. Cosatu intends to use the chance provided by the ANC's policy and national conferences to campaign for policies that will advance the interests of the workers and the poor.

“We will judge the ANC's 13 draft policy documents by the degree to which they promise real improvements in the lives of the majority, and how well they advance the demands of the Freedom Charter and SA’s national democratic revolution,” Vavi said.

He said it was public knowledge that Cosatu was not happy with the course of economic transformation in the country.

Unions have taken to the streets protesting against job losses and poverty since 1999, when Cosatu held the first general strike since the advent of democracy.

“We have concluded that most of the benefits from economic transformation went to business and not labour in the first decade of freedom,” Cosatu said in a statement. “Unemployment is stubbornly at about 40%, poverty continues to dehumanise about half of our population, inequalities have increased and workers’ wages have stagnated, leading to the apartheid wage gap increasing. Casualisation of labour is on the rise, with the more secure, better-paying jobs being replaced by insecure and poor-paying jobs.”

Explaining the rationale behind Cosatu’s call for quotas, Vavi said the measure, first floated by ANC policy tzar Joel Netshitenzhe, will ensure labour’s presence at the highest levels of decision-making in the ANC.

“The idea with the quotas is to ensure that these Cosatu leaders will be accountable to the labour movement. In fact, what we are suggesting is that if they should find themselves disagreeing with the rest of the ANC on critical issues, they should abstain from making decisions.

“We will also retain the right to recall them if we are not happy with how they serve our interests,” Vavi said.

The quota proposal should also be extended to ANC provincial, regional and branch structures of the ANC, Vavi said.

Cosatu’s push to meet the ANC in a bilateral meeting before the June policy conference came about because of “serious concern” within Cosatu ranks over the direction of ANC draft policy documents. Vavi said Cosatu wanted to alert the ANC to the “difficulties” the labour movement would face in the event that the status quo was retained.

“If there is no change, we will be pushed into a corner, especially considering our last congress decisions, where our members told us clearly that the alliance cannot go on in the same old way. We also remain uneasy over the current economic trajectory,” Vavi said.

Cosatu’s decision to weigh in on the ANC succession debate has also raised questions about its continued support for ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma as he battles Mbeki in the leadership race.

“Zuma’s name will come up — he has been a friend to workers and his style allows the alliance to gel better,” Vavi said.

He was responding to questions over whether Cosatu had ditched Zuma in the ANC’s presidential succession race. The labour federation has never formally taken a position to endorse Zuma’s bid to replace Mbeki; however, as the ANC’s conference draws closer, Cosatu will have to discuss endorsing individuals.

“The discussion is now open. We have called on people to identify ANC leaders who are supportive of the working class, and we will lobby for them within ANC structures,” Vavi said.

However, the left’s attempt to get its candidates elected to ANC leadership structures has not been without difficulties. At the ANC’s last elective conference, in Stellenbosch in 2002, former National Union of Mineworkers secretary-general Gwede Mantashe failed to get elected to the ANC’s NEC, suggesting that Cosatu will face an uphill battle to get sympathetic candidates elected in December.

Cosatu, which has been a strident critic of Mbeki’s presidency, has again raised what it calls “threats to democracy” in a discussion paper outlining Cosatu’s approach to the ANC’s leadership battle. Cosatu warned of the dangers arising from the “rich having an unfair advantage over the less resourced”.

With only eight months to go before the ANC charts a new course under a new leadership, Cosatu has its work cut out.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=2667568**

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