Cosatu and the ANC have put aside their differences for now, and plan to meet to resolve tensions
Glenda Daniels and Jaspreet Kindra
In a clear move to ratchet down tensions in the tripartite alliance, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is to delay its planned “people’s summit” on the economy until it has formally met the ruling African National Congress.
The Mail & Guardian reported recently that Cosatu planned a summit of all civil society interests to explore alternatives to government’s growth, employment and redistribution (Gear) policy. The ANC would merely be invited to this as one participant.
This heightened ANC fears that Cosatu was mobilising an anti-government political front, along the lines of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change.
After its three-day central executive committee meeting in Kempton Park this week Cosatu decided to hold the “people’s summit” only after a full alliance indaba.
The ANC has committed itself to meeting in April next year but Cosatu said it wanted the encounter to take place in January. Said Cosatu president Willy Madisha: “We want that alliance summit now.”
The central executive committee decided to work towards a summit that would formuate, with all of civil society, new approaches to development but in the context of the alliance programme of action. “The people’s summit must lay a firm foundation for an economic summit to develop national consensus on development,” said Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
ANC leaders would not say whether the party would attend the people’s summit. Said Northern Province Premier and national executive committee member Ngoako Ramatlhodi: “It would not be correct for anyone to state whether they will be participating.” A clearer picture would emerge on the ANC’s participation after the alliance meeting.
The alliance, under pressure after Cosatu’s anti-privatisation strike, was the hottest topic at the central executive committee meeting.
There were strong expressions of grievance over the recent “briefing notes” of the ANC’s national executive committee, which targeted “ultra-leftists” in the labour movement. In its discussion documents Cosatu says the interpretation of alliance disagreements in the executive committee document “seems designed to foster a split that would effectively transform the ANC itself into a right-of-centre political party”.
However, there was no suggestion that the alliance should be disbanded. The dual theme that the alliance should continue but in changed form was summed up by clothing union boss Ebrahim Patel who said: “There is a genuine sense that the alliance belongs to us all. The meeting showed strong unhappiness with the briefing notes and being labelled ultra-leftist, but what has emerged in all unions is a recommitment to the alliance.
“But we are all saying we need more than a sentimental club, we need an alliance that produces. We have to use it to focus the government on issues of tariff reduction, health care, job creation, affordable housing and education.”
In a conciliatory move, numerous ANC top dogs made appearances at the central executive committee. These included Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa, Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana and Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni. They were allowed to participate but not vote.
Some ANC leaders were outspoken in their criticism of Cosatu. Ramatlhodi said he hoped a “cooling of tempers” would now begin, adding that within the ANC there was the view that Cosatu had vilified the party in recent months. “It is not quite correct that one side is throwing stones stones are coming from everywhere. The manner in which the debate was manifested in public has not helped the alliance.”
Cosatu said in its political resolutions that recent alliance debates reflected a “disturbing tendency to use political labels in an attempt to suppress debate”, and that the ANC briefing notes suggested a “fundamental misunderstanding of Cosatu’s concerns about national development policies”.
The federation highlighted as problematic “specific government policies that were never discussed within the alliance”. Vavi said: “Attempts to impose strategic shifts in policy without prior discussion run counter to the culture of democracy.”
Reaffirming that it had no ambitions to form a political party, Cosatu said it wanted to push the alliance into an “open and constructive debate on national development policies”.
Madisha went further. “Workers were saying that there must be more respect for partners within the alliance, that there is no one supreme partner.”
Central executive committee documents highlight the continued hiatus between Cosatu’s economic perspective and that of government.
Statements in the central executive committee documents ask whether the shift from the “socialist” Reconstruction and Development Programme to the “neo-liberal” Gear was a “mere tactical retreat, as claimed by the ANC, or a fundamental strategic shift”.
“We also need to ask if this policy change was objectively necessary or reflected exaggerated fears about the response of capital to more vigorous economic intervention. Is a radical, developmental national democratic revolution that seeks to curtail the power of capital and direct investment in order to create jobs and meet basic needs problematic because it lays the building blocks for socialism? Is it somehow ‘irresponsible’ because of the perceived fragility of the transition and the need to pacify capital?”
Statements in the central executive committee documents say government ministries responsible for existing policies are unwilling to admit failure. “That makes it difficult to discuss vigorous new measures to address the economic and social crisis.”
The greatest risk facing the national democratic revolution is “the gradual de-politicisation of the masses and the growing gap between government leadership and their constituency at all levels”.
By contrast, the discussions on the planned partnership between the ANC and the New National Party were uncontroversial. Cosatu pledged to cooperate with the NNP, arguing that an agreement on principles could bring benefits for the coloured and African working class. However, it said the party was on the brink of collapse and had repeatedly formed opportunistic alliances in post-aparthed South Africa to prolong its lifespan.
Other themes of the central executive committee meeting were:
A call for a proper assessment of worker investment companies, with transport union boss Randall Howard saying that such companies had to be more accountable and in tune with the unions’ philosophical outlook.
An emergency resolution calling for a moratorium on the closure of historically disadvantaged higher education institutions, particularly Unitra, until the alliance summit.
The injection of more state money into the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, so that its services were not “privatised”.