The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is about to embark on its second fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe. The question is whether this mission will be a success or whether the group of about 20 delegates will be deported, as the first mission was in December last year.
The Mail & Guardian Online fired 10 questions at Patrick Craven, the editor of Cosatu’s magazine The Shopsteward. He had been acting spokesperson for the trade-union federation, until a new spokesperson was appointed recently.
Craven was born 62 years ago near Liverpool in Britain, and came to South Africa in 1992.
1. Will Cosatu ever be an independent political party, like the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe came from the trade union?
No, I don’t see that happening. It is a bit misleading to say that the MDC came from a trade union. Its leader [Morgan Tsvangirai] was the former trade-union leader, but it is not really a trade-union party.
This is reflected in its policies, about which we are not happy at all. The economic policies of the MDC are actually very right-wing, a sort of neo-liberal free market approach to the economy.
We do not support the MDC. We don’t support Zanu-PF either. In fact, we don’t take any position on Zimbabwean politics.
2. Your actions show something different, Cosatu is going to Zimbabwe on a second fact-finding mission. Does this not show that you do support Tsvangirai and the MDC?
I disagree; it is strange how propaganda of the Zimbabwean government can convince the media.
What the Zimbabwean government is saying about us being agents of [United States President George] Bush and [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair is just nonsense. There never was any political motive. We decided to send these missions because there are different views as to what is happening in Zimbabwe.
We do not adopt a policy on the basis of what we hear and read in the media, not even on what we hear from our people on the ground. These reports might very well be true. But what we see with our own eyes is far more powerful than the propaganda we get through the newsroom.
We want to get on the ground and assess the situation in order to make statements about the situation.
3. The last mission was deported. Did this lead to a different point of view to the situation in Zimbabwe?
It confirmed that Zimbabwe is dealing with some very serious problems. While we were there, the police invaded the offices of the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions, which is precisely the sort of intimidation which they told us about.
That is why we did not label that first mission a failure, because even in the short time we were there we discovered some of the realities of Zimbabwean society.
4. What would be the way forward for Zimbabwe, according to Cosatu?
Clearly, various laws will have to be repealed before we can possibly say there are conditions for free and fair elections.
Trade unions and NGOs will have to be able to operate in a normal manner. The restrictions on the press will have to be abandoned.
The laws which make it an offence to insult the president or the government will have to go. How on earth can you have an election campaign with a law like that? The whole purpose of an election campaign is to criticise the party you are opposing.
These are the most urgent things.
But also there is clearly a need for policies on the economic front. The trend is to focus on the political problems but there are huge economical problems; 80% unemployment, mass poverty, mass immigration into mainly South Africa and Botswana.
These problems have to be tackled urgently. This cannot be done when you have these huge divisions in society and a government that is more concerned with crushing opposition, any opposition, than it is with improving the lives of the people.
So the political situation in Zimbabwe has to change in order to tackle these economic issues?
Yes, we have argued that the best solution would be a government of all the parties, an emergency government for a short period. This clearly has not come off the ground. We do not consider the coming elections in Zimbabwe to be free and fair, so that demand will still stand.
5. What does Cosatu think of President Thabo Mbeki’s policy of quiet diplomacy?
We have never opposed the idea of quiet diplomacy. Diplomacy has its role to play in solving problems like these.
This policy does not contradict with what we are doing in a more open and public way.
It has been confirmed that in the long term the aim of the African National Congress and Cosatu is exactly the same. We want to see a democratic Zimbabwe in which the people of Zimbabwe play a decisive role, and we have always been clear on that.
Yes, but the way of achieving that goal seems very different
Yes, but they are complimentary. Diplomacy is very unlikely to be effective if there is no movement on the streets, in workplaces and among the people.
We are more concerned with promoting solidarity with the people who are struggling and with the trade unions in particular.
We believe that [solidarity] will put more pressure on the Zimbabwean government to reach a negotiated settlement than quiet diplomacy [will], which can go on for years and years without really changing anything.
6. Does Cosatu believe that the international community, bodies such as the Southern African Development Community and the African Union, should play a bigger role in Zimbabwe?
Up to a certain point. A solution to the problems in Zimbabwe should ultimately come from the people. Only the people can save Zimbabwe.
Of course, international pressure can be very important, but Zimbabwe should always be considered a sovereign state.
If George Bush decides that Zimbabwe is his next target, we would be absolutely, adamantly opposed to that and we would defend Zimbabwe’s rights to defend its independence.
I am not talking about an invasion. I am talking about more active and open involvement with the situation in Zimbabwe
Precisely because this diplomacy is quiet, one cannot say what is going on and what is said or how strong it is. I think we can only see with the results what effect this quiet diplomacy has.
If the government of Zimbabwe carries out undemocratic and unfair elections, then clearly that approach has failed and they then will have to rethink their policy.
7. Does the involvement of Cosatu with the situation in Zimbabwe mean that the organisation is extending its view internationally?
The emphasis of the media on Zimbabwe is a bit misleading because we sent delegations all over the world and the media normally ignore them completely. Our leaders attended the World Social Forum in Brazil and nobody reported on that.
And a bit closer to home, is Cosatu concerned about Lesotho and Swaziland?
Yes, in the case of Swaziland we have even taken a tougher stand than in the case of Zimbabwe.
It has not been necessary to send a fact-finding mission to Swaziland because the facts are on the table. Swaziland is clearly ruled by a monstrous dictator and we have organised demonstrations at the border and will continue to do so when asked by the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions.
In other countries, the problems are of course not of that nature, but nevertheless we will still send messages of solidarity anywhere in the world; Columbia, Myanmar, you name it.
8. There is a difference between the first and the second mission when it comes to the stance of the ANC. How does Cosatu see this?
Frankly, we never understood why the ANC was opposed to our first mission. Their main argument seemed to be that we broke certain rules of protocol, which we admitted we might have done.
We are not diplomats and we did not write the right kind of letter to the right kind of person, but that surely was a very secondary consideration.
We became particularly worried when a few articles appeared by members of the ANC Youth League, which seemed to suggest that the ANC had a very different position.
These statements hinted that they actually did not see a fundamental problem in Zimbabwe.
Clearly, that is not the position of the ANC. They are now much more open in omitting that there are some problems.
This time we did write the right letters to the appropriate government ministers. That seemed to have convinced the ANC that there was nothing wrong.
At [last week’s] alliance secretariat meeting, there was clear support for what we described as people-to-people contacts at all different levels.
9. Is it possible to be a trade union when you are part of an alliance with the ANC? Can you really stand up for workers’ rights when you are such close friends with the government?
Absolutely. If the government were to move any legislation which we felt was against the interest of the workers and which we felt would undermine their rights, we would be opposing it.
We believe that the tripartite alliance makes it a lot easier to persuade the government to change its policies than if we were completely separate.
What about Cosatu’s image? Is the alliance the source of an image of Cosatu being a puppet of the government?
We totally object to that. Anyone who studied the history of the past few years could not possibly argue that Cosatu is a puppet of the government.
We are in an alliance with the ANC and that alliance is a very important part of our history.
It has always been understood that it is an alliance of independent equal parties who have the right to adopt their own policies without reference to the other.
We are still totally committed to our alliance, because we feel in balance there still is far more to gain than to lose.
Any trade union, anywhere in the world, will have to make compromises. It would be absurd to think you can always win.
Is this image bothering Cosatu?
Not at all.
And are you trying to fight this image actively?
No, we are not interested in how people perceive us. We are concerned with what we are doing and we believe that our actions will justify themselves and people will see this.
10. Your membership has been declining. Why is that?
Yes, there has been a decline, but this can entirely be explained by the reduction in the number of jobs. There has been a huge rise in unemployment and it is inevitable that this will lead to a decline in members.
But we at Cosatu are very proud that the proportion of members lost is no bigger than the proportion of jobs that have been lost. Our influence in the employed workforce has not been dropping.
As part of the 20th anniversary of Cosatu, we are launching a recruitment campaign to make up for that, because in some cases the jobs have not been lost, they simply have been turned into informal jobs.
Will Cosatu actually be able to change the conditions pf workers in informal jobs, when the unemployment rate is so high that there will always be people who are willing to work under appalling conditions?
There is always that danger, and that is something we will have to confront. We believe if the workers feel that the union is strong enough, then they will join, because they will see the benefit.
These people have more to benefit than anybody else. Given that many of them are living on starvation wages, even to get the statuary minimum [wage] would be a huge improvement in their lives.
And they want more security. One of the worst aspects of the informal sector is that you never know if you will have a job tomorrow.
But would employers not just hire people who are not a member in order to avoid having to deal with the union?
But the stronger the union is, the harder it is for the employer to get away with that sort of behaviour. In particular with the amount of immigrants coming from Zimbabwe and Mozambique, that is always a potential threat.
The solution is not, as some would say, to throw these illegal workers out, but more to organise the places where they work and to make sure that they also enjoy the minimal standards. This will remove the possibility of the employer exploiting them.