The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is to forge links with left-wing social movements in a move to reverse its waning influence in the tripartite alliance and to revitalise South Africa’s left.
At Cosatu’s Conference to Celebrate 10 Years of Democracy, at Gallagher Estate last weekend, the federation adopted an unprecedented resolution to work with the country’s burgeoning social movements to rescue the “fragmentation and attrition” of the left.
The African National Congress has been hostile to the social movements, regarding them as ultra-left organisations out to undermine the government, and Cosatu has in previous years tried to distance itself from this nascent force.
Cosatu’s eighth congress in 2003 decided that cooperation would be sought with the movements, “where there was a common political project” — in effect, very limited cooperation.
This week’s resolution is significantly different, in that Cosatu acknowledges the need to work with social movements as autonomous groups to bolster the labour movement.
Underpinning the resolution is an acceptance that the federation’s relationship with the ANC has weakened its mass-based muscle.
Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told the conference the federation had forwarded 230 pro-poor policy proposals to the government since 1994. In general, they had been ignored.
“[The reality is that] the government defines policies subject to ANC approval, and then the alliance mobilises to support them, rather than the alliance setting strategic parameters for state action,” Vavi said.
The resolution calls on Cosatu activists and leader “to engage in open discussion forums with different social movements [and] left intellectuals rather than shying away behind our historical relationships or position”.
Conference papers argued that, with growing unemployment in South Africa, trade unions were stagnating and social movements had a closer relationship with the growing informal economy.
Miriam Altman, of the Human Sciences Research Council, said the formal economy was absorbing between 20% and 30% of the 500 000 to 600 000 people entering the labour market each year. This had pushed the number of those living below the poverty line to more than 50%.
“The significance of social movements located in the community is their potential to re-socialise this crisis by building social solidarity around it and influencing state and public policy,” wrote Eddie Webster and Sakhela Buhlungu, sociology lecturers at Wits University, in a conference paper. “For such a counter-movement to truly be effective it should link struggles about workplace restructuring to campaigns about social crisis in communities — in other words uniting the trade union movement and social movements.”
Buhlungu told the Mail & Guardian that the resolution at the conference, “although subtle”, was significant because “it means that there is a meeting of minds beginning and the beginning of a conversion”.
Cosatu is already allied with the Treatment Action Campaign, while the People’s Budget Campaign is based on a coalition of Cosatu, the South African National NGO Coalition and the South African Council of Churches.
Buhlungu and Webster said unions were increasingly facing a “crisis of representation as they lose their capacity to provide a voice for the growing numbers of working poor”.
“In the absence of formal sector jobs, communities and households are being forced to explore alternative livelihood strategies.”
The conference also made it clear that Cosatu saw alliances with social movements as being necessary to influence government policy.
Cosatu president Willie Madisha said the resolution was “not really” a result of strained relations between Cosatu and the ANC. “We have come up with the resolution to make sure that we work together to influence policy.”
Ashwin Desai, a social movement activist in KwaZulu-Natal, said that while trade unions and social movements had different tactics and organisational identities, the two sides had realised the value of “participating in community structures to build mass-based civic formations”.
The conference resolution said it was not enough to celebrate the government’s increased social expenditure or moderately expansionary fiscal policy stance. “We must also focus on where these resources are spent and its socio-economic outcomes. Trade unions, left-wing parties and social movements must work together … and go beyond their historically dogmatic positions.”