The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is actively considering boiling down its 21 industrial affiliates into four ”super-unions”.
The plan, to be debated at Cosatu’s central executive committee meeting next week, is partly prompted by the ongoing membership bloodbath caused by retrenchments. The federation has lost more than 130 000 members in the past four years.
The idea is also to bolster Cosatu’s weak affiliates, such those for communications and farm workers, respond to changes in the workforce and labour practices, and reduce duplication.
Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven confirmed the merger plan.
The proposal envisages the formation of four wider-ranging affiliates, for manufacturing; public service and administration; mining, construction and energy; and services.
Unions that would be merged in the public sector — the largest of the proposed super-bodies, with potentially 500 000 members — include the municipal union, Samwu; the teachers’ union, Sadtu; the police and prisons union, Popcru; the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) and unions for nurses and doctors.
Cosatu’s organising secretary, Mncedisi Nontsele, said ”sub-sector unions”, focusing on education and training, health, criminal justice and infrastructure, would be formed in the public sector.
The Communication Workers Union and the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union would merge under the infrastructure rubric, which would mainly involve parastatals. It would also absorb Eskom workers organised into Cosatu’s existing metal and mining affiliates.
The manufacturing super-union would merge the food workers’ union, Fawu; the clothing and textile workers’ union, Sactu; elements of the shopworkers’ union, Saccawu; the farm workers’ union, Saapawu; the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union (Ceppwawu); and much of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa).
Under mining, construction and energy, the National Union of Mineworkers would merge with elements of Ceppwawu.
The services sector union would absorb elements of the shopworkers’ union, Saccawu; the financial workers’ union, Sasbo; and unions for the performing arts, the music business and sports people.
Union leaders expressed mixed feelings about the plan. Said Numsa’s secretary general, Silumko Nondwangu: ”The principle [of the merger] is fine, but how to achieve it is another issue. To what extent does the merger contribute to economies of scale? This notion that something big is good is not necessarily correct.”
Nondwangu said it is important not to ”create a disjuncture between the current affiliates or undermine workers’ control and democracy”.
”What should be happening is that unions will merge because of a connection between their sectors,” he said. ”Processes have been under way, particularly around public, retail, food, commercial and farming, but these projects were not about super-unions. They are about the inability of small unions to survive on their own.”
Fikile Majola, Nehawu’s secretary general, said: ”If the federation is to become effective, we need to look at the role of the organisation after 1994. We need sophisticated unions that will be relevant to the changes happening in the country.”
Sadtu secretary general Thulas Nxesi said consolidating unions is a long-standing project of Cosatu. ”But the issue of super-unions has not yet been discussed.”
Samwu secretary general Roger Ronnie said that building maximum worker unity in the defence and advancement of worker interests is the key principle.
”If this is best achieved through the creation of four unions, we cannot have a problem with the concept.”
Labour analyst Duncan Innes warned that the proposed mergers might be difficult to achieve, however sensible they might be in theory.
”From a union perspective, it makes sense to have four super-unions. But mergers can create problems about who is going to control the union and get the top leadership position. This often leads to competition and tension within unions as well as to breakaways by disaffected groups.”