Teachers affiliated with the Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) on Wednesday discussed keeping the tripartite alliance strong, a boycott of Israeli products and class issues around access to quality education.
Speakers at the national congress of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union in Midrand included union president Willie Madisha, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota.
The two union leaders, who have reportedly been at odds, also expressed their support for axed former deputy president Jacob Zuma in his coming corruption trial.
Madisha, who is also president of Cosatu, said divisions in the alliance — a product of the Zuma saga — had sown permanent seeds of hatred and suspicions within the trade-union movement.
He said these suspicions ”border on hatred, on a quest to physically harm, intention to morally injure”.
Lekota, speaking in place of President Thabo Mbeki, said frank debates were part of African National Congress culture, rather than a cause for division.
He encouraged delegates to engage in this way during the congress, which lasts until Saturday.
Lekota also said teachers have the responsibility of turning pupils into national assets while under their care.
While he agreed that they should fight for decent conditions, Lekota urged them to remember that ”at the end of each month, the nation will meet its monthly contract and pay me”.
Madisha said access to education in South Africa is increasingly becoming a class issue.
He said neo-liberal policies had led to the ”marketisation of education”, private-public partnerships in education as well as cuts and constraints in education budgets.
”In many respects education is becoming a commodity rather than being a right to all.”
Madisha added that while he and Vavi had disagreements, it is not true that the two were at ”war”.
”For the record, though this is the umpteenth time, there is no war between the president and the general secretary [Vavi] of our federation,” he said.
Madisha also called on South Africa to boycott Israel.
”I promised [the late Palestinian Liberation Organisation leader] Yasser Arafat three weeks before he died that we would mobilise the working class of the world to deal with this,” he said. — Sapa