Cosatu: More heads to roll?

At least three other senior leaders from major Cosatu affiliates face the axe in what is widely seen as a move by the federation’s leaders to purge elements considered supporters of President Thabo Mbeki.

This week Cosatu’s central executive committee (CEC) decided to axe Willie Madisha as Cosatu president for ‘bringing the federation into disrepute”. Madisha was on Thabo Mbeki’s national executive committee list before the ANC’s Polokwane conference and has criticised Jacob Zuma’s ‘immoral leadership”. He is expected to be replaced by Zuma-hardliner Sdumo Dlamini, who is currently the first deputy president of Cosatu.

The Mail & Guardian has learned that other senior unionists are also in the firing line, as pro-Zuma Cosatu leaders led by general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi move to clear out unreliable elements in advance of next year’s general election.

They include Numsa general secretary Silumko Nondwangu, and Welile Nolingo and Pasco Dyani, respectively the general secretary and president of Cosatu’s chemical industry affiliate.

The three were among a group of senior Cosatu leaders who lobbied for the retention of Mbeki as ANC president before the Polokwane conference last year.

The CEC also warned the Cosatu chairperson in Gauteng, Siphiwe Mgcina, that he and his provincial office bearers, seen as Mbeki supporters, will face disciplinary action if they show any sign of disrespect for collective decisions.

At its CEC, Cosatu leaders resolved to bring disciplinary action against Nondwangu for agreeing to be on the Mbeki NEC list in defiance of the federation’s formal endorsement of Zuma.

Ultimately, neither Nondwangu nor Madisha made it to the ANC national executive.

Cosatu has not formally decided to act against Nolingo and Dyani. However, the M&G understands that Zuma supporters in the federation are investigating ways and means of moving against them.

The decision to fire Madisha followed the report of a commission of inquiry, headed by veteran mediator Charles Nupen, which found that Madisha had brought Cosatu into disrepute by publicly affirming that he handed a R500 000 cash donation to SACP leader Blade Nzimande. The alleged disappearance of the money is the subject of a police investigation.

The question of whether Madisha did give Nzimande the R500 000 was not part of the inquiry’s terms of reference, which were set by Cosatu’s leadership.

Madisha could not be contacted this week, but his supporters believe the terms of reference, centring on his statements to the media, were crafted for a pre-determined outcome.

Madisha’s differences with other Cosatu leaders on Zuma are widely seen as central to his dismissal. His opposition to Zuma seems to have been based mainly on his view that the ANC president does not speak for workers or their interests.

There were several attempts to have him axed before and after the federation’s national congress last year. Days before the Cosatu Central Committee meeting (CC) last September, which formally endorsed Zuma for the ANC presidency, the SACP released a statement dismissing his version of the R500 000 debacle.

There were subsequent attempts to have the matter raised at the CC.

Zuma severely embarrassed his union backers last week by suggesting to the Financial Mail that the deregulation of South Africa’s labour market might be necessary. Cosatu slammed moves towards deregulation by President Thabo Mbeki’s government.

Zuma’s previous meeting with representatives of the international investment community, in which he gave assurances there would be no radical departures in economic policy if he became president, were also an embarrassment.

In an interview after Cosatu’s central executive committee meeting on Thursday, Vavi told the M&G that Cosatu would continue backing Zuma but would be more forthright in future when it disagreed with him on economic matters.

He said the CEC had reprimanded the federation’s leaders for not speaking out about past statements and actions by the ANC president which it found unacceptable.

‘We have never presented Zuma as a socialist who will lead a socialist revolution or a messiah with a magic wand,” Vavi said. ‘But we are comfortable with his leadership style; he is humble and accessible.

‘We represent the workers’ interests and he represents [the ANC’s] broad church, and we accept that from time to time our policies will not be the same. What we like is that we can call him and talk to him.”

Vavi said Cosatu had no regrets about supporting Zuma at the Polokwane conference, which did not represent ‘the end of the struggle”.

The federation had raised with Zuma his comments to the Financial Mail and ‘he explained that he made them in a rural context”.

However, the flexibility of the labour regime remained ‘an absolutely non-negotiable” principle for Cosatu, as it would lead to exploitation of workers.

Vavi said that the CEC had agreed Cosatu should be ‘more vigilant in interpreting the Polokwane resolutions. When Zuma says things, Cosatu and its allies must be the first to say: ‘Where did he get that from? That’s not what Polokwane said’.”

He said Cosatu had made a mistake by not coming down hard enough on ANC leaders since the Polokwane conference.

‘From now forward Cosatu must act on the understanding that the current epoch is of high contestation and move to ensure that the new leadership is backed through and through. When it makes mistakes and statements that have the potential to reverse the gains of Polokwane, Cosatu must speak out. We must not drop our guard. The best assurance for Cosatu is not the undertakings by leaders but concrete programmes with clear implementation strategies, monitoring and evaluation.”

Vavi confirmed that Cosatu wants to bolster its voice at the highest decision-making body by asking for Cosatu leaders to become ex-officio members of the national executive committee (NEC). Vavi declined nomination to the NEC at Polokwane.

Vavi also said Cosatu did not support Zuma’s suggestion that a pact between labour and business was needed. ‘We want a pact with the ANC,” he said. ‘ The ANC’s neutrality must come to an end; there must be an agreement between the governing party and its core constituency.”

Asked about the future of Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, Vavi was not enthusiastic about him, despite Zuma telling the world he had ‘full confidence” in Manuel. For Vavi Manuel’s Budget speech ‘was in the file already; the budget was business as usual; it reflects the medium-term expenditure framework”.

He hinted at Manuel’s role after 2009. ‘Anyone who says that he wants to interpret policy conservatively in order to maintain the status quo of slow progress in addressing poverty and unemployment must go.”

Vavi said the federation supported Zuma’s ‘assurances to capital that the skies will not fall after next year; there will be no lawlessness, craziness and populism.

‘But he must also assure the workers and the poor; they must be assured more.”