Willie Madisha has urged ordinary Cosatu members to reclaim the union federation from “dictators” – a reference to its top leadership.
Madisha also blamed his fate on “political imbeciles” who could not spell their own names but were quick to call him a counter-revolutionary.
Already sacked as Cosatu president and SACP central committee member, he was addressing the media in Johannesburg after losing his last influential political position, as president of the teachers’ union Sadtu.
His expulsion from Sadtu brought to a close a single-minded campaign by his enemies in the tripartite alliance which started when they unsuccessfully put up a relatively unknown candidate from the Eastern Cape to topple him as Cosatu president two years ago.
He finally handed his foes the ammunition they needed shortly before the ANC’s Polokwane conference when he told women in Mokopane, Limpopo: “Some even rise and say ‘I am right… I will rape and there will be Aids (and) I will shower’.”
Speaking during the 16 days of activism against women and child abuse, he urged the women not to vote for leaders who behave immorally, adding that those who sleep with women because they wear miniskirts are not fit to lead. He later denied that he was referring to ANC president Jacob Zuma.
He also appeared on Thabo Mbeki’s list for the ANC’s national executive committee. This was used to support the charge that he had flouted the Cosatu position to
support Zuma. Madisha must now give up the flat, car, cellphone and a R2 500 grocery stipend provided by Sadtu.
He is likely to return to Zebediela in Limpopo, where he was a school principal before his rise up union ranks, “to spend time with my children for the first time in 13 years, since I moved to Johannesburg as Sadtu president”.
He said that he had helped build Sadtu from 66 000 to 285 000 members, as well as turning down opportunities to become an MP. At this week’s media conference Madisha cut a lonely figure, joking that he had hitchhiked to the press conference.
Sadtu had found him guilty of speaking to the media about a disputed R500 000 donation he claimed to have handed to SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande, of disobeying a union resolution to support Jacob Zuma and of refusing to hand over a Sadtu vehicle.
Madisha has vowed to fight the disciplinary ruling at the Equality Court. Speaking to the Mail & Guardian, he called on Cosatu members to reclaim the union
federation.
“It is high time that workers know the trade union is theirs. They formed the unions and they pay each month for the union to survive. They should be dictating what happens.”
The current “dictatorship” in Cosatu is dangerous for workers, he said, in a clear tilt at his arch-enemy, secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi.
He said the Sadtu leadership had been given a mandate to finish him off and had delivered on it. Referring to his Mokopane speech, he said he was happy that he had not been dismissed for lying, but for telling the truth in public. He said that unlike some politicians who claim to be victims of political plots he could produce evidence of a conspiracy against him. His troubles in Cosatu had started after he exposed Vavi’s misuse of union credit cards.
But he insisted he was not spent as a political force and was prepared to work from branch level upwards as a member of the ANC, SACP
and Sadtu.