Cosatu warns of 'bumpy ride'

2008-11-27 20:06

The Congress of SA Trade Unions warned on Thursday of the potential for violence and disruption in the short term amid attempts by an ANC breakaway group to form a new union federation.

"The [Central Executive Committee] agreed that they will never succeed in breaking up our unity and creating an alternative federation, that we should be concerned [about] the potential for violence and disruption in the long term," its president Sdumo Dlamini said in a media briefing in Johannesburg.

His deputy general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said many people were grumpy "one way or another and are trying to settle scores."

He said the union body felt betrayed and embarrassed by its former president Willie Madisha, who began working with Cope after a succession of sackings stripped him of top posts in Cosatu, the SA Communist Party and the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu).

He fell out of favour when he expressed support for former president Thabo Mbeki over Jacob Zuma for the presidency of the ruling ANC, which was out of step with a Cosatu resolution.

"Madisha wants to form a labour federation forgetting you need many unions," Dlamini said.

"He does not have one, because definitely he is not going to take Sadtu into that thing," he added.

He said workers had lost money and jobs defending people like Madisha, former SACP treasurer Phillip Dexter and civic organisation leader Moses Mayekiso when they were doing good things for workers, but they would not support them now.

"Those comrades have actually embarrassed us. Workers trusted those comrades."

Workers would have died for former Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa, also a former Cosatu president, who resigned as premier and an ANC member after Mbeki was recalled by the ANC.

"I would die for that man," said Cosatu deputy general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali. But, he felt that Shilowa had changed his lifestyle after being appointed premier of Gauteng, even shunning the red socks he wore as a badge of support for the SA Communist Party.

The union body believed Cope was trying to undermine the "national democratic revolution" and is producing a booklet which will "unpack the class agenda and the class forces" behind what it regards are efforts to weaken the ANC.

It accused the media of open bias towards Cope, saying it had dedicated a day's coverage to their convention in October and rushed off to cover every announcement of new members.

At the press conference, devoid of the pro-Zuma statements that characterised many briefings over the last year, it also explained why people never spoke out at ANC meetings when they felt former chairman and Cope co-founder Terror Lekota was being autocratic.

They said Lekota had told Arbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and "our icon" Nelson Mandela to shut up.

Even though there were other senior ANC officials present, if they had objections they had to note them with Lekota himself.

- SAPA