Cosatu ‘sells out workers’

Support for Ramaphosa disgusting: Jim

FIREBRAND unionist Irvin Jim yesterday blasted Cosatu for throwing its weight behind Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC President Jacob Zuma’s successor.

Jim said this was not only tantamount to selling out workers, but “disgusting”.

His reaction follows Cosatu’s central executive committee (CEC) decision to back Ramaphosa for the top ANC position at its three-day meeting held earlier this week.

Making the announcement at a press conference on Thursday, Cosatu general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said they would lobby for Ramaphosa because they believed he would unify the deeply divided ANC.

But Jim, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) general secretary, said: “An ANC government led by Ramaphosa will be no better than the one led by Zuma.

“Numsa is disgusted that Cosatu’s CEC has endorsed Ramaphosa.”

Numsa has in the past pronounced that Ramaphosa was an enemy of the working class because “he has consistently attacked workers’ hard-won gains and defended the interests of the exploiting capitalist class”.

The union accused Ramaphosa of being behind the decision to set R3 500 as the minimum wage for workers.

“Numsa is not just angered by Cosatu’s sell-out support of the slavery minimum wage of R3 500 advanced by them and Ramaphosa, but by Cosatu’s flirting with Ramaphosa, debating whether to take away the rights of workers to strike which is enshrined in the constitution and still have the guts to want to make such a Thatcherite a future president of the country,” Jim said.

This comes a day after the ANC also criticised Cosatu’s decision to go public on its preference in the succession race.

ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa described Cosatu’s conduct as “ill discipline”.

Jim said Ramaphosa had consistently “attacked working class interests to benefit the capitalist class of which he has become a member”.

Last November, Forbes listed Ramaphosa among the top 50 richest people in Africa, with a net worth of $450-million (R6.4-billion).

This was after he sold his shares in investment firm Shanduka, when he became deputy president.

He also resigned as a director of several companies, including Lonmin.

“Worst of all, as Lonmin director he was directly implicated in the massacre of 34 Marikana workers who demanded a R12 500 living wage.

“By now announcing a national minimum wage of R3 500, he is spitting on the graves of those workers.”

Cosatu expelled Numsa as its affiliate in 2014 after the union resolved not to campaign for the ANC for the 2014 general elections, accusing the ruling party of working against workers.

Jim said the decision to back Ramaphosa was further proof that Cosatu has degenerated from the militant champion of workers it once was “to a tame adjunct of the ruling capitalist class”. — zineg@dispatch.co.za