Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
‘Comrades’used union as a stepladder into higher office
PATRICK CRAVEN, Cosatu’s national spokesman for nearly a decade, recounts the past five years of the powerful labour federation, leading up to the expulsion of Numsa and Zwelinzima Vavi, in
THE ANC task team speaks, Central Executive committee meetings, April – May 2014. For the next few weeks attention switched to the (2014) election campaign, with the ANC’s usual plethora of task teams, war rooms, programmes and plans, and even more talk about all of these. But compared to previous elections there seemed to be relatively little action, especially since the largest affiliate was sticking to its decision not to participate.
Suddenly, however, things took a dramatic new turn, when Zwelinzima Vavi’s appeal against his suspension was heard at the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg. On April 4, 2014 Deputy Judge President Phineas Mojapelo declared the suspension of the Cosatu general -secretary to be invalid.
I sat in the packed courtroom as the judge read out his quite short but absolutely clear verdict, that while Cosatu’s Central Executive Committee had the right to suspend Vavi, it had failed to comply with the conditions laid down in Cosatu’s constitution.
Vavi and his supporters high-fived and cheered, but I tried to hide my delight, knowing that I would have to walk out of court and solemnly tell the media that Cosatu respected the court’s decision and would now have to discuss its next steps.
The unions that had brought the case to court, Numsa and Safpu, issued a statement welcoming the judgment, “which has vindicated our longstanding belief that the suspension was politically engineered to undo the democratic choice of worker delegates who in the September 2012 11th Cosatu National Congress democratically elected Comrade Vavi despite attempts to have him removed”.
“The return to office of the Cosatu general secretary signifies and confirms our commitment to a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, workercontrolled, independent, militant, revolutionary and anti-imperialist Cosatu that is capable of acting in the best interest of its members and the working class to attack and defeat the crises of poverty, unemployment, inequality and unbridled corruption in our class divided society…” the statement continued.
“While we are relieved that this costly but avoidable court battle is over, we hope the Cosatu leadership will have the political and organisational discipline to respect the decision of the court and abide by it fully.
“The judgment offers those who have hitherto been pursuing a destructive agenda an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to unity of Cosatu.”
A special meeting of the Central Executive Committee was called for April 8, 2014 at Cosatu House. We normally allowed the media into the meeting room before the meetings got started, to get photos and TV shots (although no sound recording was permitted). Normally it was just a handful who took advantage of this, but on that day the numbers quadrupled. Every media outlet needed their picture of Vavi back at the top table, and he did not let them down.
The meeting itself took a very strange turn. The ANC task team, led by ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa and deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte, which had been set up back in September 2013, arrived at Cosatu House to give a report. They were ushered into an anteroom and Sidumo Dlamini informed the meeting that the ANC comrades were there waiting.
“But they are not on the agenda,” complained NUM. “They cannot be an official part of the meeting.”
A debate ensued, as normal, on the acceptance of the credentials of the delegates present, and on the agenda, including the status of the Cosatu second deputy president.
Fawu pleaded “let the movement (the ANC) speak”; Satawu urged the meeting “not to embarrass the ANC during the election campaign”; and Vavi said, “These are abnormal circumstances; let’s not get bogged down on credentials; let the ANC (national office bearers) come in, see what they say and try to find solutions.”
But it was over two hours before the meeting finally agreed to adjourn the special meeting of the Central Executive Committee, and allow the ANC leaders to come in and speak.
Ramaphosa addressed the gathering. Just before the election, he said, it was important for Cosatu to remain intact. He proposed a “ceasefire”, which would require everyone involved to stop doing anything that could work against attempts to reach a settlement that would preserve the unity of the federation. He urged that the meeting of the Central Executive Committee be postponed for 14 days to give time for all parties to reach an agreement that would preserve the federation’s integrity and unity. Meanwhile the ceasefire should put a stop to any deeds or talk that could militate against the quest for unity.
The discussion that followed was sympathetic to the proposal although it left many unanswered questions, the biggest and most obvious being from Sasawu: what will happen if there is no compliance with the ceasefire?
I was also sceptical as to whether the ceasefire would hold, given the tone of debates at recent meetings of the Central Executive Committee, but it was good news for me in one respect: it gave me the perfect way to resolve the problem of how to deal with affiliates’ statements which were in my view factional or even defamatory, so I had a watertight reason for not forwarding them to the media.
There was some debate over time frames, but ultimately the two-week postponement was agreed to.
The country’s fifth national general elections on May 7 saw the departure of several of the key players in the Cosatu drama when they were elected to Parliament or provincial assemblies.
This made little difference to the balance of forces within the federation as these comrades were soon replaced on the Central Executive Committee by others who took the same view. It did, however, raise questions as to the link between the many Cosatu leaders who appeared to be using the federation as a stepladder to a career in government, and how this affected their views on the stance Cosatu should take towards government and the ruling party.
I believe this using Cosatu as a stepping stone is one of the key reasons why some of those who had now left for parliamentary office had been the most vociferous and vehement opponents of Vavi and Numsa, and had attacked “anti-majoritarian” views and a too-confrontational attitude towards government.
Were they motivated by ideological principles or were some of them protecting their career paths?