This union business

One of the unintended consequences of SA’s labour-friendly legislative environment is a worker movement constantly at war

Cosatu’s special national congress last week introduced an intriguing “is the glass half-full or halfempty” kind of dilemma. On the one hand, ousted general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi’s ostensible aim was to get axed affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA, reinstated (not to mention himself). He didn’t come close.

But it’s unlikely he honestly thought this was a realistic possibility. The more difficult question is this: did the congress demonstrate a level of disenchantment with the existing Cosatu leadership compatible with the creation of a rival union movement? That’s a real poser, but very importantly, I understand in Vavi’s mind the answer is “yes”.

What is happening within Cosatu now is really a set of epoch-making events that could define trade unionism in SA for the foreseeable future. At the centre of these events is the pivotal stand-off between Vavi, desperate to create the momentum to found a new federation, and Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini, desperate to hold the existing movement together.

But the sand is shifting fast under their feet. In SA’s sluggish economy and worsening business environment, employers are much less able to satisfy union demands.

Second, the state is obviously having problems with its staff bill, closing off a vital avenue of numerical growth for the unions. And third, the business environment for unionism is changing fast as the economy shifts from manufacturing and mining to the services sectors.

All this is visible in the numbers. According to the Institute of Race Relations’ 2014/2015 survey, total union membership has risen a smidgeon over the past few years to about 3,7m people, but this is still way below its 2002 peak. As a proportion of the total workforce, unionisation is 15 percentage points lower than its high point in the late 1990s. It’s been roughly static for a decade. These numbers would look much worse were it not for the doubling of state and parastatal employees over the past decade.

When you look at the list of so-called Dlamini-aligned unions, it’s crucial to note that apart from the National Union of Mineworkers, most of the other big unions organise in the state sector.

Our story on this topic goes further into the matter (see page 32), but the main point is that many of the so-called renegade unions — about a third of the total — now have a difficult decision to make. They might not have supported Vavi’s ejection, but this is a different matter from actually breaking away. Unions tend to club together for protection and strength. Breaking away would be a momentous decision. And it would part leaders from established unionowned investment trusts and political patronage: the stuff that makes unionism in SA so weird.

But Vavi did not walk away empty-handed. There was sufficient argument within Cosatu at the congress to suggest to Vavi that it is worth proceeding with the effort to create a rival federation. He does at least have the huge Numsa on his side. His first test of strength will be a proposed anti-corruption rally, probably followed by a general workers’ rally to set the wheels in motion.

He is probably hoping for a total membership of around 500 000, about a quarter the size of the current Cosatu.

A question remains: is this all the result of a personal spat that, weirdly, went totally nuclear? Or is there something more fundamental at work?

I would argue the latter, partly for the reasons I mentioned earlier, with one addition. And this falls deep into the “unintended consequences” box.

By creating a legislative environment with agency shop and closed shop and no strike votes and so on, the ANC has turned unionism into a highly profitable business enterprise — one in which the winner takes all. South Africans generally have no idea how personally lucrative it is to be a union leader. So it really is all worth fighting for.