Choice of a woman to lead Cosatu overdue

THE UNCONTESTED nomination of Zingiswa Losi to become the first female president of the country’s largest trade union federation, Cosatu, since its formation in 1985 was a significant moment on several fronts.

Losi’s ascendancy reaffirmed an obvious historical fact that women are more than capable of leading vital institutions in our society.

Gallant heroines of the Struggle against apartheid and patriarchy, including Charlotte Maxeke, Lilian Ngoyi, Albertina Sisulu and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, to mention just a few, must be smiling, wherever they are.

What makes Losi’s rise to the most powerful post in Cosatu significant is that it wasn’t through some opportunism to use her as a ticket to neutralise some men.

Those who have been following Cosatu politics know very well that Losi is not a beneficiary of tokenism or sympathy from her male colleagues.

She is a solid trade unionist who has earned her stripes in both the federation and the ANC, and that is why she was catapulted into this powerful position – not because she is a woman.

Losi is the best in this leadership crop of Cosatu.

She has broken a decades-long tradition of “job reservation” in Cosatu whereby women were relegated to positions of just deputising (being helpers) of their male counterparts.

Could this be the beginning of the end of the patriarchy that has characterised Cosatu, the ANC, SACP and other political formations?

The emergence of public sector unions such as Nehawu and Sadtu as the most powerful bloc in Cosatu has given hope that the age of total dominance of the men of industrial unions, such as the National Union of Mineworkers, is coming to an end.

But the jury is still out on this, for trade unions remain chauvinistic boys’ clubs.

Losi’s emergence should remind us that women are more than capable of leading society, without being done favours or getting sympathy from men.