Cosatu chief cracks whip over unity

HOW individual Cosatu leaders feel about President Jacob Zuma's ANC leadership is "irrelevant" given the federation's standing resolution to back the Polokwane-elected leadership.

This is according to Cosatu president Sidumo Dlamini who told the Sunday Times that only the federation's national congress next year could change that position.

Speaking as Cosatu marked its 26th birthday this week, Dlamini called for unity within the federation, saying divisions among affiliates were confusing union members.

His comments followed recent signs of unhappiness within Cosatu about Zuma's ANC leadership style and the president's perceived failure to deliver on promises he made to the trade union constituency during his bid for power.

But Dlamini said such unhappiness did not mean that the federation no longer backed the current ANC leadership.

"There may have been an issue [about] whether Cosatu supports the current ANC leadership elected at Polokwane ... Why would you have that confusion when there is a position already about that ... to defend the leadership elected there?" he asked.

"Come 2012, the Cosatu congress will decide what do you do with that leadership ... Why would we rush the debate?

"If people want to tamper with the succession discussions of the ANC, Cosatu or the SACP, it can't be at the expense of Cosatu.

"We are cautioning against that trend ... and we wanted to sensitise our members that feelings and interests of other people are irrelevant really," said Dlamini.

He added that it was this debate that led to the central executive committee reaffirming its support for Zuma's leadership last week.

He said mixed messages from various Cosatu leaders and affiliates had the potential to cripple the federation.

"We were observing that the centre was beginning to be weaker.

"The mixed messages from the affiliates and the leadership of the federation [were] having a negative effect on the membership.

"When members believe that there are divisions from the top of the leadership they will want to take sides ... ultimately dividing the organisation.

"That is what we were beginning to observe and had to say 'it stops here'," he said.

Signs of divisions within the federation were visible in October when the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) backed the ANC Youth League's "economic freedom" march while other unions expressed reservations.

Numsa and the SA Democratic Teachers' Union have become highly critical of Zuma's administration while the National Union of Mineworkers and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union appear to be more supportive.

There have also been divisions within Cosatu over its approach to the SA Communist Party - a partner in the ANC-led alliance.

Some unions are not happy with the fact that virtually all senior SACP leaders now serve in the government.

But Dlamini warned that divisions could weaken the ability of Cosatu and the SACP to influence the "highly contested" ANC and maintain the ruling party's pro-worker stance.

While the ANC succession debate was a contributing factor to divisions within Cosatu, the federation had to take responsibility, said Dlamini.

"The [ANC] is not responsible for dividing Cosatu, it is the conduct of leaders within the federation that has got to be looked into thoroughly," he said.

He said now that Cosatu had openly confronted the issues, the federation could only be stronger.

"If one of the alliance partners has unity problems they automatically spill over to the other ... that is why we say 'let's do away with divisions, with unnecessary fights'.

"Our real enemy is capital. These three [alliance] formations must always be united. What we do in 2012 has to yield an even stronger alliance," Dlamini said.