Cosatu rally will not unite workers: DSM

A Rustenburg rally by Cosatu will not unite workers, the Democratic Socialist Movement said on Tuesday.

"The rally will not bring the workers together, it will not bring unity, but conflict," secretary general Weizmann Hamilton said.

His movement was concerned that Cosatu called the rally to claim back Rustenburg from what it called the forces of the counter-revolution.

The Congress of SA Trade Unions had planned a march and a rally on Saturday, at the Olympia Park stadium, to mobilise workers to engage in solidarity protests in support of mineworkers' wage demands.

The strike started at Lonmin's Marikana mine in August when workers demanded a monthly salary of R12,500, and elected a committee to represent them, instead of a union.

Hamilton said the DSM did not lead workers into a strike, but offered them support when their union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), said the R12,500 was unreasonable.

"When workers went on strike for a reasonable demand, we offered them support. It is possible for mineworkers to be paid R88,000 a month and still leave a huge profit for the bosses."

He said NUM was using the DSM as a scapegoat for its failure to serve the workers.

"NUM has turned into a business union with interests in the mines."

He said the DSM wanted to form a national socialist party representing the interests of workers.

He said the DSM was a Trotskyist (far left) political party affiliated to the Committee for a Workers' International, which was represented in 40 countries. The DSM was formed in the 1970s, mostly by expelled African National Congress members.

Hamilton said they had been inundated with requests from people wanting to join the movement. He could not immediately provide membership numbers.