WeeklySA_AdminSUBORDINATION: As Cosatu prepares for its 15th National Congress, it faces a defining choice: uphold the democratic mandate of workers or surrender its class independence to an ANC leadership wedded to neoliberalism…
By Zola Saphetha
Having celebrated its 40th anniversary last year, it is reasonable to assume that the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has come of age. Yet maturity may also bring degeneration — a struggle between the organisation’s once-vibrant character and the emergence of a distorted version of itself.
Developments since Cosatu’s 14th National Congress in 2022 suggest that the federation’s historic commitment to organisational and class independence is being replaced by ideological subordination and political servitude to the African National Congress (ANC).
This may partly be the result of the suffocating atmosphere created by neoliberalism, which has disrupted the intergenerational transmission of Marxism-Leninism within Cosatu. Ahead of its 15th National Congress, the federation appears increasingly gripped by ideological degeneration and strategic confusion, despite the political resolution and Medium-Term Vision adopted by the previous congress.
Today, Cosatu is no longer unmistakably identifiable with Marxism-Leninism and the struggle for socialism. Rhetorical commitments in reports cannot conceal what is happening at the practical political level. The traditions of class orientation, shop-floor militancy and worker control are rapidly fading.
The federation’s leadership has abandoned class independence by persistently subordinating this workers’ movement to the political elite that transformed the ANC into a neoliberal party. The ANC has itself become a shadow of its former self, having abandoned the Freedom Charter as a strategic lodestar in favour of the so-called National Democratic Society.
Cosatu’s leadership is undermining the political direction provided by the 14th National Congress. It seeks instead to subordinate this historically radical workers’ movement to the pro-capitalist and neoliberal leadership dominating the ANC.
‘Tears of a creator’
This is occurring as the momentum of the class struggle recedes under unfavourable objective conditions and weakening working-class agency.
The sustained neoliberal economic trajectory has shifted the balance of class forces in favour of capital.
Amid deepening socioeconomic crises and endemic corruption, Cosatu should be regrouping and strengthening its capacity to occupy the front lines of working-class struggle.
It is a brutal historical irony that Cosatu’s constitution and the resolutions adopted at its founding congress in 1985 committed it to building a united democratic South Africa free of oppression and economic exploitation.
At its launch, workers heard the poem “Tears of a Creator” by Mi S’dumo Hlatshwayo and Alfred Temba Qabula. It warned about the fate of trade unions left in the hands of leaders without proletarian consciousness, who could become political flip-floppers and class collaborators.
The poets recalled the disappearance of earlier trade union formations and asked: Where is the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of the 1920s? Where is the Federation of Non-European Trade Unions of the 1930s? Where is the Council of Non-European Trade Unions of the 1940s?
Their warning to the newly established federation was simple: “Cosatu today be wise!”
From its founding congress, Cosatu’s ideological orientation was clear, even though a more developed framework was adopted at its second National Congress in 1987. That congress committed the federation to restructuring the economy so that wealth could be democratically controlled and fairly shared. It also resolved to draw people into a programme to restructure society in pursuit of that objective.
These strategic goals represented an unambiguous anti-capitalist position. Cosatu nailed its colours to the mast as a red trade union federation inspired by Marxism-Leninism and committed to class-oriented political practice.
The federation remained relatively consistent throughout much of its history, culminating in the watershed 14th National Congress in 2022. Delegates reaffirmed Marxism-Leninism as their ideological inspiration and sought to translate it into political action.
Through a secret ballot, delegates overwhelmingly resolved that Cosatu should campaign in support of the South African Communist Party (SACP) in future elections. The decision reaffirmed the federation’s political location on the side of the working class.
The resolution was fiercely opposed by those clinging to the coattails of the ANC’s pro-capitalist leadership. Yet Cosatu’s 13th National Congress had already resolved to support the SACP if it independently contested elections and the ANC continued to ignore calls for the reconfiguration of the Alliance.
The ANC’s crisis-ridden neoliberal policies have intensified inequality, unemployment, poverty and hunger. They have reproduced the inherited settler-colonial social order in which the black majority remains trapped on the spatial and economic margins.
Nehawu has therefore concluded that class content has become the principal feature defining the political terrain. The organised working class must unite with other popular forces, assert its independence and place its interests at the centre of political engagement.
Parliamentary parties behave as though the appalling conditions endured by millions of people are normal, despite South Africa possessing resources capable of transforming their lives.
It would be self-delusional for Cosatu to believe that the ANC, particularly under the Government of National Unity, retains the political will to drive the National Democratic Revolution. Even the ANC’s diluted conception of the revolution has little prospect of implementation.
A radical and class-oriented trade union federation must stand practically, and not merely rhetorically, with the working class and the downtrodden. It should build alliances with formations that have no vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
Cosatu must owe allegiance to no individual, class or organisation other than those that have consistently demonstrated loyalty to the suffering masses.
It is therefore tragic that an organised formation of the working class is now caught in poorly disguised political manoeuvring aimed at subordinating workers to an agenda that contradicts their class interests.
The last Cosatu congress to resolve to support the ANC was the 13th National Congress in 2018. Even then, that support was conditional upon the ANC agreeing to reconfigure the Alliance. The 14th National Congress subsequently directed Cosatu to build and strengthen a Socialist Axis with the SACP through an integrated programme that included electoral contests.
Zig-zagging
Since 2022, however, Cosatu’s leaders have acted as though this resolution does not exist. Instead of determining how to implement the federation’s own decision, affiliates are being asked to consult on the SACP’s resolution to contest elections.
Some leaders are now proposing that Cosatu support both the ANC and SACP. It remains unclear how this could be achieved when the two formations would contest elections independently and on different manifestos.
There is no honest middle ground. This proposal represents political zig-zagging intended to impose a worn-out ANC on workers despite the mandate issued by the 14th National Congress.
Even worse is the metaphor suggesting that when “the parents fight, it is the children who suffer”. Cosatu was founded as an independent workers’ movement. Its members are not anybody’s children.
Nehawu remains committed to defending the legacy of Cosatu’s founders, as expressed in its constitution and resolutions. We will not be manipulated through elite patronage into abandoning the federation’s commitment to Marxism-Leninism and the struggle for socialism, with the SACP as the vanguard of the working class.
The present political zig-zagging can only end in tears — the tears of those who love Cosatu and seek to preserve it as a militant, independent workers’ movement.
The warning issued at its birth has never been more relevant: Cosatu, today be wise.
This is an abridged version of the full article (which appeared in Umsebenzi) penned by Zola Saphetha is the general secretary of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union
