A tsunami. That’s how former Cosatu general-secretary Zwelinzima described Jacob Zuma’s rise to the top leadership of the ANC and, eventually, to that of government and the state. Many years later, long after Zuma had been kicked out of government and subsequently expelled from the ANC, we are still discovering the extent of destruction this tsunami left behind.
This weekend Cosatu — the trade union federation Vavi led as general-secretary for almost 15-years — celebrated its 40th anniversary. The once giant trade union movement, whose political influence extended so wide and deep that there was a time when no major decision could be taken without its voice being heard, celebrates this milestone as a shadow of itself. Generous estimates put the federation’s membership figure at around 1.6-million — a huge climbdown from the close to 3-million membership the trade union movement used to brag about in its heydays.
Most of the current members are drawn from the public sector as Cosatu’s original base — the industrial unions — have either collapsed or have shred members due to job losses, de-industrialisation and the economy’s growing reliance on the services and informal sectors which tend to create short-term and insecure jobs. As if this is not enough as a crisis for Cosatu, the country’s labour movement has been going through a period of sustained and rapid fragmentation with many of the sectors Cosatu unions used to dominate now seeing the birth of independent unions and splinter federations. Vavi himself, the man who more than most became the face of Cosatu for much of the post-1994 era, finds himself now leading a rival SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu).
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Much of this fragmentation can be directly traced back to the Zuma tsunami Vavi spoke about. To jog the memories of those who may have forgotten, Cosatu and its affiliates played an active and a leading role in Zuma’s rise to power. But when Vavi and others in Cosatu tried to use this influence to infuse a more “radical” shift in the Zuma government policies, Zuma and his associates reacted by sowing divisions within the federation — eventually causing the expulsion of Numsa and half a dozen other affiliates.
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