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A labour dispute at the then Midrand municipality in 1994 has rumbled on for 22 years and has again, this year, come to the fore. In the process, it has thrown into sharp focus some of the problems facing the labour movement.
Above all, it has highlighted the debilitating factionalism in the Cosatu-affiliated SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) that remains surrounded by a swirl of corruption allegations.
One result has been moves by groups of workers to demand a return to grass roots democracy, the promise held out in the generally euphoric atmosphere preceding the 1994 elections.
At that time, many workers challenged the old order in a way they had not done before. And one of the challenges at a municipal level was directed at the allegedly widespread practice of workers paying bribes to obtain council jobs.
This was apparently tolerated by some apartheid-era unions. As the system crumbled, the majority of Midrand workers turned their backs on “old guard” unions and joined the Cosatu-affiliated Samwu.
With newfound confidence and militancy, they also denounced the corruption they maintained existed in the council. Protests led to a lockout and to the dismissal of the workforce.
By that stage, however, a degree of bureaucracy had already begun to creep into much union organisation.
The concept of “democratic centralism” came to mean that many elected union officials assumed to themselves the right to make decisions for the workers, without any mandate from the workers themselves.
The idea of grass roots control, of all elected officials being recallable by the members and being paid no more than the highest-paid member, was disappearing. Full-time shop stewards, their salaries paid by employers, became a management layer between the union bosses and the membership.
To all intents and purposes, many unions evolved into big businesses.
An early example of this “top-down” approach seems to have been the “selective re-employment” deal concluded at Midrand “behind our backs,” say the surviving workers.
This in the days before the 1995 Labour Relations Act established the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration and the labour court.
But the workers fought back, petitioning Samwu and Cosatu and, finally, going to court. However, their case was never heard; it was struck off the roll because of inadequate paperwork prepared by a lawyer who turned out not to be qualified.
Over the years and amid claims of political interference, these workers discovered that not only did the wheels of justice and bureaucracy grind exceeding slowly, but they often ceased to grind at all. But they did not give up.
Their hopes are now pinned on an appeal to Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba and on the support of the Democratic and Allied Workers’ Union (Demawusa), a breakaway from Samwu that was registered last year.
Both Demawusa and another Samwu breakaway, the Municipal and Allied Trade Union, now in amalgamation talks, lay claim to be going back to democratic basics.
However, amid ongoing factional battles within Samwu, an outstanding Hawks investigation and manoeuvrings on the political front, the Midrand workers can only hope that their claim for jobs and unpaid pensions will not again be sidelined.
