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There should be “one federation for one country”, says labour federation Cosatu’s former general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, who is the convener of this weekend’s workers’ summit.
In an interview with City Press this week Vavi, however, said he “doesn’t want to see a big rush to a new federation”.
The point was not to compete with Cosatu unions for members but to spearhead a new kind of unionism in South Africa, said Vavi.
Vavi cited the proliferation of small new splinter unions and an archaic attachment to Cosatu’s “one sector, one union” rule as signs of the labour movement’s decline.
There are 188 registered trade unions, of which 38 were registered since 2012.
In that time, union membership has fallen from 30% to 24% of employed South Africans.
The summit had 50 invited unions, but the organisers were tight-lipped about the full list, wanting to see who would come.
Altogether 21 of these are the affiliates of Nactu, the only one of the three major existing labour federations to back the initiative.
The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) will inevitably be the cornerstones of the new federation – if both actually join.
Attempts are being made to keep it from becoming an initiative tied to the major unions.
The idea was to give any attending union 20 delegates and then an extra delegate for every 750 members they have. Without giving the small unions “free” delegates, about half of the summit would be Numsa and Amcu delegates.
Numsa gets 528 of the maximum of 3 000 delegates. Amcu would get roughly half of that.
At a media briefing this week, Vavi said that Cosatu and the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) had been invited, and the door was open to anyone.
While Cosatu’s enmity is well known, the new federation will probably face opposition from Fedusa as well.
“I took a decision to not attend any summit,” said Fedusa’s general secretary, Dennis George.
“They have been sending us invitations, but we don’t know who they are – we just know Vavi.”
George suggested the new federation was a symptom of the very thing it says it wants to cure: fragmentation in the labour movement.
“Unity and political independence are very important, but the big issue for us is that whenever there is a breakaway, there will always be a conflict over membership. It always stirs up the rivalry and it is not in the workers’ interests.”
Numsa will undoubtedly be the major constituent of the new federation and Fedusa has the same complaints about the metalworkers’ union that many Cosatu affiliates had.
“We are organising in all the major sectors and our affiliates tell us that Numsa is deploying recruiters trying to turn workers against Fedusa,” said George.
Numsa claims it has already gained more than 27 000 members in new sectors after declaring itself a general union open to all – something Cosatu does not allow its affiliates to do.
If a new federation is born, just having Numsa and Amcu as affiliates would already make it a major player, with more than 550 000 members.
That would not, however, mean that it can take its place in the top tripartite forum in the country, Nedlac.
The three labour federations that founded Nedlac with Business Unity SA and government have an effective veto over admitting a new member.
Of the three, only the National Council of Trade Unions is on board with the new federation, while both Cosatu and Fedusa would both try to block it.
The last time a trade union federation tried to be recognised at Nedlac was the ill-fated attempt in 2004 of the Confederation of SA Workers’ Unions (Consawu).
That ended before the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2011, where Consawu lost.
The court ruled that the three founding federations at Nedlac can set the criteria for including a new member.
Back then, the bar was set at 300 000 members. Numsa alone easily reaches that threshold.
According to George, however, that is not enough.
“We believe in freedom of association. Numsa and Vavi have the right to form a new federation, but at Nedlac there are rules ... a code of conduct.”
