The annual conference of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) ended yesterday with renewed tension between it and the ruling African National Congress. Even before the conference opened on Wednesday, the two sides were on a collision course, despite their status as formal allies and co-members, with the Communist Party, of a tripartite alliance.
The ANC-led government had refused to accede to trade union demands for an inflation-rated wage increase for civic servants. The trade unions, most of them Cosatu affiliates, countered with a threatened one-day national strike next Tuesday.. Public service and administration minister Ms Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi upped the ante when she announced that the government would implement its offer of a 6.3 per cent increase for all civil servants, except teachers, who would receive 7.3 per cent and warned that the "no-work, nopay" principle would apply to striking civil servants.
The mood of Cosatu delegates was expressed when the leader of the South African Teachers' Democratic Union, Mr Willie Madisha, was elected as its president. Mr Madisha, in the run-up to the conference, was vocal in his criticism of the government and in supporting the demands of teachers for higher salaries. The differences between the government and Cosatu were laid bare during the conference in a speech by the defence minister, Mr Terror Lekota - who stood in for President Thabo Mbeki - and the response it invoked. Mr Lekota chastised unnamed Cosatu leaders for publicly attacking the ANC stance on the public sector strike - it believes it cannot offer more than it has without jeopardising delivery of social services to the public, including the rural poor and the vast and growing number of unemployed.
Mr Lekota, who was booed at one stage, accused "highly-placed comrades" of lacking "revolutionary discipline" and playing into the hands of opponents of the alliance by criticising the ANC.
Mr Lekota, however, was later criticised by the new Cosatu secretary-general, Mr Zwelinzima Vavi. Noting that Mr Lekota's speech did not "sit well with the congress", Mr Vavi said: "The congress is an open platform and [Lekota's speech] created the impression that Cosatu is an ill-disciplined component of the alliance".
While it would be too dramatic to talk of an imminent split in the alliance, the Cosatu conference and the pending strike by public sector unions confirmed that there are unresolved differences between the ANC and its formal allies, with the ANC's new promarket and pro-privatisation policies a major point of dissension.
While a breakaway from the ANC would be risky for Cosatu and, more particularly, for the Communist Party, trade union and communist leaders would face a rebellion from their members if they did not defend their interests. A cartoonist in the Mail and Guardian summed up the risk to Cosatu yesterday. The cartoon showed Mr Lekota admonishing Cosatu under a banner with the word AlliANCe written on it. The capitalised letters symbolised the ANC's domination in the alliance and the parallel subordination of Cosatu and the Communist Party.