Business Day
*Cosatu ‘sowing seeds of own destruction’, says NUM’s Baleni* *Natasha Marrian, Business Day, Johannesburg, 24 May 2013*THE Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is at a "crossroads", with the once-strong organisation showing its ability to "destroy itself", said Frans Baleni, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), on Friday.
"The body is hurting itself without external forces ... there are individuals who have no interest in unity," Mr Baleni said in his presentation to the political section of his secretariat report to the union’s central committee in Irene, outside Pretoria.
"The destruction of the organisation must be stopped," he said, asking delegates for guidance on the way forward.
"There are high levels of insincerity across the board ... what is insincerity? When there is a gap between one’s real and declared aims," he said.
He said this was not limited to the top six leaders but affected the entire central executive committee, the federation’s top leadership structure.
The central executive committee had appointed facilitators to iron out its organisational, political and administrative challenges, but Mr Baleni said the team had made little progress.
Mr Baleni was also candid in his assessment of Cosatu ally, the African National Congress (ANC), and its elective conference held in Mangaung last year.
He said democracy in the country as a whole and within alliance structures had not yet "matured," and that there was little room for dissent. This was evident in political killings where, if members put forward the name of a "different candidate", they would be "completely removed" or even shot and killed.
He warned that national conferences were focusing too heavily on contestation, leaving little room for debate of and engagement on critical policy matters. Experiences at Mangaung was evidence of this, said Mr Baleni.
In one such instance, said Mr Baleni, South African Communist Party (SACP) general secretary Blade Nzimande was presenting the outcomes of a commission discussion to delegates but it was clear their focus was on leadership elections.
Mr Baleni described how, during discussions, a signal or "command" would be made by the delegation from KwaZulu-Natal for a motion to be supported or rejected, and other provinces would adhere thereafter.
"The danger is that you end up with a situation where decisions are not taken on the basis of engagement. It’s on the basis of concluding a deal; it doesn’t matter what is said," he told delegates.
He said there were "professional plotters", who moved from one conference to the next, arranging leadership slates. "You must be nice to them in order to be in."
Alliance relations were also not what they should be, with policy gaps emerging between the partners.
Mr Baleni used Gauteng’s controversial freeway e-tolling system as an example, saying Cosatu, the ANC and the SACP should have been consulted first, instead of implementing the system and then consulting.
Cosatu’s top brass will meet on Monday, a gathering that is expected to be tense and difficult in the face of the challenges it faced.
*From: http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/labour/2013/05/24/cosatu-sowing-seeds-of-own-destruction-says-nums-baleni*
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