The Star
*Cosatu fails its Public Relations 101* *Mathatha Tsedu, the Star, Johannesburg, 18 May 2012*How is it that an organisation as big and as important as Cosatu can fail the public relations test so badly? The clashes in Braamfontein on Tuesday between a few hundred marchers wearing DA t-shirts and a group wearing Cosatu affiliates t-shirts were unnecessary.
Not only because the DA has a democratic right to march, but because Cosatu did not have to respond at all, let alone in the manner it did. Imagine the following scenario: DA leader Helen Zille tries to woo Cosatu leader Zwelinzima Vavi, and fails. She goads him to a fight, calling him an ambitious man hankering to lead the ANC, and he dismisses her. She then decides to go for him with a march.
Imagine that Cosatu leaders meet and say it is the DA's right to hold their opinion about the youth wage subsidy. If they want to march for it and come to our offices, let them do so. We will send our security guard to accept the memorandum, on our behalf, before making a bonfire out of it.
Imagine what then would have happened. The DA leadership and the blue brigade would have set off and marched and nothing would have happened. Many people wouldn't even have heard of the march. Cosatu, as they did, would have issued their own counter memorandum and coverage of the march would have been an opportunity to send out their own views.
Turn what is planned as a negative into a positive.But not Cosatu. That scenario is too complex. When Zille announced the march, Cosatu leaders denounced it and said it would not be allowed to come to Cosatu offices. Planning meetings were held with "progressive youths" which called on all progressives to rally to the call to "defend Cosatu against agents of capitalism" or "shop stewards of the employers".
So a media hype around the march is generated, which moves it from an also-ran story into a priority story. All because the DA was just wanting to do its democratic thing. By Tuesday morning, coverage is at saturation point and, "due to security reasons", the marchers would have to be rerouted. Decode: Cosatu is threatening to beat up the marchers.
So when the bricks started flying, it was Cosatu, the villain, that had to explain itself. Why put yourself in such a position as if it was the only way of handling this?
Here is an introductory paragraph to a media statement issued on Tuesday afternoon: "The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), South African Catering, Commercial and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu), Communication Workers Union (CWU) and the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) as constituted by the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), Young Communist League (YCL) and South African Students' Congress (Sasco) salutes the workers and the working class youth for occupying and swamping the streets in defense (sic) of our reliable, class conscious, revolutionary and fighting Cosatu against the provocative and deceitful failed march by agents of imperialism and chief spokespersons of white monopoly capital as represented by fascist and racist Democratic Alliance (DA)."
Phew! It is 100 words, and one sentence. The drafters of the statement, which goes on to quote a declaration in Morogoro, Tanzania, sent this to the media to publish. I have not seen it anywhere. And I am not surprised. This is jargon, clichés that have no meaning. It was written to show off the writer's Marxist lexicon and not as an attempt to communicate with the world.
Surely, comrade Vavi, there has to be a different way for Cosatu to handle this and communicate its views? What happened to all the nice-sounding phrases of democratic rights that characterised Cosatu's recent anti-toll marches? Was it all a veneer under which lay gross intolerance and an inability to manage public relations?
If so, is it a malaise afflicting only Cosatu or are all of "us" also just thugs waiting for a few marchers to stone? If Cosatu defines marching to its offices as "provocation", should the government also marshal its soldiers and cops to shoot when next Cosatu "provokes" the government with a march to the Union Buildings?
For many of us, the picture of those black youths under Zille's leadership, confronting their parents and being pelted with stones by their parents, is extremely uncomfortable. If, as Vavi says, those youths are uninformed and ignorant, do you win them over/back by throwing stones in the middle of Joburg?
You act differently.You think your response through and nuance it accordingly, like the democrat you claim to be. Please.
***From: http://www.iol.co.za/the-star/cosatu-fails-its-public-relations-101-1.1299392*
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