Business Day
*Big surprise as Numsa’s Jim backs Zuma for second term* *Carol Paton, Business Day, Johannesburg, 21 September 2012*THERE was a big surprise at the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) congress yesterday : President Jacob Zuma’s most strident union critic, National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) general secretary Irvin Jim, rose to support the president’s second term as African National Congress (ANC) leader.
Although support for Mr Zuma is not unanimous in Cosatu — some of the 3,000 delegates did not join in songs praising him — there was sufficient consensus at the congress to believe that Cosatu will endorse his second term. Before Mr Jim could throw his union’ s substantial weight behind Mr Zuma, he was stopped for raising the matter unprocedurally.
He was preceded by Thobile Ntola, president of the South African Democratic Teachers Union and another critic of Mr Zuma, who argued that the congress should discuss who Cosatu should back at the ANC’s electoral conference in December, arguing that "the revolution should not be left to chance".
The discussion was deferred to Cosatu’s central executive committee, as were all the congress’s political resolutions.
But Mr Jim and Mr Ntola’s comments spoke volumes, indicating that Mr Zuma’s critics in Cosatu wanted to be seen as the first to support him.
Senior leaders of the biggest unions in Cosatu said that over the course of the four-day congress this week, unanimity on support for Mr Zuma had emerged in behind-the-scenes discussions.
It had always been probable that the federation — which has double the membership of the ANC and considerable resources to mobilise support for the party — was going to support Mr Zuma.
"I don’t know of a single affiliate that does not support a second term for Zuma," a union leader said.
However, serious differences remained over who should fill the rest of the top leadership positions in the ANC. This was why discussion on the party’s elections was not held in the Cosatu congress plenary.
One of Mr Jim’s objectives in attempting to open the leadership debate was to bargain on the other five top positions in the ANC.
"For us, it is a question of who else is with Zuma. Numsa wanted to submit our support for Zuma for a second term. But we want both continuity and change," said Mr Jim’s deputy, Karl Cloete.
At a press conference at the conclusion of the congress, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said the matter of the ANC leadership would be declared later.
"Yes, there was a push from some unions that we must make a pronouncement on Cosatu’s preferences and there were interventions from others that the matter should be referred to the central executive committee," he said.
"So hold on just a little bit, and the central executive committee will make a pronouncement."
The committee would meet early next month, he said.It is likely that Cosatu’s top decision-making body outside of its congress will find itself in the same predicament as the congress — without unanimity on the ANC’s top six positions. If that happens, it is likely Cosatu will use its discussion as a basis to engage with the ANC.
There were several reasons for the swing to supporting Mr Zuma at the federation’s congress.
Unionists who do not support Mr Zuma had no alternative candidate. Although the ANC in Gauteng began an impressive campaign to champion Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe as Mr Zuma’s successor, it gained little traction in Cosatu.
Under Mr Zuma’s administration, Cosatu’s economic policy vision has made advances. The government has accepted it should play a more active role in the economy and adopted a proactive industrial policy.
Mr Zuma has also given unionists and communists leading roles to play in his government, including in economic ministries.
Since Mr Zuma became president, the tripartite alliance of the ANC, Cosatu and the South African Communist Party has, for the first time since 1996, become an effective channel for Cosatu to make deals and extract agreements, which it used to pressurise the government.
Mr Zuma therefore looks like a safer bet than Mr Motlanthe, who at times expressed strong views on the separation of party and state and is something of an unknown quantity.
Another source of the swing is Mr Zuma’s popular support. Numsa’s national executive committee told the union’s leaders to back him. These are the same reasons why Mr Vavi — a consistent critic of the Zuma administration — was re-elected uncontested : he was too popular to take on and his detractors had no viable challenger.
With its unity maintained, Cosatu resolved at the end of its congress to fight for a radical shift in the government’s economic policy; higher wages ; the banning of labour brokers and an interventionist state.
*From: http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/politics/2012/09/21/surprise-as-jim-backs-zuma-for-second-term*
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