The many dilemmas of unions Dominic Tweedie, The New Age, Johannesburg, 11 July 2014 When the ANC's share of the vote in the 2014 elections fell back to the 1994 level of 62%, the idea that there might be a sudden, Brazilian World Cup 2014 type collapse of the ANC became exciting to some people in South Africa. There several corners where such hopes have been raised. One is the EFF. Another is COSATU. Another is NUMSA. Another is AMCU. In all of these cases the question is the same, with variations: What is the relation of unions to politics? Or: How can the organised power of the working class be leveraged so as to gain political advantage? Or: Should unions wash their hands of politics, as the junior federation, FEDUSA, and the white-legacy union, Solidarity, pretend to do? These are not new questions in South African history, or in world history. When COSATU was formed in 1985, it replaced a short-lived "workerist" federation, FOSATU. "Workerism" is the same as "syndicalism", meaning the belief, or pretence, that workers' unions can "go it alone" without the need for political parties. In fact, workerism did not completely die in COSATU, as we will see. But first, a little history will be of use. One of the biggest monolithic organisations in South African history was the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU) that rose and fell in the 1920s. It was "one big union". Like the American "Wobblies", it believed that combination of workers alone would be enough to solve a country's problems. The ICU failed. Its failure led directly to the alliance between the general liberation movement and the communists, an alliance that remained strong, and included trade unions, first under SACTU, and then under COSATU. Marxists, since the early days of working-class combination, have argued that, one, the working class needs allies and cannot afford to be isolated, and, two, the working class needs a dedicated, profession political party, in addition to trade unions. Marx and Engels cut their political teeth contradicting the syndicalists of the early 1840s. It was in the fires of those controversies that Marxism was born. Lenin's famous 1902 title and question, "What Is To Be Done?", was about the same matter. Lenin's way of answering his own question was to outline the vanguard, professional-revolutionary organisation that achieved spectacular success only fifteen years later. Organised workers, plus the vanguard party, plus allies from other classes (including, but not limited to, peasants) was a winning formula. To say that unions are "reformist" is not to pronounce a political curse, or an insult. It is simply to say that unions are creatures of the capitalist labour-market. They exist to strike deals with capitalists. To transcend the limited scope of unions, the working class needs its own political party, and it needs allies. This tripartite combination is, in South Africa, what we call The Alliance. It has so obviously succeeded, that it presents its opponents, or rivals, with only two choices: Confront and destroy; or: Imitate to overtake; and of these two, the latter is the only one with theoretical chance of success. So it is that NUMSA, while scorning all other unions and political parties, finds it necessary to propose a united front, even though, to date, it is a united front of one. NUMSA wants to reproduce the features of the Alliance, but with the current leaders of NUMSA in the driving seat. Like Pepsi-Cola in relation to Coke, it is likely to be playing catch-up forever. Also playing copy-cat is the Democratic so-called Alliance, the DA. Now the EFF has suffered its first split, less than one year after its formation. The split is over who is to be the preferred trade-union counterpart. The Chief favours a marriage with AMCU (though his love is not yet requited). Those favouring other liaisons are said to be "defining themselves outside the EFF" and are expelled without process or ceremony. The DA and the EFF look different, but they are cut using the same cookie-cutter. They are fakes. The troubles of COSATU are not fundamentally different. Corruption is a serious charge; and the charge of sexual predation on a young married subordinate, in the workplace, is unconscionable in a trade-union-related office. But the third formal disciplinary charge against the COSATU General Secretary - that of making policy announcements, as COSATU, without a mandate from its affiliate unions - is where the heart of the matter can be found. COSATU walks like a political party, and talks like a political party, but this does not mean that it actually is a political party, because COSATU has no members. It only has affiliates, which are trade unions. COSATU only exists to serve the common needs of its affiliates. COSATU's malady is essentially a delusion of grandeur, whereby it imagines, or its General Secretary imagines, that COSATU could dictate to the ANC, and ignore the Communist party, but still claim these two as allies. This delusion of grandeur can be discerned on a daily basis in the stream of arrogant press releases with which COSATU berates the media. Its ambition once had a name, "political centre", or otherwise "alliance pact", but COSATU's Alliance partners, after the Polokwane Conference in 2007, and the parliamentary election victory of 2009, decisively refrained from putting their necks into that particular noose. With the assistance of a court of law, the General Secretary of COSATU is now back in his bully pulpit, holier than everyone. His outstanding disciplinary charges are jammed in a closet, not quite out of sight. Zwelinzima Vavi is still in a position to obstruct the processes of the federation, delay and collapse meetings, and intrigue with factions. But after all is said and done, none of these contenders has more than a shadow of the experience, and actual, physical existence, of The Alliance. The ANC leads. Syndicalism never worked. Confronting the alliance with workerism will fail. Repeated attempts to imitate the ANC and the Alliance that it leads may be made, but they will also fail. The ANC will not be beaten at its own game. - Dominic Tweedie is a member of the Gauteng Provincial Executive Committee of the South African Communist Party. -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . 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