Proposed new labour federation could challenge Cosatu

The politically non-aligned Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) says it wants to revive and complete a merger with the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu) started in 2007. The formation of such a new super federation could pose a significant challenge to the ANC-aligned Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) and could even change the face of labour relations in South Africa.

Fedusa wants to relaunch the South African Confederation of Trade Unions (Sacotu) that it and Nactu, which traditionally was aligned politically with the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) and/or its offshoots, started forming in 2007 as a non-aligned federation. It however never got further than a kind of partnership rather than an actual merger.

With Fedusa’s 500,000 and Nactu’s 400,000 members, such a super federation with close to a million members could present quite a strong shop-floor challenge to the ANC-aligned Cosatu with its claimed 1.94-million paid-up members (as of March 2011). And despite Fedusa’s stated preference for political non-alignment, it could pose a serious challenge to Cosatu even on the political front as well. Fedusa general secretary Dennis George says while Cosatu is aligned with the ruling party, Fedusa likes “to engage with all political parties”.

And while Fedusa nurtures non-alignment, it is not afraid to tackle national political issues, doing so in a pragmatic and bold fashion that seems to leave Cosatu, with its repetitive rhetorical style, in its wake. For example, Cosatu leaders frequently call for the nationalisation of the mines and other key economic assets as part of its socialist goals for South Africa, despite its objections to the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) doing the same. (Cosatu believes the ANCYL wants to exploit this demand for the selfish ends of a small elite only.)

Cosatu says it supports the ANC’s decision to further investigate the options available in this regard. However, to date Cosatu has not contributed much if anything by way of practical research or debate. Fedusa on the other hand has conducted research and had discussions on the issue.

For example, at its own national congress held in Boksburg last week, Fedusa deputy president Koos Bezuidenhout chaired a discussion on the issue by a panel that included invited participants as politically and ideologically diverse as Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini and the Free Market Foundation’s Leon Louw.

While Louw said nationalisation had failed everywhere else. Dlamini however said it is Cosatu policy and would not take a view that it has failed anywhere in the world. Bezuidenhout offered a typically Fedusa-style pragmatic compromise option by calling for "more research, more debate and more people" to get involved in reaching a common position.

Fedusa has also not stood back on other controversial labour-political issues. While Cosatu is vehemently opposed to any suggestions to relax labour legislation and/or to introduce a youth wage subsidy – as has been suggested by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and others in the government – Fedusa supports such measures in the interest of job creation. And while Cosatu wants an outright ban on labour brokers Fedusa favours regulating all atypical forms of work, including through labour brokers, to promote the principle of decent work.

Cosatu’s demand for a labour broker ban comes despite temporary or contract employment in the labour broker sector having shown strong growth when formal permanent direct employment has been shedding jobs at an alarming rate. Perhaps one could sum up the differences in style as amounting to Fedusa's responsible pragmatist unionism versus Cosatu's emotional ideological unionism.

Like Cosatu, Fedusa participates in the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), which is currently considering possible amendments to the Labour Relations Act, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, the Employment Equity Act and the new Employment Services Bill. Proposed changes to some areas of these various pieces of legislation could amount to a relaxing of existing labour laws, while in other instances it could amount to a tightening.

South Africa’s strict labour law regime has often been cited internationally and domestically as a key factor in preventing more foreign direct investment that will help stimulate job creation.

But at last week’s Fedua congress, President Jacob Zuma – an invited speaker – said his government has set up a team to look into the issues that have deterred investors and inhibited the establishment of more micro and medium enterprises. Zuma said a relaxation of existing labour regulations would help accelerate job creation and added that the task team has already identified some problems.

Zuma praised the broadly representative “rainbow nation” make-up of Fedusa and called for more multi-sectoral dialogue in line with Fedusa’s own philosophy. Absent in Zuma’s speech was the kind of mutual animosity that has lately come to characterise speeches by ANC, Cosatu and SA Communist Party alliance leaders at each other’s events and gatherings.

Meanwhile on the shop floor Fedusa has gained a reputation for avoiding the pitfalls of politics and ideology in favour of pragmatism when seeking the best deals possible for its worker members. It is also seen by many to be more reserved in its use of industrial action such as strikes, balancing the need for pressure with the least harm to its workers and the economy.

Not only would a merger with Nactu boost Fedusa’s numbers on the shop floor, but it would also extend Fedusa’s reach to more diverse areas of the economy where it currently lacks a presence. However, while Fedusa is well organised and funded under the able guidance of a focused leadership, Nactu notoriously lacks badly in all of these respects. That is perhaps one reason why the merger attempt started in 2007 was never completed.

Nactu has 13 affiliated unions currently organised in building and construction; banking and financial services; hotel, catering, liquor and retail; metal and electrical; media; food and beverages; furniture; education; chemical; and transport sectors. Fedusa has 18 affiliates representing workers in the public service, financial services, health, and transport industries.

Nactu traditionally comes from an Africanist socialist ideological and political background, having been launched shortly after Cosatu in the 1980s. The federation’s forerunner, the Council of Unions of South Africa (Cusa), at the time walked out of the talks to form a single federation following disagreements over ideological issues such as non-racialism, favouring instead black leadership.

Together with the pro-Black Consciousness (BC) federation, the Azanian Confederation of Trade Unions (Actu), Cusa formed Nactu in 1986. However, as the Africanist/BC political formations increasingly started disintegrating in recent years, Nactu also seems to have lost much of its appetite for Africanist politics. But that could in part also be attributed to its organisational problems.

Cosatu does not at this stage seem overly bothered by the merger talks, saying it has heard it all before and would want to see real movement before taking it seriously. It says at this point Sacotu exists on paper only. The leaders of Nactu and Fedusa, together with the interim Sacotu leadership met in September, pledging a new, single federation very soon. They blamed the lack of progress since 2007 on the lack of a joint programme of action.