SADTU’s statement points to another battle

The declaration by the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) that it is at war with the ANC government in rejecting the recent wage offer is a clear indication that the battle for the heart of the ruling alliance, consisting of the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is far from over.

The declaration, at the end of SADTU’s 7th national congress in Gauteng celebrating its 20th birthday  in itself at first glance might seem to be little more than rhetoric since, although it refused to sign the offer of a 7.5% wage increase and an R800 housing allowance, the union won’t embark on industrial action.

However, not only does it come fresh on the heels of the recent ANC national general council (NGC) in Durban, which was at pains to project an unified front, but also on the eve of the summit between the ANC and its alliance partners. The summit is increasingly squaring up as the major battle ground, with mounting calls from Cosatu ranks that the ANC should become a political party for the working class.

The ANC came out of the Durban NGC meeting claiming to have enforced discipline in its ranks and to have asserted the ANC’s supremacy in the alliance. Following on the SADTU congress the party again has to try to stamp its authority on the fractious alliance.

On the sidelines, Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande and Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi also addressed news briefings to limit the fallout from ANC Youth League president Julius Malema’s comments last week criticising the University of Limpopo-Medical University of SA (Medunsa) merger.

An inevitability

An article in Leadership Intelligence Bulletin some weeks ago argued that there is an air of inevitability about the possibility of a split within the alliance as it presently exists since “the partners adhere to different and often competing core values”.

While a government in a democratic state has the task  of balancing -- or even arbitrating --  the often competing interests of all  groups in society for the greater national good, Cosatu represents the interests of the employed workers in the country, which are permanently in competition and often in conflict with other economic and business formations in society.

The article stated at the time that “harmonising the interests of various groups in society in a complicated network of checks and balances is the very raison d’etre for the modern democratic state.

“As was the case with the trade unions in post-Second World War Britain a point will come where a marriage of convenience between political party and trade unions becomes untenable. It would appear as if that point is fast approaching in South Africa. Exact predictions, however, are not possible.

“During the days when the so-called verlig-verkramp battle in the then ruling National Party was at its height in the early 1980s the issue that would eventually change the course of events in the country was a choice between the acceptability or not of power-sharing across racial lines.

“What exactly will confront the alliance with its final choice remains to be seen, but that it is increasingly taking on the air of inevitability is clear.”

Although SADTU with its almost quarter of a million members is one of the largest, if not the largest, individual unions within Cosatu, it is unlikely that its declaration on war will be the incident that finally forces the issue. It is, however likely to give some further momentum to the process of normalisation of the relationship between the ANC and the trade union movement.

It will also influence the frame of mind with which a Cosatu delegation will go into the alliance summit. At one stage there was talk at last week’s congress that the union leadership could be censured for having sold out to government during the wage negotiations.

Battle for centre of power

Re-elected SADTU president Thobile Ntola said during the congress that the alliance would be the strategic centre of power despite the ANC’s comments to the contrary. “They can make noise in public and in the media, we will get what we want," he said and added that this fight would be fought in the streets and not in the boardroom.

“We are not expecting to be election fodder for a few individuals.”

Additional significance is also lent to the closing-of-congress statement by some of the drama  that preceded it.  At one stage the congress nearly erupted in pandemonium after delegates booed and heckled ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe.

When he later had the  opportunity to complete his speech after the intervention of Ntola and Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim, which also drew loud booing, his only cheer came when he said that if delegates do not want to hear what the ANC has to say, the ANC  should not be invited to the congress.

At the start of the congress last Wednesday, Ntola also had to intervene when  president of the ANC Women’s League and basic education minister Angie Motshekga was also heckled by some of the delegates.

While the congress has not agreed to a continued strike at this point Ntola has, however, said that the union will be meeting to strategise before taking the matter to the country’s leadership.

In the meantime South Africa’s parents will be holding their collective breath that the country’s struggling education system, already  hugely disrupted by  strike action earlier this year, will not be further destabilised by the governing alliance’s internal battles.