Cosatu’s biggest trade union has called on the labour federation and the SA Party (SACP) to establish a popular movement speedily to address worker struggles and service delivery challenges.
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) admitted this week that it did not go all out in campaigning for the ANC before the local government elections on November 1, citing financial challenges. Political analysts said that may have hit the ANC, which relies traditionally on Cosatu grassroots structures to mobilise and campaign.
Relations between Nehawu and the ANC are fragile. The union took the government to the Constitutional Court on August 24 for failing to implement the last leg of a pay agreement signed in 2018 which would have cost R38bn to implement.
Nehawu general secretary Zola Saphetha said on Wednesday that the Nehawu congress last week resolved that it was imperative “to lead struggles of the working class and rural masses for land, housing, water, sanitation, basic income grant and the general service delivery”.
Saphetha said the national democratic revolution (NDR), the tripartite alliance’s blueprint to address socioeconomic challenges, had stagnated.
“This stagnation of the NDR has led to the current socioeconomic crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality in our country with no possible solutions. If the solution does drastically change, our people will run out of patience with the ANC,” said Saphetha.
Nehawu would not be the first union to embark on the political terrain. SA’s biggest trade union, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), formed a workers’ and community movement called the United Front, which contested the municipal elections in 2016, getting 14,191 votes nationally.
Numsa then went on to form the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party, which took part in the 2019 general election in 2019, receiving only 24,439 votes, a small number for a union with about 432,000 members.
Nehawu is Cosatu’s biggest affiliate with more than 280,000 members. Cosatu and the SACP are key allies of the ANC and supported the ANC in every election since the dawn of democracy in 1994.
The ANC had a drubbing at the polls last week, getting only 45.6% of voter support nationally, its worst performance since coming to power 27 years ago.
Nehawu president Mike Shingange told Business Day on Wednesday that the popular movement was not intended to declare “the death of the [tripartite] alliance programme”.
Instead it aimed to deepen working-class influence and “unite the working class from an ANC that is weakened by a self-serving elite”, he said.
SACP spokesperson Alex Mashilo told Business Day on Wednesday that it was the SACP that first resolved that “we need to build a popular left front”. He said SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande reiterated the call during his address to the Nehawu congress last week.
Asked if the SACP would consider contesting elections, Mashilo said: “How we will engage in elections in future will be the subject of future strategy and tactics considerations. A popular left front is not a narrow electoralist platform.”
Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said Nehawu’s call for a popular movement was an old Cosatu resolution dating back to about 2013. “We look forward to engaging Nehawu on this matter and hearing what their interpretation is of this resolution on the current political climate.”
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