Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi has called on delegates attending the labour federation’s national elective congress to defend the ANC, which she said remained the best vehicle to advance workers’ struggles.
Cosatu, which has a membership of about 1.6-million members, is part of the tripartite alliance with the SACP and ANC, and is a key ally of embattled President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The labour federation has been sharply critical of the ruling party’s performance, in particular its inaction on persistently high unemployment, slow economic growth, and corruption, and has said it risks losing the 2024 national elections if it doesn’t reform and deal with the challenges dogging the poor and the working class.
The ANC, which is saddled with operational, administrative and financial challenges, has relied on Cosatu’s grassroots support to win elections since SA’s first democratic elections in 1994.
Losi called on workers to defend the ANC despite its leaders describing it in unsavoury terms. ANC national chair Gwede Mantashe has said the party has become “arrogant”, “out of touch with society”, and dogged by a “trust deficit”. Gauteng premier David Makhura has said the ANC has become a “self-absorbed organisation” at war with itself.
In her address during the first day of the conference in Midrand on Monday, Losi said the tripartite alliance, like any marriage, “has its ups and downs”, but stressed it remained the best “vehicle to advance the struggle of workers”. “The ANC and SACP remain the most progressive and relevant political formations to drive the demands of the working class,” she said.
“The ANC is not perfect; it has made serious mistakes, it has battled to clean itself of the demons of factionalism and corruption ... Our task is to defend workers’ hard-won victories. Therefore, we must contest the ANC and the alliance to ensure the voice of workers is heard and not sidelined.”
Cosatu “must help the ANC to rid itself of the criminal elements, if it is to be saved. We must continue to support the SACP because its voice is critical, more than ever now”, she added.
‘Clear message’
Delegates earlier expressed their dissatisfaction with Ramaphosa with chants, including one that translates as “Ramaphosa quakes when he sees Cosatu”. The president has angered workers after refusing to implement the last leg of a three-year wage agreement, signed at the public service co-ordinating bargaining council in 2018, due to a lack of funds. The Constitutional Court ruled in February that the government could back out of the wage deal since unions were “unjustifiably enriched” from the “impugned collective agreement”.
Losi said workers had sent a “clear message” to the ANC at local government elections in November 2021, when its support dipped below 50% and resulted in it losing Gauteng’s of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane metros to a DA-led coalition.
“If the ANC doesn’t get its act together, if it doesn’t deliver quality services, if it doesn’t tackle corruption, if it doesn’t fix Eskom, grow the economy, and fails to create jobs and provide relief to the unemployed, then we will face a disaster in 2024. No doubt about that. It’s all in the ANC’s [hands],” Losi said.
She criticised coalitions, saying they were about power and had little to do with voters and were unstable.
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