SA’s labour federations, representing millions of workers and a crucial voting bloc for political parties, have called on the working class to vote for political parties advancing and safeguarding their interests and shy away from those espousing capitalism.
Zingiswa Losi, president of Cosatu, an alliance partner of the governing ANC, cautioned workers in Mbombela last week against “turning their back” on the ANC, saying socioeconomic gains the party has presided over would be reversed if it were voted out of power.
Labour unions are a key part of the ANC election machine and have traditionally used their grassroots structures to campaign for the governing party since the attainment of majority rule in 1994.
But the relationship between the ANC and its alliance partners has been strained of late, with the unions accusing the ANC of reneging on wage agreements, corruption and poor service delivery.
Losi's statement suggested a thawing of relations between the alliance partners, and is a shot in the arm for the ANC, which analysts and independent pollsters predict will perform poorly at the general elections this time.
While political parties are yet to deliver their election manifestos, the unions called on workers to vote for worker-centred organisations at the 2024 national and provincial elections.
There are 16.7-million employed people in the country, but at 31.9%, the unemployment rate remains among the highest in the world, with 28-million people dependent on social grants for their livelihoods.
SA, which has 26-million registered voters, remains dogged by a litany of socioeconomic crises that have resulted in low growth, entrenched poverty, an acute energy crisis, crumbling infrastructure, systemic corruption, widening inequality and a rising cost of living.
The economy lost momentum in the third quarter of 2023 as GDP contracted 0.2%, according to data by Stats SA. On a year-on-year basis, GDP shrank 0.7%, worse than the market consensus. Unions had been demanding above-inflation wage increases to offset high transport, fuel, electricity and food costs.
Losi is a known ally of President Cyril Ramaphosa who made similar remarks recently, when he warned that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, which funds about 1.3-million students a year, and social grants might be scrapped should the ANC lose power in the 2024 national and provincial elections.
The ANC is dogged by a trust deficit, infighting, governance challenges and declining electoral support that has seen it lose local councils to opposition parties. Independent surveys and a poll by the ANC itself suggest the party’s electoral support could dip below the 50% mark in the upcoming election.
At its national congress in Midrand in September 2022, Cosatu’s largest affiliates including Nehawu, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, the SA Municipal Workers Union and the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA, called for the labour federation to immediately dump the ANC and support the SACP in the 2024 elections.
The four unions, accounting for more than 600,000 of Cosatu’s estimated membership of 1.6-million, had accused the governing party of undermining workers and failing to implement alliance programmes.
But in December 2023, Nehawu, Cosatu’s largest affiliate, made a U-turn and says it will now use its structures to campaign for an “outright majority victory” for the ANC. In a subsequent media briefing, Nehawu deputy general secretary December Mavuso also said the union’s new position is meant to defend “the gains of our revolution by aligning with Cosatu and the SACP in campaigning for an outright majority victory for the ANC in the 2024 national elections”.
Last Friday, Losi said the ANC was not perfect and had made “serious mistakes” over the years. “Ours is not to be sentimental or emotional. Our mandate is to defend rights of workers and working class,” said Losi, who has previously stated the ANC remained the best vehicle to address worker challenges," she said.
“We dare not abandon where we are coming from and our gains, more so when challenges facing workers are great. We have much more to do, it requires all of us to support each other and be on the ground; we don’t have a moment to spare.”
Workers are still angry at the government for refusing to implement the final part of a three-year wage agreement signed in the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council in 2018. The Constitutional Court ruled in 2022 the government could back out of the deal because the unions were “unjustifiably enriched” from the “impugned collective agreement”. Differences between the alliance partners remain unresolved.
On Monday, SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) national spokesperson Trevor Shaku said: “The ideal political party that workers must vote for is a working class party that represents the class interests of the working class. In other words, that party must be socialist oriented and base itself on the belief that issues of poverty and scarcity can only be resolved by abolishing capitalism.”
He said the political landscape in SA is littered with “bourgeois political parties who differ in logos but are similar in their ideological inclinations”.
“They are pro-capitalist who only differ on how to manage the system, but not how to replace it. They believe in capitalism and accept the unequal accumulation of wealth by a few, while the rest of society starves and scramble for the crumbs table of the rich.”
Shaku said workers must look for anticapitalist parties and must “believe that it is through working class power and socialist democracy that true freedom can be attained”.
“They must look for parties that are not xenophobic. Parties that incite xenophobia do not have a solution to our current problems because they scapegoat the capitalist crisis of poverty, unemployment and crime through the immigrant workers,” he said.
National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu) general secretary Narius Moloto said workers must vote for political parties aimed at advancing their interests, job creation, and labour laws “giving workers real rights”.
“As long as the economy is fucked up, the workers’ interests are out. We need a party that can firmly put an economic and social order in place and give workers the base to start rebuilding their lives,” Moloto said.
Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) general secretary Riefdah Ajam said: “Fedusa is a nonpolitically affiliated trade union federation. It is committed to representing the interests of its members without aligning itself with any specific political party. Fedusa focuses on advocating for the rights and welfare of workers in SA across various sectors.”
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