A Cosatu press conference wouldn’t be a Cosatu press conference without the words “exploitation” and “right-wing”. And they were both on display in various ways on Thursday. What was surprising was that at one point, you had both those words in the same sentence as the name “Pravin Gordhan”. This former SACP cadre kind of had it coming though. You may remember two weeks ago he suggested that it should be made cheaper for smaller firms to hire younger workers. You know our view on this: as proud capitalists we believe, strongly, that the easier to hire and fire the better. Well of course, Cosatu doth not agree. Strongly. So strongly in fact that it issued a separate addendum to the statement just to tackle this issue.  It hit out at Gordhan, and just about everyone else who has entered the fray on the side of those who want to “further exploit the workers”.

There was plenty about he who won’t be singled out, but you’ll have to read further to get to that.

Because crucially important is that Cosatu now believes the Constitution needs to be changed to speed up land reform. It’s about clause 25, the property clause, that, depending on who you vote for, protects the lawful ownership of property, or perpetuates an apartheid economy. For Cosatu, of course, it’s the latter. For it’s secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi, this is “not just about land, it’s an inequality issue, and we are playing with fire here”. His point, and you’ve heard it before, is that we cannot go on having the rich and poor looking at each other through electrified fences, we need some real meaningful change. Of course, he’s right, it’s the how you do it that we all fight about.

But Cosatu, unlike some, is quite pragmatic in it’s approach. It’s careful about changing the Constitution, in fact, it understands why there would be strong, principled opposition to doing so.  So it’s open to other suggestions about how to get around this problem.

Now onto the fun part. You know who we mean. Last Friday, Cosatu said it wasn’t going to comment on the disciplinary affairs of an individual. Well, they tried to contain themselves on Thursday, but battled a little.

First there was a lament that “some elements in the Youth League use their power to blackmail leaders”. The point is that essentially the league has been saying to ANC leaders, if you don’t back our policies “you won’t see the light of day in Mangaung”. Cosatu’s point is that you must win people over through force of argument, not through force of blackmail. Cosatu also strongly endorses the ANC’s resolution on discipline from its national general council (NGC) last year. That’s a coded way of saying that discipline is a good thing. There was even a comment that “we want to see decisiveness from ANC leaders on matters of discipline”. Of course all of this was “not about individuals” at all. You get the drift.

Now to a crucial question. Six weeks ago, in response to a question, Vavi looked the political hack pack in the eye and said, “there is a battle underway for the soul of the ANC, and I don’t know who’s going to win”. The fight of course is between Cosatu and the SACP on one side, and that person and his League on the other. So then ran my question, “how is that fight looking now?” The answer was very revealing. Vavi started by talking about tenderpreneurs, and then came the money byte, “the majority of
South Africans will not allow the country to be pulled in this direction, even in Mangaung, I don’t believe the delegates we saw at the NGC will say it’s okay to allow this.”

So, it really does seem that something has shifted, that Cosatu is happier now than it was six weeks ago. There’s only been one big event since then, so clearly it now has what it wanted. Happiness rules the land in a workers paradise.

Except. Cosatu’s central executive committee (CEC) is stressing unity. Way too much. There was a whole section in the written statement about how everyone is unified. And then came the kicker. The CEC has a rule that unions and their members are not allowed to talk about succession.  That’s not ANC succession, that’s Cosatu succession. Vavi had said previously his term that ends next year would be his last, and that kicked off some serious speculation.  There’s also been talk of a bit of a bust-up between the miners and the steel-workers over who will take over.

If you get a sense of deja vu, well that’s because it was just three days ago that the ANC’s national executive committee made a similar ruling. It smacks of putting off the inevitable. And while Cosatu has a fairly solid history of managing these issues well, things they are a-changing, as the ANC could tell you. This issue is probably in hand for the moment, but it needs to be watched closely. It could be leading to something.

But for now everyone is focused on someone else. Even though his name wasn’t mentioned at Cosatu House at all yesterday. But Vavi couldn’t resist one little jibe. While refusing to give any comment at all on the issue, officially, he did let slip that “I looked through the newspaper cuttings of Tuesday’s ANC press conference, and, I smiled”.

And who can blame him. DM