Politics 2.0

THE STATE OF THE UNION

Cosatu’s role in South African politics over the past few years has been greatly beyond its scope. More specifically, their involvement in playing party politics within the echelons of the ANC has been pyrotechnic to say the least.

I admit that I have not been following the recent public servants’ strike in the past few weeks. Regardless of a need to study the technicalities of the strike in detail, and even though I sympathise with the public servants who have a right not to live on peanuts, my prejudice over Cosatu’s role in contemporary politics already has been drawn based on the past conduct of the trade union.

I have no doubt that this strike is another reflection of Cosatu’s current leadership’s ambitions. They are trying to flex their muscle in the run up to the ANC elections at the end of this year and indeed, to show that they have the power to bring this country to a standstill. I believe that the strikers have a right to receive an increase, but I fear that Cosatu are using the strike as a political tool and will continue to do so until the 2009 national elections.

As a social democrat, I have no antagonism towards the existence of unions and I recognise the inalienable right of collective bargaining in the interests of class fairness. As such, unions by nature are representative of their respective work industries.

However, I remain sceptical when a unionist group uses Marxist doctrines in dictating how a country should be run and who should be its next President. Cosatu has been a key player in the Mbeki/Zuma split. Even though the group is 2 million strong, they are out of their jurisdiction in this regard. The church and religious councils, despite their sheer numbers, do not play a role in the tripartite alliance or in ANC in-house politics and neither should Cosatu.

When Cosatu makes statements on international policy, with regard to Israel, or statements with regards to Presidential support, they go beyond being a representative union. If they want to play politics, they should put their name on the ballot sheet and not do it by proxy.