NUMSA STATEMENT ON THE MATTERS BEFORE THE COURTS ON THE SPECIAL COSATU CEC
11 September 2013
Background:
On 10 September 2013 the South Gauteng High Court heard an application from Numsa wherein the Court was requested by NUMSA, FAWU and SAFPU to set aside the unconstitutional Special COSATU CEC decisions of 14th August 2013.
In defense of Cosatu National Office Bearers, the following Cosatu affiliated trade unions made an intervention in the court proceedings
1. Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU)
2. National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)
3. South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU)
4. South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU)
5. National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU)
6. Chemical Energy Paper Printing Wood and Allied Workers Union (CEPPWAWU)
7. South African Society for Bank Association (SASBO)
It is ironic that the leadership of the above mentioned unions was the same unions who argued consistently for the suspension of the Cosatu General Secretary, as happened in the February and May 2013 Cosatu Central Executive Committee (CEC) meetings.
Numsa's application in the South Gauteng High Court was primarily aimed at challenging the Cosatu National Office Bearers' on the basis that they;
1. Consciously allowed the flouting of the federation's constitution by not allowing affiliates to exercise their right to vote on two motions in terms of clause 5.6 and 11.4 of Cosatu's Constitution. This flagrant dismissal of the right of the affiliates to vote undermines the very fibre of Cosatu's democratic processes.
2. Willfully and eagerly accepted a rogue intelligence report as factual.
3. Their failure to share with the 14th August meeting the request from the Cosatu General Secretary's attorneys to postpone the meeting because the Cosatu President and Nehawu General Secretary were using the so-called intelligence report to purport that the Cosatu GS and Numsa GS were "imperialist agents" and in that regard predetermining the outcome of the 14th August meeting;
4. The Cosatu President - Sidumo Dlamini, Cosatu 2nd Deputy President - Zingiswa Losi (who is a member of Numsa) and Nehawu General Secretary - Fikile Majola, made use of the February 2013 Cosatu CEC to borrow from the so-called "intelligence report" to suggest that the Cosatu and Numsa GS were in fact campaigners for Agang, EFF, WASP and other political formations. The Cosatu President went further to suggest in the February 2013 CEC that some officials in Cosatu HQ were found to have copied DA policies, thereby suggesting that those officials worked hand in glove with Vavi to bring the DA into Cosatu, and this is consistent with Fikile Slovo's statement that there is a rupture and a posture of Cosatu General Secretary that reinforces the idea of an Agang political swing in the highest office of Cosatu.
5. Politically if any one were to read the SACP stance of characterizing Cosatu as being infiltrated by pseudo Marxists, anti-majoritarian, etc., the SACP 13th National Congress oNgoye, stated publicly that they have no problem with Cosatu BUT their problem is with Numsa who project itself as the Vanguard of the working class. Blade Nzimande stated categorically that there is a small lingering irritation that shall be isolated and defeated; and anybody who cares to find evidence in this statement must go back and read the actual Political Report of the SACP GS in the Ngoya SACP 13th National Congress;
6. Their failure to provide all the Cosatu affiliates with a report of the so-called grievance report;
7. Their failure to provide the Cosatu affiliates with a record of the meeting held on 14th August 2013;
The lawyers of Cosatu and the (7) intervening unions, made an appeal to NUMSA's attorneys for a postponement so that they may be afforded an opportunity to file proper replying affidavits.
In the true tradition of true democracy and transparency, NUMSA willingly agreed to a postponement which might see all parties back in the South Gauteng High Court on or about 8 October 2013.
From where we stand, Cosatu and its attorneys acknowledge that no voting took place as it appears in their replying papers in paragraph 76.
What is behind all of this?
In Numsa's understanding what lies behind all of us being in the South Gauteng High Court to challenge the unconstitutional Cosatu CEC of 14th August 2013, are the following fundamental factors;
1. Strangely, we now know that despite the complainant withdrawing her grievance against the Cosatu General Secretary, the Presiding Officer, unprecedentedly, ventured into making recommendations, which recommendations is today the hallmark of suspension. In labour disputes, it is a well-known fact that a Presiding Officer in any dispute must respect the complainant, i.e. if the complainant withdraws it is the end of the matter. For this reason we insist that there is a conspiracy on the part of the Cosatu NOB's to crucify Vavi on the basis of what is considered to an immoral act. In 2005, Cosatu and the SACP was on record as saying this about JZ
2. The ANC SG is on record as saying that the unions must be led through worker control and thereby not allowing any elected General Secretary to be a cult figure. Vavi is not considered a cult personality, because we in Numsa calls for an independent, militant revolutionary, trade Union. In this regard Cosatu in 2005 took a conscious decision to support the then ANC Deputy President to the point of saying we shall kill for him. Both Gwede and the 7 unions were united in calling for TM not to dismiss or to prosecute JZ. These seven unions attempted to unseat Vavi in September 2012 and yet choose the option of a small boardroom of leaders to do what the SACP, ANC and they could not achieve then.
3. There is a political and ideological rupture within COSATU to the point that COSATU CEC members who are also members of the ANC NEC and members of the SACP CC wishes to turn COSATU into a "toy telephone" and/or a labour desk of the ANC and SACP;
4. The SACP General Secretary and ANC Secretary General has in fact demonstrated for all of South Africa to witness that they want to use COSATU to advance the neo-liberal National Development Plan (NDP) which in essence is a surrogate of Growth Employment & Redistribution (GEAR) to the point of whipping everyone in line.
5. The ANC is on record through the ANC President and Secretary General as saying that the Freedom Charter is not ANC policy. This lie goes against the fact that the ANC adopted the Freedom Charter as ANC policy in 1956. We know that the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) was the first within the Alliance to have adopted the Freedom Charter in 1955.
6. Numsa makes an appeal to all politically conscious workers to rise and defend the federation from rightwing capture and destruction, such as we have seen of other working class formations, by the insidious, neoliberal, kleptomaniac and corrupt right wing tendency in the Liberation Movement.
7. This rightwing tendency wants to reduce Cosatu to a toy telephone and a simple labour desk for itself. This rightwing tendency has abandoned the Freedom Charter and now replaced it with the neoliberal National Development Plan (NDP).
8. This rightwing tendency works to destroy the independence of working class formations and drives their being swallowed into its rightwing agenda. We know that in fact there is today no ideological difference between this right wing and the DA, save for their skin colour.
9. This right wing, which is responsible for the accelerated integration of South Africa into the world capitalist imperialist system, and for the abandonment of the Freedom Charter, now is lying to the working class that in fact it wants to save Cosatu from capture by imperialism!!
10. History will judge us extremely harshly and unkindly, if we fail to win the war to return Cosatu to its rightful owners, the working class, and to its correct ideological and political orientation and culture, Socialism.
11. The South African Working Class shall not succumb!
Statement issued by Castro Ngobese, NUMSA National Spokesperson, September 11 2013
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