Vavi knows the truth better than anyone: He’s no hero or victim

This article argues that the CEC’s decision to expel Zwelinzima Vavi from Cosatu does not deserve the adulation or scorn it is given. My thesis is that stronger Cosatu was long indentified as a threat both within and outside the tripartite alliance. The economic policy direction that ANC took after the Reconstruction and Development Programme (1994), especially Growth, Employment and Redistribution ( GEAR) in 1996, stated clearly that union power had to be curtailed. The then Secretary General Shilowa fought gallantly against the taming of the labour union movement. He relented and was thanked with a golden handshake of premiership in Gauteng. Other leaders became part of government at different levels. A weak Cosatu holds key to the successful tripartite alliance as well. It is the likes of Shilowa, Mantashe, Vavi and Jim who ensured that the labour movement did not move too far away from the controls of the ANC and capital. Employers, Cosatu leadership and the ruling party struck a deal moons ago that the only way to contain the demands of labour in the South African economy was through a weakened Cosatu. Vavi knows the truth. He is therefore not a hero or vilian because he has been part of questionable decisions within Cosatu in the past, such as the firing of William Madisha and growth of investment companies that lack accountability…

To be honest I am not really certain on what to make of the developments in Cosatu. The decision of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting to dismiss Secretary General Zwelinzima Vavi did not come as a surprise at all.

In fact it was to be expected, he knew it himself because as a senior office-bearer in the union federation he was also involved in kicking fellow comrades out of Cosatu under questionable circumstances. In short; Vavi fell on sword he sharpened. Moshoeshoe Monare says yesterday proved a little bit too late for Vavi “to undo a corrosive subculture they helped to inculcate.”

My take is that is that Cosatu has had its back against the wall for years, and for a number of reasons. Vavi understood this fairly well although he is not likely to admit. He is not a victim or hero in this normality in the labour movement. The argument is that a stronger Cosatu was long indentified as a threat, both within and outside the tripartite alliance. The economic policy direction that ANC took after the Reconstruction and Development Programme (1994), especially Growth, Employment and Redistribution ( GEAR) in 1996, stated clearly that union power had to be curtailed. The then Secretary General Shilowa fought gallantly against the taming of the labour union movement. He relented and was thanked with a golden handshake of premiership in Gauteng. Other leaders became part of government at different levels – although some joined government in the first democratic parliament in 1994.

The period following Shilowa’s departure saw the rise of union involvement in the economy. A conflicted and compromised Cosatu has not stopped sleeping with the enemy in one bed, which made a mockery of the country’s bargaining system. Cosatu and affiliates made massive investments in companies where they claimed to be bargaining better conditions for workers. Conflict of interest became the name of the game. Union leadership did not seem perturbed as they continued with their work.

First, Kopano Ke Matla Investment Company (Pty) Ltd was established in 1996 by the Kopano Ke Matla Trust whose sole beneficiary is COSATU. The same Kopano, it was reported in 2013, plundered millions of rands from an employee provident fund, according to a secret Financial Services Board report that is likely to heap more pressure on Vavi. Kopano was also said to have been embroiled in a fight within Cosatu over the selling of its old headquarters and the purchase of a new building. The source of Vavi’s problems over two years ago – more or less the same time he had a good time with a junior employee inside Cosatu House – was alleged to have been his involvement in the purchase or disposal of buildings. 

Second; NUMSA has Numsa Investment Company. Third, NUM has Mineworkers Investment Company (MIC). Fourth, Nehawu has the Nehawu Investment Co (Pty) Ltd. 

The business of these entities remained largely concealed. The affairs and finances were a hidden secret – workers were kept in the dark. Their money was mishandled and misused at each given opportunity.

The likes of Irvin Jim, secretary general of dissident Cosatu affiliate Numsa, are said to own expensive properties in exclusive locations like Sandton. Not one house but several. During the prolonged industrial action in the platinum sector in 2014 it emerged that Frans Baleni earned R77 000 a month, while ordinary mineworkers are struggling to make ends meet. Baleni also sat in boards of state companies such as the DBSA as well as served on boards of some JSE-listed Top 40 companies. 

This situation has resulted in serious breaches on the part of union leadership. Their sincerity was questioned because the dividends declared in companies where union owned investment arms hold stock were never distributed amongst workers. 

Even during strikes these monies and membership fees were never used to alleviate the financial difficulties, especially in the event of an unpaid strike. The humanitarian crisis that developed in Marikana was avoidable: workers should not have gone hungry when they paid subscription fees to NUM (and even AMCU). AMCU grew as a result of this reality.

The other problem was created by the relationship between the ANC and Cosatu in particular. The 1995 Labour Relations Act was designed in such a manner that it gave Cosatu and affiliates a monopoly in the workplace, through close shops and squeezing out of smaller unions. This was to ensure that union leadership was forever indebted to the paymaster. Unions collected millions of rands from sector bargaining structures. Nehawu, for example, makes millions a month from the Public Sector Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC). 

The future of Cosatu trade unionism was well protected until symbiotic relationship with the ruling party grew intense. The unions strong leaders were rewarded with lucrative cabinet positions as part of the governing alliance. Shilowa, Shepherd Mdladlana, Alec Erwin, Tito Mboweni, Jay Naidoo, etcetera came from the union movement. 

Withstanding these notable appointments, the tensions between Cosatu and the ANC were there but they were not as pronounced. However, what was apparent is that when “the battle for the soul of the ANC” (in the words of author Mervin Gumede) intensified, Cosatu caught severe cold. Vavi fought openly and won the battle against his comrade Willy Madisha. This fight coincided with the victory of a faction that is aligned to President Jacob Zuma in the ANC elective conference in Polokwane in 2007. Most unfortunately for Vavi, it looks like he has become William Madisha in 2015 “in the hands of a nurse” (President Sidumo Dlamini).

Vavi’s expulsion should not be given gravitas it does not deserve. To say that the working class has lost out and or will lose out as a result of the CEC’s decision to fire Vavi is devoid of truth and should thus be avoided at all cost. 

Vavi has played the game that is currently being played on him. He has been the overseer of dishonesty and lies in the union movement. He protected those whom the Financial Services Board had implicated of wrongdoing in Kopano, where retirement monies of workers were misused and went unaccounted for. He sharpened the spear that ended Madisha’s life in Cosatu. The similarity between Madisha’s case and what is happening now with Vavi is that the fallout probably has much to do with relations within the tripartite alliance.

Moreover, he has never spoken spoken about the lack of accountability of the investment companies that continue to waste millions of rands, without paying a cent to the supposed shareholders, the workers. 

Apart from Madisha, former Cosatu deputy president Joe Nkosi, former National Union of Metalworkers of SA leader Slumko Nondwangu and others were victims of Vavi’s “intolerant and vicious machinations at the expense of the workers and the stability of the federation.”

To comfort Mr Vavi, he will be happy to learn that he is not the last Cosatu leader to be expelled under the circumstances he was fired. It happened to Madisha, in his hands. Probably, Bheki Ntshalintshali or Sidumo Dlamini will face the same face in the near future, particularly if they fail to live harmoniously with the ANC’s neoliberal economic policies and shareholding in various sectors of the economy.

The source of Vavi’s troubles now is that his detractors, led by the NUM, feel that he is too brazenly critical of the ANC government.

Under Vavi, Cosatu made no bones about etolls, labour brokers and other controversial issues that did not sit well with Luthuli House. Even here, Vavi’s hypocrisy was exposed when Kopano was listed as one the shareholders in the etolls scheme in Gauteng.

The future of Cosatu was always tenuous. Its destiny always lied somewhere very far from its leadership. Consider this example of the Eastern Cape province. Following the ANC victory in the national elections in 2014, Cosatu provincial chairman Mpumelelo Saziwa and treasurer Nonceba Khontsiwe were sworn in as MPLs, while provincial secretary Mandla Rayi became a member of the National Council of Provinces. This left Maheneza as the only office bearer at the East London-based provincial office. Dysfunctionality. 

A weak Cosatu holds key to the successful tripartite alliance. It is the likes of Shilowa, Mantashe, Vavi and Jim who ensure that the labour movement does not move too far away from the controls of the ANC and capital. Employers, Cosatu leadership and the ruling party struck a deal moons ago that the only way to contain the demands of labour in the South African economy was through a weakened Cosatu.

Joseph  Mathunjwa and Jim will therefore not succeed in forming independent trade unions. Even if they did, temptation to devour workers’ monies in membership fees and unaccounted investments may prove very hard to resist. The capitalist bug troubles even the staunchest of communists in South Africa and elsewhere.

Are African-Americans a displaced tribe?

Grethe Koen @City_Press

Bound examines the tense relationship between Africans and African-Americans.

A new documentary called Bound: Africans vs African Americans, aims to0 unveil the tense, complex and rarely talked-about relationship between Africans and African-Americans.

Actor Isaiah Washington, a co-producer on the film, opens the discussion in the documentary’s trailer.

“There will be two people of colour in a class. One African and one African-American. And they will not look at each other. For fear of what?”

By gathering black Africans and Americans together in a room, writer and film maker Peres Owino aims to start a long-overdue conversation.

Why would some African-Americans rather forget their heritage? And what are the stereotypes surrounding both groups?

“I was called an African booty scratcher I don’t know how many times,” says one interviewee in the trailer. I’m not even sure what an African booty scratcher is. I don’t know if it’s a stick you scratch your back with.

“But it’s a term we’ve been calling each other since we were children. Typically, the darker you are, the more you get called it.”

Some Africans wonder about the presumed indifference to the African experience from their American counterparts. But questions of identity are not particular to this group and, as a white South African, the issue of displaced identity is not new to me.

“Africans wonder about African-Americans,” says Owino. “They wonder: ‘Why don’t they want to learn about Africa? Why is it that the Europeans are so interested in learning about my culture, but my African-American brothers aren’t?’”

Perhaps the reason is simple. I, for instance, don’t feel any particular attachment to the Netherlands where, looking at my surname, I am probably from. I am indifferent to its people and its happenings; I don’t even support their ­football team. I definitely don’t identify as Dutch.

But then I remember that if I did identify as Dutch, it wouldn’t come with the baggage that associating with being African does – those ill-conceived stereotypes of violence, barbarism and primitivism. I wouldn’t be putting my value as a South African citizen in danger, as African-Americans would.

As the recent protests in Ferguson, Cleveland and New York show us, black Americans need to constantly affirm their “Americanness” – their right to exist as equal and valuable citizens – identifying with being African would seem like saying they don’t really belong.

The US is still racially divided and black Americans must fight tooth and nail to have their lives valued as much as white Americans. Funny, seeing that white Americans aren’t the country’s indigenous people.

Dr Joy DeGruy, author of the book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, speaks to this issue extensively in the documentary.

“If you’re taught that everything that is black is to be despised, then I really hate the reflection. Not in white people, but in black people, because you remind me of my nothingness.”

Owino presents African-Americans as a displaced African tribe, but this might be too neat an analogy. They are displaced, but would hardly be able to mesh with Africans if they were to return. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as if they’ve been fully accepted as American either.

As a result of slavery, they are a tribe in limbo, with no home. This is perhaps why the idea of Africa as the motherland – a place where they can be sheltered, a place to come home to, might seem appealing.

Many black Americans have embraced their African heritage as a point of pride, tracing their lineage back to its roots.

Oprah Winfrey is supposedly from the Kpelle tribe in Liberia, Quincy Jones from the Mbundu or Kimundu ethnic group in present-day Angola, and Whoopi Goldberg from an ethnic group in Guinea-Bissau.

Washington traced his bloodline to Sierra Leone and became the first African-American to be granted full citizenship to an African country based on his DNA.

Despite this move towards integration, there is still one area of fierce contention.

An incendiary point in the documentary is the idea that Africans should pay African-Americans reparations for selling them into slavery.

“When I was in Kenya, all I wanted to do was connect with African-Americans,” says Owino. “I thought: Every African-American I meet, I want to give a piece of Africa. But the first African I met told me: ‘I am not from Africa. I’m from North Carolina, and you people sold us.’” This saddened Peres, since this idea plays into Western stereotypes.

The system that allowed people to be sold into slavery was set up by white people, so who is to blame? But slavery wasn’t a uniquely Western concept; African tribes bought and sold slaves long before Westerners landed on their shores.

Ultimately, Owino’s documentary aims to foster a healthy curiosity between Africans and their American counterparts. Bound scratches the surface of a long-overdue conversation on a complex relationship.

The documentary brings to light an issue that remains relevant, but up until now has not had a clear discussion around it. Bound should act as a starting point for more honest conversations about these issues.

Source: City Press (15 March 2015)