Today Cosatu’s crisis is reflected in the huge disconnect between leadership and the membership. The socio-economic disparity between the two has become a gulf. In the last Cosatu Congress, Zwelinzima Vavi, the suspended General Secretary, honestly reported, “Living in the suburbs of northern Johannesburg, I have access to luxuries that many in our constituency do not. Workers feel that the unions and the leaders fail them by not prioritising their bread-and-butter issues, due to their pre-occupation with politics, and seek solutions elsewhere.” That frank self-criticism was a trademark of Cosatu in the early days. It’s all but disappeared under a cloud of the current pre-election denialism.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 07:59:01 +0000