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IT HAS been a very busy week or so on the news front, says Terry Bell in his latest Labour Wrap. And this applies particularly to the labour movement.
In the first place, both national and local government workers appear headed for a clash with their employers, the government and the councils. Then there was the surprising upset in the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) leadership last weekend while, on Tuesday, the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) went to court against Cosatu to try to gain admission to the federation’s special national congress scheduled for next month.
Bell maintains that the NUM leadership change and the Numsa question are directly related, and that media concentration on these issues is warranted because of the implications for the economy and the country as a whole. This news was important enough to almost push the Fifa bribery scandal — was it a bribe, a non-bribe or a donation? — off the front pages.
And while Fifa and the turmoil in Cosatu will continue to rumble on, the same cannot be said for the African Union meeting in Johannesburg this week. Like the World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering in Cape Town last week, it will almost certainly fade from sight almost immediately.
However, Bell notes that he is still astounded that the media tends to regard the WEF as a legitimate international, even humanitarian, organisation. He points out that it is nothing of the sort: it is a private club comprising the heads of 1 000 of the world’s richest corporates and exists to promote their interests.
And it is in the interests of the country as a whole that the facts about the bitter rows and schisms within Cosatu also be made clear and discussed now that the whole messy business seems to be reaching finality, one way or the other.
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* Terry Bell is a political, economic and labour analyst. Views expressed are his own. Follow him on twitter @telbelsa.
