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Inside Labour: Why unions must resist capture and fight for reform

AS I noted last week, patronage, usually the more subtle form of bribery and corruption, is very much part and parcel of our social and economic system. And two readers have pointed out to me this week that the South Africa experience extends from the Dutch East India Company and Jan van Riebeeck through to Cecil John Rhodes and company.

But it is not only business and financial gain that lies at the heart of such manipulation, of attempts to “capture” politicians, union leaders, organisations or even a state. Nor is such manipulation always attempted through financial patronage, with external economic interests pulling the political strings.

Ideology - politics - can also be a driving force. And it is the same on the national as well as the international plane. Political parties around the world, realising the potential power of organised labour, have often wooed and won individual unions and federations. This resulted in Western Europe, for example, having unions affiliated to Christian Democratic, Social Democratic and Communist parties, the antithesis of working class unity.

The prime division over the past 70 years reflected the Cold War, where the only alternative to what existed in the United States-led West was claimed to be trade union structures in the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites. And so there were two major international federations: the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), headquartered in Prague, and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), headquartered in Brussels.

Both now feature in an apparent attempt by the WFTU to capture the allegiance of Cosatu from what is now known as the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), successor to the ICFTU. In the wake of the global economic crisis, the rump of the WFTU, with headquarters in Athens, has again begun growing, positioning itself as before as the only alternative to the ITUC.

However, the WFTU continues to promote the concept of trade union-supported workers’ parties that should control both state and economy. This make unions - as in the former Soviet Union, and now in countries such as China - mere conveyor belts for party and state.

But the ITUC is also not beyond criticism. Although it is in principle independent and its affiliates support freedom of association and independent unionism, many of the affiliates and the ITUC itself have become top heavy and bureaucratic. The fact that ITUC officials provide credibility to the annual World Economic Forum by attending the meetings of this rich man’s club attracts legitimate criticism.

The WFTU, on the other hand, had - and still has - the support of communist parties and is headed by George Mavrikos, a former Greek MP and member of the Greek Communist Party (KKE). Although it has won individual unions such as Britain’s 82 000-strong transport union, RMT, its support on a national level comes from countries such as North Korea and Syria.

Unlike ITUC, which accepts only national federations as members - all three of South Africa’s major federations, Cosatu, Fedusa and Nactu, are ITUC affiliates - the WFTU recruits individual unions. This is seen by some critics as an attempt to “white ant” federations and four of Cosatu’s affiliated unions are now WFTU members.

The four unions have also agreed to host the world congress of the WFTU in Durban in October. But here a major problem has arisen: one of the main driving forces, apart from the SA Communist Party, to get Cosatu to affiliate to the WFTU was metalworkers‘ union Numsa. An early WFTU affiliate and now the biggest union in the land, Numsa was expelled from Cosatu and is in the process of establishing a new national federation.

“I don’t think we will attend that congress,” said Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim. “The unions who are hosting it were among those who expelled us and the WFTU said nothing about that.” Numsa is now “rethinking” its position regarding the two international bodies.

However, Numsa still insists that it is a “red union” following “Marxist-Leninist principles”. This seems to indicate ongoing support for the very conveyor belt unionism that exists in countries such as North Korea. As such, it perpetuates the “Tweedledum/Tweedledee” - ITUC vs WFTU - divisions of the past.

Yet reform is clearly needed within the labour movement, both nationally and internationally. There is a need to return to truly democratically controlled trade unions that unite workers as workers without political or financial manipulation from on high.

ITUC, with its commitment to freedom of association and organisational independence, at least seems capable of being persuaded, from below, in that direction.

* Add your voice to the big labour debate.

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