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Vavi: Boardroom fights don't help workers

Cape Town - Congress of SA Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi will not give up hope that divisions in Cosatu can be healed and it can unite in a fight for workers' interests, he said on Tuesday.

He told delegates at the Uni World Indaba in Cape Town that Cosatu was in the midst of an external campaign to undermine efforts to save it from splitting.

"We have experienced bogus security reports, surveillance from unidentified persons, allegations from 'unnamed sources' printed in the press and all manner of other tactics to publicly discredit the federation."

He hoped that the assistance of the African National Congress and former federation leaders would result in the writing of a new narrative.

This narrative would be that it had avoided a total implosion, unity had returned, and members had a common desire to rebuild a democratic, independent, militant, and socialist-orientated trade union movement.

He said a split in Cosatu might further fragment the trade union movement at a time when only 29 percent of all workers belonged to any union.

"Regrettably we have become preoccupied with our endless boardroom fights that have nothing to do with advancing workers' interests when Rome is burning."

A division in Cosatu was not just a set-back but an act of treason against workers' interests.

On Monday, Cosatu president Sidumo Dlamini said it accepted the ANC's political intervention but that the decision to expel the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) stood.

"We have agreed to a political process to deal with issues in the federation," he told a National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu) central executive committee meeting in Boksburg, on the East Rand.

"[But] we [are] entering this political discussion based on an understanding that there is a central executive committee decision that Numsa is expelled from the federation."

He said the federation would not change its policies to accommodate its former affiliate.

Numsa was expelled from Cosatu last month for breaching its constitution.

At a special national congress in December, Numsa resolved to not support the ANC in the general elections and to broaden its scope to include workers from other sectors.

Numsa and Cosatu have been at loggerheads since Cosatu suspended Vavi last year for having an affair with a junior employee, among other things. There were also allegations of fraud and corruption against Vavi.

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