Cosatu opens 15th national congress in Midrand with 1,800 delegates
The federation meets for four days to choose new leaders, with jobs, technology and the alliance's election strategy on the table.
eNCA reports that delegates are gathering in Midrand, Johannesburg, for Cosatu’s 15th National Congress, where the trade union federation is expected to elect new leadership. The congress runs from 14 to 17 September, and around 1,800 delegates from affiliated unions are expected at the venue. You can read the original report here.
The gathering opens at a difficult moment for the people Cosatu represents. New technology is being adopted quickly across industries, and that is putting jobs and livelihoods under pressure. Several companies have announced retrenchments and restructuring, and households are still absorbing a rising cost of living.
That combination, fewer posts on one side and higher prices on the other, is the ground on which the federation’s new leadership will be judged by its members.
Who Cosatu backs in the local government elections
Political strategy is expected to take up much of the four days, and the sharpest question is who Cosatu will support in this year’s local government elections.
The question lands in the middle of open strain inside the Tripartite Alliance. The SACP has said it will contest the local government elections on its own rather than through the usual alliance arrangement.
Cosatu has asked for an Alliance Political Council meeting, which would bring the ANC, the SACP and the federation to one table to agree a way forward on the elections without damaging the alliance. So far the federation has not managed to get all three partners into the same room.
For voters and for workers, the practical effect is a ballot in which the alliance’s partners may not be standing behind one another. For Cosatu, the congress is the place where that position gets settled, or does not.
A federation with a record to defend
Cosatu remains the country’s largest union grouping, and its congress is not only an internal party matter. The federation sits in the structures that shape wage policy, labour law and the bargaining rounds that set pay in mining, manufacturing, the public service and retail.
The congress is also a test of how the federation handles disagreement inside its own ranks. A leadership elected this week will carry the mandate into those negotiations for years.
What happens over the next four days
The congress sits until Thursday, 17 September. By the close, delegates will have chosen new leadership and the federation will have had its say on the elections. Whether the three alliance partners meet before then is the other date to watch.
Source: eNCA. Read the original item.
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