The COSATU participatory democratic tradition and South Africa's new parliament: Are they reconcilable?

African Affairs

Volumn 97, Issue 386, 1998, Pages 29-51

  Maree, Johann ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CONGRESS OF SOUTH AFRICAN TRADE UNIONS; DEMOCRACY; POLITICAL IDEOLOGY; POLITICAL REFORM;

SOUTH AFRICA;

EID: 0031832655     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a007919     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. The interim constitution was negotiated during the rule of the National Party. Its aim was to ensure that the transition to democracy and governance under the new regime would take place constitutionally. It was agreed that the Government of National Unity would only govern for one term of office under the interim constitution during which time a new constitution would be negotiated. The interim constitution was replaced by the final constitution in 1996.
2. Candidates for the National Assembly of Parliament were not voted for on a constituency basis. Instead, each party drew up a list of candidates and obtained representation in proportion to the number of votes cast for the party country-wide. COSATU nominated twenty of its leaders onto the ANC list of candidates for the National Assembly.
3. I wish to acknowledge the contribution of all the other members of the joint research project towards this article. They are David Ginsburg, Eddie Webster, Roger Southall, Geoff Wood, Janet Cherry, Richard Haines and Gilton Klerck. In particular, I want to thank Geoff Wood for his contribution to this article. Part 4 has drawn extensively on his statistical analysis of the results. The findings of the full joint research project has been published as a book: see David Ginsburg, Eddie Webster, Roger Southall, Geoff Wood, Sakhela Buhlungu, Johann Maree, Janet Cherry, Richard Haines and Gilton Klerck, Taking Democracy Seriously: worker expectations and parliamentary democracy in South Africa (Indicator Press, Durban, 1995).
4. Sakhela Buhlungu, 'COSATU and the Elections', South African Labour Bulletin, 18 (1994), pp. 7-8.
5. African National Congress, The Reconstruction and Development Programme (Umanyano Publications, Johannesburg, 1994), pp. 1-12.
6. In 1994 COSATU had 1,317,000 members, the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU) 316,000 members, the Federation of South African Labour Unions (Fedsal) 270,000 members, and the South African Confederation of Labour (SACOL) 54,000 members.
7. The South African population was divided into four major groups by the apartheid state: Whites - people of European descent; Asians - people of Asian descent; Coloureds - people of mixed and Khoisan descent; and Africans - indigenous Bantu-speaking people who, in 1990, constituted 75 per cent of the total South African population.
8. For details see Johann Maree, 'Democracy and Oligarchy in Trade Unions: the independent trade unions in the Transvaal and the Western Province General Workers' Union', Social Dynamics, 8 (1982), pp. 41-52; and Johann Maree, 'An Analysis of the Independent Trade Unions in South Africa in the 1970s', (University of Cape Town, PhD thesis, 1986).
9. For details see Johann Maree, 'Democracy and Oligarchy in Trade Unions: the independent trade unions in the Transvaal and the Western Province General Workers' Union', Social Dynamics, 8 (1982), pp. 41-52; and Johann Maree, 'An Analysis of the Independent Trade Unions in South Africa in the 1970s', (University of Cape Town, PhD thesis, 1986).
10. At that stage both the ANC and South African Communist Party were banned and without significant organizational presence inside South Africa. The unions were thus independent of political parties as a matter of course.
11. Presently he is Minister of Trade and Industry in the Government of National Unity.
12. Interview, Alex Erwin, Durban, 1979.
13. Interview, Erwin, Durban, 1979.
14. Ian Macun, 'South African Unions: Still growing?', South African Labour Bulletin, 17 (1993), p, 49. See pp. 51-52 for reasons why the independent unions grew so rapidly during the 1980s.
15. Johann Maree, 'The Emergence, Struggles and Achievements of Black Trade Unions in South Africa from 1973 to 1984', Labour, Capital and Society, 18 (1985), p. 297.
16. Macun, 'South African Unions', pp. 49-50.
17. The struggle is discussed briefly below. See Ebrahim Patel, Engine of Development? South Africa's National Economic Forum (Juta & Co, Kenwyn, 1994), for an analysis of the National Economic Forum.
18. Bobbie Marie, 'COSATU faces Crisis', South African Labour Bulletin, 16 (1992), p. 22.
19. Marie, 'COSATU faces Crisis', p. 25. This was similar to the problems developed by British trade unions during the nineteenth century. The Webbs found that the unions' efforts to maintain a form of direct participatory democracy on the principle of 'what concerns all should be decided by all', resulted in bureaucratic rule by the officials once the unions federated into large national organizations. See S. & B. Webb, Industrial Democracy (Longman, London, 1911), pp. 11-36.
20. Marie, 'COSATU faces Crisis', p. 25. This was similar to the problems developed by British trade unions during the nineteenth century. The Webbs found that the unions' efforts to maintain a form of direct participatory democracy on the principle of 'what concerns all should be decided by all', resulted in bureaucratic rule by the officials once the unions federated into large national organizations. See S. & B. Webb, Industrial Democracy (Longman, London, 1911), pp. 11-36.
21. Dot Keet, 'Shop Stewards and Worker Control', South African Labour Bulletin, 16 (1992), p. 32.
22. The trade unions affiliated to COSATU and their total membership in 1994 were as follows: National Union of Mine workers (NUM) 310,596 National Union of Metalworkers of SA (NUMSA) 169,598 SA Clothing and Textile Workers' Union (SACTWU) 156,500 Food and Allied Workers' Union (FAWU) 124,576 SA Municipal Workers'Union (SAMWU) 103,846 SA Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union 102,234 National Education Health and Allied Workers Union 63,835 South African Democratic Teachers' Union (SADTU) 59,470 Chemical Workers' Industrial Union (CWIU) 43,321 Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) 38,482 Printing, Wood and Allied Workers'Union 36,630 SA Railways and Harbours Workers' Union 35,398 Construction and Allied Workers'Union (CAWU) 25,461 SA Domestic Workers Union (SADWU) 24,149 Posts and Telecommunications Workers Association 23,400 Total 1,317,496 Source: Jeremy Baskin, editor, Unions in Transition: COSATU at the dawn of democracy (National Labour and Development Institute, Johannesburg, 1994), p. 9.
23. C. Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1970), pp. 42-43.
24. Roger Southall and Geoff Wood, 'Poor Performance: political attitudes of workers in the Eastern Cape', South African Labour Bulletin, 20 (1996), pp. 44-48.
25. Roger Southall and Geoffrey Wood, 'Broadening Democracy in a Multi-Cultural and Multi-Ethnic Context: the Eastern Cape's local government elections in comparative context', Human Sciences Research Council Report (1996), pp. 12 and 16.
26. Southall and Wood, 'Poor Performance', pp. 44-47.
27. Weekly Mail, 'Ramaphosa flexes his caucus muscles,' June 24-30, 1994, p. 4.
28. Karl von Holdt, 'COSATU Congress: challenging elite anxieties', South African Labour Bulletin, 18 (1994), p. 44.
29. Karl Gostner, 'Contesting the Transition: COSATU since the Democratic Elections', South African Labour Bulletin, 20 (1996), pp. 34-39.
30. There is a silence on the part of the respondents and the author about the third party in the alliance, namely the SACP, as well as about the nature and strength of the alliance between COSATU and the SACP.
31. Gostner, 'Contesting the Transition', p. 34.
32. Gostner, 'Contesting the Transition', p. 37.
33. Eddie Webster, 'NEDLAC - Corporatism of a Special Type?', South African Labour Bulletin, 19 (1995), pp. 25-26; Tanya Rosenthal, 'Introducing NEDLAC', South African Labour Bulletin, 20 (1996), pp. 42-43.
34. Eddie Webster, 'NEDLAC - Corporatism of a Special Type?', South African Labour Bulletin, 19 (1995), pp. 25-26; Tanya Rosenthal, 'Introducing NEDLAC', South African Labour Bulletin, 20 (1996), pp. 42-43.
35. Webster, 'NEDLAC - Corporatism of a Special Type?', pp. 27-28.
36. NEDLAC, 'New Agreements at NEDLAC', South African Labour Bulletin, 21 (1997), p. 42; NEDLAC, 'Looking Forward, looking Back', South African Labour Bulletin, 21 (1997), p. 43.
37. NEDLAC, 'New Agreements at NEDLAC', South African Labour Bulletin, 21 (1997), p. 42; NEDLAC, 'Looking Forward, looking Back', South African Labour Bulletin, 21 (1997), p. 43.
38. Although this was combined with mass mobilization by COSATU as will be seen.
39. Gostner, 'Contesting the Transition', p. 38.
40. Interview, Neil Coleman, Cape Town, 1997.
41. Interview, Coleman, Cape Town, 1997. Buhlungu explains the relationship as follows: 'The RDP is the brainchild of COSATU. Initially it was conceived of as a pact that would be signed between the ANC and COSATU with the objective of binding the ANC to specific agreements while the federation would undertake to deliver votes for the ANC.' Sakhela Buhlungu, 'COSATU and the Elections', South African Labour Bulletin, 18 (1994), p. 8.
42. Interview, Kenneth Creamer, Cape Town, 1997.
43. Interview, Coleman, Cape Town, 1997.
44. This was one of COSATU's dual strategies of mass mobilization combined with engagement - see below.
45. Kenneth Creamer, 'COSATU's Parliamentary Inroads', The Shopsteward, 5 (1996/7), pp. 14-16.
46. COSATU, 'A draft Programme for the Alliance', COSATU Discussion Paper presented to the Exco, 22 November 1996, p. 6.
47. COSATU, 'A Programme for the Alliance: a COSATU discussion document', The African Communist, 146 (1997), p. 28.
48. Glenn Adler and Eddie Webster, 'Challenging Transition Theory: the labor movement, radical reform, and transition to democracy in South Africa', Politics and Society, 23 (1995), p. 81.
49. Johann Maree, 'Trade Unionism and Corporatism in South Africa', Transformation, 21 (1993), pp. 32-34.
50. Adler and Webster, 'Challenging Transition Theory', pp. 93-94.
51. Karl von Holdt, 'The LRA Agreement: "Worker Victory" or "Miserable Compromise"?', South African Labour Bulletin, 19 (1995), pp. 16-20.
52. Kenneth Creamer, 'COSATU's Parliamentary Inroads', pp. 14-15.
53. Cape Times, 'Business, union differ on protest', 3 June, 1997, p. 6.
54. The Sunday Independent, 'COSATU digs in for a do-or-die battle that it dare not lose', Independent Business, 8 June 1997, p. 1.
55. Department of Finance, Growth, Employment and Redistribution: a macroeconomic strategy (Republic of South Africa, Pretoria, 1996).
56. Sakhela Buhlungu, 'Flogging a Dying Horse? COSATU and the Alliance', South African Labour Bulletin, 21 (1997), p. 74.
57. Sam Shilowa, 'The Alliance remains Relevant', South African Labour Bulletin, 21 (1997), pp. 68, 70.
58. COSATU, 'A Programme for the Alliance', pp. 28, 29, 30, 31.
59. COSATU, 'A Programme for the Alliance', p. 32.
60. Coleman, Interview, 1997.