{"id":14785,"date":"2012-09-19T16:39:38","date_gmt":"2012-09-19T14:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/09\/splinter-unions-show-up-the-big-ones\/"},"modified":"2012-09-19T16:39:38","modified_gmt":"2012-09-19T14:39:38","slug":"splinter-unions-show-up-the-big-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/splinter-unions-show-up-the-big-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"Splinter unions show up the big ones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        \t                                <!-- Main Editorial Image --><br \/>\n                    \t\t\t      \t\t\t                                      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/103ae_1938864881.jpg\" alt=\"Copy of NM_nm cosatu march20\" class=\"pics\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"captions_credit_article\">INLSA<\/p>\n<p class=\"captions\">A  Cosatu leader addresses a large crowd in Cape Town in 2010. In some cases the voice of smaller unions might be the voice of sanity and might just save the employer, writes the author.<\/p>\n<p class=\"captions\">\n<p class=\"related_articles\">Related Stories<\/p>\n<ul class=\"menu_tab_lists_related\">\n<li><a class=\"related_articles\" href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za:80\/mercury\/the-editor-s-note\/why-cosatu-clings-to-power-1.1385402\">Why Cosatu clings to power<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--PSTYLE=WT Web Text--><\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">It\u2019s an age-old question, but does size really matter? When it comes to trade unions, organisations boasting large numbers certainly appear to have more muscle. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">But last month it was not the giant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) which brought international focus to SA when it took on the Lonmin mine management at Marikana, but a small splinter mining union, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU). <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Anthony Pierce, KwaZulu-Natal spokesman for the teachers union Naptosa \u2013 which is considerably smaller than the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) \u2013 said big numbers mattered when you wanted to display strength.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cBut not when you want to bring issues to the table. So being smaller doesn\u2019t make you less important.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">He added: \u201cBigger unions assume everyone needs to conform, but in a democracy it\u2019s not like that.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Pierce conceded, however, that the smaller, non-Cosatu-aligned unions did not enjoy the same standing with the government as those belonging to its tripartite ally.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Still, Cosatu was not taking lightly the emergence of smaller splinter unions. As the federation was to meet in Midrand this week for its national congress, spokesman Patrick Craven said these breakaway unions would definitely be on the agenda for discussion. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Most visible at the moment is AMCU in the mining sector, which is posing a serious challenge to the NUM, Cosatu\u2019s biggest and most powerful affiliate. Utatu, the United Transport and Allied Trade Union, is also proving to be a thorn in the side of  the better known Satawu, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Craven said Cosatu would have to take some responsibility for the breakaway unions. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cFor Cosatu it\u2019s a cause for concern when workers form breakaway unions because it is going to weaken the trade union movement\u2026 we need even bigger unions to be more effective,\u201d he said.   <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">In the same vein, Mbuyiseni Mathonsi, KZN secretary of teachers union Sadtu, said smaller unions were not recognised at national bargaining councils and were therefore toothless.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cThe others [smaller ones] are like associations where people come together like in stokvels and funeral schemes.\u201d   <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Analyst Johnny Goldberg, of Global Business Solutions, agreed. He said after 25 years experience he believed that there was a need for the one-workplace-one-union concept. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">This would strengthen the voice of workers and avoid the competition between them to see who would get the most members as a result of the subscriptions.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cWhen you have 30 000 to 100 000 workers it\u2019s a big business,\u201d said Goldberg.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">But Chris Kloppers, the CEO of the South African Teachers Union (Satu), strongly disagreed. He said that if employers only listened to one union, it could seriously disadvantage workers as the true picture of what was happening in the workplace might not be revealed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cSometimes the voice of the minority might be the voice of sanity and might just save the employer.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Kloppers said being independent and not beholden to any political party was important because this meant unions would not have to toe the party line and disadvantage workers.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">He said internationally there was also a move away from the \u201cblue collar style of unionism\u201d where everything was determined by numbers.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">It was better to be in touch with workers and provide a critical, independent voice while realising that unions were an integral part of the services sector, he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Kloppers said last year Satu, which has a national membership of 33 000 together with the Federation of Governing Bodies of SA Schools, challenged the education department in the high court for refusing to employ 6 000 temporary teachers in the Eastern Cape, which had left the province\u2019s schools in disarray.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">They won the case even after the department appealed against the initial ruling. Kloppers said this was a clear indication that size did not matter.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Craven believed that among the reasons for the formation of breakaway unions was that the pay of many workers was still low, especially in relation to their employers, as well as the persistence of racial inequality in the workplace as indicated in the recent report of the Commission for Employment Equity.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">So from today to Thursday, Cosatu unions will scratch their heads and try to come up with ways to deal with the issue.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Craven said in some cases members had left and joined other unions because they felt Cosatu was not radical enough; in other cases political opportunists had jumped on the bandwagon, while unions had in some cases let their members down and could have done better.   <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">In addition, trade union leaders are better paid than the workers they represent. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cWe need to check that we are not too complacent,\u201d said Craven. He said Cosatu wanted to be closer to its members and ensure that they did not become \u201coffice-based unions where organisers spend their lives in air-conditioned offices\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Mthetho Xhali, a researcher at the International Labour Research and Information Group, agreed that Cosatu had moved away from its workers and that it should go back to being the trade union it was in the \u201980s when it was intimately involved in the struggles faced by working-class communities. He added that Cosatu should democratise itself and develop ways which would allow its rank-and-file workers to shape its agenda.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cThe unfolding developments in the mining sector reveal that shop steward committees are no longer the best link to workers. This is not the first time that lack of accountability has been exposed within Cosatu unions. We saw this during the public sector strike, where workers rejected an offer which negotiators settled with the state,\u201d said Xhali. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>INLSA A Cosatu leader addresses a large crowd in Cape Town in 2010. In some cases the voice of smaller unions might be the voice of sanity and might just save the employer, writes the author. Related Stories Why Cosatu clings to power It\u2019s an age-old question, but does size really matter? When it comes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-14785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}