BL Premium reports that Cosatu’s biggest trade union affiliate has called on the labour federation and the SA Communist Party (SACP) to establish a popular movement speedily to address worker struggles and service delivery challenges.
Relations between the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) and the ANC are fragile and the union admitted this week that it did not go all out in campaigning for the ANC before the local government elections. Nehawu general secretary Zola Saphetha said on Wednesday that the Nehawu congress last week resolved that it was imperative “to lead struggles of the working class and rural masses for land, housing, water, sanitation, basic income grant and the general service delivery”. According to Saphetha, the national democratic revolution (NDR), the tripartite alliance’s blueprint to address socioeconomic challenges, had stagnated. “This stagnation of the NDR has led to the current socioeconomic crisis of unemployment, poverty and inequality in our country with no possible solutions. If the solution does drastically change, our people will run out of patience with the ANC,” said Saphetha. Nehawu president Mike Shingange commented that the popular movement was not intended to declare “the death of the [tripartite] alliance programme”. Instead it aimed to deepen working-class influence and “unite the working class from an ANC that is weakened by a self-serving elite”. Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said Nehawu’s call for a popular movement was an old Cosatu resolution dating back to about 2013. “We look forward to engaging Nehawu on this matter and hearing what their interpretation is of this resolution on the current political climate,” he indicated
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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