COSATU Blinks 1
The Western Cape provincial branch of COSATU is about to withdraw from the nationwide public services strike. I assume this means they have decided to accept the government’s latest salary increase offer.
I think this is a bit of a watershed moment in labour/government relations. Not only is there a split in the ANC/COSATU/SACP tri-partite alliance but it seems there might even be splits amongst COSATU itself, both at a national level (between Willie Madisha and Zwelinzima Vavi) and now on a regional level. It will be interesting to see how other COSATU provincial branches react.
It’s also interesting to note that many people suspected COSATU planned to use the strike in order to influence the upcoming ANC policy committee meeting. Now COSATU are going into the meeting with even less power than before.
That’s always interesting, and that’s normal that public interested in this. But let’s be realists. For the moment that’s just “declaration”, we’ll see what actions will be.