Trade unions are losing sight of their purpose, says Tahir Maepa.
Trade union leader Taher Maepa has blasted the trade union fraternity for apparently abandoning their mandate in pursuit of wealth. He said an oversight body needed to be established to ensure trade unions performed their functions.
Speaking in an interview on Salaamedia a day after South Africa observed Workers’ Day, Maepa, from the Public Service and Commercial Union (PSCU) said trade unions had strayed from their purpose.
Initially meant to “look after the interests of workers and improve their working conditions”, Maepa said, trade unions now operate as employers.
“Unions are not there to be rich, to be wealthy and to own businesses. Unfortunately, the trade unions of today, in this country and across the world, are business people. They are entangled and they have dropped the baton in terms of what unions are supposed to be doing,” he said.
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Oversight body
Noting the possible erosion of trust in trade unions from workers, Maepa suggested the establishment of an oversight body. This body, he stated, would ensure unions remained committed to workers, as prescribed by law.
“We are seeing the erosion of the power of unions. In this country, for instance, only 22% of the workers are unionised. It means a huge chunk of workers either have lost trust in unions or they are not interested in unions,” he said.
He said unions were presently expected to work according to the law, but there was nobody to make sure this was happening. The relationship between workers, trade unions and the business sector is governed by the Labour Relations Act of 1995.
“We need some form of ombudsman to check if the unions are indeed doing what the law prescribed. It’s not something that we can choose, but the moment we move [away from] the law, there’s no one who’s monitoring that us, as unions, are still fulfilling our responsibility in terms of the Constitution.”
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Workers under siege
Meanwhile, at a Workers’ Day rally in the Free State on Monday, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) president Zingiswa Losi called for unity. She reiterated her organisation’s support of the tripartite alliance with the African National Congress (ANC).
“Workers have always insisted that their struggles be advanced on all fronts and have been clear that working class struggles must be waged on the political front, in the alliance, at Nedlac, in Parliament and in the streets. We will not surrender the state or the alliance to tenderpreneurs or the elite,” she said.
She emphasised that unity was imperative if unions were to defend collective bargaining and improve the lives of workers. “Some of our actions say that we are not committed to this fundamental task of the trade union movement,” she said.
Losi said workers were “under siege” and needed COSATU to defend them.
“We will not inspire workers when we insult each other in public. We will not discipline employers when we are divided into four federations and 200 unions. Workers are under siege. Their only defence is Cosatu and their weapon is unity,” she said.
Julie Alli and Tahir Maepa discussed the role of trade unions. Listen to the full discussion here:
