Saftu accepted as member of Nedlac

SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) has been accepted as a member of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) and general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said his federation was going to push pro-worker issues on the forum “very aggressively.”

Nedlac is a policy formulating body comprising the government, business, labour and community constituencies. The other labour federations at Nedlac include the ANC-aligned Cosatu, Fedusa (Federation of Unions of SA) and Nactu (National Council of Trade Unions).

“We are quite elated, obviously, it’s been a long [road] of frustrations, anger and exclusion,” Vavi said. “What this means is that we won’t be excluded and that Nedlac is not going to be an association or an exclusive club of the few. There will be a broader chance of having a debate” and influencing government’s policy positions.

“Saftu comes from a totally different perspective on a number of issues … we will add that dimension now of a different view, which we will push very aggressively,” Vavi said.

He said the next step was induction. “They [Nedlac] have arranged for an induction so that we get to know how Nedlac operates, how many chambers it has, and how we should participate in those chambers.”

Vavi, an unrelenting critic of the governing ANC’s neo-liberal policies, was ousted from Cosatu in 2015 after he rebelled against the labour federation’s decision to expel its largest affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa). Numsa, SA’s largest union with a membership of over 400,000, is now affiliated to Saftu. Saftu was formed in 2017 and has 17 affiliates, accounting for a membership of about 530,000.

In August 2022, Cosatu and Saftu held a “national shutdown march” protest against the deepening socioeconomic crises in the country including unemployment, rising cost-of-living, and loadshedding, among others. At the march, Vavi called on the government to set aside R1-trillion, or one fifth of GDP, to tackle these challenges.

Saftu national spokesperson Trevor Shaku said the labour federation was pleased Nedlac had approved its application.

“Our admission is critically significant. After so many years, Nedlac will have a federation that is neither liberal (does not accept the framework of neoliberalism and capitalism) or yellow (is not in cahoots with the ruling party), but independent and radical,” Shaku said.

“Though labouring under no illusion that Nedlac’s approval of our membership will mean a sudden transformation of the socio-economic conditions of the working class, we will contest ideas and policy proposals that affect the overwhelming working class majority.”

Shaku said this meant, “unlike the class collaborationists, we will not be collaborating but genuinely be championing pro-poor and proworker policies. Unlike opposing through statements and pickets policies that affect workers only, we will have the opportunity to contest the policy proposals in the chambers”.