Through history, great damage to societies has been wrought by charismatic leaders who refused to countenance that much exists outside their field of understanding. In their ignorance, these egocentric narcissists were incapable of looking beyond their simplistic views, of embracing the complexities of our reality. These forces of destruction didn’t even start to know what they didn’t know. In a recent newsletter I asked whether AMCU leader Joseph Matunjwa, who looks to be cut from this cloth, might be leading his members to ruin. His refusal to sign a deal employees clearly wanted supports such a prospect. Ditto the conclusions reached in this excellent contribution by Solidarity’s general secretary Gideon du Plessis: that AMCU leadership’s agenda is clearly political, advancing the cause of socialism despite it having failed dismally everywhere it was tried. In such battles, members become cannon fodder in the promotion of ideological beliefs. Sadly, those who do not read history, tend to become victims of it. – AH Â
When a trade union takes an unrelenting stance from the outset of wage negotiations and it forestalls a speedy settlement, the trade union either has a hidden agenda or it is a sign of inexperience. In the case of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) both reasons exist, leading to the longest mining strike in the country’s history.
The ideological company Amcu keeps
The labour unrest of the past two years gave Amcu’s populist president, Mr Joseph Matunjwa, the ideal platform to deliver inciting speeches which appealed to poor and desperate miners. Amcu’s approach has a strong ideological substructure in terms of which employers are represented as “exploiters” and “oppressors” of the working class, in particular focusing on “inequalities”. Mining bosses, but specifically “white mining bosses” were Matunjwa’s target and this appealed to Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which regularly encouraged workers to fight against “white capital”.
This socialist angle of attack provides a good fit with Amcu’s membership of the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu), a trade union federation with its origins in the Pan African Congress (PAC’s) Africanist and black consciousness tradition. This then also explains why Amcu often shared a stage with the African People Convention (APC), a breakaway party from the PAC and the United Democratic Movement (UDM). The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), the most radical leftist trade union within Cosatu, which is in the process of establishing a workers’ party, also made overtures to Amcu. As the idiom goes, you are known by the company you keep and hence Amcu finds itself in close company with groupings to the far left of the political and economic spectrum.
@alechogg Gideon's article shows there are leaders who serve their members. Amcu view of labour ahead of shareholders will cost jobs.
— Kevin French (@KevinFInvest) June 19, 2014
Amcu’s functioning within industry structures
With the above as point of departure, Amcu would ideally function within an unstructured and unstable environment where they cannot be constrained by structures and formalities. What is particularly notable is how Amcu refused to sign the Framework Agreement for a Sustainable Mining Industry, a peace initiative of former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe, which would have committed Amcu to stability and the establishment of collective structures in the mining industry.
Apart from the fact that negotiating within a formal structure doesn’t sit well with Amcu, it virtually left itself no room to manoeuvre in the 2013 gold sector and subsequent platinum negotiations. The upshot was that deadlocking formed part of Amcu’s agenda in both instances. In the gold sector negotiations, however, Amcu was caught off guard by the signing of the wage agreement in the gold industry by Solidarity, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the United Association of South Africa (Uasa), which jointly represented the majority of workers in the gold industry, and negotiations were finalised without Amcu’s input.
@alechogg the strike is now out of control, why can't they agree?
— UOL (@ronniedbn) June 19, 2014
Amcu wanted this wage agreement, which was also binding on them, to be repealed by the Labour Court, but its application wasn’t successful. Immediately after the court ruling serious incidents of intimidation, sabotage and arson erupted at several mines. Due to the wave of violence that follows Amcu wherever they have been involved since January 2012, a logical conclusion that can be reached is that Amcu-supporters or sympathisers were responsible for the incidents and that violence and intimidation complete their ideological framework and form part of their agenda.
The platinum strike
The protracted platinum strike that plunged strikers and non-strikers into poverty; brought platinum companies to their knees; dealt a blow to surrounding businesses; and made the South African platinum and mining industry even less attractive to investors, is in line with Amcu’s historical strategy to function within unstable conditions despite the irreparable harm caused. That’s how Mr Matunjwa put it pertinently during an SABC 2 TV debate on 19 May 2014 when he stated that the preferences of investors are subservient to workers’ needs.
To trade unions like Amcu that operate within the socialist ideology, the ultimate aim is to destroy the free market system and the alleged inequalities it creates, and striking workers are initially a means to an end. The sad irony is that workers pay the highest price in this ideological battle being exposed to dismissal and retrenchment. Moreover, they will undoubtedly be worse off in a socialist dispensation.
Clear from the beginning. “@alechogg AMCU’s hidden agenda: First a Socialist State, then we’ll worry about jobs http://t.co/Rouuj9kAML”
— peregrinus (@peregrinus33669) June 19, 2014
Amcu’s shortcomings
One shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Amcu’s structures and the union’s lack of experience are severely challenged by the platinum strike. Amcu had already shown during the negotiations in the wake of the Marikana incident and later during negotiations in the gold industry in 2013 that they were out of their depth as they had never before negotiated at this level, and they often used delaying tactics to have a breather.
Although I have already argued that Amcu’s inflexible R12 500 demand deliberately brought about a deadlock in the platinum negotiations, Amcu also created major expectations among its members with the big issue being made of this demand and closed the “back door” of using the demand purely as point of departure. As the R12 500 demand originated from the ranks of the rock drill operators, it could possibly have been justified at that level, but it is totally unrealistic in the case of an unskilled entry level worker, and so Amcu started climbing the mountain (in part also to outperform NUM), the peak of which they could never reach.
In addition, after its meteoric growth of 100 000 members during the 2012 labour unrest and at the beginning of 2013, Amcu has not expanded its trade union offices at all (thereby saving millions of rands in member revenue), nor has it expanded its permanent staff complement. Amcu’s ability to service its members is thus under pressure and the longer the platinum strike was continuing the more pressured Amcu became to render a typical daily trade union service to its members.
The way forward
After this, Amcu is no longer a novice in this field. Amcu has indeed reached a crossroads and it can only remain a factor if the union begins to act without a hidden agenda and operates like a normal trade union should through the expansion of its staff and governance structures; the establishment of offices throughout the mining industry; the training of its officials; participation in mainstream industry structures and forums; the development of a sense of reality and to put the interest its members have in job security first rather than making it subservient to their ideological mindset.
* Gideon du Plessis is the general secretary of the trade union Solidarity
