A bitter falling out between erstwhile labour allies Zwelinzima Vavi and Irvin Jim appears to be the cause of the ructions in the five-year-old South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) this week.
Vavi, who is general secretary of the federation, told the Sunday Times that Jim — head of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) — was behind the “trumped-up charges” that his Saftu colleagues have cited as reasons to suspend him.
Vavi, former general secretary of the Cosatu trade union federation, said his relationship with Jim soured after the Saftu leadership rejected his plea to endorse the Socialist Revolutionary Workers’ Party (SRWP), which was launched by Numsa to contest the 2019 elections. Numsa is a Saftu affiliate.
So it was no surprise that he was slapped with an “illegal and unlawful” letter from Saftu national office-bearers, instructing him to state why he should not be suspended, Vavi said.
“He [Jim] has been putting me under relentless pressure to embrace the SRWP and to get Saftu to embrace it. Both myself and Saftu have so far refused because that is a decision that cannot be taken by anyone except the national congress,” said Vavi.
Numsa has been part of all of those Saftu resolutions, suddenly comrade Irvin is pulling on the side of those resolutions and blames me as a person for not endorsing the SRWP
— Zwelinzima Vavi
“The federation has said that it is independent and that once it agrees on a need to form a mass workers party, it does not agree that that party must be imposed from above to workers.
“We disagree there. Numsa has been part of all of those Saftu resolutions, suddenly comrade Irvin is pulling on the side of those resolutions and blames me as a person for not endorsing the SRWP.”
Vavi said he had seen no detailed allegations against him, apart from an accusation that he had wrongly spent R1,800 of union money on Gautrain trips, Bolt rides and airtime.
But his opponents said he has a case to answer in connection with “violations of the constitution, breach of administration and finance policy, and disrespecting and undermining constitutional structural decisions and resolutions”.
Jim and Vavi were close allies at Cosatu before they were both expelled in 2015, after which Saftu was launched. Before his departure from Cosatu, Vavi was accused of, among other things, having abused a union credit card to pay for flights for his wife and ex-wife.
The divisions between Vavi and Jim were laid bare this week when messages exchanged in a WhatsApp group were leaked.
One message purportedly written by Jim said: “This is what is the liberalism that has engulfed Saftu, Vavi can tell the whole NOBs [national office-bearers] to look for nearest cliff and jump because he is [more] popular than the rest of Saftu NOBs.”
The messages accused Vavi of having “absolutely no respect for the collective leadership” and of dismissing it “with absolute arrogance [and] absolute disrespect of the entire leadership that respected him [and] allowed him to explain his side of the story”.
“Ours is an appreciation that we are in a democratic dispensation with a bourgeois constitution with a bill of rights. We must be clear to all of you in this group, keep your special eminent ZV and hands off our Saftu NOBs.”
Jim said it was a "conspiracy theory" that he is after Vavi.
Vavi has the backing of Food & Allied Workers Union general secretary Mayoyo Mngomezulu, who said Jim appeared to want Saftu to shift its strategy. It was “disturbing” that Jim was still pushing the political party route for Saftu following the “failed experiment” of the SRWP.
Mngomezulu said the party had been Jim’s idea, and did not have broad support from Numsa members.
“Where were Numsa members when SRWP was formed and it contested [the 2019] elections? They did not even win a single seat, and that explains to you what the character of Numsa is. There is Numsa, and then there is Jim. You cannot combine the two,” he said.
There is nothing political about this. If Vavi has issues with Jim, he must sort them out
— Saftu president Mac Chavalala
But Saftu president Mac Chavalala said Vavi is using the SRWP matter as an excuse to evade accountability.
“There is nothing political about this. If Vavi has issues with Jim, he must sort them out. Now they are bringing the SRWP into the mix but the fact is there is a resolution of congress that Saftu will never, ever be an affiliate of any political party,” said Chavalala.
“So there is no way that the NOBs can take a shortcut and want to fight Vavi so that they can take the federation to the SRWP or to Numsa.”
Saftu affiliate unions that sympathise with Vavi believe Jim is trying to “hijack” the federation and turn it into a mainstream political party.
Vusi Ntshangase, head of the Democratised Transport Logistics & Allied Workers Union, said Jim is determined to stop Vavi from winning a second term at the Saftu congress billed for May.
“This erroneous act by the president and his team [seeking to suspend Vavi] could be politically motivated for many reasons, and part of the reasons could be to predetermine congress outcomes and change the character of Saftu politically,” said Ntshangase.
“It will be good if he [Vavi] were to get another term, it will be good for the federation, but that is a call for unions to make through their structures building up to the congress.”
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