THE revelations contained in a document presented at the Cosatu national congress in Midrand - that unions affiliated to the labour federation are losing membership - do not come as a surprise.

In reality the situation is essentially a call to the federation and its affiliates to look into the kind of leadership they continue to provide within the context of their being part of the ruling party.

One of the issues raised by the striking Lonmin mineworkers in Marikana was that they were unhappy with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) leadership. They also accused Cosatu's largest affiliate of providing poor quality service to its members.

Some of the strikers went as far as to call NUM "a sweetheart union" that collaborated with management.

The situation at Lonmin has seen the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) rising to the occasion and presenting itself as the more radical alternative.

During the NUM conference in May delegates raised concerns about how the union was losing members to Amcu.

Interestingly, instead of acknowledging responsibility for the phenomenon, Cosatu and its affiliates, like NUM, have accused mining bosses of conniving with "counter-revolutionary unions" like Amcu to undermine "revolutionary unions" within the ANC-Cosatu alliance.

By so doing Cosatu and its affiliates were actually refusing to do some introspection on whether their tendency to sometimes allow their political affiliation to override the need to provide qualitative leadership to the workers was actually being questioned.

Cosatu and especially NUM's questioning of Amcu's bona -fides cannot be dismissed at face value because history has taught us that when there is a leadership vacuum all sorts of forces - both genuine and self-serving - come up to fill up the gap.

Having said that it is rather myopic and self-defeating for Cosatu and its affiliates not to do introspection.

Part of the introspection should include questioning whether what is happening in the North West platinum belt mines is not a reflection of the kind of leadership the federation and its affiliates is providing in the sector.

The introspection should also involve asking themselves whether the kind of leadership they provide is in tune with the challenges the mineworkers face not only as employees but also as sons, daughters, fathers and members of communities affected by the mining industry.