Cosatu is against thuggery

THE tragic events at Lonmin Mine last, which claimed the lives of 34 workers, have turned the spotlight on the question of violence during strikes and protests.

It has provoked a heated debate, which is sure to be reflected at Cosatu's national congress.

Cosatu has welcomed the establishment of a commission of inquiry, which we hope will investigate not only what happened on that day at Marikana in North West, but the violent events preceding it, the underlying causes of the problem and who was involved?

But the commission could also help to shed light on the broader problem of violence both in society in general and in particular during protest actions and strikes.

Cosatu has consistently condemned all acts of violence and lawlessness and done everything possible to enforce the highest standards of discipline among its members during strikes anddemonstrations.

In the vast majority of cases, this has succeeded. Workers have been militant and angry, but also peaceful, lawful and orderly.

Unfortunately, however, you never see newspaper headlines like "Strikers in peaceful march" or "Crime-free mass demonstration". The media is only interested in the small minority of events in which a few people are violent or commit crimes.

Cosatu unions have never condoned and never will tolerate any violent or threatening behaviour in any of its activities.

This, as our affiliate Denosa said during a public service workers dispute, is a "foreign trend which has no place in the working class struggle".

This is both a matter of principle, but it is also a necessary strategy to keep the public on our side. Winning broad public support for workers' demands helps to put more pressure on employers to makeconcessions.

It also makes it easier to recruit new members and enhance the unions' reputation and increase their hegemony in society.

Violence and crime during our activities, on the other hand, even if committed by people who are not even members, undermine public support for striking workers and the trade union movement as a whole.

That is why Cosatu is fighting attempts to make trade unions legally and financially responsible for criminal damage committed in the vicinity of their public marches, when the organisers have done everything possible to insist that the participants obey the law and have appointed marshals to enforce discipline.

The effect of such a law could be to bankrupt unions and rob workers of their only shield against super-exploitation and that is surely the motive of those who advocate such laws, like the Democratic Alliance and business associations, that are desperate to divide and weaken the workers' movement, in the hope that they will be able to cut their labour costs and increase their profits.

I hope that such people are taking note of the developments at Marikana and elsewhere, where there is growing evidence of a co-ordinated strategy to promote breakaway unions, using intimidation and violence, manipulated by disgruntled former union leaders, in a concerted drive to create breakaway "unions" and divide and weaken the trade unionmovement.

Just as the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union is being used in this way to attack and weaken the Cosatu-affiliated NUM, a similar breakaway, Natawu, has been launched by a former president of Satawu, using the same tactics.

The people behind these moves are playing with fire. What Marikana shows is that a divided and weakened workers' movement is a recipe for instability and ultimately violence, which is a danger to society as a whole, including the employers themselves and their profits.

Violence is not a trade union problem, but a problem in all societies where there are stark levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

We see it in community protests over service delivery. Nor is it a uniquely South African problem. In the wake of the world economic crisis, we have seen violent street protests in the UK, Greece, Spain and now in France.

The spark may be different each time, but the underlying reason is the same - a capitalist economic system in which a rich minority gets richer and richer, acquired through more ruthless exploitation of the working class, while a growing poor majority face rising unemployment, cuts in essential public services and a grim struggle tosurvive.

While South Africa has escaped some of the worst effects of the recession, it was already suffering from extreme levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality, and has become the most unequalsociety on earth.

That is the real reason for violent protests, not strong trade unions or communist agitators. In the long run, we need to restructure our economy, create thousands more jobs and slash levels of poverty. In the meantime, we must all work together - unions, business, civil society and government - to minimise the incidence of violence.

For unions to play their vital part in this process, they need to be strong, democratic and united. This will become far harder if attempts to divide, disrupt and weaken us ever come to pass.

Cosatu unions will never stop fighting for higher wages and better working conditions for its members and struggling to advance the national democratic revolution, but we shall continue to also play a constructive role in helping to bring people together, mediating and finding solutions which avoid any repetitions of horrific confrontations such as we saw on the hill at Marikana.

l Vavi is generalsecretary of Cosatu