Unfolding contradictions in the Zuma movement, South Africa, through the eyes of public sector strikers

My paper traces unfolding contradictions in the relation between Cosatu, South Africa’s main trade union federation, and the ruling party, the ANC, through the eyes of public sector strikers who struck in 2007 and 2010.

These are crucial years when criticism of the ruling party, previously restrained by loyalty to the alliance, became commonplace. The period was marked by the spread of township protests and an increase to record highs in strike days, after a long period in which the unions relied on collective bargaining and policy lobbying which produced mean fruit.

The paper traces the breakdown and subsequent restoration of the alliance when Thabo Mbeki was replaced by Jacob Zuma, a populist unifier who is beholden to labour for his ascendency, but not particularly left-leaning. However it also shows how the restoration of the alliance exposed different ‘uses’ and expectations about this restoration for different actors in the trade unions. Finally, it examines how stable the restoration actually is beneath the surface.

The paper considers three phases in this dynamic. The first phase was marked by recognition that the alliance between Cosatu and the ruling party had become ineffective for the unions’ agenda. In this context, the public sector strike of 2007 quickly linked wage demands to broader discontents. .However the impulse to change the working of the alliance was channeled into changing the leadership of the ANC: The second phase, marked here by the 2010 public sector strike, is the first big test of the Zuma government and of the unions’ strategy of backing him. Strikers here experience a double betrayal: their expectations of Zuma are betrayed and their leaders seem to betray them by siding with government. The third phase, still being researched, considers strikers’ attitudes to the state in the aftermath and what unions achieved.