‘Business unionism’ destroying union movement

It is evident that some union leaders have been captured by big business, causing divisions within the trade union and labour movement, says SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande.

Johannesburg – It is evident that some union leaders have been captured by big business, causing divisions within the trade union and labour movement, SA Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande said on Saturday.

“Compounding the difficult situation facing workers and the progressive trade union movement are tendencies such as business unionism that have developed to a point where they are causing internal divisions,” Nzimande told the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) – a Congress of SA Trade Unions affiliate – central executive committee meeting in Kempton Park, east of Johannesburg.

“There is a glut of a wide range of financed products that are not only marketed by corporations engaged in hyper competition. Promoting their interests, those products are also marketed by some union leaders who have been captured in one way or another, or have established mutual interests with those corporations.”

He said internal contests within some trade unions were actually corporate rivalries engaged in competition and sponsoring these contests, “even where there should be consensus and no need for such contestation”. These incidents impacted negatively on worker unity.

“When corporate capture fails, such corporate interests do not hesitate to cause fragmentations, splits, and sponsor the formation of new unions. The nexus between the grinding impact of the capitalist crisis on workers and the rise of corporate influence for business in trade unions has created serious problems,” Nzimande said.

The SACP has in recent times taken a stance against what it calls corporate and state capture. The party has criticised the governing African National Congress for not probing allegations against the wealthy politically connected Gupta family, accused of buying political influence across the country’s state entities. The Guptas have maintained they have done nothing wrong and say they welcome any investigations into the allegations.

African News Agency (ANA)