South Africa Labor Split Widens as Cosatu Leader Slams Expulsion
This article is for subscribers only.
A split in South Africa’s labor movement deepened after a leader of the nation’s biggest union federation said he couldn’t defend its expulsion of the organization’s biggest member.
Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the 2.2-million member Congress of South African Trade Unions, said in a letter to Cosatu officials that the decision to expel the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa on Nov. 8 because it no longer supported the ruling African National Congress threatened to wreck the labor movement. Cosatu played a leading role in the struggle to end apartheid 20 years ago.