Strains in the Alliance laint. "COSATU should reintroduce the Source: The Shop Steward (SA)
The labour press admits that "beneath the semblance of cohesion within the Alliance serious tensions and strategic differences exist and continue to grow". " (SALB Feb. 1997). The business press is more forthright: "GEAR [the government's new development plan] gave rise to talk within the SACP of the party cutting loose and contesting the 1999 election under its own banner. Within COSATU rumblings surfaced about forming a separate Workers' Party" Not surprisingly, the rumours of a split the unions] was stripped of all class content
The pro-bourgeois logic of the "National Democratic Revolution" became more apparent once the ANC was in charge of the state and began falling increasingly under the influence of capital. Soon the ANC shifted policy-making functions out of its extra-parliamentary structures, away trom the Alliance and into the hands of 'specialist advisors', IMF/World Bank, etc. [see p. 25]. This shift in class allegiance resulted in the ANC presenting GEAR to its Alliance partners as a fait accompli, not open to
Not that the ANC does not value the alliance. As the business press warns, badly disenchanted COSATU is seen as not Workers Forums
South Africa * good for labour stability or business confidence". Most
1996 strikes, they laxed affairs, expeditiously resolved". The most troublesome strikes were where the problem was absence of strong unionisation".
"The ANC government without COSA-
TU could not govern effectively. Privatisation and labour market flexibility would be met with far higher levels of resistance"
wrote Business Day. "The key to labour stability is in full engagement with unionists