On the brink of the 8th COSATU Congress and a national election, a recent survey of four affiliates’ members by NALEDI provides some interesting insights into their views and opinions. While some issues require further investigation, the results of the survey should assist in identifying areas requiring improved service delivery. We highlight some of the key findings here.

We found that unions are managing to organise atypical workers. However, we found that these members do not have access to benefits that have been won for permanent workers by earlier struggles of unions. The challenge is now for unions to re-engage and broaden the struggle for quality jobs for these ‘atypical’ workers.

The survey found that the public sector is a more consistent provider of benefits to its employees and that there is more discrimination felt by members in private enterprises. At the same time, however, the survey found that members in public sector institutions were more likely to complain of problems at work relating to a lack of career advancement systems in the public service.

When asked what the most serious problem is at the workplace, workers complain of their wages and working conditions. Other problems encountered by workers include; insufficient benefits, lack of promotion, poor working conditions and lack of training. Women are more likely to have experienced unfair labour practices.

Almost three-quarters of those interviewed believe that unions have been successful in negotiating basic conditions and union rights for workers. However, only 52% of those surveyed said that their union was able to successfully combat problems they identified in the workplace. We believe that this result represents a recognition amongst members of the limitations of their union in the struggle to transform the workplace. Confirming this conclusion, we found that 48% of respondents said that their union’s service delivery had improved since they joined and 33% said that it had stayed the same. Only 11% of respondents said that service delivery within their unions had decreased since they joined.

The biggest internal union issue highlighted by membership was that 66% of the respondents said they believed that there was insufficient communication between members and leadership. This is an area which obviously needs attention from the affiliates and will be further investigated in future studies.

We found that there is almost 80% support for alliance political parties amongst respondents, although 10% of respondents claimed they did not support any political party. A third of respondents supported the idea of a new workers’ political party contesting even this next election. Over 90% believed that COSATU should work more closely with social movements.

NALEDI urges affiliates to participate in the renewal process and they are encouraged to contact us to