Centralised bargaining - Where to CWIU

Since the late 1980's, there has been a serious realisation on the part of Cosatu and CWIU leadership, of the need for Centralised Bargaining. Two broad areas of concern which pressurised us in this direction were: 1) The low level of class consciousness on the part of the majority of members during this period especially with regard to the complete lack of solidarity around wage struggles. 2) The organisational incapacity of the unions to cope with the excessive demands of plant based bargaining. This wasted resources and undermined the quality of work and achievement of annual wage bargaining. Faced by this reality, achieving consensus on the need for a campaign to achieve centralised bargaining at leadership level was relatively easy. Unions in other sectors eg. metal, mining, clothing, textile and the public sector, regularly set examples of what could be achieved by well run centralised bargaining. Numsa's experience illustrated the strengths and pitfalls of centralised bargaining - ie. Numsa's mandating and report back processes, the Mercedes Benz strike by opponents to the "one bite at the cherry"