south africa: Cosatu congress puts off workers' issues in ANC parade

The spectre of an independent workers' party that arose from the hopes and aspirations of the embryonic Cosatu and deeply concerned the then-exiled ANC was nowhere in evidence at the eighth Cosatu congress. In its place was the firm commitment to move into the ANC in massive numbers and change the orientation of the governing party. It could hardly have been otherwise, given the organisational weakness of the country's largest labour federation and the ideological orientation of the bulk of its leadership.