Johannesburg – The South African Policing Union (SAPU) has confirmed that it has withdrawn its affiliation with the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu).
This comes after the union held its congress in Polokwane. The union also announced that it would return to being an independent body in order to better represent its members.
SAPU general secretary Tumelo Mogodiseng said the reason for its withdrawal was because workers' interests no longer prevailed in the federation, adding that this contravened its constitution. He said its national executive committee looked into the matter and referred it to the congress, which decided it served no purpose for the union to remain inside Saftu..
SAPU was founded in 1993 as an independent union with approximately 60 000 members, but in 2017 it merged with Saftu.
Speaking to the SABC, Mogodiseng said its delegates at the conference had voted in favour of the withdrawal.
"The delegates of the congress of SAPU have decided that we must part ways with SAFTU as a federation. We are taking stock. We had been independent for 30 years, and the reason why we joined SAFTU was to grow the union and federation, but so far, none has been achieved," Mogodiseng said.
"The federation has not grown and there is no movement; it has not added value to SAPU, hence we decided to part ways. Provincial SAFTU offices have not been formed. There is an issue of the formation of a political party, so we are against that. We are not represented at Nedlac, and since its inception, we are struggling to be part of that, so what role is Saftu really playing in this organisation?" SAPU's general secretary asked.
The police union also announced that it would be withdrawing the deployment of Thabo Matsose as the newly elected first deputy president of SAFTU.
SAPU remains the second-largest police union in the country. It was one of the founding members of Saftu five years ago.
Mogodiseng said that under Saftu the union’s dream of a new, independent, militant, and campaigning federation could not be realised as the organisation failed to grow in provinces and to champion workers’ issues.
The Star