Who hasn’t heard of Cosatu? Everyone has heard of Cosatu because it is such a huge trade union, with a lot of power. Last week they kicked up a little fuss when Cosatu boss Zwelinzima Vavi tried to hold back the purchase of 15% of Vodacom’s shares to Vodaphone. I was just reading an Interview with Vavi about this very matter and the guy had some points but he also had some shortfalls. His basic story was that to some extent he didn’t want “the Mbeki people” in the elephant consortium getting the large amounts of money out of the deal, although he did say something about that only being a minor reason, the main reason being that jobs will be lost, similar to when Telkom partially privatised. He also spoke about democracy saying that we shouldn’t let punishment by the markets hamper our democracy... I have a little question for you Vavi and it is this: you support democracy so whole heartedly, we all know that but tell me why does a trade union get to decide what shareholders can and can’t do?
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