Trade unions: card-carrying members interests versus political allegiances?

The public is not gullible; the never ending shenanigans in trade unions are symptomatic of bodies that have failed to reinvent themselves to be abreast of post-1994 economic and political realities.
Prior to 1994, when non-whites were excluded from participating in the political system, trade unions provided the most convenient platform for political activism; they did not only fight for better working conditions for their card-carrying members, but were also the steady voice for the countries disenfranchised and marginalised majority. Their existence was so critical such that when African National Congress (ANC) stalwarts, who had just returned from exile and were out of kilter with the political realities of the land they had taken for granted, had to incorporate them for their wealth of knowledge about what was happening at the grassroots level.
In actual fact, the tripartite alliance was a union of convenience whose sole aim was to give the ANC a broader reach as it looked at entrenching itself amongst the electorate. Then, it was easy to assemble a group of segments which different political perspectives: they shared one enemy – the sentimentalism of toppling the apartheid system at the ballot booth.
Fast forward to 2015, apartheid is gone, but they differences which were temporarily buried by the euphoria of the tempestuous political transition have surfaced with a vengeance.
Trade unions are caught between acting as appendages of the political establishment and attending to the bread and butter issues of their card-carrying members. And, as the cliché goes “you can’t serve two masters at one time”. The highly publicised divisions within the structures of the biggest trade mirror that development.