Publications
Partners
The desire by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to bring the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) back into the Cosatu fold has hit a snag.
An SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) national executive committee meeting last week discussed the possibility of the move, along with the Food and Allied Workers’ Union and Numsa forging a “principled unity” with Cosatu.
But it appears that Numsa has shut the door on calls for it to return to Cosatu.
Numsa played a vital role in the formation of Saftu.
Numsa general-secretary Irvin Jim said: “Let us put the record straight, there is no formal process that has been taken by Cosatu to approach Numsa for the much talked about clarion call for Numsa to return to Cosatu.
“To be honest, it is our humble view that this is just an electioneering campaign, which is a hidden-and-open tactic to target the votes of Numsa members in the upcoming [general] election.
“This is no different to the hollow, empty, so-called new dawn led by President Cyril Ramaphosa. If this was an honest call, it wouldn’t have been shouted in marches and rallies.
“Cosatu would have formally approached both Numsa and Saftu. Cosatu cannot just be calling for Numsa to come back. They should first appreciate that they messed up, which is why we doubt, in the absence of an honest reflection, there can be such an honest change of heart in the interest of unity of workers, which Numsa remains not opposed to.
“An honest call would first appreciate that Numsa is part of Saftu. If there was such an honest resolve by Cosatu, the starting point would have been to approach Numsa and Saftu leadership and to champion common programmes around common issues between Saftu and Cosatu, just like Numsa and the NUM are working together in defending Eskom.
“Numsa leadership will never be opposed to the principle of the unity of workers.
“This we have demonstrated in the wage negotiation in Eskom and in the bus strike negotiations, where Numsa worked together with Satawu [the SA Transport and Allied Workers’ Union] and other unions,” Jim told City Press last week.
Workers affiliated to the NUM and Numsa protested together against retrenchment at Eskom, as well as against the closure of coal mines and government’s renewable energy programme last month.
Numsa was expelled as an affiliate by Cosatu for extending its organising scope and withdrawing support for the ANC in 2014.
Numsa, the biggest trade union in the country, is now a key affiliate of Saftu and its return to Cosatu would likely lead to the death of Saftu.
Jim said Numsa’s source of expulsion was triggered by democratically taken resolutions in its own special congress in 2013, which resolved that the ANC-led alliance post 1994 had consistently failed the working class.
“We called on the ANC to ban labour brokers, but it refused and instead chose to regulate them. The special congress resolved that metalworkers will no longer campaign and vote for their worst butchers and that the time had come for the working class to organise itself as a class for itself.”
NUM president Joseph Montisetsi said the union was lobbying other affiliates to support its latest attempt to reunite Numsa with Cosatu. He warned that the ANC could be harmed in next year elections if Numsa does not return to Cosatu.
“We as the NUM are saying they have to return to Cosatu. If we are divided as the working class, we will be weaker. We work with Numsa at Eskom, we believe that there is a need to work together,” Montisetsi said.
Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said the labour federation was not “hostile” to the idea of uniting workers.
“We have a standing resolution of uniting the workers. We have long said that we are open to engaging anyone who is interested in uniting the working class,” Pamla said.
He said Numsa would have to reflect on whether sticking by its resolution to enter other fields, where other Cosatu affiliates already existed, was uniting or divisive.
Saftu general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said the trade union federation was desperate for a principled unity.
“We are desperate for that. If there is a principled unity we will jump to that. We want unions which are independent from political parties.”
Vavi described calls for Numsa to return to Cosatu as an attempt to divide Saftu.
“It is pipe dream. It is not going to happen. I know the current NUM leadership never supported the expulsion of Numsa from Cosatu.”
