Johannesburg - The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) has lashed out at its former alliance partners, which it characterised as enemies, and accused of plotting to destroy the union.
Numsa president Andrew Chirwa said its former comrades in labour federation Cosatu and the SA Communist Party wanted to see it “fractured and dead as in like yesterday”.
“We are surrounded by enemies, we have been together we some of them in the trenches. Now they are working 24/7 to destroy Numsa,” said Chirwa, during his opening address at the union’s national bargaining council, held in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg on Friday.
The union was expelled from Cosatu last year after taking resolutions at its special national congress in 2013 not to support the ruling ANC during the 2014 national elections.
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Numsa, which was the biggest union in Cosatu at the time, with more than 340 000 members, was unhappy with the ANC’s neo-liberal policies and called, among other things, for the banning of labour brokers, scrapping of etolls and implementation of a national minimum wage.
Chirwa said its former comrades would be happy to see them weakened, and called on union officials, shopstewards and elected leaders, to defend the unity of the organisation.
Cosatu national spokesman Sizwe Pamla dismissed allegations its wanted to destroy Numsa. “ That’s utter nonsense. Look, it’s a discourse of conspiracy by people who are struggling to launch their vanity programme.”
Pamla said Cosatu would never do anything to “compromise the livelihood of workers. But we have got a problem with Numsa [leadership] using workers to fight their petty battles”.
LABOUR BUREAU
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