Bold Numsa is ready for battle

Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim File photo: Boxer Ngwenya

Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim File photo: Boxer Ngwenya

Published Mar 1, 2015

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Johannesburg - The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) is preparing itself for life after Cosatu, even as it is still officially fights its expulsion from the federation.

This year the union will not only focus on dramatically increasing its membership after being given the go-ahead by the Labour Department to extend its organisational scope, but its general secretary Irvin Jim has been mandated by the union’s national office-bearers (NOBs) to interact with other federations and unions in case Numsa is not able to reclaim its membership of Cosatu.

Not even its allies in Cosatu will be safe if the union expands its areas of organisation.

The union, the largest in the country, will also continue assisting the United Front, formed to fight struggles in the workplace and communities, and two of its leaders, Zanoxolo Wayile and Dinga Sikwebu, have been deployed to work in the Front’s secretariat.

These decisions are contained in a secretariat report and discussions and decisions of an NOB ‘bosberaad’ held late last year. The documents, which are in Independent Media’s possession, were discussed at the union’s special national executive committee which was held in Joburg on Saturday.

The secretariat document outlines an ambitious battle plan to help the union grow its membership and prosper outside of Cosatu, from which it was expelled last October.

Should its plan be implemented fully, Numsa will recruit in new sectors such as mining, transport and allied services, and almost everywhere else across industries.

The union, which officially has 338 000 members, has three main tasks for the coming months.

The tasks include creating and implementing a renewed organising and collective bargaining strategy to keep members and attract new members, as well as ensuring successful shop steward elections ahead of Numsa’s next congress.

“We are recruiting strongly in a variety of new sectors. In the coming months it is likely that tens of thousands of workers from these new sectors will join Numsa. We have to welcome them.

“We have to service them. We have to educate them. We have to help them to become part of Numsa and at the same time learn from them,” the secretariat report reads.

The union will also focus on “the cutting edge of mobilising the whole Cosatu membership, together with the seven affiliates (who support Numsa’s reinstatement), and take them to the street through campaigns and struggles defined by 11th Congress of Cosatu”.

This year organising and collective bargaining will be the “centre of gravity” for the union, with leaders agreeing that the core of the funding for 2015 must be committed to this task, with other departments having to cut budgets.

In order to get this right, the union will set up rapid response task forces in nine regions which will respond to the needs of their members so that they are not won over by other unions, start recruiting in new and old sectors as quickly as possible, and ensuring that all members are well serviced.

There will be five members in each regional task force and it has been proposed that, where possible, a task force must assist in the development of industrial area task forces. This is all to ensure an open channel to escalate grievances, identifying threats from other unions and ensuring a quality service.

The union is on a drive to increase its numbers drastically. Now that it can organise in areas where its opponents and allies are set up, it is even less likely that the union will return to the Cosatu fold.

Cosatu supports the principle of one union in one industry and already before Numsa was booted out, it was angering sister unions by organising on their turf.

Now that the Labour Department has given it the thumbs-up to extend its scope, Numsa is targeting state-owned enterprises such as Transnet, Eskom, Prasa and Telkom. Sasol, pharmaceutical companies, mining and a number of airlines are also in its sights.

The secretariat report recognises that Numsa will have to be clear about whether it will recruit from its group of seven Cosatu unions.

It says in six months an update will be given on what it will have to invest in hiring more staff to take on the new sectors.

On the shop steward elections, the secretariat proposes that the vote takes place after the launch of the United Front later this year and “crystallisation” of the Movement for Socialism which will eventually transform into a workers’ party.

“We have already noted that Numsa is the most hated union for championing workers’ struggles. The bosses wish that it would be a sweetheart union. The government and fake, right-wing communists want to claim Numsa and win it over to their right-wing mission.

“So election of shop stewards is not just a factory issue,” Jim warns in the report.

The union will also focus on finalising its demands for a month of protests it is planning with its seven Cosatu allies. The action will take place countrywide. Numsa also intends to reach out to rival union federation Nactu and mining union Amcu to co-operate over a broad programme of socio-economic demands tabled at the National Economic, Development and Labour Council.

Group Labour Editor

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