Johannesburg - The special congress of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) is to forthrightly assess whether it could support the ANC in next year’s elections if the National Development Plan (NDP) – which the union has rejected as “right wing” – was the basis of the ANC election manifesto.
“What are the bottom-line demands which we require from any political party in order to support them in an election, and how do we mobilise the working class to the streets to achieve those demands?” asks one of the special congress discussion documents released on Sunday.
Coming in the wake of much speculation that Numsa will break ranks – not only with the tripartite alliance, but also Cosatu – the discussion documents do not provide answers, but ask key questions which about 1 200 delegates to the Numsa special congress from December 13 must answer.
An analysis of the 2009 ANC election manifesto finds shortcomings in pretty much all areas, except in extending the number of no-fee schools, described as a success, and progress in rolling out school feeding schemes, reducing child mortality and introducing safe public transport through the bus rapid transit systems in Johannesburg and Cape Town. “It is clear that there is a big problem with election manifestos. They are filled with promises, many of which fail to materialise. Elections can very easily be based on commitments which are never fulfilled in practice,” says the discussion document on next year’s polls.
The jury was also still out on Cosatu leaders joining the ANC national executive committee (NEC), its highest decision-making body between national conferences – as a handful, including Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini, did at last year’s Mangaung ANC conference.
“Numsa has been doubtful of this strategy. History will tell whether it has had any success,” the election discussion document says, while the discussion document on the alliance asks: “What do we think the Cosatu representatives elected on to the ANC NEC at Mangaung have achieved?”
Even though trade unionists have joined the ANC government, the documents say they “very quickly forget where they have come from. They join the rest of the leadership of the ANC in implementing policies which fail to prioritise the working class and the poor”.
But also under scrutiny at the Numsa special congress will be whether the tripartite alliance of the ANC, SACP and labour federation Cosatu is setting the correct tone in driving policy direction.
Arguing that ANC leaders were not “working-class orientated”, and that the adoption of the NDP did little to further what the Freedom Charter stipulated, the discussion document on the alliance repeated previous top-brass decisions that the current policy trajectory would not take South Africa forward.
Numsa’s rejection of the NDP, the blueprint to reduce poverty and inequality by 2030, as “right wing”, and a cut-and-paste of opposition DA policies, is well known.
While many Cosatu affiliates have expressed deep reservations about the economic proposals of the NDP, the attitude has been more conciliatory: the recent alliance econ-omic summit agreed to resolve disagreements through a task team.
However, last month Cosatu expressed its disappointment over the lack of commitment from the ANC in attending the one meeting subsequently held by the task team.
But the Numsa special congress will also have to decide on a roll-out of campaigns in various phases in the first half of next year against the youth wage subsidy, set out in the Employment Tax Incentive Bill, for the nationalisation of mines, the Reserve Bank and an end to inflation targeting.
Daily News