Johannesburg - Once the largest union in the country, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has lost 40% of its members in five years. This has seen the union operating at a financial loss since 2013.
The NUM will have to find concrete solutions to restore its dominance in the industry, which continues to retrench workers in large numbers.
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The union’s general secretary, David Sipunzi, painted a grim picture to over 700 delegates who attended the NUM’s two-day central committee meeting in Pretoria.
“The union is losing members so badly such that employers don’t recognise us in some areas,” said Sipunzi.
“If we continue the way we are doing the NUM will be dead one day. The survival of this union is in our hands.”
In 2011 the union’s numbers stood at 308 628, dropping to 198 237 last year.
Sipunzi’s report acknowledged that the union had not fully recovered since it lost large numbers of its members during the 2012 platinum strike. It bled tens of thousands of members to rival union the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu).
“Our drop was mostly affected by the incident in Rustenburg, where we experienced most membership losses,” said Sipunzi.
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The drop in membership has affected the union’s ability to fix its finances.
In 2015 the deficit stood at R14.9 million, in 2014 at R26.5m and in 2013 at R15.6m.
“It will be very suicidal if we remain silent about the impact of the membership decline and the state of our finances. This is an unhealthy situation because we have been operating from hand to mouth,” said Sipunzi.
The drastically reduced numbers might result in the organisation having to shut down some of its existing regions, he said.
Sipunzi said the NUM would have to tighten its belt and reduce its expenditure by between 40 and 50%.
The union has embarked on a “back to basics members first” programme to increase its numbers. A 10-year plan is also in the pipeline to expand its capacity building and develop recruitment campaigns.
It has also highlighted a need to change “behaviour and attitude” at all levels of the organisation when it comes to service delivery and financial management.
Whatever plans the NUM has, it still needs to contend with the fact that it organises exclusively in an industry that is in relative decline and where there is virtually no employment. Besides Amcu, it also faces threats from metalworkers union, Numsa, which has changed its recruitment and organisational structures to allow it flexibility across sectors.
CAPE TIMES