Dlamini-Zuma meets Numsa’s Jim
In a bid to establish a support base among the working class, ANC presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma met National Union of Metalworkers of SA general secretary Irvin Jim to outline her vision for the country.
In a bid to establish a support base in the working class, ANC presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has met the head of former Cosatu affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa).
Dlamini-Zuma met Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim recently to outline her vision for the country.
Her platform for election as ANC president has been “radical economic transformation” and some of the proposals her followers articulate resonate with long-standing Numsa policies.
These include land expropriation without compensation and the nationalisation of the South African Reserve Bank.
The meeting, which Business Day has confirmed with insiders at Numsa, raised an uproar among some union members, who were concerned that Jim could be pursuing personal ambitions by engaging with Dlamini-Zuma.
Insiders likened the meeting to one held in 2012 with President Jacob Zuma in which Jim had apparently lobbied for then federation general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi to be elected deputy president at the ANC’s Mangaung national conference.
Some raised concern over the meeting because Zuma allies, who are also backers of Dlamini-Zuma in the ANC race, were behind the push for Numsa’s expulsion from Cosatu following its special congress resolution in 2013 that denounced the ANC.
Jim made no mention of Dlamini-Zuma in his central committee report this week, fuelling speculation about his motives among disgruntled union members who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“How do we know he is not selling workers to Nkosazana’s campaign,” asked a senior member of the union.
The unionist said his grouping was worried about Jim’s true intentions after they found out about his meeting with DlaminiZuma “through the grapevine”.
Dlamini-Zuma’s opponent, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, has the backing of Cosatu, while Numsa is no longer part of the alliance.
The only sway the union would have to favour DlaminiZuma is over union members who remain ANC members and part of its structures.
Numsa has taken a decision to form its own worker party to contest future elections.
In his secretariat report, Jim stuck to the union’s usual criticism of the ANC and its policies, singling out Ramaphosa.
“What brings them together is the call that we should get rid of Zuma and replace him with Cyril Ramaphosa so that the status quo should remain.
“We reject Cyril Ramaphosa, who will perpetuate the status quo of starving the working class by paying them a national minimum wage of R3,500 and continue with apartheid colonial wages,” read the report.
Several attempts to question Jim were unsuccessful.