Odd bedfellows put their workers’interests first
Nearly two years after the expulsion of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa from union federation Cosatu, an unlikely alliance between Numsa and Solidarity is gaining momentum.
Solidarity, known for representing white workers, held a council meeting this week and resolved not to join a new federation being convened by Zwelinzima Vavi, which has already received the backing from 25 smaller unions that have splintered from Cosatu affiliates.
“The one major difference is that we are a union in favour of the market economy whereas Numsa has a very strong support for any form of socialism. Ideologically, that was a big stumbling block,” said Solidarity’s general secretary, Gideon du Plessis.
“There were basically three words in the founding principles that made our members reject the proposal to join. Those are the words ‘militant’, ‘socialism’ and ‘antiimperialism’. That’s not part of our vocabulary as a union.”
Numsa said Solidarity’s decision was not surprising. It was well aware of the stark political differences between itself and Solidarity.
“Cosatu accused Numsa of abandoning its own political perspectives by working with what they consider an apartheid trade union,” said Karl Cloete, Numsa’s deputy general secretary. “We say we will not relinquish our political orientation but we accept that Numsa is a trade union, not a political party.”
Both unions have confirmed that a working relationship has evolved and they will partner up during negotiations.
Numsa is South Africa’s biggest union with nearly 380 000 members. Solidarity’s membership is about 140 000.
Numsa was kicked out of Cosatu in November 2014 for extending its recruitment and contravening the federation’s founding principals of one union, one industry. Since then, the metalworkers have started organising employees at mining companies, airlines, the country’s ports of entry and at Eskom.
Solidarity is the second-biggest union in the metal engineering industry.
Traditionally, Solidarity has organised the upper echelons of the employee base, or white-collar workers, whereas Numsa organises entry-level and semiskilled employees, or blue-collar workers.
Du Plessis said the potential of this partnership cannot be ignored for the sake of politics.
“As an ally, it is important for Numsa to have us as a partner because we represent skilled workers, which is a gap in their constituency. We also see Numsa as a mainstream trade union and for us it is important to break up conceptions that we’re conservative and only deal with our own,” he said.
Numsa said this split in focus during recruitment is convenient but also disadvantages entry-level workers.
“It is a relationship that would sometimes attract co-operation and in other instances it would be quite contradictory. Those that Solidarity would organise as whitecollar workers would sometimes be responsible for discipline over our blue-collar members. There is interesting chemistry that requires flexibility when we work together,” Cloete said.