Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Numsa breaks with ANC, calls for Zuma to quit
No support for ANC in polls – Jim
THE NATIONAL Union of Metalworkers of SA will not support the ANC in next year’s elections, general secretary Irvin Jim said yesterday.
Numsa resolved at its congress that President Jacob Zuma must resign immediately because of corruption and his administration’s policies.
“As a country, we have a recent experience where the former president ( Thabo Mbeki) was recalled for pursuing neo-liberal policies. The Zuma administration not only pursued neo-liberalism, but it is characterised by scandals, nepotism, and patronage,” said Jim.
The union would also stop paying contributions to Cosatu and the SA Communist Party, he told delegates at the union’s special national congress in Boksburg, on the East Rand.
“Numsa will neither endorse nor support the ANC or any other political party in 2014,” Jim said.
Later yesterday, ANCYL national convenor Mzwandile Masina claimed he had used the words “fork off ” and not “f… off ” in reference to Jim during a media briefing hosted by the Progressive Youth Alliance at Luthuli House in Johannesburg.
Masina was criticising Jim’s stance on the Cosatu, SA Community Party and ANC alliance.
Jim had said the ANC continued to undermine the resolutions made at its conference in Polokwane in 2007. One of these was to make the Cosatu, SACP and ANC alliance a strategic centre of power.
“It has just passed antiworking class law and policies, such as e-tolls, the Employment Tax Incentive Act… instead of banning labour broking,” he said, accusing the ANC of abandoning the Freedom Charter.
At the press conference, Masina said: “Look, you see, our view is very clear. Irvin Jim must f… off if need be, as a person, because he can’t want to drag structures of the movement including Numsa in his nonsense.”
He further accused Jim of having a personal vendetta against Zuma.
“It is time for him to f… off. He’s free to do so,” Masina said.
Later, the ANCYL tried to clarify Masina’s comments.
“The ANC Youth League notes the public discomfort and outcry with regards to the pronouncement of ‘ fork- off ’ by ANCYL convenor, comrade Mzwandile Masina,” it said.
“What comrade Masina said means Jim must ‘go a separate way; leave’. It is not vulgar language or a swearword,” the statement said.
Earlier, Jim had said there was no guarantee that, even if the ANC came up with a progressive platform for 2014, that the manifesto would be implemented.
He called the alliance dysfunctional, and said it was in crisis, paralysed and dominated by infighting and factionalism.
“The alliance operates only during election periods. It is used to rubber stamp neo-liberal policies of the ANC… It is our experience that the working class is being used by the leader of the alliance as voting fodder.”
He said there was no chance of returning the alliance to what it was originally formed for – to drive a revolutionary programme for fundamental transformation of the country.
“The SACP leadership has become embedded in the state. and is failing to act as the vanguard of the working class.”
Jim said the SACP had been absent in mass struggle, and had become an apologist for the government. Numsa called on Cosatu to break away from the ANC-led alliance.
“The time for looking for an alternative has arrived.”
Jim said that Numsa would lead a new united front to coordinate struggles in the workplace in a way similar to the United Democratic Front in the 1980s.
Numsa resolved to expand its scope of operation to include security, transport, catering, and health services.
He said Numsa, which claims to have 338 000 members, would intensify its recruitment drive. – Sapa