Finger-pointing over firing of union leader

NEWMETALWORKERS union Limusa has accused Numsa of being in the pockets of the employer after one of its leaders was dismissed from his job, apparently for trying to sign up new members.

The Liberated Metalworkers Union of SA (Limusa) also accused the industrial relations manager of ABB (ASEA Brown Boveri, a multinational company), who effected the dismissal, of being biased in favour of Numsa because he is a former regional chairman of the majority union.

ABB was not available for comment before publication.

This came as Limusa said its president, Sboniso Mdletshe, was fired for submitting union membership forms to ABB instead of a supplier company.

The new union said it was further argued that Mdletshe encouraged workers to join Limusa and therefore could not be trusted by the company.

“We are clear that what’s happening has correlations with Numsa’s plan to fight the rivals. The person who is industrial relations manager is the former chairman of the Numsa region and still has close ties with Numsa, so he has to advance their causes,” said Limusa deputy general secretary Mawonga Madolo.

“The reasons for his suspension given to us were far from the actual motive why he was hurriedly hauled before a disciplinary hearing for an ‘offence’ that would, under normal circumstances, not warrant a disciplinary hearing, let alone a dismissal.”

Madolo said Mdletshe’s only crime was belonging to a union that was not “in the pockets of the employer”.

“(Limusa) is a militant union whose only purpose of existence is to alleviate the working conditions of metalworkers who are at the mercy of immoral labour brokers, as was the case at ABB,” he said.

“Our president had, in the days preceding his suspension, fought against these labour brokers. In the disciplinary hearing, the employer charged him with promising employment to workers who were under labour brokers. This is far from the truth.”

Among the issues Limusa has taken on at ABB is that of labour broking being extended beyond three-month contracts.

“This is what employers all over refuse to adhere to. They want to rotate workers in threemonth contracts with no hope of ever being absorbed permanently,” Madolo said.

The union now plans to declare a dispute at the bargaining council about eight ABB employees who, according to new labour law amendments, are supposed to be permanent.

Numsa deputy general secretary Karl Cloete said: “Numsa would never be complicit with employers to get any worker dismissed, whether unionised or not unionised.”