The leader of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), Irvin Jim, this weekend lambasted the ANC saying there was no revolutionary agenda being championed by the two “capitalist factions” of the party.
He said all these factionalists wanted was to protect the current accumulation status quo and for the working class not to benefit.
Jim who was speaking at 7th memorial lecture of Mthuthuzeli Tom at the East London City Hall on Saturday made reference to the recent chaotic Eastern Cape provincial conference where ANC members threw chairs at each other.
He told those in attendance, including Tom’s wife Kayise and children that the ANC members who were involved in the brawl had made history.
“These are the very same men and women who are supporting the two fighting capitalist factions, one on the side of white monopoly capital with Cyril Ramaphosa and the other with the Guptas and Zuma,” said Jim.
The ANC provincial conference held recently in East London saw at least eight ANC delegates injured after delegates threw empty water bottles and chairs, creating chaos at the East London International Convention Centre.
The rival groups were allegedly fighting over the credentials of those who attended the conference.
“In the crisis we are in, as we remember Mthuthuzeli Tom, we must be honest that this country needs men and women who are not looking for positions in various levels of the state.
“We need those who are prepared to start from the beginning to mobilise the working class and have faith in the working class and to champion the class struggle,” said Jim.
Tom affectionately know as “Mthura”, was the longest serving president of Numsa.
He was born in the Mpongo area near Macleantown in 1959 and died in 2010 due to a long illness.
Jim remembered Tom as a revolutionary, a communist, a socialist, a true trade unionist and a worker representative who believed in and lived worker control, and whose revolutionary consciousness had matured within the mass democratic liberation movement alliance led by the ANC.
“Mthura was not a statue, he was dynamic and dialectical.
“He understood the ANC as a multi-class formation and the working class as a motive force of the revolution,” he said.
Jim recalled two mass dismissal of workers in the the Eastern Cape that Tom had experienced – the Mercedes Benz SA mass dismissal in 1990 and the “painful” Volkswagen SA dismissals in 2003 where 1300 workers had been dismissed.
“As a trade unionist, he took mandates from workers and engaged employers.
“There would be no deal with the bosses which had not been mandated by workers,” said Jim.
Tom’s youngest child, Amahle who was eight years old when her father died, said it was through memorial lectures like this one that she got to learn more about who her father had been.
“The lecture was very informative as I got to know my father even better ,” said Amahle. — arethal@dispatch.co.za
Numsa leader takes swipe at ANC ‘capitalist factions’ over lack of revolutionary agenda
He said all these factionalists wanted was to protect the current accumulation status quo and for the working class not to benefit.
Jim who was speaking at 7th memorial lecture of Mthuthuzeli Tom at the East London City Hall on Saturday made reference to the recent chaotic Eastern Cape provincial conference where ANC members threw chairs at each other.
He told those in attendance, including Tom’s wife Kayise and children that the ANC members who were involved in the brawl had made history.
“These are the very same men and women who are supporting the two fighting capitalist factions, one on the side of white monopoly capital with Cyril Ramaphosa and the other with the Guptas and Zuma,” said Jim.
The ANC provincial conference held recently in East London saw at least eight ANC delegates injured after delegates threw empty water bottles and chairs, creating chaos at the East London International Convention Centre.
The rival groups were allegedly fighting over the credentials of those who attended the conference.
“In the crisis we are in, as we remember Mthuthuzeli Tom, we must be honest that this country needs men and women who are not looking for positions in various levels of the state.
“We need those who are prepared to start from the beginning to mobilise the working class and have faith in the working class and to champion the class struggle,” said Jim.
Tom affectionately know as “Mthura”, was the longest serving president of Numsa.
He was born in the Mpongo area near Macleantown in 1959 and died in 2010 due to a long illness.
Jim remembered Tom as a revolutionary, a communist, a socialist, a true trade unionist and a worker representative who believed in and lived worker control, and whose revolutionary consciousness had matured within the mass democratic liberation movement alliance led by the ANC.
“Mthura was not a statue, he was dynamic and dialectical.
“He understood the ANC as a multi-class formation and the working class as a motive force of the revolution,” he said.
Jim recalled two mass dismissal of workers in the the Eastern Cape that Tom had experienced – the Mercedes Benz SA mass dismissal in 1990 and the “painful” Volkswagen SA dismissals in 2003 where 1300 workers had been dismissed.
“As a trade unionist, he took mandates from workers and engaged employers.
“There would be no deal with the bosses which had not been mandated by workers,” said Jim.
Tom’s youngest child, Amahle who was eight years old when her father died, said it was through memorial lectures like this one that she got to learn more about who her father had been.
“The lecture was very informative as I got to know my father even better ,” said Amahle. — arethal@dispatch.co.za
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