IS THE so-called “Numsa Moment” likely to deliver to South Africa anything in either its political or trade union formulations?
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa’s break with the Congress of South African Unions late last year has been vaunted as a critical development both for the formation of a workerist political party as well as for the way it might redefine shop-floor issues.
In both these aspects, the stakes are high for Numsa and the United Front political movement it now leads.
For the trade union, it has signalled that it is ready to go it alone, willing to back its particular form of non-racial, democratic trade unionism, rooted in its emergence in the fight against apartheid and capitalism in 1987.
The democratic trade union tradition of that era is best reflected in worker control from below, following transparent decision-making processes, accountability and reporting-back principles.
Significantly, it joined worker interests on the shop floor with the disenfranchisement facing the majority of South Africans beyond the factory gates.
Numsa is still widely regarded as the torchbearer of the progressive unionism of the post-apartheid labour dispensation, with 339567 members as at January this year and offering a leadership model at odds with the careerism evident in most rival unions and organised politics in South Africa since 1995.
Strategically the most challenging aspect of going it alone was the decision to rend asunder the 30-year-old Cosatu policy of “one sector one union” and to formally begin to organise along value chains.
On the face of it, there might be nothing wrong with providing a union home for outsourced workers in the metals industry – including cleaners and other non-core workers – but it creates a slippery slope to a more rampant organising of non-metals workers.
Pushing to canvass workers in other sectors brought Numsa into direct conflict with unions that have felt most threatened by Numsa’s stridency on the shop-floor and in the wider politics of the country.
In the aftermath of the Marikana massacre, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) came under huge pressure from Numsa’s efforts to poach disaffected workers, but it is not the only sector union that will be affected by Numsa’s new policy, with the Transport and Allied Workers and the Chemical and Industrial Workers Union also facing competition.
(Numsa has previously shot down the poaching claims, pointing to public sector unions drawing away members from their rivals.)
Numsa’s co-ordinator of the United Front movement, Dinga Sikwebu, says the Cosatu policy of one-industry-one-union was “incorrect”, though favoured in the trade-offs that led to the formation of the federation in the 1980s.
Increased competition for membership is not altogether a bad idea, but Numsa will have its work cut out to convince (at best, suspicious) workers that they can obtain a better deal for them than a rival union which might already enjoy allegiance.
The shift to multisectoral organisation on a shopfloor-by-shopfloor basis – and with it the need, for example, to stay abreast of the behaviour of disparate multinationals across a number of fronts – will likely stretch Numsa’s negotiating capacity.
But it is Numsa’s “role in emancipatory politics” that offers the biggest opportunity for the union – or the biggest threat.
Through the United Front, it is galvanising unemployed, landless and homeless people – individuals and community-based organisations – along with those like the religious sector representing other critical social justice issues.
Given Numsa’s roots in 1980s struggle under the banner of the United Democratic Front, analyst Steven Friedman says proponents of “a Numsa moment” presume a fundamental shift in the trade union movement, “a new type of trade unionism which, in fact, will be the old type of trade unionism coming back again”.
But he believes the idea of such a moment is “wishful thinking”. “I’m simply sceptical about grassroots support.
“My question is how much organisational substance there is. And then there are all the sharks who want to build an empire and be on the slate in 2016.
“It is riddled with challenges and contradictions.”
Friedman’s analysis is shared by Sikwebu, who joined Friedman on a platform at Rhodes University in Grahamstown last week to discuss “the Numsa moment”.
“It’s a different kind of organising,” he says, acknowledging concerns that Numsa might not be able to translate its style of shop-floor organising into a broader mass-based politics.
“There is a sense in which building a UDF of the 1980s. It’s trying to that this is how we organised before but we have to understand that conditions are also different.”
One difference is that the former era did not have political parties representing all South Africans in the mix, as today.
As a non-party political movement, the United Front currently welcomes people from all political parties, and Numsa is committed to a “minimum” set of unifying political principles for the UF, although it cannot be said that potentially divisive ideological positions will be ditched.
Sikwebu recognises the movement will be attractive to those hoping to stand on a UF ticket in next year’s local government elections.
“There are people moving out of the ANC who see the UF as a way of getting into the 2016 elections. Our view is ‘chill, we’ll discuss it’,” he says, but adds that galvanising a mass democratic movement simply to fight the 2016 election risks becoming another Congress of the People or Economic Freedom Fighters.
At a grassroots level, the UF has to contend with calls to support local community initiatives like protest marches at times when Numsa’s core constituency might be at work; or dealing with organisations that do not have Numsa’s established structures and processes for running a multimillion-rand administration with hundreds of staff across the country.
Numsa’s determination to represent core worker constituency interests alongside its leadership of the broader struggles against social injustices mostly ignored – and certainly in many cases consciously perpetrated – by a rapacious ruling class will be sorely tested.
Overcoming the ideological and practical challenges of this new unshackled, post-federation era poses as much of a threat for a resurgent Numsa as it does for a nascent United Front. — rayh@dispatch.co.za
2016 election a double edged sword for Numsa
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa’s break with the Congress of South African Unions late last year has been vaunted as a critical development both for the formation of a workerist political party as well as for the way it might redefine shop-floor issues.
In both these aspects, the stakes are high for Numsa and the United Front political movement it now leads.
For the trade union, it has signalled that it is ready to go it alone, willing to back its particular form of non-racial, democratic trade unionism, rooted in its emergence in the fight against apartheid and capitalism in 1987.
The democratic trade union tradition of that era is best reflected in worker control from below, following transparent decision-making processes, accountability and reporting-back principles.
Significantly, it joined worker interests on the shop floor with the disenfranchisement facing the majority of South Africans beyond the factory gates.
Numsa is still widely regarded as the torchbearer of the progressive unionism of the post-apartheid labour dispensation, with 339567 members as at January this year and offering a leadership model at odds with the careerism evident in most rival unions and organised politics in South Africa since 1995.
Strategically the most challenging aspect of going it alone was the decision to rend asunder the 30-year-old Cosatu policy of “one sector one union” and to formally begin to organise along value chains.
On the face of it, there might be nothing wrong with providing a union home for outsourced workers in the metals industry – including cleaners and other non-core workers – but it creates a slippery slope to a more rampant organising of non-metals workers.
Pushing to canvass workers in other sectors brought Numsa into direct conflict with unions that have felt most threatened by Numsa’s stridency on the shop-floor and in the wider politics of the country.
In the aftermath of the Marikana massacre, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) came under huge pressure from Numsa’s efforts to poach disaffected workers, but it is not the only sector union that will be affected by Numsa’s new policy, with the Transport and Allied Workers and the Chemical and Industrial Workers Union also facing competition.
(Numsa has previously shot down the poaching claims, pointing to public sector unions drawing away members from their rivals.)
Numsa’s co-ordinator of the United Front movement, Dinga Sikwebu, says the Cosatu policy of one-industry-one-union was “incorrect”, though favoured in the trade-offs that led to the formation of the federation in the 1980s.
Increased competition for membership is not altogether a bad idea, but Numsa will have its work cut out to convince (at best, suspicious) workers that they can obtain a better deal for them than a rival union which might already enjoy allegiance.
The shift to multisectoral organisation on a shopfloor-by-shopfloor basis – and with it the need, for example, to stay abreast of the behaviour of disparate multinationals across a number of fronts – will likely stretch Numsa’s negotiating capacity.
But it is Numsa’s “role in emancipatory politics” that offers the biggest opportunity for the union – or the biggest threat.
Through the United Front, it is galvanising unemployed, landless and homeless people – individuals and community-based organisations – along with those like the religious sector representing other critical social justice issues.
Given Numsa’s roots in 1980s struggle under the banner of the United Democratic Front, analyst Steven Friedman says proponents of “a Numsa moment” presume a fundamental shift in the trade union movement, “a new type of trade unionism which, in fact, will be the old type of trade unionism coming back again”.
But he believes the idea of such a moment is “wishful thinking”. “I’m simply sceptical about grassroots support.
“My question is how much organisational substance there is. And then there are all the sharks who want to build an empire and be on the slate in 2016.
“It is riddled with challenges and contradictions.”
Friedman’s analysis is shared by Sikwebu, who joined Friedman on a platform at Rhodes University in Grahamstown last week to discuss “the Numsa moment”.
“It’s a different kind of organising,” he says, acknowledging concerns that Numsa might not be able to translate its style of shop-floor organising into a broader mass-based politics.
“There is a sense in which building a UDF of the 1980s. It’s trying to that this is how we organised before but we have to understand that conditions are also different.”
One difference is that the former era did not have political parties representing all South Africans in the mix, as today.
As a non-party political movement, the United Front currently welcomes people from all political parties, and Numsa is committed to a “minimum” set of unifying political principles for the UF, although it cannot be said that potentially divisive ideological positions will be ditched.
Sikwebu recognises the movement will be attractive to those hoping to stand on a UF ticket in next year’s local government elections.
“There are people moving out of the ANC who see the UF as a way of getting into the 2016 elections. Our view is ‘chill, we’ll discuss it’,” he says, but adds that galvanising a mass democratic movement simply to fight the 2016 election risks becoming another Congress of the People or Economic Freedom Fighters.
At a grassroots level, the UF has to contend with calls to support local community initiatives like protest marches at times when Numsa’s core constituency might be at work; or dealing with organisations that do not have Numsa’s established structures and processes for running a multimillion-rand administration with hundreds of staff across the country.
Numsa’s determination to represent core worker constituency interests alongside its leadership of the broader struggles against social injustices mostly ignored – and certainly in many cases consciously perpetrated – by a rapacious ruling class will be sorely tested.
Overcoming the ideological and practical challenges of this new unshackled, post-federation era poses as much of a threat for a resurgent Numsa as it does for a nascent United Front. — rayh@dispatch.co.za
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