Numsa, the second largest trade union in South African history, challenged the government to dismantle the migrant labour system with interim efforts to improve the living conditions of migrant workers.
And in unanimously electing Moses Mayekiso, general secretary of the former Metal and Allied Workers' Union (Mawu), as general secretary of the new union, the delegates displayed their recognition for his tireless efforts in organizing metal workers. The Alexandra community leader is awaiting trial for treason.
Other Numsa executive members are Daniel Dube, president, David Madupela, first president and Percy Thomas, second vice president.
The union also clearly spelled out its commitment to a socialist society, where the workers' control of government and industry was enforced.
This might have been the impetus which prompted the union to adopt the Freedom Charter as "containing the minimum political demands that reflect the view of the majority of metal workers' vision of a free and democratic, non-discriminatory South Africa", according to the preamble of the resolution.
These two resolutions are not unique to Numsa. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) adopted them at its fifth annual conference three months ago.!
Although the NUM's constituency in- 2 1. The miners' union also adopted the Freedom Charter. According to the comments of some NUM leaders, this was not a symbolic act, but a more formal acceptance of the hegemony of the ANC (see South African Labour Bulletin, May 1987.) They also evoke the need for a specific workers' charter. Some papers have pointed out the different attitudes of the miners' and metalworkers' unions on this.
June 29, 1987 • International Viewpoint
SOUTH AFRICA cludes migrant workers from Lesotho, Mozambique and Botswana, Numsa's constituency is mostly composed of workers from within the borders of the country.
In adopting the Freedom Charter, Numsa undertook to "develop amongst metal workers in particular, and the organized working class and its allies in general, a coherent understanding that the demands of the Freedom Charter, and all other demands of organized workers, can only be realized in the lives of the working class masses through the practical leadership of the industrial working class....
Numsa hopes to complement the Freedom Charter with a "workers' charter". In pursuit of the "workers' charter". : "the union will consult and discuss the aims and programme with the working class at factory levels, shop steward councils and at National Congress"
Unions bury sectarianism in quest for unity
It will also seek consultations with their allies, especially the organized youth, in order to build a programme which can bring together as many groups in society as possible.
The striking fact about the three-day conference at the Witwatersrand Agricultural Society's auditorium in Crown Mines is that unions that in the past were hostile and antagonistic towards each other managed to bury sectarianism in the quest for worker unity.
Two of the participating unions, Metal Mining and Allied Workers' Union of SA and the Motor Assembly and Components Workers' Union of SA split from the Metal and Allied Workers' Union and from the National Automobile and Allied Workers' Union respectively a few years ago at the height of worker organization involvement in politics.? Numsa also represents a convergence of three South Africa tradc-union traditions: those of the Federation of South Africa Trade Unions (Fosatu), the Trade Union Council of South Africa (Tucsa) and unions with close ties to the UDF?
To the former Tucsa Motor Industry Combined Workers' Union (Micwu) politics was taboo a few years ago. The Posatu unions, on the other hand, were initially wary of alliances with political movements, claiming that the priority was to build shop floor strength 2 rather than to engage the state in the political arena.
The UDF-aligned unions had, how6 ever, always taken a clearly defined political stance.
Two years of intensive negotiations managed to draw the three traditions International Viewpoint • June 29, 1987 closer together.
The tone of the conference was set by the chair of the meeting and execu tive member of the former Naawu, John Gomomo, when he called on unions to forget their badges and labels and unite to form "this giant of a union"
He was echoed by Cosatu's secretary general, Jay Naidoo, who called on delegates not to be trapped by labels such as "workerist or populist."
"Such labels destroy open and democratic debate and distract us from our goal of building working class politics and fulfilling our historical role of leadership in the liberation struggle."
Dube was reluctant to talk about the unions "we belonged to" when he addressed a press conference after the launch. He said such unions ceased to exist when Numsa was launched. He made an impassioned plea to "those workers outside Numsa" to join the new union.
Numsa, with a paid-up membership of 140,000 represents 30 per cent of the workers in the metal and motor industries.
Dube was quick to point out that although the South African Allied Workers Union (Saawu) was left out of the launch at the last minute, the door was still open for them.*
Saawu was granted observer status after it failed to submit an audited financial statement that would have indicated its paid-up members. This would have determined the number of delegates Saawu would have been allocated.
The launch also saw the forging of greater unity between the youth and workers. In the past the workers seem to have been scared off by the militancy and impatience of the youth in launching campaigns.
South African Youth Congress president Peter Mokaba told the delegates that the quest for higher wages and better working conditions was inextricably bound up with "national liberation".
The new union is bound to alter drastically the bargaining structure in next year's negotiations with employer organizations. For the first time Seifsa [the employers' organization] will be faced with a united voice in the two industries.
Although Numsa took a strong political stance, it emphasized the importance of workers' shopfloor struggles as is evidenced by the resolutions taken. They include:
• A national "living wage" of R4,50 an hour.
• A 40-hour working week.
The right to strike. Six months paid maternity leave.
• The extension of equal job training opportunities to women and youths.
• The recognition of May 1, March 21 and June 16 as paid holidays.
Numsa will seek affiliation to Cosatu, the International Metalworkers Federation and the International Chemical and 2. These are very small splits from currents wanting adherence to the Chartist current and the United Democratic Front. 3. Since the 1950s, Tucsa has been a big classcollaborationist union dominated by whites but also including "Black" unions. The rise of independent unionism threw this organization into a crisis that ended in its self-dissolution in December 1986. 4. Saawu has been one of the main unions adhering to Chartism and the UDF. It is an organization of the "general union" type, which has had a great deal of difficult organizing on an industrial basis. Its forces are modest.
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IN THIS ISSUE
• Gramscl's Marxism — Livio Maltan
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