Numsa’s new general secretary aims to bridge the gap between the rank-and-file and union leadership, reports Ferial Haffajee
THE switchboard-operator of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) is used to it by now. “That’s Mbuyi, M-B-U-Y-I,” she spells out for callers who want to speak to the union’s new leader. Numsa’s general secretary, Mbuyi Ngwenda, is by his own admission, not a high-profile unionist. His election to the post took some people by surprise.
Ngwenda is just 36 years old, which makes him a young leader in labour terms; the business equivalent would be someone like Anglo American’s Bobby Godsell. Ngwenda has the final say in negotiations in crucial economic sectors: among them the engineering, automobile, motor and tyre industries. Like all trade unionists, he is big on team effort. “You must locate me within a collective. We are guided by [congress] resolutions. Our job is to put programmes in place,” he says.
Not many people doubt that Ngwenda can rise to the occasion. He is confident (the firm handshake), slightly blas (an off-the-cuff apology for a 45-minute wait that should have been just seven minutes) and has taken on the mantle of leadership with ease.
Small and wiry, he talks with a matchstick gripped between his teeth, his hands gesticulating wildly. In fact, the mannerism could come right out of one of the Al Pacino movies he likes watching.
Like many of this country’s top trade unionists, Ngwenda was born in the Eastern Cape. He learned from the likes of Enoch Godongwana, whose shoes he has stepped into, and counts Congress of South African Trade Unions’ (Cosatu) assistant general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi as a mentor. Ngwenda cut his teeth in youth organisations.
During the 1980s, he worked with the Port Elizabeth Youth Congress and then the United Democratic Front. Those were Cosatu’s most heady days when numerous small unions merged under its wing. Says Ngwenda: “I followed the unity talks with interest. Even during my schooldays, I was interested in factory issues.”
Eleven years ago, he joined Volkswagen as a fitter-and-turner and rapidly took a leading role in Numsa’s branch. After four years, Ngwenda left Volkswagen to join the union full-time as an education officer and then became Cosatu’s regional secretary for the Eastern Cape. Volkswagen’s representative Raymond Hartle says Ngwenda is a “strong negotiator who is not afraid of taking an independent line”.
His work as a union educator took Ngwenda around the country, giving him a clear sense of who the union’s members were and what they were talking about. While general secretaries are usually very busy people, Ngwenda says: “When you lead, you must create time to go to factories to get mandates, to get the mood of workers.” Some feel that he may take on too much and that he needs to learn to delegate. “He also needs to learn to say `no’ to meetings,” say Numsa colleagues.
There’s a growing gulf between the rank- and-file and national leadership of unions, says Ngwenda, and his task will be to bridge that gap. Unlike many union leaders who are urbane and comfortable on mahogany row, Ngwenda still comes across as one of the ouens (boys). He walks with a township bump and is quite happy to use a smaller office for our interview rather than the sunny, roomy office that is now his perch.
One of the biggest problems facing trade unions in South Africa is creating campaigns that will enable them to pull in the muscle-power they need to win big negotiating issues. But those issues are not as clear-cut as in the old days when they revolved around wage increases and other basics.
Nowadays, the debates are a lot more sophisticated, revolving around economic policy, restructuring, saving jobs, keeping industries in South Africa and attracting others into the country. Trade unions are now part of that national effort, though getting the message to the shop-floor can be tough. “If campaigns are too abstract, they will be irrelevant,” says Ngwenda. “We’ve got to strike a balance between the interests of members and the broader issues of society.”
To do that, the new general secretary will spend time and effort on developing shop- stewards. “Shop-stewards are in the factories and that’s the frontline of the battlefield.” It’s a frontline still familiar to Ngwenda if his manner of speaking is any gauge; he talks in the multi-lingual patois of the shop-floor, peppered with terms like iLabour and uGear.
Ngwenda hasn’t read all of Gear (government’s growth, employment and redistribution strategy), but he wades through it every night. Like a growing number of people in labour, he is unhappy with it. “Gear poses serious threats to us. Government is reluctant to develop a progressive industrial policy.”
In addition to the weighty policy paper, Ngwenda also keeps Marxist theories at his bedside – he is a member of the Communist Party and the African National Congress – though he does occasionally allow himself a break, escaping to the cinema to watch Whoopi Goldberg and Pacino.