Internal union disputes caused the problems at VW’s Uitenhage branch in January
Glenda Daniels
One of the largest unions in South Africa says it has learned some serious lessons from the strike at the Uitenhage Volkswagen (VW) plant in January – and wants to ensure it can never happen again.
National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) president Mtutuzeli Tom says the strike, due for arbitration this month, had nothing to do with a dispute between the union and management, but everything to do with internal divisions within the union.
Thirteen hundred workers downed tools to protest against the dismissal from union office of 13 shop stewards for ”bringing the union into disrepute”.
The 1E300 were dismissed after the two- week strike; sadly, they are the victims. But the union intends to go all out to win the hearts and minds of the community and the work force at the plant so that current divisions and tensions can end.
The two-week strike cost VW R25-million a day in lost turnover. Striking workers were first locked out and then fired after failed attempts by the company to get them to return to work. Attempts at conciliation failed and now the matter is before the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.
In the meantime, VW has filled vacant positions with new workers, albeit on a contract basis.
The most puzzling thing about this strike, where workers opposed their national leadership, is that it happened in Uitenhage, which is the only town in the country with a 100% trade union membership, says Tom. There is a strong history in the Eastern Cape of trade union organisation, particularly in Uitenhage. How then, he asks, could workers have been so misled by ”outside dissident forces”?
”The problems we experienced at VW happened because of internal divisions in the union,” Tom says. While the workers who went on strike were a bit of a mixed bag, they were essentially old-guard unionists – many long-serving members at the plant, nearing retirement – who were seen as ideologically faithful to the old school of thinking where managements are the enemy.
He says division in the union came from a group of workers at the VW plant who became influenced by far leftwing forces. These forces worked consistently with the group to undermine trade union democracy at shop-floor level and to sow seeds of doubt about the union at national level.
The strike began, political forces became involved, with the United Democratic Movement, the Pan Africanist Congress and even the South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco) expressing support for the dismissed workers.
Shop stewards, he says, were used to raise the expectations of workers over issues such as medical aid pay-outs and pension funds.
”They needed to be expelled as they went against union policy and they were undisciplined,” Tom says. The shop stewards fired up workers to demand the liquidation of the pension fund, he adds; workers thought they would be paid out.
”It was not an achievable demand,” he says. The union leadership felt workers should – in keeping with union policy as well as the Pensions Fund Act – receive their pay-outs only on retirement.
”Democracy and proper procedures were undermined completely,” he says.
Moreover, workers were told VW had benefited from Old Mutual’s demutualisation process but had failed to pass any profits on to workers, who felt entitled to a slice of the action.
So the shop stewards were fired from union office for ”inciteful” behaviour, but this took place against the wishes of the regional officers, who wanted them suspended, pending a disciplinary enquiry. Then workers went on strike – illegally – in protest at the expulsions.
The national Numsa leadership tried to stop the strike as it feared workers might lose their jobs.
”Now massive divisions at the plant and in the community still persist. The far leftwing forces have done nothing to assist the dismissed workers who are the sorry victims in the whole mess,” says Tom.
Numsa is now electing new shop stewards at the branch who will ”revive cohesiveness at the plant. This is a serious lesson to us all. It’s a lesson to all trade unions to be aware of what can happen.
”The big question for us to ask is how could our ranks be penetrated so easily?”
In addition to elections for new shop stewards, the union is trying to make inroads into the community as well. To this end the union intends to strengthen relationships with NGOs and other organs of civil society, schools, churches and civics, and form a stronger alliance with the local branch of the African National Congress.
Winning the hearts and minds of the community so that something like this doesn’t happen again is one strategy to combat the present tensions and divisions.
The union is making progress, if the
recent stayaway called by Sanco and the PAC was anything to go by. There was a poor turnout.
”We need to fight leftwing dissidents, who have nothing better to do with their time but sow seeds of doubt into people’s minds about organisations that have had credibility for years, such as ANC organisations and [Congress of South African Trade Union]-affiliated trade unions,” says Tom.
”The implications for workers when this kind of thing happens is very severe in this economic crisis, where jobs are precious.
”Here workers lost their jobs, and we cannot afford to let this happen in light of huge unemployment.”
Labour analyst Gavin Brown says that the most interesting thing about the VW strike is that the split occurred at Numsa, which is one of the biggest unions, with a strong organising tradition. When you superimpose this on the history of that region with divided politics, then it is not surprising that such a incident happened.
”However, the situation is not unlike many trade unions, where they are getting weaker and membership is dwindling.
”The reason why the Volkswagen strike became such a highly publicised one is because it had an overseas manufacturer, and happened at the time [President] Thabo Mbeki was at Davos [for an international economic summit], thus causing embarrassment,” Brown says.
He feels the saga had more to do with personalities than anything else. ”The 13 shop stewards developed a power base, and they got intoxicated with their own power.”
But unlike Tom, he feels the tensions started a long time ago – as far back as 1997 – when Numsa leaders were already in a co-operative mode with management, yet not all workers were in agreement.
”The strike alienated the government, its own union and the investment community. It’s tragic that it had to happen,” Brown adds.