Ebrahim Harvey left field The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has a proud and militant history in the trade union movement. It was organisationally and politically arguably the strongest affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) with an unwavering commitment to socialism. It also produced some of the best worker leaders not only in the unions but also in community and political struggles.
And so it is tragic to see what happened to the union at the Volks-wagen plant in Uitenhage. The company fired 1E300 workers following an illegal strike over the dismissal of 13 Numsa shop stewards by the union. While the matter has been referred to arbitration, which will be heard very soon, most of these workers have now joined the Oil, Chemical, General and Allied Workers’ Union (Ocgawu), which is the product of a breakaway from the Chemical Workers’ Industrial Union (CWIU), a Cosatu affiliate, a few years ago. The breakaway was led by Abraham Agulhas, former CWIU president and now general secretary of Ocgawu. While the media has said much about the strike and loss of jobs in a community already suffering high levels of unemployment and the negative impact it will have on investor sentiment for the region, there is another side to the tragedy that has not been explored: the apparent
collaboration between union officials, the African National Congress leadership and management in a blatant attack on worker independence and democracy at the plant.
Tensions existed at the plant between older members from a militant background and those comfortable with the pragmatic direction in which the union has been moving of late. Numsa, with other Cosatu affiliates, has over the past few years become less militant. Political changes, constraining
relations with the ruling party, union bureaucracies, the emergence of union investment companies and other factors played a part in this. These differences came to a head in the internal union dispute between officials and these older and more experienced workers over the question of whether full-time shop stewards have the right to be elected to office-bearer positions in the shop stewards’ committee. The officials claimed that union policy – proof of which they failed to produce – does not permit this, while the workers strongly insisted that the highest decision-making
structure at plant level is the general meeting, which has the final say over this matter and not officials.
But what appeared to be mainly a constitutional or policy matter was in fact an organisational and political one. Quite clearly, union officials who failed to have younger shop stewards under their control re- elected last year – much to the chagrin of both themselves and management – moved that the new full-time stewards cannot be elected to office bearers of the shop stewards’ committee, afraid that this would entrench their loss of power at the plant. When they failed in this regard they pushed for the expulsion of these shop stewards.
That such action would harm worker unity at the plant and have divisive ramifications in the community of Uitenhage did not appear to matter much to the union officials and was not deplored by Cosatu, the labour minister or President Thabo Mbeki, who intervened following the strike. Rather than addressing the root cause of the strike and dismissals they appeared more intent on taking drastic action to restore production for an export order and placate investor fears.
The breakaway has also destroyed the important broader unity and support which a huge federation like Cosatu offers. The dismissal of the shop stewards and the 1E000 workers who joined Ocgawu also means the loss to Numsa and Cosatu of valuable experience gained over many years of unionisation. This is most regrettable in a situation, like ours, where the organised working class is already split among three trade union federations. The tragedy has big lessons for Numsa, Cosatu and the ANC, which intervened in the matter. The decision of the union to dismiss the 13 shop stewards was excessive and stupid. This led to the strike and dismissal of 1E300 workers and later to most of them joining Ocgawu. It is an insult to the experience of the 1E300 workers to simply say that they were misled by Ocgawu. In between all the twists, turns and versions of the VW saga something strong in Ocgawu attracted them to it. The approach of Ocgawu to help in defending worker-based democracy resonated among these workers with their own militant traditions. The initial union expulsion of the shop stewards and the subsequent dismissal of 1E300 workers caused the unfortunate breakaway.
However, as militants in Cosatu become impatient with the lack of strong leadership, they may end up using divisive tactics within affiliates in order to hive off disaffected workers to join or form an alternative union and eventually a federation. This in itself is a serious problem in that it further divides the labour movement. What is also unfortunate is that Numsa, Cosatu and the ANC leadership continued to blame “outside dissident forces” for the strike and dismissals and failed to acknowledge that the initial decision, a big bureaucratic blunder, to dismiss the 13 shop stewards might have provoked much of what followed. When they took it they had no idea of the tragic
consequences which would follow and from which they may never recover.
At the political level the VW experience highlights the dangers of the tripartite alliance interfering in internal union matters and thereby undermining union democracy. As the ruling party remains preoccupied with creating an investor-friendly industrial relations environment, it is likely that the VW experience may have set a precedent for interference in internal union matters and in relations between unions and employers. For the Numsa leadership, whose actions precipitated the crisis, to urge a stronger alliance with the ANC and the South African Communist Party to prevent infiltration of its ranks by “outside dissident forces” smacks of paranoid reaction and bureaucratic shortsightedness which will not solve the problems that led to the strike and dismissals. Going on a witch-hunt of socialists in Cosatu who do not support the ANC and Cosatu’s alliance with it will also create more divisions. Those people have every right to exist, are entitled to their views and to fight for it, especially in a situation where worker democracy and union independence are being undermined.