Cosatu says Numsa couldn't win
|Published
06/08/2010 Irvin Jim General Secretary of NUMSA during a media statement on the planned Auto Industry strike action held at their offices in JHB. (564) Photo: Leon Nicholas 06/08/2010 Irvin Jim General Secretary of NUMSA during a media statement on the planned Auto Industry strike action held at their offices in JHB. (564) Photo: Leon Nicholas
Johannesburg - Cosatu says the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) was unlikely to succeed in its appeal to be reinstated in the country’s biggest trade union federation.
Numsa’s national executive committee recently announced it would abandon appealing its expulsion at next’s week’s Cosatu national congress, to be held in Midrand, outside Johannesburg.
“We will allow the congress to decide on that matter [of Numsa’s appeal] because they never officially informed the federation,” Cosatu said.
“We can sympathise with their position though because their continued antagonism and misplaced bravado after their dismissal greatly reduced the chances of their appeal being successful.”
Next week’s ordinary national congress of Cosatu will discuss the weak state of the ANC-led tripartite alliance, the federation says.
These include challenges in the ANC and the “demobilisation” of mass democratic movement formations, it said.
“We will confront the reasons that led to the lack of unity within some Cosatu affiliates. We will confront the scourge of business unionism,” it added.
“We will deal with the failure by unions to organise 73 percent of the unorganised workforce. Nothing will be off the table at congress.”
Politically, Cosatu is to discuss next year’s local government elections, the “reconfiguration of the alliance” in line with the decisions of the 2008 Alliance Summit, defending the ANC from capture by “those who use money and patronage to influence its structures” and strengthening the SACP.
The congress would also look at Eskom tariff increases, universal and national health insurance, the preservation of retirement fund benefits, and forming a single investment vehicle for retirement funds.
Further, the national minimum wage would be discussed and auditing and governance issues relating to union investment companies.
The federation said there would be 2500 delegates at the congress.
LABOUR BUREAU