After meeting this week, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) leadership announced on Thursday that it is ready to begin the process of forming a new labour federation. “The NEC (national executive committee) concluded that Numsa, together with other affiliates in the group of nine-plus unions, has done everything in its power to reclaim Cosatu (the Congress of South African Trade Unions), through its legal and organisational endeavours. The time has arrived to start with the building blocks of forming a new independent, democratic, worker-controlled, militant, anti-imperialist trade union federation,” the Numsa NEC stated.

Plans are under way to convene a national workers summit by October to discuss the future of the labour movement. Everyone’s invited, including rival Cosatu-affiliated unions, other federations, and independent unions, to discuss labour organisation challenges, such as the low rate of unionised workers in the private sector, and whether a new labour federation should be formed. Before the national summit, Numsa said it will hold provincial meetings with workers and engage like-minded unions both inside and outside Cosatu. By the end of the month, Numsa and its allies within Cosatu want to hold a joint NEC meeting to chart the way towards the national workers’ summit.

Numsa punted the idea of forming a new federation during its 2013 special national congress and has had the option up its sleeve since then. At the 2013 congress, it resolved to “continuously engage other affiliates of Cosatu, winning over those that are on the other side of the trenches, even if it means establishing a new federation”. The resolutions said: “If Cosatu is incapable of remaining united around a militant programme of action we should begin the process of forming a new federation.”

On Thursday, Numsa deputy general secretary Karl Cloete said leaders from the union’s national offices and nine provinces had decided it has no future in Cosatu. “Our vision for the future is we must build a new labour federation. Cosatu is gone. It’s been hijacked,” said Cloete. But Numsa members through their regional structures still need to decide on the way forward. Cloete said the union would follow their guidance on two remaining issues: whether to continue the court challenge of Numsa’s expulsion from Cosatu and whether to continue with the internal appeal to Cosatu to overturn the expulsion. Cloete would not pre-empt their decision, but suggested there is member support to give up on Cosatu.

Unlike Numsa, its allies in Cosatu that supported the call for Numsa and Zwelinzima Vavi’s reinstatement do not have resolutions allowing them to support a new federation. Speaking on Thursday, representatives from the “group of nine-plus” unions supported a national workers’ summit “to rebuild the movement that Cosatu once was, only much bigger and more effective”. Following Cosatu’s special national congress, they will seek a mandate from members on whether to stay in Cosatu or leave the federation.

Like Numsa, the unions were scathing of both Cosatu and the African National Congress (ANC). Looking at Cosatu’s history, the unions said: “That federation is now dead, murdered by a leadership which has reduced it to a paralysed, disunited and feeble shadow of its former self.” The ordinary congress of Cosatu that is coming up will see a repeat of the recent congress, they said. Together, the state, the ANC, and the South African Communist Party had engineered a split in the federation to weaken the working class for business interests and neo-liberal agendas, they charged.

Numsa’s allies were outvoted by a large margin on contentious issues at the special national congress and it’s difficult to judge the amount of support for radical change in Cosatu or for a new federation. Of the eight unions which have supported Vavi and Numsa, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) announced this week that it would resume attending Cosatu meetings, while the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) faction supporting Vavi has been sidelined. On Thursday, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) was not at the press briefing, though its representative were likely unable to attend due to union meetings. Numsa and its supporting affiliates continue to call themselves a group of nine-plus unions, claiming the CWU must still test its decision on Cosatu with its members, and that there are more workers who support them in the federation who have not been allowed a voice, hence the “plus”.

A new labour federation could potentially include some of those unions and Numsa will be speaking to other federations about uniting workers under a new banner. If a new federation was able to woo the independent Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, which has similar ideological views to Numsa, it would pose a significant challenge to Cosatu.

Both Numsa and its supporters condemned the Cosatu special national congress on Thursday. They reiterated claims that the event was filled with sycophants, that voters denied a secret ballot felt intimidated, and that Cosatu’s barring of the media was unprecedented. They said it confirmed that the federation is driven by a clique that is anti workers’ interests and the congress failed to improve unity, despite claims to the contrary by Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini.

After years of challenging Cosatu, the leaders of Numsa and its allies have only found their goals cast further into the wilderness. They are ready for a new federation and it is now up to their members. DM

Photo: National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) members demonstrate during a march for jobs in Johannesburg on Wednesday, 19 March 2014. Picture: Werner Beukes/SAPA