EFF dismissed media claims of a split amongst its ranks

08 July, 2014

Economic Freedom Fighters dismisses claims reported in several media outlets that the emergence of general unions means EFF has split. These are malicious reports raising false alarms and distorting the truth. The EFF has clarified that people who formed a trade union in its name had misled the public since there is no resolution of the EFF to form a trade union (see The Times report).

The EFF is an organisation with processes and procedures that allow it to function and take decisions. It cannot be held at ransom by impatient people who even go to the extent of misleading the public by feeding it wrong information in its name. That the EFF has said that it is not forming a trade union, and therefore those who said they are doing it in its name are wrong is no grounds to conclude that EFF has split.

There is definitely a need for the rise of a radical left trade union federation movement that will genuinely fight for workers' rights. All revolutionaries have come to this conclusion many times before, but some have immaturely taken it upon themselves to begin these movements, only to collapse and fail workers.

Whilst the EFF is prioritizing the consolidation of its organizational structures in order to truly become a vanguard of the working class, it will not stop people from joining unions of their choices. However, EFF is unapologetic of its support of AMCU in the mining industry, its support of the demand by NUMSA for a living wage and appreciation of NACTU's endorsement during 2014 general elections.

Members of the EFF know that the organisation has processes in place to take resolutions and policy of how they are communicated. The members who misled the public that they were forming a union in the name of EFF when they were not are simply ill-disciplined. However, their ill-discipline must never be escalated to EFF splitting. There is no split; only people who mislead the public in the name of the EFF, and EFF reserves the right to move at its revolutionary pace in conducting the economic emancipation struggle.

Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, July 8 2014

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