Response to the spurious accusations made by the minister of labour against NUMSA
7 December 2015
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) notes the spurious accusations made by the Minister of Labour Ms Mildred Oliphant, earlier this morning, Monday 07th December 2015, on Power FM, in relation to unions involved in labour brokering business.
In the interview Minister of Labour Oliphant suggested that some Cosatu Union as the expelled National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa are one of those involved in labour brokering business.
To quote the Minister verbatim, she says amongst others, when pressed by Tim Modise;
“There is one union that has left Cosatu, as we are all aware, and also, the former GS of Cosatu………..”
The Minister did not have to mention Numsa by name but the allegation against us was clear because the public knows very well that the union that is no longer within the fold of Cosatu is Numsa, as per the federation’s Central Executive Committee’s (CEC) factionalised decision to expel our union.
We view the allegations made by the Minister of Labour as part of the broader political offensive and disinformation campaign against Numsa and its democratically elected leadership. We want to place on record that Numsa has no business interests or deals with Labour Brokering firms and companies. Numsa has consistently campaigned for the total banning of labour brokers in all sectors of our economy, in line with the Freedom Charter which resolved that “child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished”.
It is evidently clear that the Ministry of Labour has been captured by the right-wing grouping in Cosatu, to ferment and fuel divisions within the ranks of the trade union movement.
The Minister of Labour’s allegations are nothing else, but mere political gimmicks in order to grab sound-bites and headlines, amidst her failures to provide leadership by banning labour brokers and introduce a National Minimum Wage, as evidenced by successive electoral mandate of the fast-fading ANC-governing Alliance.
We challenge the Minister of Labour to back-up her allegations by publicly disclosing the list of Labour Brokering firms or companies where Numsa has a stake interests in. Any failure by the Minister of Labour to provide this information will reinforce our view that she is abusing her Ministerial position to smear and liquidate Numsa.
Workers and the broader public should note the following attempts by the Minister of Labour to govern Unions in South Africa based on the right wing and factional agenda;
1. She has scandalously ignored the cries of Ceppwawu members to intervene in this dysfunctional trade union whose leadership consistently display undemocratic, unaccountable and corrupt tendencies. Instead of agreeing with the Registrar that Ceppwawu does not follow the provisions the LRA and should therefore be placed under administration, she heeds the advice of Sdumo Dlamini to fire the Registrar and is appealing the reinstatement of the Registrar by the Labour Court.
2. In the Metal. Iron and Steel Industry Bargaining Council, the Minister of Labour is a lame duck by allowing NEASA to drive an agenda to liquidate the metals bargaining council and denying unions the right to receive Agency Fee moneys because to date the Minister has failed to gazette the Collective Bargaining Levy (thereby denying us close to R90m).
3. SETAs have been created to be of service to workers so that we wipe out the Apartheid legacy which denied black workers the necessary skills and knowledge. We have not heard a single whisper from the Minister of Labour asking questions about how and why the Minister of Higher Education and his cohorts would channel skills training moneys into the SACP’s Investment Company.
This “business communism” is apparently okay because all and sundry belong to the same camp, i.e. the Neo-Liberal Tripartite Alliance as led by the ANC.
We want to state publicly that in all our sectors (except in the new sectors after extending our scope), we have successfully banned labour brokers through our collective bargaining strategy and demands. We have been drawing lessons from our sister unions internationally, hence Numsa, continues to be a revered School of Excellence for many unions in South Africa and elsewhere.
We call on the Minister of Labour to publicly retract her statement and apologise to our more than 380000 memberp
Issued by Castro Ngobese, National Spokesperson, NUMSA, 7 December 2015
