NUMSA's response to Cosatu President S'dumo Dlamini
09 December 2014
Numsa's regions across the country note the sustained attacks directed at the union and its elected leadership by Cosatu's President S'dumo Dlamini (see Sapa report).
Addressing Nehawu's Central Committee (CC) currently underway in Boksburg, he called on the delegates to be ready with their "sticks" to defend Cosatu. This call by Dlamini is inconsistent with Cosatu's founding traditions. It not only represents the highest form of political bankruptcy on his part. It is also a dangerous call intended to recruit workers to resort to violence against other workers.
Dlamini's utterances are not only irresponsible and reckless, but clearly demonstrate a leadership vacuum and crisis in Cosatu. Such views have no place in a class orientated, militant and fighting federation of Cosatu's stature. They were defeated by workers in the 80s and early 90s when vigilante unions, like Inkatha's UWUSA, were formed to undermine and fragment the unity of workers under the banner of Cosatu.
Those who know the history of Cosatu and the struggles of organised workers in South Africa will attest to the fact that Cosatu's logo is engraved with the blood of trade union martyrs and workers who were executed by sponsored assassins, by vigilantes and by agent provocateurs, in collaboration with Apartheid security agencies.
It has never happened in the history of Cosatu, to have a leader who advocates the use of "sticks" or violent methods against other workers for holding dissenting views or different opinions. Such actions are no different from the "Idi Amin-ification" of workers by fellow workers. Currently, workers wounds have not healed after the mass slaughtering of workers in Marikana by police.
We call on Dlamini to hold back his poisonous tongue, which has the potential to trigger violence within the ranks of the progressive trade union movement, especially Cosatu.
Numsa calls on workers to reject any call for violence amongst the working class, between worker and worker. The only winners from such violence would be our class enemies. Instead we call on workers to unite beyond the colour of their union's t-shirts or logos, and forge maximum unity to reclaim Cosatu, as a fighting tool of workers, free from political manipulation by politicians or trade union leaders who want to use the struggle of workers to secure future political deployments. Already, workers are on the receiving end of attacks from the bosses, since Cosatu is consumed in boardroom fights, and workers' demands and interests are taking a back seat.
We want to state categorically that Cosatu has no right or mandate to reverse resolutions taken by its affiliates. Cosatu's affiliates remain autonomous and have a right to take their own decisions as directed by workers. If Dlamini and his handlers in the ANC and SACP have a problem with the groundbreaking Numsa Special National Congress (SNC) resolutions, our next Congress will be held in September 2016, in Cape Town, Western Cape province. It is this Congress that will review and reflect on our previous Congress resolutions or decisions.
In the absence of this Congress, Numsa's leaders and structures recognize, unlike S'dumo, that they are duty bound to implement Congress mandates.
Statement issued by NUMSA's Regions - Ekurhuleni - Eastern Cape/ Free State/Northern Cape/ Jack Charles Bezuindenhout/Hlanganani/KwaZulu-Natal/Mpumalanga/Sedibeng/ Western Cape - December 9 2014
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