The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has called on workers to vote wisely in the upcoming elections. The union says it hopes the elections will bring about change in the lives of the working class.
Numsa has over 350,000 members in various sectors of the economy. The union held a special NEC meeting on the upcoming elections. South Africa heads to the polls in 8 days.
Numsa says the country’s working class has been confronted with the continuous deepening crisis of socio-economic challenges and an economy that has placed many workers and their families further into poverty.
The union has a political party in WASP the Workers and Socialist Party which will not be contesting this year’s elections, but says it found it necessary to guide workers on their approach to the upcoming elections.
“Numsa is very clear that in the past three decades, the South African working class and the poor of our country have gone beyond being victims and statistics of the triple crisis of poverty, unemployment and inequality. They go to bed without a plate of food to eat, not just on one day but most days and poverty and unemployment is their daily struggle and life experience. It was impossible for Numsa to keep quiet, for the union not to take a political posture on the elections. Our decision on this must serve as a political guidance for workers and the working class without deciding for them,” says Irvin Jim, Numsa General Secretary.
The union says with few days to go to the elections, it has studied manifestos of political parties contesting and has accused some of working to reverse the gains of the working class if voted into power.
“Political parties who have no shame in openly promoting xenophobia, and who vow to liquidate the very idea of the existence of trade unions and the very idea of a national minimum wage. They are anti-worker and union bashing champions of labour broking, casual work, and slave wages instead of a living wage. Political parties that are extremely patriarchal and have not even moved an inch in understanding the strategic importance of gender equality between men and women. Political parties who have gone public to support the racist, Zionist genocide taking place in Palestine and whose policies, aims and objectives, are to continue to deny the African child access to free quality compulsory education,” Jim added.
The union says although voting is a personal decision, workers should think hard about their future.
“As a manufacturing and industrial union, we are calling for the building of a democratic state that takes public ownership of all commanding heights, of all our mineral endowments at the back of these minerals. We need a state that can beneficiate them, and that can diversify them to build new sectors and champion manufacturing and industrialization to create quality jobs that are paying a living wage. We demand a state that intervenes in the economy; a state that directs and redirects development; a state that builds SOE’s and that plays a catalyst role in the economy by using measures such as procurement, and designations to champion localization. We need a state that ensures that Eskom remains a public utility and that energy is maintained as a public good, so it continues to deliver into the economy a competitive electricity tariff, to power the economy and electrify our communities at an affordable cost,” Jim explains.
The union has welcomed the prolonged suspension of load shedding. It is looking forward to the rollout of the National Health Insurance and has encouraged employers to respect the rights of workers to vote on election day.
Numsa is looking to have bilateral talks with political parties with working class constituencies beyond the May 29 polls on programmes to transform the economy and lives of workers.
The union wants people to go and vote. It is worried about coalition politics that it says is unsustainable but confident in the voting process and says it remains a critical avenue for change.
