An EE victory
Dear editor,
I am a proud Numsa shopsteward. Just after I read the July Numsa Bulletin, pp.8-9. On the same week my employer just employed a white guy without engaging us. Then I approached the employer using the information from Numsa Bulletin. The next day the owner came to me and said he had decided to suspend the guy that he had just employed.
As I write now the white guy who was employed in the influential position without the knowledge of what we do in the company, is now dismissed. Workers are now very happy. They couldn't believe that that could happen. Because of the incident even the white colleagues are now calling me the president of Numsa. Today I boast unity among the workforce.
David Selepe
Kempton Park
Fighting for EE
The Employment Equity and Skills Development Acts are the laws that are there to extricate designated people out of the shackles of apartheid. Despite these great aims, some are accusing the ANC government of implementing labour laws that are complicated or undemocratic.
The new laws have also created a tense atmosphere between designated and not designated people. Comrades, EEA and SDA are there to better the lives of the previously disadvantaged. Let's stick to them. Let us make sure that they are working for us.
What I would like to request from Minister of Labour, Membhathisi Mdladlana relates to hiring casual workers through labour brokers.
This is the strategy used to frustrate and run away from employment equity laws. Eventually all companies will employ casual workers rather than permanent employees. Please Mr Mdladlana do away with this strategy. It will kill us.
Talking about the company that I'm working for. We did sign a plan at my company for employment equity. The problem that we have is that the company is playing delaying tactics in terms of training people to be capable for higher jobs and stand a chance of promotion.
This tactic is what makes enmity rather than amity between shopstewards and human resource (HR) department. What they are saying is that Employment Equity also agrees that if there is no suitable candidate, after taking the internal advertisement to the external advert, the company may appoint from the people who are not designated. This is what creates enmity between us shopstewards and HR.
To say that people are not trained, yet it is the company that is deliberately delaying the training process is a problem. Also not acceptable to us is to argue that there are no suitable candidates because of lack of experience.
Comrades, white people will always have more experience than us because of their exposure in the apartheid years. This is the problem that we have. We intend declaring a dispute if the company is intransigent on the issue of experience.
Comradely yours
Marenene Masiza
Vereeniging Numsa Local
Environment – whose business is it anyway?
When the eyes of the whole world were focused on the United Nation's World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Numsa organised workshops on what the Summit was all about.
With the WSSD's agenda being to integrate human development and environmental protection, why waste workers' time and union resources on pure environmental issues instead of investing time on worker issues? What have environmental issues got to do with us as a trade union? Are there no other important issues to discuss?
Before comrades even begin to scratch off environmental issues from the union's agenda, let me hasten to state the following:
The environment is something which cannot be ignored by an organisation representing workers' interests. As a living organism, an organisation changes with time and should be responsive to the challenges that are prevailing at all times.
Environmental issues are no exception. The human race is heavily dependent on environmental protection. To live a better life people need a clean, healthy and safe environment.
There is a perception that concern for the environment is the exclusive preserve of rich people precisely because they can afford to visit game parks and nature reserves.
There is also big business that uses environmental awareness as a marketing strategy whilst they are the primary contributors to environmental degradation.
All of this makes the perception that environmental concerns are the preserve of the rich, look as if they hold water.
The reality of the situation is that ordinary working people and the poor are most affected by environmental degradation.
The majority of our people live in areas where there is little or no provision made for the effective disposal of sewage and rubbish.
As a result people living in those areas are exposed to diseases. This problem is made worse by the absence of clean and accessible running water.
Factory workers who handle chemicals and farm-workers who use pesticides to spray crops and trees, know how toxic and dangerous substances put them at risk.
Due to the deterioration of the capacity of the soil to produce, the livelihood of rural people is affected. Due to water pollution sea creatures die and people dependent on marine life like fishing communities, suffer.
As a union we cannot deny that the situation described above is as a result of the capitalist system. Capitalism's continued existence depends on never-ending growth and expansion.
This dependence consequently requires increasing exploitation of limited resources. Inherent in capitalism is the tendency to over-emphasize short term economic imperatives over long term environmental protection.
This nullifies the very essence of sustainable development. It compromises the interests of future generations.
This is why it is very critical for Numsa as an organisation representing the interests of the workers to be at the forefront of the struggle against the privatisation of water, energy and other natural resources.
As a union we must debate a framework for harmonious co-existence between humans and their natural environment. By doing this we will be assisting in creating an ecologically sane society.
Mthunzi Tom
Numsa VWSA shopsteward
VW comrades conversing with each other
In the last edition of Numsa Bulletin, we published a letter by Xola Blouw – a shopsteward from Volkswagen (VW). In this edition we carry two contributions from comrades from the plant on challenges facing Numsa in the establishment.
No holy spirit will resolve our problems
Let me congratulate our national leadership for creating space for ordinary workers to voice their views and opinions through Numsa News and Numsa Bulletin. Let me also take this opportunity to congratulate Comrade Xola Blouw, the chairperson of VW shopsteward council for the prize he won for the best letter submitted to the Bulletin. I commend him for lifting up issues that are challenges to the organisation.
My humble request to the shopsteward council will be to bring back some of the issues raised in Cde Blouw's letter to the plant to facilitate shopfloor debates.
These debates can happen through departmental meetings or socialist forums. Let me respond to some of the issues raised by Cde Blouw.
Perhaps the most serious political challenge facing the working class post-1994 is organisational.
In VW we are failing to directly link factory struggles to the national democratic revolution. Our leadership is also failing to develop a conscious strategy to uplift the political consciousness of the working class. Shopstewards must stop being "clock card shosptewards" – a danger that exists across Cosatu affiliates.
Our leadership devotes attention exclusively to the immediate bread and butter issues and remains aloof from the working class. Bread and butter issues cannot be won if there is no political strategy to engage capital.
Let me also disagree with Cde Blouw on the state of the organisation in VW. Before we elected the current shopsteward council, there was an organisational crisis at VW. Numsa activists took a bold decision to defend the soul and life of the organisation at VW.
They provided workers with direction. My heart pains when I think of those times. Numsa activists risked their lives for this organisation. When we elected the current leadership in 1999, the organisation was strong and vibrant. Unfortunately, immediately after that we were told that the role of the activists was no longer needed.
Yes, I do agree with the comrade that the organisation is now strong and vibrant at VW but only in numbers. What strategy do we have to transform this quantity into quality? And if we are strong and vibrant why did 60-70% of VW workers not support the 2000 wage and privatisation strikes? What is the state of readiness for the next strike on October 1-2?
We must not recruit members for the sake of recruiting. The battle cry should be to organise with a purpose. The purpose must be education towards socialism. The union can hold workshops – training shopstewards every week. But if they fail to give quality service to members, the union will cease to exist.
The time for us to be spoon-fed at VW is over. There is potential for organisational growth at VW, if we deal with our internal and local problems. We must also avoid perceptions and labeling. The time has come for us at VW to go back to basics and come together as members of this organisation and appreciate one another. After all there is no better cause than the one of building a working class movement.
Xolani Tshayana
A proud Numsa member (VWSA)
The need to work as one
It is common cause that in 2000, VW experienced a crisis that plunged the factory into a state of chaos, confusion and conflict. What becomes essential is how we begin to move forward. Also important is to ask ourselves: what becomes our duty as elected factory leadership?
We have been entrusted with the difficult task of leading this particular factory out of the socio-economic and political quagmire.
We must recognise and acknowledge the fact that we are following in the footsteps of gallant leaders of the calibre of John Gomomo and Mbuyiselo Ngwenda.
The first thing to do is to forge unity. In all periods of history, nowhere have workers won any battles when they are divided. Only maximum unity enables them to overcome obstacles.
Given the history of the conflict in 2000, the most rational thing to do would be to close ranks, work as a united force and collective – a single unit that in the words of Chairman Mao would be "impenetrable even if pierced by a needle."
Secondly, we must zealously commit ourselves heart and soul to defend our members – sparing nothing of our own strength.
At the same time we must jealously guard against any attempts by the bosses to roll back the gains made by the workers through their blood and sweat.
Thirdly, we need to have a proper understanding of the 2000 events. It was a well-planned and orchestrated move to destabilise the entire Uitenhage community. Volkswagen has always been the powerhouse of local community politics and therefore it was only logical for anyone seeking to impose his/her hegemony to capture Volkswagen.
Because of the numerical concentration of workers in the company and the strategic location of VW at the heartland of the local economy, the company had to be destabilised.
Mthunzi Tom
Numsa VWSA shopsterward
Source
Numsa News