Compliments of the season to metalworkers, especially to the young metalworkers organised by Numsa.
We are entering 2012 after having time to spend with our families during the holidays, and I am hoping that all those who were on holiday really enjoyed themselves with their loved ones, including their children and their relatives.
We, the young metalworkers, are entering the year 2012 faced with a lot of work that we want to tackle head on early this year.
The issues of recruitment, banning of labour brokers and the youth wage subsidy are the main areas of our campaigns for 2012.
In March, the Numsa Youth Desk will be two years old. I am very proud to see that the number of young people joining the union is growing.
We all witnessed this during the engineering national strike which everyone agreed was dominated by young people.
We want to report to the 9th National Congress in June that Numsa took the correct decision in establishing Numsa Youth Desk, because all young metalworkers want to play a role in the organisation.
They now know the metalworkers union is a revolutionary trade union which not only looks at bread and butter issues in the factory, but also participates in the restructuring of the economy of our country which, in the main, is still in the hands of a tiny white minority.
We have a lot of work to do in conscientising young people to understand the role of the PYA formations and what they stand for.
We will be reporting to the congress that the youth desk is now in all regions.
We would be happy if the local office-bearers can assist us to ensure that all the factories where we have organised the youth desk are properly co-ordinated.
We will be going to the congress with our heads high because, even though there were lots of challenges such as initially not getting proper support from regional office-bearers, but now almost all regional officer-bearers are assisting the structure, which I appreciate.
The youth desk is now represented in regional and national structures of the union.
It is up to us to play our role in the union so that when we go to the congress, we can suggest that the union should look at promoting us from being a desk to something better than a desk.
Let me emphasise that the issue of recruitment is the most important thing to us.
The Numsa Youth Desk will have local and regional elective conferences in all of our nine regions, as we have agreed that our term of office must be in line with our mother body.
Nyaniso Siyana is Numsa Youth Desk National Chairperson
Source
Numsa News No 1, April 2012