Irvin Jim’s fiery attack on Cosatu

Johannesburg - The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), who was expelled from Cosatu this weekend, has hit back with charges of its own against the leadership of the federation during Friday’s special central executive committee (CEC).

Numsa was called to respond to five charges against it, but the union’s general secretary, Irvin Jim, instead turned the tables and accused Cosatu’s entire senior leadership of having violated the federation’s constitution.

In a fiery speech, Jim accused Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini of violating the Cosatu constitution by failing to convene a special national congress despite one third of affiliates demanding it, as the constitution requires.

“This federation is today fighting a tendency where unions deliberately work to weaken each other through poaching and openly destroying each other even to an extent of having others helping opposition unions in the same sector,” he said.

“This is in our view a clear agenda of destroying Cosatu. We are not going to wait for a special congress before we expose lies.

“Comrade S’dumo, you wouldn’t have to wait for a Special National Congress if you had carried out your constitutional duty and called it at the end of 2013 when the 9 unions sent you their request.”

Jim also accused the the entire CEC for having breached the constitution by defying the special national congress call.

Cosatu's national office bearers had instead acted “unlawfully and unconstitutionally” when General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi was suspended, he said.

“Your unlawfulness was corrected by the (Johannesburg) High Court, at great expense to workers who pay Cosatu affiliation fees,” he said.

Jim singled out Cosatu 2nd Deputy President, Zingiswa Losi, a former Numsa shopsteward, saying she had violated the federation’s constitution. This requires the president, 1st and 2nd deputy presidents and the treasurer of Cosatu to vacate their seats during a term of office if they ceased to be a member of an affiliate.

Losi controversially resigned from Numsa earlier this year but remained in her position as a national official. She later joined Popcru, one of the unions fighting to expel Numsa, despite never being a police or prisons official

On Friday she survived a vote for her removal during the heated meeting.

“Zingiswa Losi ceased to be a member of an affiliate. She resigned from Numsa,” Jim said.

“Whatever the truth about her suspiciously rapid recruitment by another affiliate, she ceased to be a member of Numsa before she joined [another union]. She is therefore not eligible to remain as a Cosatu NOB.”

Numsa also accused the leadership of having ulterior motives for trying to expel it.

“If we are suspended or expelled, you will do your best to prevent us from continuing to challenge the decision to refuse to call a special national congress. This is the motivation behind the letter of 11 February 2014,” Jim said.

The February letter refers to what Numsa says was effectively a charge sheet against the union – but without any detail of the offenses it said the union had committed.

There were no accompanying reasons, documentation or information on what formed the basis of the charges in the letter, the union said.

Jim further accused Cosatu’s leadership of failing in their “duty to unify the working class”, as stated in the preamble to the federation’s constitution.

“The Cosatu NOBs and the CEC have been violating that mandate as they sow division amongst Cosatu affiliates,” he said.

“When the President of Cosatu went to the Popcru CEC and pledged his support for the dismissal of Numsa, he had forgotten his duty to unify.”

Numsa and others believe that the political resolutions taken at its special national congress at the end of last year are at the heart of the forces pushing for its expulsion.

But Jim told the CEC that Numsa's detractors were quoting selectively from the resolutions.

“For example, in its final declaration, Numsa’s special national congress specifically warned itself and Numsa membership: ‘We must guard against any splinters in Cosatu and the fragmentation of the federation’,” he said.

“Mysteriously, these parts of our resolutions do not appear to be considered by any of Cosatu’s correspondence or by those affiliates who are seeking to expel us.”

Jim accused leaders of failing to defend Numsa when it was subjected to a “sustained campaign of vilification” and was “attacked and labelled by leaders of the ANC, SACP and Cosatu affiliates”.

These included characterisations of Numsa as representing “a rightwing version of workerism and also an ultra-left current of workerism - which carries delusions about a trade union movement leading a socialist revolution”.

The union was also accused of “flirting with the DA”, of driving “a populist, short-term vision” for the country, of espousing “reductionist economics” and calling Jim a “pseudo-Marxist, pseudo-militant and underlying opportunist”.

Cosatu’s officials had further allowed the SACP to meddle in the federation’s affairs, citing an SACP congress report in which it pledged to intervene to “isolate and defeat” the Numsa leadership.

“We can see that the SACP is supporting your faction. That is what makes you willing to sacrifice the independence of the federation,” Jim told the CEC.

He said there was “a creeping culture of suppressing democracy”.

Examples of the increasingly common practice of suppressing worker control, open debate and criticism and the right to differ in the federation.

“Trying to exercise the right to support different leaders in the federation leads to mass dismissals of shop stewards, office bearers and activists, with impunity. They are purged,” he said.

“There are unions who have dismissed a whole province of shop stewards. This is not worker control. It is bureaucratic control.

“It is this bureaucratic control that you will now exercise when you dismiss us from the federation. Instead of mobilising worker control and calling the special congress so that workers can exercise control over the federation, you choose to manufacture majorities amongst the bureaucrats in the CEC. “

He attacked former Numsa president, Cedric Gina and Dlamini for being guilty of this “bureaucratic control” when they discussed the “fake report that claimed to come from the intelligence service and alleged that Vavi and I were CIA spies”.

“The very same Cedric Gina claims openly to be working with the Cosatu president to form a rival union to Numsa (the Metal and Allied Workers Union of SA),” he said.

“We know that the purges will continue as you remove us surgically from Cosatu and support the new so-called union to take our place. This whole process is a sham.”

The meeting was still on at the time of going to press.

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