Volume 14, No. 22, 12 June 2015

In this Issue: The 15th NUM National Congress

Red Alert The 15th NUM National Congress

By Alex Mashilo

Collectivism, a fundamental working class principle!

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) held its 15th National Congress last week, ending on 7 June 2015. As would be expected, following the congress there were questions on the meaning of the outcomes over the direction of the union. But focus was mainly on the leadership elected. Little, if any, on the content of decisions taken.

Still, on the very focus on leadership, there are two extremes that did not pay attention on the entire collective elected. One extreme only looked at selected positions, fewer than the total number of National Office Bearers (NOBs). Another extreme looked at one position only.

Could this have been an operational error? That is possible. However, there are many agendas out there guiding the guillotines.

In the midst of all this, important information was either downplayed or blacked out.

For instance, NUM NOBs are nine, according to the union’s constitution (Clauses 11.3.3.1 & 11.6.4). They are, namely, in the order of the union’s consciously written constitution, the President, Deputy President, Treasurer General, National Chairperson for Education, National Chairperson for Health and Safety, National Secretary Education, National Secretary Health and Safety and officials, General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary.

Many reports subjected the composition to surgery and chopped it down into smaller discrete sizes ranging from one to five positions. This approach, in addition the dearth of reporting on the content of resolutions and the declaration adopted, is not reliable to decision-makers or social actors who would like to develop well-informed contextual understanding for, and in, serious considerations.

While there was contest, which was reported, we were told a little or absolutely nothing about the rest of the other NOBs positions. As said in literature, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

A majority of the positions, five, was not contested: President, Comrade Piet Matosa, who was Deputy President and served as Acting President; Treasurer General, Comrade David Macatha; Health and Safety Secretary, Comrade Eric Gcilitshane; Education Chairperson, Comrade Helen Diatile; Education Secretary, Ecliff Tantsi. Health and Safety Chairperson, Comrade Peter Bailey, was re-elected after a contest. All of these positions represent continuity in terms of the incumbents.

The position of the Deputy President was vacant and contested. Comrade Joseph Montisetse was elected as the new incumbent.

The positions of the General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary were contested and new incumbents were elected, Comrade David Sipunzi and Comrade William Mabapa respectively.

All of the above matter in any serious analysis. However, a revolutionary way forward as expressed by the South African Communist Party (SACP) is that the entire leadership collective must unite, unite the NUM, and defend the union against divisions. The SACP congratulated the entire leadership elected, and indiscriminately wished all of them success. The Party further characterised the 15th NUM National Congress as successful.

History is not a teleological process moving on a straight line.

It comprises not only of advances and successes, but also of reverses and setbacks. The NUM suffered a major setback in 2012. This was concentrated in the Rustenburg platinum belt. Its stewards, officials and members were systematically targeted. The victims suffered one or more of, being killed, tortured, abused, raped, and displaced, to a point where association with the NUM became a danger to life.

All this, while, another union was consolidating and thriving, the “Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union” (Amcu). Thus those crimes clearly appeared to be synonymous with Amcu’s organising strategy. But the suffering endured by the NUM was not without capital’s decisions which coalesced in the direction of bashing or liquidating the union.

The leadership collective of the NUM therefore had to steer the ship in troubled waters and mitigate the holocaust and its effects. By its 15th National Congress last week the union was repositioned in the path of recovery in what relatively remained a problematic organising environment. However, some of the members who left were returning home, and the movement was beginning to gel. This work has to be deepened.

The movement back home has to be solidified, concretised, consolidated and expanded through new recruits and quality service in which members are not clients but active agents of progressive and revolutionary activity. In recognition of this task, the NUM engaged in constructive self-criticism. This was bold and is critical a principle. As put succinctly in 1966 by Amilcar Cabral in ‘The Weapon of Theory’: “in the general framework of daily struggle this battle against ourselves - no matter what difficulties the enemy may create - is the most difficult of all, whether for the present or the future of our peoples”. Cabral was referring to “the struggle against our own weaknesses” - which must be included in every programme - but which can only develop clarity of task from constructive self-criticism correctly exercised.

Following constructive self-criticism, the union arrived at a programmatic conclusion: “Back to basics - Members First!” This was an organising theme to guide its congress and programme of action moving forward.

The SACP was very much correct to congratulate the entire leadership that led the NUM and delivered it in a path of recovery at its 15th National Congress last week. The contribution of the comrades in defending the NUM should not be allowed go down unnoticed in the history of our struggle.

Thus, instead of opening space for reverses and catastrophic setbacks, the newly elected NUM leadership needs to advance the union in the direction of unity and victory.

Decoding some immediate dangers

Factionalism and sectarianism are two sides of one of the guillotines used against the leadership of the NUM fresh from the box as is. These tendencies elevate one or a fewer positions in isolation from the entire leadership collective. Only the selected are celebrated by the factionalists and sectarians. This does not build. It destroys.

In the forefront of this agenda was a typical character of the cult of personality and its loyalists, if not those exploiting it for their own profit. This is a reflection of a broader divisive agenda which appears to have upped the stakes in driving splits within the progressive trade union movement. A few days after the NUM congress the tendency of factionalism and sectarianism threatened that by the time of the Special National Congress of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in July it would have established a new federation.

All of the above exhibited an open declaration of an agenda which has most probably been going on but relatively hidden. If it succeed, this factionalist and sectarian agenda can only ruin the NUM. It will divide the union, in the extreme, it will split it. This, to the benefit of the exploiters, the only beneficiary, who, will smile all the way to the bank.

The entire NUM leadership and membership must guard against such agendas which can only divert the union from the delicate task it is facing. The whole of the NUM needs to be unified behind the resolutions and declaration of congress which are correctly in line with Cosatu’s founding principles. The union needs to be unified to gain lost ground in the mining industry. It needs to grow in this and other sectors covered by its scope of organising, energy and construction. After full recovery, it must move beyond its previous peak levels before the lost ground in the mining industry and expand continuously until a point of saturation, defined by full unionisation under its leadership, is reached.

There is no other alternative.

Also, democracy not only consists in electing leaders, uncontested or contested. The NUM, as its own Secretariat Report adopted by congress succinctly puts it: “cannot afford the luxury of petty squabbles, of minorities refusing to accept properly reached decisions. Once a decision is taken, no matter how narrow the majority, it has to become the decision of the union. Therefore, it means there can be no organized defiance by any group whatsoever to majority decision” (p. 184).

The battle of ideas

The media plays one of the critical roles. It is important to give the institution feedback, and to do so consistently. Excluding the media from the sphere of constructive criticism is unfair discrimination, and does not contribute to both transformation and development. This is the spirit within which we must be understood.

Some sections of the media displayed a number of weaknesses or biasness in their reporting. One of these, in addition to a dearth of content on decisions, a corporatized conception about the structure and workings of trade union leadership. This conception neglects the principles of working class and collective leadership, worker control and democracy. Trade union General Secretaries are, also, referred to as the bosses - in the private enterprise CEO sense of the word.

Distorted information is as dangerous as a little knowledge. It is equally misleading and can only produce wrong considerations.

It is important for those media institutions that would like to report accurately and become reliable sources of information to go through the constitutions and fundamental documents as a standard practice if not at least in preparation for the coverage of major activities such as congresses or conferences of organisations.

For instance sometimes we are told about the Gauteng branch of the ANC (African National Congress) or the SACP, as if there is such. Instead, simply, of the ANC or SACP Gauteng Province or any relevant provincial name.

Sometimes we are told about the Secretary General of the SACP or Cosatu, or the General Secretary of the ANC, whereas those positions do not exist. In addition, there are historical differences between the positions of Secretary General and General Secretary. There are both general and particular contextual differences between their functions - at least in so far as it concerns our Liberation Alliance. This are not an article of semantics.

For instance unlike the Secretary General of the ANC or the General Secretary of a trade union, the Communist Party’s General Secretary is the Political Head of the Party and its leading Official. This, in addition to a number of other functions performed by the ANC Secretary General or a trade union General Secretary. In the ANC and the trade unions, the President, a position which does not exist in the Communist Party, is the leading Political Head and Official or National Office Bearer respectively. A number of reports on the NUM Congress have fudged or inverted these roles.

However, in part, and therefore not entirely, this is a reflection of certain changes that have been taking place in the trade union movement over a number of years now. This has evolved to cause problems in the DNA of these workers’ organisations, and will be one of the subjects for discussion at the forthcoming Cosatu Special National Congress.

Addressing a press conference on 10 June, Cosatu Deputy General Secretary Comrade Bheki Ntshalintshali, who is serving as Acting General Secretary, said. “We hope that special national congress can figure out what is diving unity. One of the issues being raised is worker control. Where are the presidents? Why are the voices raised in unions by general secretaries and not by workers who pay subscriptions?” (The Star, p. 6, 11 June 2015).

As the NUM has said:

It is back to basics for the progressive trade union movement. But then the movement back to basics must come back advanced in the forward direction.

Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo is SACP Spokesperson, he writes in his capacity as Fulltime Revolutionary

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