Statement by WASP National Committee
The ANC leadership has always been wedded to the capitalist system. In order to appease the international captains of finance, the ANC, with the help of their Tripartite Alliance with the SACP and COSATU, sold out the mighty labour movement that brought apartheid to its knees, and took the decisive turn towards neoliberalism by implementing the GEAR policy in 1996. This meant a direct onslaught on the working class, through mass privatisation, outsourcing and labour brokering, budget cuts for public services, increasing tariffs for basic needs like water and electricity, and outright attacks on workers’ rights as demonstrated most clearly in the 2018 Labour Relations Act amendments that blunted the strike weapon and cemented a series of tiered slave minimum wages into law.
The neoliberal project has an explicit agenda to weaken the labour movement in order to increase the flow of profits to the bosses. Internationally, the period of neoliberalism has served to do just that over the past 50 years. The collapse of the Soviet Union further demoralised the international workers’ movement and left the leadership of the left stunned and confused. Lacking a clear understanding of the post-Soviet era and still carrying the baggage of Stalinism, the past decades have seen extreme degeneration of the leadership of labour unions worldwide, which in turn has led to ossified bureaucrats entrenching themselves and their increasingly lavish lifestyles in the tops. Instead of investing in rank-and-file members to build strong worker control of the unions, these bureaucrats put their career aspirations and lifestyles first, often following the path to class collaboration. Union bureaucrats have championed investment arms, controlled by executives largely unaccountable to the rank-and-file membership and dependent on the explicit exploitation of workers to pay dividends, over strike funds that have full oversight and democratic control. These same bureaucrats have also increasingly opened the trade union movement to the influence of the bosses’ class, through collaboration with capitalist parties, receiving benefits and even direct funding from capitalists.
This has resulted in a widening gap between union bureaucrats, who pursue the above mentioned strategies to preserve their lifestyles and career ambitions, and the members they claim to represent, resulting in less accountability and less worker control. In South Africa we have seen scandalous corruption take place in unions like SAMWU, CEPPAWU and SATAWU, as a direct result of the degeneracy of leadership made worse by the neoliberal era. The current battle raging in NUMSA shows that no trade union is immune from the pressures of the capitalist system acting on the labour movement.
NUMSA at a turning point
With more than 330 000 members, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) has long stood as the country’s largest trade union. In the past months we have seen a new chapter in the union’s history unfold as its degenerate leadership shows signs of losing its grip on power. General Secretary of NUMSA, Irvin Jim, and the tyrannical bureaucracy built tightly around him like a personality cult, have been relentlessly carrying out purges against its membership – suspending over 30 elected officials and putting entire regions under administration. Anyone daring Jim’s faction to account for rampant corruption or the failures and sabotages of NUMSA’s ground-breaking resolutions of the 2013 Special National Congress on the new workers’ party, the United Front and creation of SAFTU, is placed on the chopping block.
These purges are brazen yet desperate attempts to decapitate a growing rank-and-file opposition to the mismanagement of the NUMSA Investment Company (NIC), the union’s investment arm. According to electoral finance disclosures, the NIC has donated funds to support the ANC, particularly reactionary Radical Economic Transformation (RET) forces both inside and outside of it, as well as aligned with xenophobic parties like the Patriotic Alliance and African Transformation Movement. This has also been accompanied by questions regarding Jim’s own financial benefits from 3Sixty Life, a life insurance company owned by NIC, such as R40 000 spent on his birthday celebrations and buying a laptop for his daughter.
NUMSA rank-and-file, SAFTU and the entire workers movement must reject these purges against the militant trade unionists that are fighting for the revolutionary traditions of NUMSA that were re-established at the historic Special National Congress in 2013. NUMSA shop stewards must themselves organise to surgically purge the union of this degenerate bureaucracy in order to fight for workers’ control of NUMSA, and SAFTU, while fulfilling their enormous potential and revolutionary duty of rebuilding the working class movement and struggle for socialism.
Ruthless bureaucratic maneuvers to capture and subvert SAFTU
The unsuccessful attempts of Stalinist purges by Jim’s faction began in SAFTU. There were calculated attempts at purging opposition to Irvin Jim and his faction in SAFTU itself in anticipation of the Federation’s second National Congress, after this faction already suffered a defeat in the 2017 founding Congress when Zwelinzima Vavi was elected as the General Secretary against their pick at the time. Abusing its majority in the National Office Bearer (NOB) positions of the Federation – the result of compromises and concessions to Jim’s faction in the founding congress – they tried to carry out an unconstitutional suspension of Vavi, ahead of the SAFTU congress in May this year. To justify Vavi’s suspension, the NOBs invented bogus charges of misappropriation of ‘R1800 for airtime and R456 for Uber’. The suspension was carried out by the NOBs in defiance of the SAFTU constitution which explicitly states that this can only be done by the National Executive Committee (NEC).
These attacks from Jim’s faction backfired and galvanised SAFTU affiliates and the majority of the SAFTU NEC to suspend the offending NOBs. The faction around Irvin Jim was hoping to subvert the SAFTU congress – the workers control and democracy in the federation – in order to impose their agenda.
The same bureaucratic clique was also manoeuvring to silence other SAFTU affiliates. In spite of GIWUSA being prepared to meet requirements before the SAFTU 2022 Congress, for instance, Jim’s faction opposed its reaffiliation in order to stifle more potential opposition. Politically, the importance of GIWUSA’s participation in the SAFTU congress could not be understated, having waged one of the most militant, longest and high profile strike action at Clover that in turn pushed further industrial action in the mining sector after a lengthy slumber in labour militancy made worse by the Covid pandemic. GIWUSA indeed fell on hard financial times due to factional struggles with corrupt elements and consequently could not pay its subs for more than six months, which qualified the union for disaffiliation according to SAFTU constitution. However, the amount GIWUSA owed SAFTU was fraudulently exaggerated to mislead the NEC in its preparations of credentials for the Congress. This was done, with the aid of Jim-aligned forces in the SAFTU accounting department pursuing business investments and other tendencies to corporatize SAFTU, which GIWUSA has consistently opposed. To show that this was not simply a miscalculation, the same accounting reports also underrepresented NUMSA’s debt to the SAFTU NEC when the latter fell in the same situation as GIWUSA. NUMSA had consistently paid only R1.00 of the R1.50 per member per month affiliation fees to SAFTU, which means that after 18 months NUMSA had effectively fallen behind with six months of arrears. Despite having constitutionally qualified for disaffiliation, NUMSA was allowed to fully participate in the SAFTU NEC and to use its position to bar GIWUSA from participating.
A crushing and humiliating defeat at the SAFTU congress
Without the capture of the SAFTU apparatus necessary to subvert the SAFTU Congress, this Stalinist clique tried every trick to delay and sabotage the congress from within. This included blackmail, such threats as withdrawing from the congress completely if they did not have their way, and SAPU trying to force NUPSAW’s support by threatening to withdraw their united front tactics in the public sector bargaining council. On the ballot, they suffered a major defeat at the congress. They first lost the vote for lifting of suspensions of the ex-NOBs. And, secondly, they failed to secure a majority in the elections of the NOBs. In this instance they insisted on allowing the suspended SAFTU officials to be nominated for the slate. This would later contradict their approach to the NUMSA congress in July where the Jim faction attempted to stamp out any opposition in leadership through suspensions.
The open and heroic revolt of NUMSA delegates and defiance of Ruth Ntlokotse, who, although NUMSA Deputy President, contested against the ‘official leadership slate’, also shattered the illusion of invincibility for Jim’s faction. It sharply posed the question of Irvin Jim’s own leadership in NUMSA, a position that appeared absolutely secure until the SAFTU congress, especially after the resignation of the former Deputy Secretary General, Karl Cloete, two years ago.
In the election for SAFTU President, Jim’s faction was defeated by 100 votes. If GIWUSA delegates were admitted, the margin would have widened by at least 20 votes. After five years of dominating with a clear majority, Jim’s faction now only holds a minority position in the SAFTU NOBs.
Purging NUMSA ahead of its Congress
Although Irvin Jim was not a candidate for any of the positions in the SAFTU Congress, the result was widely viewed as his defeat more than any of his candidates. Only two months before NUMSA’s own congress, the scale of the defeat had burst wide open the contest for the NUMSA leadership. The defeat at the SAFTU Congress sent them into complete disorientation and panic, reflected by confused reaction and strategy on many issues. Forced to concede defeat at the SAFTU congress they immediately released a statement congratulating SAFTU NOBs and particularly Ruth Ntlokose. Less than a month later, she was suspended as the NUMSA Deputy President facing disciplinary charges for contesting the position in SAFTU.
As the panic was beginning to set in during the lead up to the NUMSA congress Jim’s faction could not afford to call off, they went into a frenzy of witch-hunts and suspensions against real and suspected, listed and unnamed opponents, without any reference to the NUMSA constitution. With the possibility of fair and just procedure completely ruled out, Ruth and suspended NUMSA shop stewards approached the court on an urgent basis. On Sunday, 23 July 2022, Labour court Judge Mashoana delivered a devastating judicial condemnation of these purges and bureaucratic manoeuvres to ‘steal the congress’, in a judgement quoting Rosa Luxemburg.
In flagrant disregard of the NUMSA constitution, principles of internal trade union democracy and clear contempt of the court order, the Jim faction decided to continue with the National Congress. They claimed that they complied with the terms of the order, while at the same time appealing the judgement. The court dismissed the application for leave to appeal. If Jim’s faction were sincerely convinced that they complied with the order, they did not need to appeal. Instead they did so to mask their contempt for the court, as well as posture before the NUMSA membership about the constitutionality of their profoundly undemocratic manoeuvrings.
A corrupt bureaucracy and the cult around Irvin Jim
The media, labour court judge, and organised opposition within the union have focused on the breaches of the union constitution and procedural unfairness of the purges. However, the fundamental political issues and historical changes these purges entail for the character and role of NUMSA are mostly missing from the debate. The sharpest of criticisms blame Jim’s obsessions with personal power, a lavish lifestyle and covering up for misappropriation of workers money to fund this and the patronage of the cabal enabling it.
Although these critiques may be correct, they do not bring clarity to the organisational scope, political depth and historical significance of the struggle taking place in NUMSA. What is missing is his undermining of SAFTU, as he did with the United Front and Workers Party campaigns; the funding of the ANC along with RET forces; and lastly, why the vast sections of the NUMSA bureaucracy that led the split from the Tripartite Alliance with the ANC while tirelessly lecturing the working class about ‘voting for its own butchers’, see nothing wrong in funding these same butchers.
Irvin Jim only succeeds in circumventing the union constitution, and the entire organisational culture of internal democracy and workers control because he is aided by a powerful caste of NUMSA bureaucracy. By NUMSA bureaucracy, we refer to the privileged layer of paid and elected union officials in the national, various regional and local offices as well as the highly-paid, full-time shop stewards in big companies, managers in the union’s business investments companies, and hangers-on in various projects funded by tech-billionaire, Neville Roy Singham i.e. SRWP, Thoughtworks, New Frame, Tricontinental Institute, Forge, and the Commune in Braamfontein amongst others.
The plundering and looting of the union’s investments, alongside hundreds of millions of rands poured in by Singham, are essential for the maintenance of this bureaucratic caste that seeks to usurp NUMSA and SAFTU members and shop stewards of their union and federation.
The whole bureaucracy is trapped in the irreconcilable contradictions of their hopeless political positions, and the objective development of class struggle, which blows them in all sorts of directions. This bureaucracy fanatically supports Jim, because he represents their collective interests and policy. He also commands the political authority he earned from turning NUMSA away from the disastrous policies of the Tripartite Alliance. His exceptional charisma masks and rationalises all the flip-flopping in political strategy and tactics, which is definitive of a bureaucracy devoid of political principles, perspectives and direction. Above all, Jim harnesses the bureaucratic apparatus to suppress anyone who dares to challenge the corruption, privileges, and undemocratic manoeuvres on matters of trade union policy and organisation.
The whole degenerated bureaucracy is guided purely by self-interest in survival, privileges and resources, and leverages its power to safeguard and advance these interests.
Political counter-revolution
The Stalinist purges, disregard for the union’s constitution and democratic principles, as well as the attempted dismantlement of SAFTU, signal a political counter-revolution. These self-proclaimed ‘revolutionaries’ who swear by Marx and workers control completely abandon revolutionary Marxist strategy and the democratic foundations of the union to suppress a legitimate revolt against corruption. Furthermore, these ‘revolutionaries’ misused workers’ investments to fund the same political parties these leaders refer to as the ‘butchers of workers’. These are acts of betrayal against the organisational foundations and revolutionary political direction ushered in by the historic NUMSA Special National Congress (SNC) of 2013. It is important to analyse and understand changes in the class struggle that made possible various changes in the political direction of the Jim faction.
Senseless zig-zags by the leadership around Jim show that they themselves have not been driven by the workers’ interests and revolution. It was purely based on their own survival and saving of their political careers that they acted under pressure of rank-and-file to make a historic turn at the 2013 SNC. Up until then, the NUMSA bureaucracy fanatically supported the ANC and escalated this support to new heights after the Zuma victory in the 2007 ANC Congress in Polokwane. In the 2009 national elections, a year after Irvin Jim took over the NUMSA leadership from the Thabo Mbeki-supporting General Secretary, Solumko, NUMSA spent millions in t-shirts, posters and the campaign for the election of Zuma under the ANC, in addition to the electoral campaign run by COSATU.
As the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) at that time, we predicted that the rank-and-file would revolt against this policy and spending of workers monies by NUMSA leadership. This was based on the inevitable poor returns on NUMSA’s investment in Zuma, who had stated well in advance of his victory at the 2007 ANC Congress that there will be no fundamental changes in the ‘sound macroeconomic policies’ of the ANC – the same neoliberal austerity policies workers opposed under Mbeki’s leadership of the ANC and government.
The political convulsions that erupted at Marikana qualitatively accelerated and widened the scope of the COSATU rank-and-file revolt against the Tripartite Alliance. It shattered the political foundations of the reformist class-collaborationist policies of its leadership. This anger that resulted in splits, and an exodus of members to AMCU, posed a mortal threat to the organisational basis for all the power and material resources that allowed this COSATU bureaucracy a life of comfort and luxury. This lifestyle separated and elevated them from the horrendous conditions of the working class, including NUMSA members. The bloody massacre of the Marikana mine workers by the ANC government, and shameful role of the SACP and COSATU leadership in supporting it, was not lost on NUMSA members, nor on many National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and COSATU rank-and-file who vigorously protested this cruel betrayal.
There is no doubt the spectacular collapse of NUM in the face of the mass exodus of mineworkers in the Platinum and Gold sector focused the minds of the NUMSA bureaucracy on the dangers lying ahead on the path of the Tripartite Alliance. This forced a 180 degree turn away from its enthusiastic support for Zuma to uncompromising opposition to his regime and a refusal to support the ANC electorally and financially. It was this and the decision to build a Workers party and United Front to challenge the ANC that led to the expulsion of NUMSA by the right-wing of the COSATU bureaucracy. In turn, this culminated in the creation of SAFTU.
The rank-and-file, layers of NUMSA officials, and many unions and working class activists that supported them were genuinely enthused and revitalised by the decisions of the 2013 SNC to reclaim class independence from the ANC-led Tripartite Alliance. However, the vast majority of the NUMSA bureaucracy was forced by these circumstances to break organisational ties with COSATU and the SACP, but never their ideological and political bonds with Stalinism and reformism.
Despite the clarity of the rank-and-file desires and SNC resolutions to break organisationally and ideologically with the Tripartite Alliance and the Stalinism of the SACP, but also precisely because of it, this same bureaucracy immediately turned into a fifth column that worked tirelessly to dismantle or subvert all the work of implementing these resolutions. The destruction of the United Front, subversion of the Movement for Socialism into a hopeless Stalinist sect that is now the SRWP, and endless sabotage of SAFTU, are not because they did not want a new federation, united front with communities or workers’ parties. It was mainly because they wanted entities they could tightly control like every Stalinist bureaucrat not confident in their ideas, perspectives and programme.
SAFTU, the only one of the three SNC projects that still exists in any meaningful way, has survived not for lack of trying on Jim’s faction’s part to kill it, but in spite of it. That is the real meaning of the fierce opposition to the 2017 SAFTU launch, which almost rendered it still-born. The SAFTU GS, Zwelinzima Vavi’s colossal authority amongst workers was important in saving SAFTU from Jim’s faction’s countless attempts to wreck and sabotage it. Unfortunately, the elected leadership of SAFTU was dominated by office bearers aligned to a wrecking agenda. The remaining NOBs, including Vavi, did not have a fighting strategy to defend the principles of workers democracy and the resolution around the workers party in SAFTU and the Working Class Summit, which were constantly under attack by the Jim faction. While the writing was on the wall years ago, they failed to go on an offensive to reach out to the entire NUMSA membership. Instead of clarifying political differences to the membership of NUMSA and SAFTU as a whole, including the differences about the mass workers party, the opposition to Jim’s faction focused on fighting the battles in the top structures of the federation. The events over the past months have confirmed the fundamental political differences between opposing factions in the trade union movement and that attempts to convince the Jim faction were in vain.
For workers control, democracy and socialism
Jim’s cabal is completely demoralised for several reasons. This includes not just the collapse of the United Front and their political isolation from the broader layers of the workers’ movement, but also the complete rejection of the Stalinist SRWP project by SAFTU, the Working Class Summit and even the vast majority of NUMSA membership. On top of this, Jim’s faction is now clearly prepared to wreck everything to preserve itself from investigation and possible criminal prosecutions for misuse of workers monies.
However, the courts are a capitalist institution and will ultimately serve the interests of the capitalists, so they cannot be relied upon to come to the defence of workers’ interests. That they have in fact been relied on heavily up to this point to intervene in the organisational and political matters of South Africa’s biggest union is already playing with fire for the labour movement. Instead, NUMSA members themselves need to reorganise the democratic union structures the bureaucracy is attempting to dismantle. Now is the time for rank-and-file members, shop stewards and every principled NUMSA activist to organise and reclaim their union. Firing Jim and his whole cabal while organising and fighting to reconvene the NUMSA congress on the correct constitutional and proper democratic basis is the only way to do this. SAFTU, genuine left formations and working class activists must mobilise to support this struggle in every way necessary. This includes developing the analysis and programme to achieve this in addition to offering material support to ensure that these ideas reach workers in factories, locals and regional meetings.
Without correct theoretical appraisal and understanding of what is happening in NUMSA, a real danger exists that the new NUMSA leadership will not fare better under pressure of the objective situation than Jim’s faction. This is especially true if this is not looked at in the context of the current conditions facing society broadly and the political tasks that flow from this. In this period of the historical crises of capitalism, theoretical clarity on matters of political strategy, perspectives and programmes is absolutely essential for any fighting mass movement of the working class.
The new NUMSA leadership must avoid falling into the same problems caused by the existence of a parasitic bureaucracy in the union by plugging the gap between the salaries earned by officials and members. A clear route to this is capping the salary of union officials to that of the average of a skilled worker in the metal industry. Furthermore, the use of union resources must be discussed and democratically determined by the rank-and-file members. It is also essential that the membership holds the right of immediate recall of any elected official so that accountability is clear and transparent.
SAFTU must convene an urgent National Executive Committee to review the events of the past weeks and to take the necessary measures to aid the opposition in NUMSA. It must do everything in its power to defend workers control, democratic structures and the revolutionary culture in the union to hold Jim and the cult around him to account for their corruption, breaches of the union constitution and criminal vandalization of the union.
While unions in SAFTU and beyond are uniting with communities and youth to fight the class war, Irvin Jim’s faction is actively playing a counter-revolutionary role. It has spent millions in workers’ monies on their dubious legal strategy, while refusing to support both financially and politically the mobilisation efforts and democratic meetings taking place in the lead up to the National Shutdown for 24 August. The layers of NUMSA shop stewards and officials that have taken part in these in spite of this silent boycott of the degenerate leadership show that the mood for action against the capitalist class and support for a revitalised SAFTU is strong. These heroic worker leaders must be supported by the broader layer of the working class.
NUMSA, rid of the corrupt clique around Irvin Jim, must continue the struggle to rebuild and grow SAFTU and the Working Class Summit as the only legitimate expression of the genuine United Front that working class NUMSA delegates had in mind. Most importantly, the union must take its rightful place in the struggle to create a genuine mass workers party on a socalist programme.
What we fight for – Revolutionary Trade Unionism:
- Revolutionary in word AND revolutionary in deed! Campaign in every federation and every union for a programme of revolutionary trade unionism – link workers’ struggles on day-to-day issues to the struggle for socialism.
- One country, one federation – build the principled unity of the trade union movement on the basis of class independence from the bosses, democracy and workers’ control.
- Build efficient administration – struggle against bureaucracy and careerism! For democracy and worker-control. Trade union leaders are not CEOs! Salary and wage control of all trade union officials determined democratically sector-by-sector. Abolish trade union investment funds – turn investments into savings for strike and solidarity funds!
- Build co-ordinated campaigns of rolling mass action on all issues facing the working class. Build industry- and sector-wide action-committees that unite the workers of all federations, unions, and those not members of unions in campaigns of rolling mass action. Lock-out the bosses in non-complying industries through workplace occupations. Demand nationalisation under workers control.
- No trust in the institutions of the capitalist state! Defend the class independence of the trade unions. Campaign to expose the bosses’ economic dictatorship and the limitations of capitalist democracy. Mass defiance of unjust laws that stop workers defending themselves.
- Nationalise under democratic working class and community control the banks, the mines, the commercial farms, the big factories and big businesses. A publicly owned and democratically planned socialist economy to meet the needs of all and not the profits of the capitalists.
- Forge the fighting unity of the working class in a party of mass struggle. Build a socialist mass workers party to unite the struggles of the workplaces, the communities and the youth as a vital step toward the creation of a mass revolutionary party
Click Here to Read our full political education pamphlet on Revolutionary Trade Unionism here.
