Metal that Will not Bend. Kally Forrest
sense of siege was graphically captured by Naawu’s vice president, John Gomomo. Opening the congress, he declared that metal workers were under attack as never before, that tens of thousands had been retrenched in the previous five years, that key union leaders had been detained, and that organisers had been killed in attacks on Cosatu in Natal. He reminded delegates of the recent bombing of Cosatu’s Johannesburg headquarters, Cosatu House, and of the police siege of the building earlier that year when documents and correspondence dealing with union activities were ransacked and destroyed. ‘The only guarantee for the safety of our movement,’ Gomomo concluded, ‘is strong structures and workers’ control of our organisation.’31
Some members of first executive at launch of Numsa in Johannesburg on 24 May 1987. L-R David Madupela first vice-president, Daniel Dube president, Percy Thomas second vice-president (Wits archives)
By South African standards, Numsa was a giant. With 130 796 paid-up members, it was Cosatu’s second-largest affiliate (the National Union of Mineworkers had 261 901 paid up members) and the product of Cosatu’s second merger. Its backbone was Mawu’s 70 00032 membership, representing a tenfold expansion since 1979. Micwu, with 40 000 members brought the second largest number.33 Numsa’s third largest component Naawu, despite large-scale redundancies at Ford in 1985, brought in huge numbers. In the early 1980s, it grew rapidly and by 1985 it was negotiating in all auto plants except Nissan. It grew by a steady one thousand members a year from 1982, when it had 17 000 members, and then rose to 23 977 at its merger into Numsa.34
Macun remarks on the signficance of ‘union density’ in determining industrial power, defining it as ‘the membership of unions as a proportion of potential members in an industry. The higher the union density, the greater the power and influence the unions can exercise.’35 After seven years of phenomenal growth, Numsa’s unions had achieved significant density. Together, they spoke for 300 000 or 60 per cent of the 500 000 workers in the metal industries.36 The new giant was particularly well represented in Natal, Eastern Cape, Transvaal and Western Cape and embraced workers who assembled, made, repaired, serviced and sold cars and car parts and tyres; processed iron, steel and other metals and manufactured goods from steel; turned out components for the auto industry; and manned garage pumps and workshops.
In one powerful act, Numsa had combined African, coloured and Indian working men and women into a single organisation in the metal industry. Besides its affiliation to Cosatu, it affiliated to the IMF and the International Chemical and Energy Federation (ICEF) in a spirit of international worker unity. The new union, in a tradition deriving from the Tuacc days, was guided by the principles of nonracialism, internal democracy and workers’ control and, critically, worker unity. ‘We, the members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, firmly commit ourselves to a united South Africa, free of oppression and economic exploitation. We believe that this can only be achieved under the leadership of an organised and united working class …’ ringingly affirmed the first sentences of the preamble to the union’s constitution.37
The election of Naawu’s Daniel Dube as president of Numsa was a powerful moment, remembers East. ‘The merger was a lot of hard work, a lot of vindictive stuff went on, we had to overcome personality problems,’ he said. ‘But the election of Dube made us realise that we had brought something that was going to change the course of the union’s history.’ Although he was stunned by his election, believing he was ‘more of a compromise candidate’, Dube was in fact the product of the policy of workers’ control on the factory floor. Universally respected, he was to play an important role over the coming year in melding together Numsa’s disparate elements. Remarked Micwu’s Percy Thomas who was elected second vice-president: ‘I would say that the person who commanded my greatest respect was Daniel Dube. What a great, charismatic, worker leader and what an honour to have served alongside him.’38
Dube boomed across the congress floor: ‘This union was not only created for those who took part in the congress. We campaign for all workers, to increase our bargaining power and our political power – the power of all the oppressed.’39 Cosatu’s Jay Naidoo echoed the sentiment: ‘We must build organisation – it is our defence. We must consolidate and advance in all sectors. The tides have turned; workers are on the march. The greatest defence of Cosatu is to understand this.’40
The last word went however to Numsa workers who, in a spirit of high optimism despite the gloomy political climate, experienced a surge of worker power that only unity and growth of this magnitude could bring: ‘Workers see this is going to be a massive union. If you call a general strike, the whole country will come to a standstill – we can put the bosses in a tight corner or crush them.’41
Coming of age
Economic recession, obdurate employers, high rates of unemployment, escalating repression and violence – none of these stopped the numerical growth of the metal unions throughout the 1980s. Many saw the mid eighties, when a State of Emergency was declared, as a cut-off point for the coming of age of the metal unions and the new union movement. Naawu’s Adler observed: ‘I think at that stage there was a self-conscious union movement. There was a large number of organised workers and a coherent leadership. And by the time of the formation of Cosatu, where a whole lot of new dynamics started to arise, particularly in relation to the political process, there was a substantial union movement which had been built from nothing.’
This ‘large number of organised workers’ with a ‘coherent leadership’ would have implications in the attainment of union power. To use Macun’s category, the unions now exercised ‘organisational power’, the mechanism through which the working class pursues its interests. Organisational power is determined by factors such as the level of unionisation, the degree of unity and cohesion within the union structure, representational and administrative capacity and the degree of cooperation with political parties (see Appendix).42
A deteriorating economic and political climate had produced a militant workforce with a highly developed sense of common purpose. This, combined with the innovative and strategic thinking of a mature leadership, had allowed these metal unions to build and maintain significant levels of organisational coherence which they would wield in furthering their members’ interests.
Richard Lester has pointed to ‘the naive notion that size and power are directly correlated.’43 This, he believes, is an assumption which stems from the notion that a bigger union can hire more specialised staff and pool resources more effectively. He argues that growth often involves a disempowerment of the union at local factory level and a subsequent decrease in militancy. However, in the early and mid 1980s, growth for these unions was essential to their aim of building national industrial power to effect changes to metal workers’ conditions across South Africa. Numerical growth, and the power it represented, promoted further growth, and as numbers increased the influence of these unions spread and they grew further.
Organisational coherence also allowed these unions to better service membership, to accommodate high levels of workers’ control despite increased size, and to accumulate financial resources in order to develop their administrative and organisational capacity. The launch of Numsa was a symbol of this numerical power, internal cohesion, and worker solidarity, and the inauguration of Numsa was the culmination of these gains. As Dube expressed it at the launch, ‘the metal sector, the power that is at our disposal, the power that we have in our hands is not a small power, comrades.’44
Despite overwhelming pressures, these unions were able to incorporate formerly racially exclusive and dissident unions. Their vision concentrated the numerical gains of all these unions into a single national industrial metal union. This was a deliberate strategy.
What unionists were less conscious of, however, was that paradoxically the racial stratification of the labour force eliminated major inter-union competition in the recruitment of members. As Martin points out, the South African union movement follows the Anglo-Celtic model where occupational categories provide the basis for trade