NUM and NUMSA A public discussion ANN7 News last night interviewed a Labour Law Management Consultant called Ivan Israelstam. He stressed that unity is the only source of power for trade unions. Then he was asked what he thought was the reason for the split in COSATU, whereby NUMSA is no longer an affiliate. Israelstam replied that it was because NUMSA is opposed to the ANC. This is not true. Affiliates of COSATU are not compelled to support the ANC. In fact, the reason for the split is quite different. The reason why NUMSA is no longer tolerated in COSATU is that NUMSA refuses to abide by the demarcations between industries that COSATU insists on. The necessity for demarcations derives from the founding organizational principle of COSATU, which is: One Industry, One Union; One Nation, One Federation. What NUMSA has been doing for the last several years is known as "poaching". NUMSA recruits from the membership of other unions. NUMSA has become a parasite union. NUMSA has recruited from NUM, CEPPWAWU and SATAWU in particular. Insofar as reconciliation between NUMSA and NUM in particular has become a possibility following the recent NUM Congress, poaching becomes an issue. NUMSA shows no sign of stopping its poaching activities. If NUM embraces NUMSA before settling the poaching question, and NUMSA is consequently able to continue poaching members while enfolded in NUM's friendly embrace, NUM may not last very long. The NUM can be sucked right up by NUMSA, like an insect having its juices sucked dry by a spider, leaving only a hollow shell. To understand more about the size of the problem, the CU offers the following rudimentary table. Figures for 2009 are from the documentation of the COSATU 10th Congress. Figures for 2014 are from the NUMSA web site and from a 2014 article on IOL, written by Amy Musgrave. NUMSA gained about 100 000 members in five years, while the NUM lost about 42 000. Some of the former NUM members went to AMCU. Here is the table, based on the best membership figures I could quickly obtain*: NUM NUMSA Difference NUMSA, % of NUM 2009 317 339 236 909 80 430 75% 2014 275 000 339 567 -64 567 123% Change -42 339 102 658 144 997 % loss/gain -13% 43% If anyone can give better and more extensive information, it will be most welcome. What one would like to have is year-end membership figures up to end 2014 for NUM, NUMSA, CEPPWAWU and SATAWU. If any kind of reliable figures are available for AMCU, that would be of assistance. If any other COSATU unions are reporting poaching by NUMSA, their figures would be of interest. Conclusions What can be ascertained from the table? We can say that the changes are major and that they have occurred in a short period of time. From that we can conclude and expect that further dramatic changes may well take place, or in other words that trade union organisation has become fluid, and dynamic. Any union, including NUM, needs to have as a priority a set of effective positive tactics for retaining members. There needs to be good communication. Any union leadership that is second best at 2-way communication with its own membership, as compared its rivals, will suffer. The best communication is face to face, usually in mass meetings, but also in political schools. The incumbent must use all the advantages it has over the interloper. There is another problem that is hard to describe. Let's call it leverage of benefit (by predators). This is where the best qualities of your union are used against it. The ANC is an example of something like this. It has brought unprecedented benefits. Yet these have led to ever-greater demands, and to the construction of an imaginary, ideal comparison, against which the ANC will always be found wanting. The very political education that we have popularised becomes an argument and a whip over ourselves. Actual service-delivery ceases to count. The remedy for this problem is to do our political education better, so that we produce, not a half-formed, unstable, adolescent kind of result, but a mature one. Let's discuss. VC *Research: 2009 membership (COSATU Congress report) NUM 317 339 NUMSA 236 909 NUM, April 2014, 275 000 (IOL report <http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/num-pays-for-mine-strike-in-numbers-1.17 13369#.VXgevvmqqko> ) NUMSA, January 2014, 339 567 (NUMSA web site <http://www.numsa.org.za/about/> ) -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. 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