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South Africa: Largest labor union, NUMSA looking to break way from ANC – may form political party
(Reuters) – South Africa’s biggest union is considering pulling out of the African National Congress (ANC)-aligned Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) labor federation to form its own political entity, a split that could hurt the ruling party in next year’s elections, senior union sources said on Tuesday.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) is increasingly at odds with the ANC and COSATU over labor policies it says are too pro-business.
Coupled with anger at a perceived increase in corruption under President Jacob Zuma, the 350,000-strong union is now on the brink of walking out on a 25-year relationship forged in the common struggle against brutal and segregationist white-minority rule.
If the NUMSA took some smaller unions with it, COSATU – the ANC’s most effective ‘get-out-the-vote’ machine – could lose half a million members who would normally have campaigned faithfully for Nelson Mandela’s former liberation movement – the ANC.
NUMSA officials told reporters that union bosses were circulating a document ahead of a key December meeting asking whether it should form a labor party, civic movement or a worker federation to go head-to-head with COSATU.
The crisis in the movement claimed its first high-profile casualty this week when NUMSA President Cedric Gina quit, saying he was unhappy with the anti-ANC stance being adopted.
“All is not well in NUMSA,” he told reporters. “I hope that the union will allow members to take their own decision on who to support in the elections.”
