Numsa has declared the motor sector a special project. Statistics show that in the Eastern Cape , only 29% of the total motor workforce, is organised by Numsa. A lot of work still has to be done. But now a group of dedicated shop stewards led by Sam Malangeni, Eastern Cape ‘s regional organiser, have begun their recruitment campaign in Queenstown. “Geographically the Eastern Cape is very large and that is our biggest problem,” says Malangeni.

“Because of this we decided to divide the Queenstown local into two clusters. Cluster one has a number of towns centred around Queenstown. Cluster two consists of towns centred around Aliwal North.”

Cluster co-ordinators liaise with the Queenstown local office while each town has a contact person to link the membership with the cluster co-ordinators. “Our target was the garages and workers were happy to see Numsa leaders come to them – they joined in numbers,” says Malangeni.

Although resources “are not adequate, we use what we have,” continues Malangeni. “Because we have good relations with Nehawu, that has helped us in Aliwal North. We are able to use their telephone and their office.”

But the group has also shown other ways of saving on costs. “Instead of booking into a hotel, we hired a house, borrowed a car and bought groceries for R600 for a week. We still hope to get support from head office. But in the meantime, we don’t want to sit down and fold our arms. Something now is happening in the region,” continues Malangeni.

Clusters will now be trained and launched. And after Queenstown is wrapped up, Butterworth is the next target. This kind of operation shows that motor is on a mission to make itself the backbone of our organisation.

What is your region/local doing about recruitment of motor workers? Figures show that other regions have more work to do than the Eastern Cape . See the table below:

Region
Total motor workforce
Numsa members
Unorganised
% Unorganised

Northern Transvaal

30766
5476
25290
82%

Mpumalanga

9352
1724
7628
82%

Ekurhuleni

20826
3676
17150
82%

Wits Central

29300
5394
23906
82%

Western Transvaal

7682
1054
6628
87%

Northern Cape

14329
2141
12188
85%

KwaZulu Natal

11593
3326
8267
71%

Eastern Cape

17201
5048
12153
71%

Western Cape

25862
7937
17925
69%