Numsa Youth Desk members in Hlanganani region, based in Pretoria, went all out to help achieve Numsa‘s goal of 300 000 members by the time of the national congress next year.

The campaign was held at Rustenburg local from October 22-23 2011. It was quite challenging to recruit on weekends as many companies are not open.

At the companies that were open it was easier to enter and recruit because most managers do not work on weekends. We targeted motor companies, as most of them operate on weekends.

We started at Shell Ultra City Garage, where we told the workers about Numsa’s background and explained why it is important to join the union.

We also distributed Numsa pamphlets.

At first the workers were reluctant to join, but after we explained the importance of unions they became interested.

They could not join immediately because they were afraid of their manager and they told us to come back later that day.

Our next stops were at Supa Quick, BP Waterfall Garage and Leons Rustenburg Ford Motors. When we got there, workers asked us to come back when they knock off.

We then went to Maemo Motors and BMW. At BMW, the workers did not show any interest, but workers at Maemo Motors asked for Numsa application forms which they completed.

We then went back to Supa Quick, BP and Leons Motors.

Workers filled in the forms but when we got to Leons Motors we found that the workers had left at 12h30.

We then went back to Shell Ultra City at around 22h30.

It was easier for comrades to complete the forms without fear at night, and they told us to come the next morning to speak to people working the morning shift.

We went the next morning and workers also filled in the forms.

Source

Numsa News No 1