As part of taking forward the resolutions adopted and endorsed at our watershed December 2013 Special National Congress, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) convenes from Sunday 26 January 2014-until-Sunday 02 February 2014, a National Political School at the Garden Court Hotel (OR Tambo International), 2 Hulley Road, Isando in Gauteng province.
The week-long school will be attended by 150 shopstewards and other Numsa activists who are responsible for mass political education at regional and local levels of the union.
Joining this contingent of worker educators known as the Mbuyiselo Ngwenda Brigade, will be representatives from other COSATU affiliates.
This is the second National Political School to theoretically empower and capacitate the Mbuyiselo Ngwenda Brigades. We shall combine theory and practice based on Vladimir Lenin’s advice that “Without Revolutionary Theory. There can be No Revolutionary Movement”.
Taking place under the theme: “Capitalism & Its Gravediggers: Building a United Front to Resist Neoliberalism”, the school will focus on the Numsa resolution to build a united front against neoliberalism. After a series of workshop on the effects of neoliberal policies on working and poor people that progressive Left-thinkers and academics such as PROFESSOR CHRIS MALIKANE and DR DAVID MASONDO will facilitate, the school will look at resistance that is being mounted on different fronts against these policies. We will also look at how to knit together these struggles into a torrent against neoliberalism.
To assist in this, participants will be exposed and will have the opportunity to discuss national and international examples of fronts involved in struggle against neoliberalism.
There will also be a Panel Discussion on lessons to be learnt from the experience of the United Democratic (UDF) of the 1980s.   The school will end with a Resistance Expo, where Numsa has invited 147 social movements for a conversation on what the struggles of these movements are all about and for a discussion on the possibility of linking trade union and community-based struggles.
The social movements invited range from groups currently involved in social delivery protests across the country to groups that are fighting against gender injustice and violence directed at women and children.
Numsa’s President comrade ANDREW CHIRWA will officially open the school on Sunday 26 January 2014, at 14h00pm. Numsa’s General Secretary IRVIN JIM will talk about the political context in which the school is taking place, while the union’s Deputy General Secretary KARL CLOETE will focus on the Numsa Special National Congress resolution to build a united front as well as on the decision to “explore the possibility of establishing a Movement for Socialism”.
Details for the opening of the school are as follows:
DATE: Sunday 26 January 2014
TIME: 13H30 FOR 14H00pm
VENUE: Garden Court Hotel (OR Tambo International), 2 Hulley Rd, Isando, Gauteng
Members of the media are hereby invited to attend and report. The full programme of the Political School is attached.
Contact:
Castro Ngobese
National Spokesperson
Mobile (1): 0810111137
(2): 0836275197
Email: castron@numsa.org.za
Website: www.numsa.org.za