I want to start by thanking every Numsa member who came onto the streets on 19th March and made sure that our strike was such a success. This was the first strike in our rolling mass action for 2014.
Our aim is to force the government to fundamentally change their economic strategy. The current strategy is simply an attack on the working class and the poor.
In this first strike we were demanding that the government scrap the current tax incentive bill, the Youth Wage Subsidy under another name.
The ANC government used every trick in the book to frustrate the strike. It was supposed to take place on Budget Day, 26th February. But they delayed us in Nedlac so that we were forced to shift the action to 19 March. Despite that, the good turnout of you, our Numsa members, sent a clear message to everybody.
You are fully behind the decisions and resolutions of our Special National Congress and all our campaigns. The red of the metal workers on the streets on 19 March silenced all our detractors and boosted the revolutionary moment of metal workers – Motsotso wa Numsa
On the eve of the 19th March strike, the Minister of finance phoned me to apologize that he will not be in a position to collect the memorandum. But he confirmed that his doors are open for engagement to deal with the problems Numsa has. We will be engaging with all the ministers of the economic cluster and we will report back to you on what we achieve.
Engineering Negotiations
The negotiations in the Engineering industry are continuing. The next round will take place between May 12 and 14.  So far, we have reached some agreement on finally moving to a new, 5 grade structure. But it is still early in the process. We are still pursuing our 2014 Collective Bargaining principles:
• Close the apartheid wage gap and fighting for equity in the workplace and a Living Wage
• Democratise the workplace
• Reduce excessive pay for the Bosses
• Develop the skills of the workforce who were deprived of that development during the colonial-apartheid past.
• Use collective bargaining to organize the unorganized and thereby grow Numsa into a formidable fighting force
• Improve the conditions of employment for workers
Cosatu and the Alliance
Many of you will have seen and heard many things on TV and radio and in newspapers about what has been happening in Cosatu.
You will have heard many political leaders attack Numsa’s leadership. They have called openly for us to be expelled from Cosatu. Indeed we are attacked on a daily basis.
We know that there are constant attempts by these forces to go into Numsa workplaces. They are trying to win our members and shop stewards away from us.
You will also have heard the recent reports of a ‘ceasefire’ agreement brokered by Cyril Ramaphosa.
As General Secretary I want to make a few things very clear to you:
• The national structures of Cosatu have fallen into the hands of those who do not want fundamental change. They wish to see the federation continue to support the ANC and SACP no matter what they do. In order to pursue their agenda, they have constantly violated the Cosatu constitution.
• In the last Numsa News, we told you about the Group of 9 Cosatu affiliates. We are part of that group. We are working together to return Cosatu to its roots as an independent, militant federation which fearlessly defends the interests of its members and the working class and the poor as a whole.
• We have won a small victory. We went to the High Court to prove that the suspension of the General Secretary, Comrade Zwelinzima Vavi, was not done according to the Cosatu constitution. We were successful and Comrade Vavi is now back at work.
• Now we are going to go back to court again to force the Cosatu President to obey the Constitution. The Cosatu Constitution says he must convene the Cosatu Special Congress. He is still refusing to do so. We continue to believe that only this parliament of the workers can bring its leadership to order.
• We, as Numsa, will not leave the federation. Unity of workers is paramount for us and for the revolution. Numsa never applied to become a member of Cosatu. We are one of the unions which founded the federation in 1985.
• Together as the Group of 9, we are finalising proposals to call a Workers Summit. Workers must have an opportunity to discuss the crisis in the federation. One of the resolutions at that Summit will be to convene the Cosatu Special National Congress.
The only forest we have for our protection is united metalworkers and a united Cosatu membership to defend the independence and militancy of the working class.
The United Front
In many parts of the country, the United Front was launched on the streets on March 19th. Community organisations and NGOs joined Numsa members in our marches for fundamental economic change. Our mission now, as Numsa, is to continue to build the United Front. As the leadership of Numsa, we are calling on you to reach out and become active in the struggles of your local communities.
We understand that Numsa members are not just workers. We also live in communities which have problems with service delivery. Our children go to schools with too many learners in each classroom and with a lack of basic resources. Our sick family members spend far too long waiting for inferior service in hospitals and clinics.
These are all working class issues in the same way as wages and conditions in our workplaces. We need to join these struggles together. The best way to do that is for Numsa members to be active in community struggles and to bring those community issues into our workplace meetings and Local Shop Steward Councils.
We will be formally launching the United Front this year, at local regional and national level. The May Central Committee will adopt a programme for these launches. It will also discuss some guidelines for how the United Front works.
Movement for Socialism
The Numsa moment, the United Front, the Movement for Socialism, these are about nothing else but the working class organising itself as a class for itself. Numsa remains a trade union. But we are also leading the process of building a movement for socialism. Workers and their trade unions need a working class party. This cannot be postponed any longer.
Recently I addressed our sister unions and working class organisations in North America. In Chicago, we engaged with groupings from the old anti-apartheid movement. In Washington we briefed steelworkers and a coalition of black trade union activists. In Canada we briefed their metalworkers union, Unifor. There is full support for the Numsa moment.
The Central Committee will decide on a programme towards building the movement for socialism and I will report on that fully in the next Numsa News.

The election and the Good Story
The Numsa Special National Congress decided that Numsa would not support any political party in the May 7 elections. We said this because we cannot see any party that clearly stands for the interests of the working class and the poor.
We have criticised the ANC for the loss of jobs in manufacturing. We continue to criticise them for an economic policy which prioritises profits at the expense of the working class and the poor.  Their refusal to address the fundamental question of ownership and control of the economy to ensure equal access for both black and white.
We don’t see the good story when more South Africans are unemployed now than in 2009 and 87% of the land continues to be in the hands of a tiny minority. If the truth be told, it is the capitalist class that has benefited from the 20 years of democracy, not the black working class.
Elections will come and go. Workers will remain stuck in the grinding poverty of the triple crisis. And we see absolutely no commitment from the ANC, the DA or any other party to implement the fundamental change that is necessary to change that. In fact the political parties have become more and more simply mouthpieces of the capitalist class.
Over the last months we have seen mineworkers in the platinum industry starved with no help from the government. We would expect a worker-friendly government to implement a national minimum wage and support these workers. Instead we have seen nothing. We demand nothing less than full implementation of the Freedom Charter to make the change that is needed.

Quality service to our members
As we reported to you in the last Numsa News, the Numsa Special National Congress agreed on a Numsa Service Charter. Copies of the Charter will be going up on the walls of all Numsa offices in the next couple of months. For this initiative to work, we must rely most heavily on you, the Numsa members.
Do not accept any service from Numsa which you think is second class. Workers, more than any others in society, deserve first class service. It is workers who produce the wealth in society.
So we are asking you to be active in your union and your community. Play your part as members of this revolutionary union. And let us know if we fail to give you the service you deserve, as the producers of South Africa’s wealth.