The NUMSA December 2013 Special National Congress gave a mandate for the NUMSA national leadership to unite trade unions, rural and urban social movements, faith-based organisations, women’s and youth organisations and other popular formations in action to fight rising corruption, unemployment, deepening inequality and poverty as advanced by the neo-liberal policies of the ANC government.
In just a few months in several urban and rural regions around the country interim structures of the United Front have been launched or have convened. It all started with united action in March 2014 when Numsa, with its United Front allies, led an overwhelmingly successful S77 national strike against youth unemployment when it took workers and communities to the streets in protest again the Youth Wage Subsidy billed as the Employment Incentive Tax Act.
Our responsibility is nothing less than to rekindle the mass movement of the 1980s, which brought apartheid to an end. We recognise that the conscious forces of radical political, social and economic transformation are still weak and fragmented, but believe that regrouping working class, rural movements, community organisations, movements of students, youth and women as well as social movements can restore hope in collective solutions and solidarity to the crises we currently face.
The United Front People’s Assembly will take place, this weekend Saturday 13 December 2014-Sunday 14 December 2014, at Southern Sun OR Tambo (opposite OR Tambo International Airport), Kempton Park, Gauteng province.
The People’s Assembly will be attended by close to 300 delegates, drawn from United Front’s structures across the country; trade unions; youth and student formations; faith-based organisations; rural formations; civic and community organisations; social movements and progressive academics.  It will receive a detailed report on the work of United Front structures on the ground, across the country.
The following leaders are expected to address the People’s Assembly – Numsa’s President, Andrew Chirwa; General Secretary Irvin Jim; Deputy General Secretary Karl Cloete; TAC’s Zackie Achmat; Prishani Naidoo; and Ronnie Kasrils. They will address the task and issues confronting the working class and the poor in the current period under the neoliberal ANC government trajectory.  The Assembly will also hear from a range of organisations on the current social struggles and campaigns around education, health; sanitation, housing, electricity, the rural poor and the struggles of workers on farms and on the platinum belt.
Furthermore, the People’s Assembly will agree on guiding principles and minimum campaign programme for the period ahead. It will elect a Working Committee (WC) of the United Front that will drive and coordinate the work of the Front towards the National United Front Launch in April 2015.
The details are as follows:
DATE:              Saturday 13 December 2014
TIME:               10H00am
VENUE:           Southern Sun OR Tambo, Kempton Park
Members of the media are hereby invited to attend and report.
Contact:
Castro Ngobese
National Spokesperson – 083 627 5197