The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa has announced that it is preparing to launch a new political organisation aimed at dealing with the issues of a united working class. The announcement was made by NUMSA General Secretary, Irvin Jim in front of journalists in Johannesburg on Sunday.
South Africa already has more than 100 political organisations and it is not yet clear if this new political party will be established in time for the elections on 7 May 2014. Jim said that the party will be called the United Front and Movement for Socialism. He explained: “We need to organise ourselves as a class which is why we need a movement that will contest the elections at the appropriate time.”
NUMSA has over 340 000 members and intends to start holding consultative meetings in order to strengthen and lay out the foundation for the new political organisation. Irvin Jim confirmed that the plans for the launch of the United Front and Movement for Socialism were put in motion during the union’s January Marxist-Leninist Political School. NUMSA met with leaders of various social movements and community structures to discuss practical and progressive ways to work together.
In the past year, South African voters have had more than 20 new political parties added to their spread of ballot paper options. These include newsmakers such as Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters, Mamphela Ramphele’s AgangSA and the Patriotic Alliance led by ex-convicts turned businessmen Gayton McKenzie and Kenny Kunene. The Lekgotla for Democracy Advancement, the Nationalist Coloured Party, Poelano Revelation Party and Security Workers Political Party did not make a grand entry into the political arena as they are still lesser-known organisations.
Jim elaborated that the liberation movement’s failure to lead a process to effectively resolve national, class and gender issues was the inspiration for the formation of the United Front and Movement for Socialism. He said: “All economic policies since 1994 have been incapable of defeating colonialism of a special type and the effects of apartheid capitalism, which condemned the South African black working class to a life of misery and hardship.”
Irvin Jim also pointed out that 25 million out of 26 million South Africans living in poverty were black. It remains to be seen how many of these poor South Africans will join members of NUMSA in support of the formation and launch of the United Front and Movement for Solidarity.
Let them try.
I would rather see NUMSA throwing its weight in with EFF. That would be more effective and ensure a definite drift towards recognition of workers issues.
Dear JIM a quick lesson in Economics:An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”.. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.The second test average was a D! No one was happy.When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that. (Please pass this on) These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.