Declining membership of NUM, industrial unions worries ANC-led alliance

The decline of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and other industrial unions will weaken the capacity of Cosatu as the country's biggest federation in its role to defend workers from both big business and the government, as their rights remain threatened.

This is according to leaders of the ANC-led alliance, including the party's national chairperson Gwede Mantashe and SACP deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila, who addressed the NUM national elective congress, in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni.

This comes after the union’s organisational report showed that it had lost almost 10% of members since its 2018 congress. This trend has continued for over a decade, from 2011 when the union commanded over 300 000 members.

The union currently has just over 160,000 members.

Acting general secretary William Mabapa said the union had been suffering in terms of members over the years due to defections and retrenchments.

“From 2018 to 2019, the membership number declined by 4,7%, between 2019 and 2020 the number declined 3,8% and from 2020 to 2021 the decline rate was 0,7%,” Mabapa said.

According to the report, the union’s 180,152 membership by 2018 had suffered an 8.6% average decline by 2021.

Some of the regions most affected by the massive losses in membership included the union’s Carletonville region, which suffered a 25% decline over the past four years.

Mantashe, a former NUM general secretary, said while the union had a clear legacy for its role in changing the lives of mineworkers over the years, it was plagued by many challenges which had to be addressed for its survival.

Mantashe said the declined that was being suffered by industrial unions within Cosatu was set to weaken it as it would become unable to stand up unflinchingly against the bosses and “sharpen contradictions” if it was dominated by public sector unions.

Cosatu is currently dominated by public sector unions, including Nehawu, Sadtu and Popcru.

“If we are becoming smaller in industrial unions and become bigger in public sector unions, there is something that is going to be unnatural about the federation. So, I am encouraging the NUM [to] “vukan’emaqandeni” (wake up from the slumber). This used to be the biggest union of the federation, it can still be,” Mantashe said.

He said the NUM was also running the risk of not having influence in terms of the government policy and the direction of the sector.

Mapaila blamed structural reforms, including increased privatisation of state-owned entities and the energy sector by the government for the job losses that impacted unions and workers, and called for unions to push back against the ANC-led government and its reforms.

Mapaila asserted that giving power only to the ANC would result in more setbacks for workers and that it was high-time for the push for the reconfiguration of the alliance.

“The ANC has been too weakened. It is not that we celebrate that. It has been too factionalised and too poisoned, and so to leave to it to carry out this important task would be suicidal,” he said.