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Durban - The 33 Cosatu central executive committee (CEC) members who voted to expel Numsa did not have the backing of all the unions, the Public and Allied Workers' Union of SA (Pawusa) said on Thursday.
They had done so on their own, Pawusa KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Gavin Jood told reporters in Durban on Thursday.
"It is not the position of Cosatu. It is the position of those 33 leaders," he said.
The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) was expelled from the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) by 33 votes to 24 at a special meeting of the CEC early on Saturday morning.
Jood and representatives of Numsa, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa), and the Food and Allied Workers' Union (Fawu) said Cosatu needed to call a special national congress to address the issue as a matter of urgency.
Numsa provincial secretary Mbuso Ngubane said many of the 33 members who voted to expel Numsa had not been mandated to do so.
"In fact, a huge proportion of the 33 leaders who sat in the CEC and voted for Numsa's expulsion voted contrary to their worker-mandated positions," he said.
He accused the African National Congress of not being a "neutral mediator", but of wanting "South African workers to blindly support the ANC's electoral campaign".
He also lashed out at the SA Communist Party, saying that under the leadership of Blade Nzimande, it had become politically irrelevant.
"It is no longer the party of Chris Hani, but a party that has become the slaughterhouse of the class it claims to represent."
He urged "genuine democratic communists across the affiliates to reclaim their party from Blade and his kindergarten".
