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The union numbers game

Cape Town - Once there were eight Cosatu affiliates supporting the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) in its battle to call a special national congress of the federation. But this week, when affiliates supporting Numsa called a press conference, only seven were present.  

Missing was the municipal workers’ union (Samwu) which is the numerically largest of the supporting unions with 114 355 members listed as of 2012. Although the structures of this union apparently voted to support Numsa, three of the four delegates to the Cosatu executive voted to expel the metalworkers.

The main reason that Samwu was not present and that its executive delegates broke ranks was that the “Save Our Samwu” group that had been purged by the Samwu executive were fighting a court battle this week for reinstatement. They have now won and the Eastern Cape region of Samwu promptly reiterated support for Numsa. Other regions are expected to follow suit.

Although Cosatu has in recent years claimed to organise 2.2 million workers, there is little evidence of this. The federation’s website does not reflect this and the membership figures of most unions have not been updated for two years or more. This at a time when there has been a probable overall decline in union membership.

On the Cosatu website Numsa, which probably does now have close to its claimed 350 000 members, is still listed as having 216 652.  The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), that has lost perhaps 100 000 or more members in the past two years is still said to have the 270 536 members it had on May 2, 2012.

Of the seven unions at the Press conference, only two - the Food and Allied Workers (Fawu) and commercial and catering union, Saccawu - are listed as having more than 100 000 members.  Nursing union Denosa had 84 000 two years ago, while the communications workers’ CWU claimed 84 000.  Smallest of the supporters is the SA Football Players’ Union with just 557 members.

We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred
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