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Johannesburg - As the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) prepares for its special national congress, it remains shocked by the adoption of the National Development Plan and the Marikana massacre, said deputy general secretary Karl Cloete.
He said on Friday that Numsa will hold 52 local shopsteward councils (LSSCs) around the country at the weekend in preparation for its special congress.
"The central committee decided to call for a special national congress after a sober analysis that led to a conclusion that a lot has happened since our last ordinary national congress in June 2012", Numsa deputy general secretary Karl Cloete said in a statement.
The LSSCs would be held on Saturday with the aim of collating members' views on issues which would be discussed at the special congress.
"As we met at our June 2012 national congress we never imagined that a liberation movement like the ANC would adopt a neo-liberal document like the National Development Plan," said Cloete.
"We also did not know that a massacre of workers like it happened in Marikana could take place in a democratic South Africa.
"We also could not imagine that our federation, Cosatu, could be so paralysed and incapable of taking forward a single struggle or implementation of its 11th Congress resolutions, programmes and campaigns," he said.
Numsa is expected to hold its national congress from December 13 to 16.
On the agenda are challenges facing the alliance between the ANC, the Congress of SA Trade Unions and SA Communist Party.
The congress will also discuss, among other things, the divisions within Cosatu, and Numsa's approach to next year's elections.
