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Johannesburg - The National Union of Metalworkers of SA reiterated its rejection of the National Development Plan on Tuesday, saying it contained little detail on how to tackle industrial and economic development skewed in favour of monopoly capital.
"What we do not want is this plan," general secretary Irvin Jim told reporters in Johannesburg.
"What we want is our Freedom Charter to be implemented."
Numsa belongs to the Congress of SA Trade Unions, which is an alliance partner of the African National Congress. The ruling party has adopted the NDP, but Numsa has said it contains sections copied from the Democratic Alliance's policies.
"If there is one thing we don't want, [it is] DA."
Jim said the NDP diagnosed the symptoms of South Africa's poverty and unemployment, but had no concrete solutions.
It did not address monopolies that become cartels in, for example, the platinum sector, or the export of scrap metal that stopped other metal manufacturing plants coming on line in South Africa. Its job creation policies set out to create work in construction, office cleaning, and hair dressing, which he called "hamburger jobs".
It contained no vision for high-tech manufacturing that would arise from South Africa's mineral processing, for example.
"We view this as an insult to the industrial proletariat," said Jim.
The NDP aimed to bring administered prices down, but did not say how this would happen, but said tariffs like e-tolls would be used to fund infrastructure, he said.
Numsa's enemy was not the ANC, he continued, but if the NDP was part of the ANC's tactics, the union would oppose it.
"We don't want the DA to run this country, that is why we don't want DA policies in the NDP," he said.
Numsa is currently running a campaign to educate its members in all provinces on the NDP, which it regards as not to the benefit of the working class.
It believes that in adopting the NDP, the ANC is moving away from the Freedom Charter, a historic document that sets out the party's goals for the nation.
