OPENING ADDRESS BY NUM PRESIDENT SENZENI ZOKWANA TO THE NUM CENTRAL COMMITTEE , May 23 2013

Programme Director
Deputy President Piet Matosa
General Secretary Frans Baleni
NUM National Office Bearers, NUM NEC members
Leaders of the ANC, Leaders of SACP, Leaders of Cosatu
Leaders of the tripartite alliance and mass democratic movement representatives
Leaders of government, distinguished guests
Our fraternal partners, Comrades and NUM delegates

As we meet today in our minds must rein one thing to perfect the art to remain champions. To be the champions of our destiny must be the trade mark of this Central Committee. Muhammad Ali one of the remarkable boxing champions of all time ones said: "Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them-a desire, a dream, and a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill."

With these words I seek to mobilize all of you to aim to come out of this Central Committee with strategies to defend the title of NUM as the reigning champion of South Africa in the world of trade unionism, the world of worker control, and the number one contender in the battles with the employer. Before I go any further I take this opportunity to welcome you all and further more welcome the peace loving people from the mountain of Molotov in Naturena. The only mountain of milk and honey in South Africa.

I take this time to ask all councilors in local government and shop stewards to visit Steward Baxter so as to learn about service delivery. In the world of champions there reigns supreme Kaiser Chiefs in South Africa, Barcelona in Spain and Manchester United in England. Everything else is secondary.

These are enough local and global examples to inspire us .We owe it to the departed souls of NUM. We owe it to the living and all those who will lead NUM after us to keep this champion of the workers in the mines , in construction , and energy sectors intact.

ATTACKS ON NUM

Comrades, Mawethu Stevens an AMCU organizer was killed in Rustenburg and has been buried last week. We take this opportunity to condemn those who continue to generate lies that he was killed by NUM members. NUM does not organize in saloons or pubs. It is an open secret that Mawethu Stevens was one of the people who had started popularizing the view that the incumbent leadership of AMCU has been in positions of power not through a democratic process therefore their legitimacy had to be tested through a national congress.

Given that Democracy is not a common in AMCU the deceased may have put himself in cross line with those who have enjoyed chieftaincy in AMCU. We know that the rise of this organization is preceded by violence. Many workers we have contacted have told us that they have joined it to protect their lives which is very sad.

THE MINE BOSSES ARE COMPLICIT

Comrades "The exploiters of the working class could not be counted on to help advance the interests of the workers"(LENIN).Companies like Impala have suspended the use of their policies in dealing with acts of violence in their premises directed at our shop stewards. Management has abdicated all their responsibility of disciplinary action against intimidation at the workplace as their preferred bidder rises.

Amidst this turmoil companies have failed to use internal disciplinary measures even where there are clear perpetrators to be held accountable. For example the NUM offices at Impala were closed by the members of the rival union. The company did not hold anybody accountable even though it had internal capacity to do so and culprits were clear to be charged.

When the CCMA offered to assist in facilitating verification process at Impala its officials were chased away by AMCU members yet the company served NUM with notice as it alleged that unions were not serous while it knew very well who was responsible for holding the process to ransom. No action was taken to those responsible in that s situation which created an atmosphere of provocation.

The ultimate end of vigilante unionism is disunity and hostility amongst the workers and the weakening of their bargaining power which enhances prospect of employer arrogance and resistance to change.

UNPROTECTED STRIKES

South Africa is now around 25% unemployment rate in 2013.The young people of our country are the most affected. If unions continue to embark on unprotected strikes which put most workers at risk of dismissals we add to unemployment .We fight battles with the employer and make gains without incurring heavy casualties in this way we will avoid the baboon scenario .

These laws that govern labour relations are the outcomes of fierce battles by the working people and working class in general. We must defend these victories and build on them to make further advances to improve the livelihood of the workers. Nobody must be allowed to undermine them neither ourselves nor the employer.

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT FOR OUR MEMBERS

NUM must intensify the fight for skills training and development for workers across mining, construction, and energy sectors. This is an important fight for transformation. Furthermore, many companies drift towards more automized and mechanized operations as part of the strategy to modernize and improve production. They do so also to avoid strong unions because they believe that strong unions curtail production .Our members must be ready to change with this technological innovation.

We must be equally ready to defend the current jobs in the South African economy .South Africa requires to promote labour intensive projects to be able to absorb more workers and position itself in a strong way to temper with the structural trends of the unemployment rate inherited from the legacy of apartheid .Skills development is part of our victories and must be used to empower workers and be funded by the employer. We dare not fail and exonerate the employer.

TRAINING OF POLICE

Josias "Mido" Macia a Mozambican immigrant who worked as a taxi driver in the township of Daveyton in Gauteng was killed on the 26th February 2013 allegedly by South African police. This is after he was allegedly dragged behind the police van with his hands handcuffed to its rear, for about 500 metres in full view of the concerned public.

We should ask: What happened to the human nature of these men to handle their fellow human being in this barbaric fashion? We take this opportunity to condemn the inhuman way which led to the death of Mido Macia.

We are fully aware that the South African Police are not equally equipped to deal with some situations like the Marikana one in 2012. Johan Burger a senior researcher from the Institute of Security Studies in his expert opinion with regard to the Marikana incident has said that at an average 100 police die annually in South Africa and he believes this created a situation where for police "every day is a question of survival."

Furthermore, experts believe that a number of challenges are structural in nature for example: Poor command and control structures in the field when dealing with hundreds of police operatives from different units; Poorly trained police members who panic in the face of real or perceived attack, and a complicated tactical approach, which requires a level of co-ordination that is hard to achieve outside a tactics classroom.

If there was effective intelligence gathering probably preemptive measures could have been employed that could have averted the Marikana scenario. Those who agree with us also add that part of this intelligence gathering would have been what is called crowd infiltration. We hope senior police and political command structures will use some of the criticism to improve capacity and avoid history from repeating itself.

VIGILANTE UNIONISM

We welcome the disarming of mine-workers in and around Marikana which was undertaken by police recently. I believe the contestation for membership between unions does not have to be bloody in situations where there are institutional frameworks for such competition. The right to life must be protected by all unions .We therefore condemn the use of violence to win members.

We know that those who have resisted being forced to join AMCU and remained members of NUM no longer stay at their homes because of death threats and attacks on their families. The late Daluvuyo Bongo was the branch secretary of NUM at Marikana and is one such individual who resisted joining the other union and he paid with his life in 2012. Ayanda Menzi who kept his membership of NUM was killed together with his twin brother this month for resisting leaving NUM.

These two examples constitute the trials and tribulations those who chose NUM have to face .It cannot be said it is a competition between unions but it is vigilantism visited upon NUM members .It is Only through violence and terror that NUM can be rattled . We mince no words when we say in a peaceful environment of contestation none shall conquer NUM.We know that vigilante unionism thrives through anarchy and inconsistency.

These killings violate the rights of workers to chose unions .But these developments also indicate that we have entered a dangerous face of unionism in South Africa .If this trend is not arrested it may spread across other mining provinces and assume a political character which will leave rivers of blood and a trail of destitution .The sooner law enforcement reigns in order the better.

AMCU`s POSTURE IS PROVOCATIVE

Recently AMCU led an unprotected strike for two days demanding that NUM vacate the offices because it is no longer a majority union at Lonmin. It is very strange that AMCU would lead such a march because they have operated at Karee mine where they were not the negotiating party but were allowed to have offices.

Comrades, the Johannesburg Labour Court ordered AMCU to call off the wildcat strike on Wednesday last week .Amcu was instructed by the court to go and tell its members to go to work. The court had also declared the strike illegal .AMCU cannot eat their cake and have it .They have signed the Peace and Stability Framework in the mining industry and should live by the rules and the expectations.

This kind of conduct by workers under Mathunjwa `s leadership is not surprising because Mr. Mathunjwa is a businessman who owns companies. The only reason for a union leader to run business is because they want profit and nothing to do with solidarity. By pitting workers against each other it is an attempt to destroy solidarity amongst workers beyond their union affiliation. We must warn AMCU that even if we do not have a majority now we still have the right to organize every where .This write we have fought for when it was not fashionable and we will defend it.

NUM has co-existed with other trade unions such as Solidarideit and UASA. No violence has ever their competition for membership .In strategic moments we have even worked together on common issues against the employer. Our view is that competition enhances service for members while violence condemns them. In this regard we condemn the tactic of violence against workers as a means to an end. We also call on law enforcement agencies to do their work in arresting perpetrators for any criminal conduct.

FARLAM COMMISSION

We call on the commission to find ways to encompass the current 2013 resurgence of mining violence in the platinum belt into its investigation. We call on the commission to strengthen measures to protect witnesses. We also observe with concern that the Commission took a break to allow for people to attend the memorial service. It is a correct act to show concern for affected people.

But we appeal for consistency. For example some people have been killed who were expected to give evidence which linked them to the commission but the break was not undertaken. Comrade Dalovuyo Bongo of NUM was killed and not afforded the same honour. We call on the commission to exercise balance to protect its credibility. Overall we still look forward to the commission to provide answers to a whole lot of issues facing mining.

THE SECONDMENT AGREEMENTS

We have noted the skewed way of reporting by some sections of the media who seek to besmirch NUM and create doubt on its leader's .The ultimate aim of these sections of the media is to contribute towards the weakening of NUM by drifting into gutter journalism. Dr Joseph Goebbels was Adolf Hitler `s Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany. In addressing the party audience on 09 January 1928 said that "It is not the task of propaganda to discover the intellectual truth...Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners". This is so true about Greg Marinovich.

Writing for the Daily Maverick Greg Marinovich in his writing on 24 Apr 2013 said: "The hard-to-believe arrangement started in the late eighties as the means of protecting union leaders from the corporations, but it was retained over the years, creating a severe of conflict of interest. Unionists are being paid high salaries by the very people from whom they are supposed to protect their members".

He further says "These revelations cast doubt on the integrity of previous negotiations, something workers seemed to have picked up on". Clearly this is a person out of touch with how unions operate besides the claim that he is a researching journalist. He lies and abuses his platform to manipulate public opinion and mobilize it against NUM.

He makes reference to NUM leaders that myself I'm being paid by Anglo Gold Ashanti. He makes references also to Piet Matosa the Deputy President of NUM as being paid by BHP Billiton .Deliberately he excludes Mathunjwa who is paid by BHP Billiton. He then lunges to leaders of solidarity and UASA who are also paid by companies.

In his research he fails to discover that AMCU President was being paid as a fulltime by the company even though he had no members while it is a condition to enter into such agreements. Clearly propaganda is a matter of practice.

SELF INTROSPECTION AND SELF CRITICISM

Comrades we should not only look at factors that influence the current situation by blaming external factors .A good analytical and organizational work requires of us to delve onto the internal factors .This means we have to look deeper into ourselves whether our behavior has not contributed to the challenges we face today .

One of the greatest challenges we have discovered is that we have secured elected leaders and entered into Secondment Agreements with their companies so that they could be released on fulltime bases to come and service the union and members fulltime. The purpose of fulltime release is for every elected and seconded leader to provide quality service to the union and its members without excuses and hindrances with the expectation that quality time will be used to provide quality service to members.

Most of our leaders have abused these arrangements .They have used this fulltime release to benefit themselves. This is linked to a situation wherein some office bearers do not know the whereabouts of each other during working hours .Where a situation like this exist definitely there is no accountability in the organization . If there is no accountability it means there is no collective leadership but personalities with different interests which sometimes do not co-exist but compete with each other at the expense of the union and its .

How do you expect a regional office to provide service to members when none of you cannot account for the where-about of each other. WE WANT FEARLESS REVOLUTINARY DESCIPLINE particularly in the midst of the current challenges .There is serious offense for you to run private business at the expense of quality service to our members.

Last week I went to Eastern Cape, an Eskom worker who is a member of NUM and hails from Umtata travelled to East London in the morning to brief an NUM shop steward only to find that the fellow was not in the office while knowing that this member was coming. The member had to go to the case alone without due support and representation .Fortunately the case was postponed. We should ask: is this an isolated case or is this a daily occurrence?

Comrade General Secretary, delegates and fellow Office Bearers I know it is difficult to teach an old horse new tricks .Perhaps the union must develop means of verification to inculcate the culture of accountability and ensure service to members.

RESPECT FOR INTERNAL DEMOCRACY IS IMPORTANT

Comrades, this year is the year of NUM branch conferences and we must ensure that these processes run smoothly. The regional leaders of NUM must stop contaminating the processes of branch conferences to determine the outcome. We receive complaints after every branch conference from members who feel that some members of the regional leadership conducted themselves in a way that sought to influence outcomes.

You are creating a state of siege within the organization. Tomorrow when we pounce and subject you to disciplinary process you will cry foul while you know that you are the witch who flies over night when every one is sleeping. Some of you have interests in branch conferences of NUM because you are looking at 2015 rather than serving members and when the union is under attack. You are the kind of person who does not belong to us in this respect and don't push us too far.

Some of you were highly associated with those officials who have stolen assets and money from the union. We now understand your relationship with them in the build up to the NUM National Congress in 2012. You worked with them to access information about individual leaders so that you could lie that NUM National Office Bearers were embezzling the union `s financial resources. As Hitler said "If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed." We thank members of NUM the bid failed.

You repeated these terrible gestures in the newspapers, in the corridors and at night gatherings in some instances funded by the employers. Take this opportunity to thank leaders and delegates who refused to be cowed by lies repeated a thousand folds. It is through a campaign of lies that the late comrade Selby Mayise was killed in Carletonville. Let us conquer bad habits even though they die hard .Lets close ranks and face the enemy outside with the sense that we will leave the Central Committee united.

NEW FEATURE OF DISCOMFORT IN COSATU

There is a growing tendency in the Federation that decisions taken by the CEC are leaked to the media. In some instances decisions are leaked to the media even before the General Secretary holds a press conference. This is a serous dirty campaign intended to sow distrust within the federation.

Cosatu has structures and our leaders must use them .When we use them we will be able to protect the organization. We call on those who use media infrastructure other than Cosatu structures to stop their nonsense. They were not elected by the journalist who use the media infrastructure .They were elected by delegates of respective affiliates of the Federation .Let us cease this counter-revolutionary exercise.

Comrades, Cosatu formally will support the ANC in the forthcoming 2014 national and provincial elections .We will not only support the ANC as voters but as leaders from different affiliates we will discharge the mandate of the Federation by being active in the structures created to conduct the electoral campaign of the movement .We urge our delegates to go to the ground and do likewise.

I also wish to take this time to thank the ANC broadly in Bojanala Region for their continued visible support to the NUM in this difficult trying times .We have always said the attack on NUM is an attack on the ANC and we have not been academic about our relationship .I also wish to thank Cosatu in that Region because through its support NUM is able to wade through the turmoil of destabilization.

CORRUPTION IN SOCIETY AND THE STATE

We call on members of NUM to wage war against corruption within the union and outside. We see that corruption is everywhere both in the public sector and the private sector. The state exists in society comrades the corruption we see in the public sector and private sector affirms the erosion of the moral fiber of society.

If we chose to ignore this reality we do more harm to the fight against corruption .There is a temptation to seek to put corruption as a phenomenon of public sector and this assumption forgets that those who facilitate such acts of corruption retreat into the private space as business people or members of the family who are employed by the state.

Some of the corrupt deals are not done in offices of government but in the private homes of tenderpreneurs .We should therefore condemn all corruption in society because it deprives the state to discharge quality service to the citizens.

PRICE FIXING CORRUPTION AND COMPETITION COMMISION

The price fixing by private companies is corruption .Imagine when you fix the price of bread how that affects everyone and the poor in particular .Many of the poor and indigent families rely on bread for their meals as a daily routine. We call on the Competition Commission to begin to hold individuals who participate in negotiations for price fixing agreements individually liable.

If we employ mechanism to hold individuals liable it would contribute immensely in preventing this white collar crime and private sector corruption .The campaign against corruption by the labour movement should encompass action against companies involved in price fixing and this must be popularized as part of moral regeneration.

FIDENTIA AND THE SQUANDERING OF MILLIONS

Arthur Brown squandered millions of destitute widows and orphans of mineworkers which led to him being Initially charged with 192 counts of fraud .However after the plea bargain with the NPA he was convicted of only two counts of fraud . The High Court in Western Cape having found him guilty on these counts of fraud for which in sentence it imposed a fine of R150 000 with a suspended prison sentence .We are not happy as the union because we believe a tougher sentence would have been appropriate .

We have noted that The Chief Financial Officer of Financial Services Board Dawood Seedat presented testimony in the aggravation of sentencing which indicated that under the stewardship of Arthur Brown an investigation revealed that there was a shortfall of R406 million with regard to Fedentias`s finances . The question we should ask is why such important information was only raised in the aggravation of sentence and not during the trial?

It is clear that FSB chose to come and lead evidence in mitigation when it was possibly their regulatory duty to ensure that the fraudster Arthur Brown was successfully prosecuted with all the offences revealed to their investigation .The FSB should have assisted the criminal investigation by providing the information on the R406 shortfall amount so that the culprit could have been charged and equally convicted for stealing R406 million.

This has been a gross dereliction of duty by the Financial Services Board which has resulted into an injustice to the widows and orphans who had positive expectations out of the legal process .For this we condemn the behavior of FSB and wish to register our dissatisfaction with the gross incompetence shown by its Chief Financial Officer Dawood Seedat.

The behavior of the NPA is similarly deplorable and we note the judge`s comments on his concern pertaining the way they managed the case. The presiding judge felt that had the information about R406 million shortfall came in good time and became part of the information before court and not come out at the end of the trial it could have potentially informed the gravity of the sentence .

In our view as NUM the incompetent way in which the NPA managed the case led to a lighter sentence for Arthur Brown .The magnitude of the effect of his conduct and the lighter sentence he has received augments the impression that White collar criminals buy justice or pay their way out of prison while those without money are condemned to it.

INTERNATIONAL

Support for the General Secretary of Mexican Mineworkers

Comrades, we take this time to pledge our continued support to the General Secretary of Mexican Mineworkers comrade Napoleon .We note that Interpol has dropped the charges against him .This is a demonstration of the international solidarity undertaken by workers across the globe for his freedom. International solidarity must be sustained it is the best weapon at the disposal of the working class and the working people in the world.

Hosting of world cup by Qatar

We all know that Qatar which is the hosting country for the next world cup does not have a correct human rights record .It is a country known to undermine worker rights abusing migrants. In such countries migrant workers have no rights and giving this country such an honour is a great disservice for the struggle for human and worker rights across the world .It is therefore important that NUM joins the campaigns to call for this world cup to be removed from the hands of this state of terror.

INTERGENERATIONAL EXCHANGE

We have launched NUM Youth Forum in 2013 .Part of the purpose of this initiative is to respond to the fact that almost 54% of NUM members constitute young workers. It is important to establish a base whereupon this important category of our members is properly engaged and nurtured because it is the future of our union.

This structure must make it possible to create a situation of intergenerational exchange .Our experience must inform the institutional memory of the organization which will be used by those who come after us to understand the organization and position it for the future.

This kind of positioning must be programmatic .Young people like the young workers must be guided through progressive programmes which must entail political education, discipline, and other important skills development imperatives.

Out of these processes leaders will emerge and would be identified as an outcome of this purposeful intervention by NUM. We have seen that if such intervention does not happen in time wrong happens to organizations that delay we need not look any further just ask the ANC.

I want to once more appeal to young workers to use all opportunities to study and be skilled. Participate in the ANCYL, join the Young Communist League, and join SASCO .Read a lot to fight ignorance. There is a saying by Bertrand Russell that "There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it." Knowledge because knowledge is power.

WOMEN STRUCTURE

I take this opportunity to appeal to comrades of our women structure to step up the gear .The time has come for them to move out of the incubator and be part of the frontlines. By this I mean the leaders of the women structure should begin to be active by way of attending branch meetings .They should go there and make inputs obviously leading a programme that enhances the role of NUM on the gender question .This year 2013 must mark a break with the incubator. This break must be visible through a known programme taken from branch to branch.

CONCLUSION

To the families of those who passed on I say these words ‘Time heals what reason cannot'. To Mathunjwa and his cohorts I say: be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of you could not succeed. To delegates of NUM take this to heart "When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you". The time has come for the champion to rise defend and advance.

Ke ya leboha, Kgotso!

Long live NUM

Issued by NUM, May 23 2013

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