{"id":232464,"date":"2022-07-26T21:26:20","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T19:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/numsas-interdicted-national-congress-to-proceed-but-a-court-challenge-looms\/"},"modified":"2022-07-26T21:26:20","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T19:26:20","slug":"numsas-interdicted-national-congress-to-proceed-but-a-court-challenge-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/numsas-interdicted-national-congress-to-proceed-but-a-court-challenge-looms\/","title":{"rendered":"NUMSA\u2019s interdicted national congress to proceed \u2014 but a court challenge looms"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/a><\/p>\n

NUMSA members wait outside the CTICC yesterday. Photo: Vincent Lali<\/p>\n

On Tuesday evening, EWN reported<\/a> that the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) would be proceeding with its elective congress. But many union members have complained that NUMSA has not met the conditions of the Labour Court interdict which demanded that it comply with its constitution before going ahead with its elections.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, journalists were expelled from the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) by the union.<\/p>\n

The confusion<\/a> that marked the first day of NUMSA\u2019s national congress was compounded on Tuesday, as the union\u2019s central committee met for most of the day, trying to find a way to proceed after Judge Graham Moshoana\u2019s interdict<\/a>. The union has also submitted an application for leave to appeal<\/a> the ruling that favoured Ruth Ntlokose, NUMSA\u2019s suspended second deputy president.<\/p>\n

A meeting of NUMSA\u2019s central committee began early on Tuesday morning. Saturday\u2019s Labour Court ruling barred the congress from proceeding until constitutional deficits were resolved \u2014 these included the lifting of suspensions, reversing the decision to place the Mpumalanga Region under \u2018administration\u2019, and convening a credentials committee to verify delegates.<\/p>\n

GroundUp was told that the meeting began without some of the formerly suspended members, many of whom arrived later in the day.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday morning, Fin24 journalists Terry Bell and Khulekani Magubane were kicked out of the CTICC. Private security approached the journalists and demanded that they leave the conference centre. Bell told GroundUp that NUMSA spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola was present when security guards demanded that they leave, acting on instruction \u201cfrom NUMSA\u201d. Bell said that the ruling at all doors was that all media are banned from the convention centre.<\/p>\n

GroundUp asked NUMSA spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola about Bell and Magubane\u2019s removal, to which she replied, \u201cWhy are u asking me? Do I own the convention center? Why don\u2019t u ask them\u201d.<\/p>\n

GroundUp spoke to a former union leader who described the expulsion of the journalists as \u201cStalinism\u201d.<\/p>\n

The looming legal challenges<\/h2>\n

Yesterday, NUMSA\u2019s second deputy president Ruth Ntlokose, one of the union leaders suspended after raising concerns about NUMSA-owned 3Sixty Life\u2019s management<\/a>, issued a warning<\/a> via her legal representatives to NUMSA\u2019s leadership that she would be seeking a contempt order if the congress was forced ahead unconstitutionally.<\/p>\n

A lawyers\u2019 letter sent by NUMSA\u2019s leadership<\/a> yesterday in response to Ntlokose said that the national congress would \u201conly go ahead once the Union fully complies with its constitution,\u201d but goes on to say that NUMSA \u201canticipates\u201d that it will be \u201cin full compliance with its constitution\u201d after the central committee meeting scheduled for this morning. Following this meeting, the letter asserted that \u201cthe Order will no longer prevent the Union from proceeding with the congress later in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

A majority of regions in the central committee resolved to adopt the credentials of delegates and push ahead with the national congress, but this was not a unanimous decision.<\/p>\n

Judge Moshoana\u2019s court order interdicted the elective congress until the union complied with its constitution. Judge Moshoana ruled that NUMSA\u2019s central committee\u2019s decisions to suspend many NUMSA members, their failure to appoint a credentials committee, and their decision to place Mpumalanga Region under administration were unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

While lifting the suspensions was a straightforward remedy to one aspect of Judge Moshoana\u2019s ruling, resolving the fall-out from the \u2018administration\u2019 decision and the central committee\u2019s failure to appoint a credentials committee is less straightforward.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Andile Bloko, Regional Chairperson for NUMSA\u2019s Eastern Cape Region and one of the erstwhile suspended NUMSA leaders, released a memo<\/a> regarding the difficulties faced by NUMSA\u2019s central committee in their last-minute attempts to comply with its constitution. Bloko warned that if the NUMSA members gathered there, \u201cfollow the advice of the current National Office Bearers, they shall unfortunately all be in Contempt of Court and defying a Court Order.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to NUMSA\u2019s constitution<\/a>, \u201cFor a National Congress, each Local [Shopsteward Councils] may elect one Shopsteward per 300 members as a delegate for their Region at the Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, in the Mpumalanga Region, members claimed that the meetings of Local Shopsteward Councils to elect their delegates were subject to interference.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Bloko notes that no credentials committee, appointed by the central committee, was appointed for Mpumalanga, Hlanganani and other Regions to verify delegates. Only accredited delegates are entitled to vote at a National Congress.<\/p>\n

A credentials committee must verify certain details before a person can be accredited as a delegate for the national congress. For instance, NUMSA\u2019s constitution demands that a member pay 1% subscription of their wages\/salary to NUMSA to be in good standing.<\/p>\n

Once these processes have been completed, six months\u2019 notice should then be given before NUMSA convenes their national congress.<\/p>\n

GroundUp reached out to Hlubi-Majola for further comment and clarity, but no response has been forthcoming.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NUMSA members wait outside the CTICC yesterday. Photo: Vincent Lali On Tuesday evening, EWN reported that the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) would be proceeding with its elective congress. But many union members have complained that NUMSA has not met the conditions of the Labour Court interdict which demanded that it comply […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":232465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-232464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/numsas-interdicted-national-congress-to-proceed-but-a-court-challenge-looms.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}