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29 May, 2006
Senzeni Zokwana won re-election as president of South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), while Frans Baleni was elected general secretary. Those and other elections were part of a spirited 12th National Congress of the NUM, held 24-27 May in Midrand, near Johannesburg.
Over 1,000 delegates to the NUM’s triennial Congress passed resolutions prioritising the issue of wage compensation, and convene a special summit to deal with the issue; to openly engage employers to reopen mines to enhance employment; and for leadership of the 300,000-member NUM to develop a discussion document on its important role inside COSATU related to labour’s strained relationship as part of the African National Congress (ANC) Alliance.
The Congress also vowed to maintain NUM’s bank as a workers’ asset, set in motion an aid and support plan for striking security guards in conjunction with the Transport & Allied Workers’ Union, and commemorated the 1946 strike by the Black Mineworkers Union, with events leading up to the 60-year anniversary of the strike in the Witwatersran on 12 August of this year.
The Congress closed by paying a rousing tribute to Gwede Mantashe, NUM’s general secretary since 1998 who retired at this Congress.
In opening the Congress, Zokwana, ICEM president, now in his third term as a NUM national office bearer, demanded of ANC leadership, including President Thabo Mbeki, that more anti-retroviral medicines be made available to workers in the fight against HIV/AIDS. “This human culling must stop,” he said. “South Africa has the resources to assist us and it must do so.”
Baleni, a miner who rose through NUM leadership ranks as a national organiser and then national education coordinator, has been the union’s chief negotiator prior to his 27 May election. He headed the Production Pillar of the NUM. Zokwana joined NUM in 1983 as a shaft steward in a Free State gold mine, and rose through the ranks to regional chairman in 1993 and national vice president in 1994.
Other national office bearers elected at the 12th Congress: Crosbi Moni, deputy president; Oupa Komane, deputy general secretary; Derick Elbrecht, treasurer general; Helen Diatile, chairperson of Education; Zwelitsha Tantsa, secretary of Education; Peter Bailey, chairperson of Health and Safety; and Eric Gcilitshana, secretary of Health and Safety.