Cosatu President Sdumo Dlamini will be remembered for destroying the Cosatu federation, National Union of Metalworkers of SA Secretary General Irvin Jim said on Saturday.

“At the Cosatu special national congress, Sdumo attacked us publicly, presenting us as a slave master. He called on unions to liberate them from Numsa,” Jim told a hall full of the union members.

“It is not a small matter to split workers, Sdumo has written the obituary of Cosatu.”

He was addressing those elected to run for the union’s shop steward elections.

“Sdumo will be remembered for splitting and destroying the most fundamental mass organisation of the working class, Cosatu, at a time when the working class needs unity the most, because it is under the most sustained and vigorous attack from local and international capital, and its stooges, “Jim said the union had exhausted all efforts to reclaim Cosatu after it was expelled from the federation.

Numsa was currently on the path of creating political organ which would represent the working class.

“The working class do need its own political organ, it is a political organ that must champion the interests of the working class,” Jim said.

He said the SA Communist Party was no longer representing working class interests and its leader Blade Nzimande had lost touch with the people on the ground since becoming a minister.

“The working class in SACP decided they wanted party to contest state power. Then the leaders came with their big English, saying the SACP would gain state power through a reconfigured process.”

“It’s possible that there are genuine young Communists who really want the party to contest state power. I would invite those comrades to unite with us and join the United Front. Blade wants business as usual,” Jim said.

Earlier, Numsa President Andrew Chirwa said the union’s United Front was up and running and “making waves”.

“It can do more and will still do more. We are not retreating, forward we go.”

Chirwa said Numsa refused to be bullied and attacked by Nzimande and others.

“Blade Nzimande must continue to shout at the top of his lungs. He can call our money dirty today, he can say what he likes [but] workers cannot be fooled by a communist during the day and a capitalist at night.”

He said South African was currently experiencing a desperate political climate where people were willing to do anything to please their “masters”.

“We must refuse to live in poverty that is why we must continue to fight.

“Why must we be happy living in shacks when Zuma’s cattle live better lives in a cattle kraal worth R1m,” Chirwa said. News24