Dlamini-Zuma’s meeting with Numsa’s Irvin Jim raises concerns

ANC presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has reportedly met with National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) general secretary Irvin Jim in a bid to establish a support base in the working class.

But the meeting with Dlamini-Zuma – whose campaign is backed by President Jacob Zuma’s allies, who were behind Numsa’s expulsion from Cosatu in November 2015 – has raised an uproar among some union members who heard of the meeting “through the grapevine”, Business Day reported on Friday.

“How do we know he is not selling workers to Nkosazana’s campaign?” one senior member of the union apparently asked.

The union members are said to be concerned that Jim could be pursuing personal ambitions by engaging with Dlamini-Zuma, whose campaign for election as ANC president has been grounded on “radical economic transformation” and calls for land expropriation without compensation and the nationalisation of the SA Reserve Bank, which resonate with long-standing Numsa policies.

Jim is also said to have made no mention of Dlamini-Zuma in his central committee report this week, but criticised Dlamini-Zuma’s opponent, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“We reject Cyril Ramaphosa, who will perpetuate the status quo of starving the working class by paying them a national minimum wage of R3 500 and continue with apartheid colonial wages,” read the report.

Several attempts by the paper to question Jim were unsuccessful.

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