Karl Cloete addresses NUMSA's February 2012 International Conference on Building a Socially Owned Renewable Energy Sector in Johannesburg.
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By Karl Cloete, deputy general-secretary, National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA)
[The following paper was presented on October 10, 2012, at a conference at
Cornell University. NUMSA is South Africa's
second-largest union, with alomost 290,000 members in the smelting,
maunufacturing, auto and electricity generation industries.]
Our starting point as NUMSA is that to effect an energy transition, we as the global union movement DO need a perspective to guide us as well as strategies to be utilised by the movement. While such a perspective and accompanying strategies will definitely not come fully formed and in one go, we HAVE to keep working on them through discussions, through struggles, through experimentation and through learning from experiences of those in the forefront of energy struggles (within and outside of the labour movement).
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