Natasha Marrian writes that the National Union of Metalworkers of SA’s (Numsa’s) offspring, the United Front (UF), is registered to contest local government elections in several provinces under different names.  

In the Eastern Cape, a Numsa stronghold, the UF has its largest presence and is contesting 43 of the 60 wards in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality.  But, the union’s political ambitions have been stalled by job shedding in the steel and manufacturing sectors, financial troubles and by internal differences over whether the party should be "mass-based" or a "vanguard" in the image of the SA Communist Party.  With the union still hesitant in the face of its declared determination to make a final break with the politics of the congress movement, it may have missed its moment.

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