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Earnest revolutionaries have been a familiar sight on the fringes of mass gatherings, usually handing out a pamphlet declaiming the alliance between the country’s largest labour federation and the ruling party. The ANC, goes the argument, is a bourgeois party advancing the interests of capital and for the achievement of socialism, any alliance with it would have to be broken.

This heralded dawn is well past mid-morning for the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) which together with other unions, celebrated the formation of a new labour federation. At the Workers’ Summit held the previous day, where 51 unions were represented, ten principles upon which the new federation will be established, were agreed.

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