Political differences should be settled through engagement and not with weapons, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) said.
"We strongly believe that political differences should not be resolved through the barrel of the gun or the shedding of blood, but through political engagement and persuasion," regional secretary Mbuso Ngubane said in a statement.
He was responding to the killing of Sihle Menzi Biyela, a KwaZulu-Natal Inkatha Freedom Party leader on Monday. Biyela was shot in KwaMashu's A section.
"These senseless killings have no place in our new democratic dispensation. The people of KwaZulu-Natal have chosen peace over political violence," he said.
The IFP and the National Freedom Party have accused each other of violence in the area. The NFP leadership claimed IFP supporters threw stones at the homes of their members.
"We call on political leaders to rise above petty political squabbles by putting peace first in the interests of our people," Ngubane said.