Gina says Jim treated him 'like a child'

Former National Union of Metal-workers of South Africa president Cedric Gina feared that had he not resigned, he and general secretary Irvin Jim could have come to blows.

So deep were the differences between the two that Gina could not abide being in the same room with his colleague. In an interview with the Sunday Times this week, Gina described Jim as a "bully" who forced decisions on Numsa structures.

"For me, it was time to go before things turned violent ... It wasn't safe anymore for us to be in the same meeting and discuss things. The raising of the voice and managing me through a caucus was enough for me to go."

Gina resigned this week afterreports that Numsa was considering pulling out of trade union federation Cosatu and the ANC-led alliance.

Jim said Gina's resignation was part of a political agenda.

"There are people out there in the [South African] Communist Party and the ANC who are extremely angry with the Numsa political posture. If, as Irvin Jim, I have ambitions to be deployed in parliament or anywhere today, the current Numsa political posture is not favourable to such [a move]. What can you do? The best way is to demonstrate to both the ANC and the SACP that I am doing my best to fight Numsa's political posture," he said.

But Gina said his decision was largely influenced by his relationship with Jim. He said Jim sidelined him on major decisions, did not account to him and shouted at him like a child.

He cited the visit to President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla home before the December 2012 Mangaung conference - when he claims Jim proposed that Vavi become Zuma's ANC deputy - as a sign of a breakdown in their relationship.

Gina complained that Jim did not inform him that he would lobby Zuma to consider Vavi as his possible deputy. "For me, the main issue, which metalworkers must understand, is not that comrade Jim raised a name there. But I believe, as a collective, we should have had a discussion.

"I deserved, as his president, as a person who supervises him, to at least be given a hint to say, 'You and I don't have a mandate for this, but I'm going to raise this thing as an un-mandated reflection', so that I'm not shocked, because I was shocked.

"I looked around and it didn't seem that other comrades were aware that this was going to come up."

Gina and Jim later clashed about how Vavi's sex scandal would be handled by affiliates sympathetic to the Cosatu boss.