The National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) on Wednesday reiterated its rejection for the proposed national minimum wage and also said that it did not support the endorsement of deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa as the next president of the African National Congress (ANC).

In a fiery media briefing in Johannesburg, ahead of its 10th National Congress, general secretary Irvin Jim said Numsa was concerned about the country’s grotesque level of inequality.

Numsa was expelled from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) after clashes about policy and ideological trajectory of the tripartite alliance.

Jim said next week’s congress would be an historic opportunity for Numsa members to launch a counter-offensive and to fight for a living minimum wage.

He said workers would oppose any limitation on the right of workers to strike, take forward the campaign for a new workers’ federation and proclaim the birth of the new revolutionary workers’ party.

“The Cosatu leadership has colluded with the ANC neo-liberal government around the national minimum wage. Numsa regards Cyril Ramaphosa’s proposal for R3 500 a month as a legitimisation of slavery wages, which would leave millions in poverty but safeguard the interests of the exploiting capitalist class,” Jim said.

“The pathetic proposed R3 500 minimum wage will do virtually nothing to improve this lack of income for millions of South Africans, especially in those households where nobody has a job. An inevitable consequence of these levels of unemployment is that employed workers will have more unemployed family members to support from their meagre wages.”

Jim also said that Numsa would not be campaigning for President Jacob Zuma to resign.

He said the union had already made this call three years ago because of Zuma’s administration’s pursuit of neo-liberal policies such as the National Development Plan, e-tolls, labour brokers, and the youth wage subsidy.

“Numsa will not be joining the chorus demanding that Zuma must be replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa, who is portrayed as a representative of clean, constitutional and honest capitalism,” Jim said.

“Numsa can never support a capitalist exploiter who is seeking to protect his own huge investments and the interests of white monopoly capital by trying to send a message to the monopoly capitalist rating agencies that the South Africa economy will continue to be based on the ‘free market’, and the super-exploitation of black and African labour and that this should provide solid reasons why the country should be not be down-graded.”

Numsa will be holding its 10th National Congress from 12-15 December 2016 in Cape Town.