NUMSA stands in solidarity with Lula, the Workers Party and the MST in the struggle to defeat imperialism and worker exploitation!

23 October 2026

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), stands in revolutionary, anti-imperialist solidarity with the Brazilian working class, the landless peasantry, and all progressive forces as they march toward the upcoming elections on 25 October.

NUMSA stands in resolute solidarity with Comrade Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT). We call on the Brazilian working class as a whole to organise, mobilise, and deliver a decisive blow to the right-wing, ultra-conservative, populist Flavio and Jair Bolsonaro and the reactionary forces of fascist Bolsonarism.

As a red, Marxist-Leninist-inspired trade union and part of the International Peoples’ Assembly, NUMSA understands why this election in Brazil is a key struggle for the international working class. This election is a battle between national sovereignty and total submission to US imperialism. The United States is actively working to militarise South America to control its rich natural resources and choke its economies. Washington wants every country in Latin America subverted under the “Shield of the Americas” project—and Bolsonaro is its very willing lackey and puppet, ready to hand over Brazil’s wealth and people on a silver platter to US imperialism. A vote for Lula and the PT is a vote to smash imperialist domination and assert independent, South-South sovereignty.

The Brazilian working class has recently scored a major victory, winning the reduction of the 6-day work week after months of struggle on the streets and in workplaces. This sets a maximum work week of 40 hours with two paid weekly rest days, without salary reduction. Bolsonaro and his capitalist party have consistently opposed this reduction and fought against workers’ rights, implementing neoliberal reforms that render employment precarious and turn workers, as human beings, into super-exploited commodities. The working class must defend its victories, and this one in particular, at the ballot box!

What is at stake in this election includes the future of life on this planet. Bolsonaro and his party are shameless climate change deniers who facilitate the bloodthirsty, greedy exploitation of the Amazon rainforest for mining, agribusiness, and logging. A continuation of Bolsonarism means the total ecocide and catastrophic deforestation of the Amazon. Considering the fact that the Amazon rainforest is the lungs of the earth, this is a fight that directly concerns us as workers fighting against oppression and exploitation in South Africa. A vote for Lula is a vote against the right-wing fascist forces in Brazil and a vote for the international working class.

NUMSA stands with Lula because of our shared class identity and decades of joint struggle. Long before he was President, Lula was a fellow metalworker and trade union leader who led strikes against the brutal military dictatorship in Brazil. Now, the right wing in Brazil is inhibiting trade unions from campaigning for Lula! NUMSA has walked alongside Lula through many battles, including our internationalist campaign to demand his freedom during his illegal politically motivated imprisonment by state-orchestrated judicial warfare.

NUMSA, representing hundreds of thousands of metalworkers, proudly reaffirms its deep, internationalist friendship with the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)—the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement, which is fielding many candidates in this election. The struggles of workers in South Africa and landless rural peasants are one and the same. The MST represents the militant vanguard leading the fight for agrarian reform and against agribusiness. In South Africa, when land remains in the hands of the white minority, more than thirty years since the end of apartheid, our struggle for agrarian reform remains incomplete. Together with the MST, we know that genuine agrarian reform, food sovereignty, and working-class power can only be realised when we defeat right-wing tyranny.

NUMSA calls on every worker, shop steward, trade unionist, landless peasant, youth, and militant in Brazil to leave nothing to chance. Organise across every workplace, favela, and beyond!

Workers of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our chains!

Issued by:

Irvin Jim

NUMSA General Secretary

073 157 6384

For more information, please contact:

Mbali Ngwenda

NUMSA Media & Communications

[email protected]

078 458 0617

For more information:

NUMSA Head Office: 011 689 1700