Numsa entered the 1990s confronted by a liberalisation of South African markets. A number of its larger companies adjusted to global competition through the introduction of new technology, reorganisation of production, outsourcing and inevitable retrenchments. The union organised a number of think-tanks in an effort to develop a strategy to counter this attack on workers’ living standards. A policy workshop in 1990 struck a new note by highlighting ‘challenges, opportunities and responsibilities in a society moving towards democracy’ and concluded that unions should ‘initiate and lead the formulation of economic policy, rather than simply respond to the initiatives of the state and management’.

This involved the development of policy on the restructuring of the macroeconomy, industry, and the workplace to create job security and jobs, ensure a living wage and meet the basic needs of the mass of South Africans. The union's aim was to shift the economy from the isolation and ‘inward industrialisation’ of apartheid to cope with global conditions and world markets. This would be achieved by ‘increasing the organised strength and consciousness, and the skills and control, of the working class, or it would never lead in the direction of socialism’.

Shifting bargaining agenda: 1990–1992

The 1990 metal industrial council talks took place against a shift in Numsa's collective bargaining. Addressing the February 1990 national bargaining conference, national organiser Fanaroff outlined two basic steps towards socialism: the building of organised working class power and the winning of demands to restructure the economy. ‘By bargaining at industry level,’ he explained, ‘we can start to restructure the economy. That is why Numsa demands for a new industry training scheme, and for more job security and job creation programmes, are so important.’ One way to address joblessness, Fanaroff declared, was to negotiate job creation programmes at industry level. Capital bore a large responsibility for the unemployment crisis because of its reluctance to invest profits in new manufacturing. He believed there were numerous opportunities to invest in innovative work-creating projects, especially in respect of everyday, useful goods for ordinary people.