Programme Director,

The family of comrade Joe,

Leaders and members of our Affiliate, SASBO

Comrades and friends,

It is with a heavy heart that we are here to pay tribute to our late General Secretary, comrade Joe Kokela.

We are here to offer our sincere condolences and best wishes to the family and friends of Joe.  Your loss is our loss.  Whilst Joe has completed his journey, his memories remain.

We have come a long way with Joe.  He was a member of COSATU’s Central Executive Committee over many years.  His contributions were marked by humility and with a desire to find solutions. 

Joe was a stalwart of our beloved union, SASBO.  He served it over so many years and, in many positions, most critically as President and General Secretary. 

It is not easy to be a leader of a union.  The expectations of workers are immense.  The challenges are daunting.  Yet the power at your disposal often is far less than you need to resolve them. 

Yet Joe tried tirelessly to serve workers, to represent their interests and negotiate and fight for their demands.

This was not an easy task in the banking and financial sector where employers have long sought to pay workers a slave wage, to undermine organised labour and collective bargaining.

Yet under Joe and SASBO’s leadership managed to ensure that the overwhelming majority of banking and financial sector workers joined our mighty Affiliate.

During 2017, it was SASBO and its collective leadership that captured the attention of the entire country with their mobilisation for nation wide banking sector strike.  It was only the last-minute court interdict by business that could stop it.

Again, it was that SASBO’s historic action which struck fear into the heart of capital, that created history.  Whilst business won the first battle with a court interdict, it was later overturned in favour of workers.

When workers were dismissed by the banks during COVID-19, it was SASBO with COSATU that intervened to have them reinstated.

Since the National Minimum Wage was achieved by COSATU and the ANC led government, SASBO has pushed employers across the finance sector to improve the wages and won important victories benefiting thousands.

This is the power of workers when they are united and organised.

We are here today to honour cde Joe.  Whilst we pay tribute to him at this moment, if we truly want to honour his memory and legacy, we must commit ourselves to uniting SASBO, to building a militant SASBO, to servicing workers, to recruiting the unorganised, to defending the hard-won rights of all workers.

Comrades SASBO was built by workers like Joe and so many others of his generation, many of whom are, and countless others before us for more than a hundred years.

We must not take their efforts and sacrifices lightly.  SASBO has been handed down to you to defend, to build and to nurture.

Let us leave here united and determined to build a united fighting SASBO that will defend the rights and improve the lives of our workers and members.

COSATU is here to work with you, to honour the memory of Joe and do justice to our workers.  It will not be easy but if we put aside our differences, we can, must and will succeed.

We will be with you for every step of that journey.

Thank you.  Amandla!