Programme Director and the leadership of COSATU,
Comrade President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the ANC and founding General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers.
Comrade Solly Mapaila, SACP General Secretary, the vanguard of the working class,
Leadership and most importantly workers across Mpumalanga and South Africa,
As we mark Workers’ Day, we remember those who made their marks in workers’ struggles including comrades Katishi Masemola, the Food and Allied Workers’ Union’s former General Secretary; Membathisi Shepherd Mdladlana, the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union’s found President and Tito Mboweni, our first Ministers for Labour. Their sacrifices laid the foundations for the gains workers have won.
We gather here in Middleburg, the heart of Mpumalanga, the land of coal, agriculture, manufacturing and energy, as workers, organisers and defenders of democracy.
We stand on sacred ground built by the hands of mine, farm and retail workers, nurses, teachers and police officers. We honour their spirit, reassert our power and declare that May Day is not a festival but a recommitment to the struggle for the total emancipation of the working class.
May Day was born out of struggle — the fight for an 8-hour working day, the right to organise, the right to live with dignity. It is a day rooted in blood spilled by workers in Chicago in 1886 and carried forward in every worker rebellion across the world.
Here at home, May Day has a special meaning. It was banned by the apartheid because the regime knew when workers unite, the chains of oppression tremble.
Today, we honour that tradition. We do not beg, we do not apologise, we demand justice.
We salute the giants of 1973 — the brave men and women who, against brutal odds, launched the Durban strikes and revived the power of the trade union movement against the might of the apartheid regime.
Municipal and factory workers ignited a fire giving birth to a new era in demand of a living wage and the right to form trade unions. It was about reclaiming our humanity.
Over years of struggle and sacrifice, by COSATU and our predecessor, SACTU, we have achieved historic victories changing the lives of workers, including the right to form trade unions and to collective bargaining, the prohibition of workplace discrimination and our labour laws that today protect millions of workers.
In 2019 we won the National Minimum Wage raising the wages of 6 million from farm workers in Komatipoort to domestic workers of Khayelitsha. COSATU ensured that today mothers and fathers are entitled to paid maternity and parental leave.
Last September it was COSATU with the support of government and Parliament led by the ANC and the SACP, that put in place the two pot pension reforms releasing over R44 billion into the pockets of more than 2.3 million highly indebted workers. During COVID-19 COSATU working with government ensured that over R65 billion was released to help more than 5.7 million workers feed their families.
These were won by worker’s relentless struggles and the unity of the Alliance.
Whilst we celebrate our victories, much remains to be done, the struggle must continue. Unemployment is endemic, casualisation and labour brokers persist, gender-based violence haunts millions and wages are stagnant whilst living costs rise.
Political freedom has not yet delivered economic freedom for workers. We cannot be divided. We must unite more than ever before.
Key to uplifting the working class, is control of the state. The Alliance did not only contest state power to become Ministers, but to ensure that the organs of government are biased towards the poor and the working class and that they are used to defeat unemployment, poverty and inequality.
We celebrate today 61% of the Budget that is invested in working class communities from free basic education to NSFAS, from social grants for 27 million to subsidised public transport and housing. Whilst we applaud government for these victories, we reject budget cuts that have the seen numbers of learners to teachers, patients to nurses, communities to police rising at alarming rates.
We condemn those in our communities and amongst our own who treat the state as a chance to steal from the poor. It is time that our police and prosecutors are given the resources to send these criminals, no matter how powerful they are, to prison.
Whilst we are pained by the betrayal of some who were once amongst us who unleashed the cancer of state capture and corruption, we are heartened by the work done, in particular by the workers of Eskom, Transnet, Metro Rail, SARS and the SAPS to turn the tide. Today, loadshedding is increasingly a memory of the past, our train lines are being rebuilt, and our ports modernised.
COSATU is pleased government has listened to the objections of workers and heeded their call to scrap the proposed VAT hike. Whilst the budget has been messy, it is a sign that our democracy is alive.
We need government to engage with the Federation and the Alliance to ensure that the revised Budget is progressive, capacitates the state to deliver quality public services, protects the poor, stimulates economic growth and tackles unemployment, and ensures that the wealthy pay their taxes.
We cannot afford a return to the brutal austerity budget cuts that have weakened the state or denied the economy the stimulus it needs to grow and create jobs.
As we head towards the local government elections in 2026, we must prioritise the stabilisation and rebuilding of municipalities. We cannot continue to watch whilst basic services deteriorate or municipal workers in the North West, Northern Cape or the Free State sit without being paid. Those Mayors responsible must be fired.
Comrades we know what must be done, but we must be equally honest about the need to ensure that the working class is united. If we are divided, we will be defeated.
The call of Elijah Barayi, Ray Alexander and Nana Abrahams of one industry, one union, one country, one federation remains as relevant today.
It is our task to ensure that not only is COSATU but that our Affiliates are on the ground, recruiting and defending workers, holding employers accountable and improving the working and living conditions of their members every single day.
COSATU turns 40 this year. From our founding in 1985, we have been a fighting federation. Are we living up to the dreams of our founders? Are we building a COSATU that future generations will be proud of? Let’s make this 40th anniversary a recommitment to struggle.
As we head towards the local elections, we need an Alliance that is united, an ANC that is renewed and in touch with workers’ aspirations, an SACP that is capacitated to lead working class struggles. We cannot afford an Alliance that is divided or distracted.
COSATU has been mandated to engage workers on the SACP’s resolution to contest the local elections. We are undertaking mandating as the Federation and Affiliates, including at our September Central Committee and our 2026 National Congress.
We trust the leadership of our allies, the ANC and the SACP, to continue to engage each other as our political vehicles, on the modalities of the Alliance’s contesting the local elections.
The leadership of the ANC and SACP, we are depending upon you, as you undertake these engagements, not to divide COSATU. Do not divide workers. We cannot afford for the movement, on the back of the 2024 40% electoral setback, to be weakened or divided. Unite us, do not divide us.
It is important to remember that whilst workers continue to struggle on many fronts at home, that our brothers and sisters in Swaziland, Zimbabwe, the DRC, Sudan, Western Sahara, Somalia and Palestine experience the most painful conditions. We must continue to show solidarity to our comrades irrespective of where they are.
Comrades, here in Mpumalanga, the home of our giants Jackson Mthembu and Gert Sibande, in the coalfields of eMalahleni and Middelburg, on the farms in Nkomazi, Bethal, Ermelo; in the power stations and factories across Secunda and Delmas; workers have fought for dignity and won. Today, we salute the workers of Mpumalanga. Your struggles are South Africa’s struggles.
Today we say no retreat, no surrender. We say to government: workers are not your enemy, we are the nation’s lifeline. We say to employers: workers deserve their fair share of the wealth. We say to each other: united we bargain, divided we beg.
Let this May Day ignite new worker power across South Africa and the world! Viva COSATU! Viva workers! Viva international solidarity!
Amandla! Thank you.