The Congress of South African Trade Unions’ (COSATU) Central Executive Committee (CEC) held its second quarterly meeting from 26 to 28 May where reports were received from the Federation’s Affiliates, Provinces and Departments on various challenges facing workers, the economy and the state as well as campaigns to defend and advance working class interests.
The Federation mourns the recent passing of such outstanding comrades as Katishi Masemola, Lungi Mbananga-Gcabashe and Ma Gertrude Shope. We welcome the repatriation of the late Duma Nokwe’s remains.
The CEC welcomed progress convening the Federation’s provincial congresses as well as our Affiliate, the Democratic Nursing Association of South Africa’s recent national congress. The National Union of Mineworkers will soon hold their congress.
Preparations are underway for the convening of COSATU’s Central Committee, the Federation’s preparatory conference before our 2026 elective congress, where workers will be engaging on wide variety of topics and resolutions, including the South African Communist Party’s resolution to contest state power in the 2026 local government elections. Affiliates are currently engaging workers and seeking mandates on these important issues. The CEC resolved to seek an urgent Alliance Political Council with the African National Congress, the SACP and SANCO, to ensure that the Alliance is united, engages on the modalities towards its contesting the local elections and begins to put in place the necessary preparations for this crucial campaign in defence of the National Democratic Revolution.
We are heartened by the continued faith that workers have shown the Federation with the recently held and highly successful Workers’ Day celebrations across the country. The second annual Elijah Barayi Memorial Lecture was held in honour of the founding President of COSATU and addressed by the Minister for Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe. Similar events have taken place to celebrate the 70th anniversary of COSATU’s predecessor, the South African Congress of Trade Unions and the Freedom Charter and will culminate in events marking the 40th anniversary of COSATU. These moments are a chance for the Federation to renew its roots in working class struggles and to honour the sacrifices of so many to achieve the constitutional democracy all South Africans enjoy today.
The Federation and its Affiliates are ramping up campaigns to recruit and service workers, in particular the vulnerable, as well as to support unions organising in very difficult conditions. Key campaigns include our Red Friday recruitment drives across the country, solidarity protests in defence of municipal and security and other workers robbed of their salaries, pensions and other benefits by employers as well as tackling the shameful levels of gender-based violence in the mining, retail and other sectors.
We remain deeply pained by the horrific levels of violence many workers have been exposed to, in particular women, at many workers places. COSATU recently held a protest at Kopanong Mine in the North West after female workers were subjected to illegal strip searches of the most invasive type. We have been traumatized by the brutal murders of women at our workplaces and communities, including Olorato Mongale. Crime cannot continue to be normalised. It is time that war be declared against this cancer that is claiming too many lives, especially in our townships and rural areas. The Federation will be working closely with Affiliates across all workplaces to play our role in this war, including encouraging workers to expose all forms of criminality and to empower them on the 2021 amendments to our criminal and sexual offences laws.
We welcome the Minister for Employment and Labour’s progressive efforts to ramp up the number of labour inspectors from just under 2 000 to over 20 000 over the next year. This will be a massive boost to COSATU’s decision to ramp up our campaigns to ensure all workplaces comply with our labour and other laws, in particular Occupational Health and Safety, Basic Conditions of Employment, Pension and the National Minimum Wage Acts. Far too many employers have gotten away with robbing workers of their hard-won rights and wages. This must be dealt with and those who break the law dealt with decisively.
The Federation is pleased that our work with the South African Municipal Workers’ Union to stop the unconstitutional Municipal Systems Act’s attempt to deny municipal workers’ right to freedom of political association emerged victorious in the Labour and Constitutional Courts. We will continue our efforts to defend the Employment Equity, National Health Insurance and the Basic Education Laws Amendment Acts in court. We will not tolerate any attempts to collapse these important advances to ensure all workers are protected from unfair discrimination, that all South Africans have access to universal health care or that all learners are able to access schooling.
COSATU remains deeply concerned by the dangerously high levels of unemployment which has risen over the past quarter to 43.1% overall and 72% for youth. We remain the world’s most unequal society with entrenched levels of poverty, crime and corruption. This is a ticking time bomb that requires decisive action by government working with business and labour to tackle.
Whilst welcoming the humility shown by government led by the African National Congress to heed COSATU and others’ objections to the unacceptable VAT hike, we remain unhappy with the Budget which promises a mere 1.6% economic growth over the next three years, woefully below the 3% plus needed to slash unemployment. We welcome many of the gains COSATU has been able to secure in the budget, including filling critical frontline vacancies, additional allocations to key public services and in particular the South Africa Revenue Service, as well as relief for the poor with double inflation adjustments for social grants and ramped up public employment programmes. Whilst important these are insufficient to repair the damage done to the state’s capacity to deliver the quality public services that working class communities depend upon.
We are dismayed the cancellation of the VAT hike saw a rise in the fuel tax and no adjustment of personal income tax brackets for inflation. The failure to afford 8 million SRD Grant recipients a meagre CPI adjustment is shameful and needs to be corrected by Treasury and Parliament. Parliament must hold the executive accountable to ensure the bold infrastructure programme is spent timeously and efficiently, interventions to stablise and rebuild embattled municipalities and state-owned enterprises are expedited, and measures to deal with devastating levels of crime and corruption are ramped up.
Though this year’s Budget processes have been messy, they represent a watershed moment in our democratic evolution. It is critical the space between the October Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement and the February Budget speech be used for a national discussion on what are our expenditure priorities and what are the acceptable and unacceptable revenue streams to fund these. We cannot afford to continue to pursue failed neo-liberal theories when the state needs resources to fund public services, the economy requires bold stimulus, the poor and the unemployed need protection and a path to decent work.
The Federation remains deeply concerned by recent geo-political developments and the rise of chauvinist right-wing forces across the world. We unreservedly condemn the genocidal war against the people of Gaza, human rights violations in Zimbabwe and eSwatini, and the perennial conflicts in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Our call for working class solidarity remains as salient as ever. This and the principles of equality and sustainability will guide the Federation’s engagements at the G20 and L20 as well as the International Labour’s Organisation’s Annual Conference, amongst other strategic engagements.
COSATU commends the work done by Team South Africa’s recent visit to the United States, led by President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa, and including the President of COSATU, comrade Zingiswa Losi. They led with dignity in defence of the onslaught of fake news about South Africa and opened the door for a mutually beneficial reset of our relations with the US. This is key to enabling the extension of the African Growth and Oppportunities Act, trade and investment between the two countries, sustaining 500 000 local jobs. Similarly, efforts to strengthen trade and bilateral relations with our leading industrial economies from the European Union to China, Japan, India, Brazil amongst others as well as accelerating the roll out of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Issued by COSATU
Matthew Parks (COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator)
Cell: 082 785 0687
Email: matthew@cosatu.org.za