Introduction
COSATU is honoured for this opportunity to address the SACCAWU National Collective Bargaining Workshop. The timing of convening such a meeting is Ideal considering the critical period we are in currently organisational and politically.
We must on the onset congratulate SACCAWU/ CCAWUSA- 50 years of Workers’ Struggles in the commercial sector, this is indeed a milestone worth celebrating. The union with stood setbacks caused by massive retrenchments/ rebranding and restructuring of the retail stores and hotels, in the mid-90’s until currently.
The general state of the labour movement in South Africa must worry us as must unemployment which has risen from around 19% in 1994 to 40% now. The levels of inequality have increased since 1994, which means that the policy direction of the country has taken a wrong direction. The poverty levels would have deepened if it was not for the social grants, which has increased provided relief for the lowest income households.
Unions must push for the Basic Income Grant to provide relieve for the structurally unemployed, who otherwise would need about 15% of workers income forming part of remittance to poorer households. These negotiations will unfold at Nedlac and should be supported by all Unions as part of an overall income strategy.
Unions have a direct interest in ensuring that social services are more effectively provided, so workers do not need to buy those social services like health care from the private sector. This would ensure workers have more disposable income.
Collective Bargaining and SACCAWU
On actual bargaining SACCAWU has done well but it has to also respond more effectively to the new challenges emerging and the new environment arsing through work reorganisation and corporate restructuring.
SACCAWU must respond more deliberately to cashier less tills and franchise stores, to be covered by company agreements. Soma areas of benefit funds and conditions of employment should be centralised in Bargaining Council negotiations. The ability of unions to secure the interest of workers and respond to their challenges in the bargaining process is clearly an important area of union service.
Unions will also have a new challenge to respond to South African companies moving into the Continent as part of the Continental agreement. This should be part of the unions’ bargaining processes and extending the floor of rights in companies across Africa. This will build continental solidarity and strengthen union power and influence.
Unions must also extend their focus of bargaining to include a focus on industrial policy and value chains. This means that SACCAWU should also influence company procurement processes to ensure that they purchased locally and promote a proudly SA campaign to expand employment economic growth.
Workers join trade unions to improve their conditions of employment and defend their jobs security. So, we have to expand our focus into how the retail sector is restructuring and ensure that workers’ interests are defended. This would mean a clear focus on the Competition Commission and its conditions for mergers, that are meant to protect workers. If this is not adequate, then we would need to reconsider the law and its effectiveness in protecting workers.
Collective bargaining is a process where representatives of employees (usually a union) and the employer negotiate the terms and conditions of employment, including wages, benefits, working hours, and other aspects of the employment relationship.
This process is Important as it gives workers a voice in decisions affecting their working lives, Promotes fair wages and benefits, improves working conditions and it reduces conflict and promotes stability in the workplace
Collective bargaining is a means to improve workers’ conditions within the existing capitalist system, but also as a way to educate and organise workers for broader revolutionary change.
It is a tactical tool, not an end in itself.
As Lenin said, “The struggle for better conditions is an essential part of the class struggle.”
Membership Growth
Comrades membership growth is a very important campaign of every union for its survival and strength because without numbers a union will be week and won’t make meaningful impact or bring about improvements in the lives of its members.
SACCAWU has a huge opportunity to recruit and organise in the fast-growing Shopping Centre business in the Country, in 2021 there were 190 Shopping Centres and now in 2025, we count well above 240, according to Africa scope announcement.
The Wholesale and Retail SETA Sector Skills Plan of 2024 reported that there are almost 3.2 million workers in the sector (inclusive of hotels and restaurants) and there are more than 24 000 employers who are levy payers and employ well above 1.6 million workers.
CATHSSETA Sector Skills Plan of 2023/24 reported that there are more than 40 000 levy paying employers who employ about 220 000 workers, in their sector
With all the above developments, SACCAWU has an opportunity to be the biggest union in COSATU, if not in South Africa because the growth in the retail, hospitality and commercial property sectors favours the union.
As we intensify our recruitment campaigns to grow the Union and the Federation, it is critical to sustain the current membership, and we can do that by improving service to members. I would not want to define what servicing members entails as I’m talking to well-seasoned comrades with vast experience in this regard and all I can ask is for all of us to put members interest first and service them come rain or sun.
Collective Bargaining Strategy
For us to bargain effectively we must recruit members in all the sectors that the scope of the union covers but prioritising the growing sub-sectors such as retail, hospitality, commercial property management services including Food/ Grocery delivery services linked to specific enterprises, such as Checkers Sixty60 & Pick n Pay Asap!
The union should champion the formation of a Centralised Sectoral Bargaining Structures and move away from enterprise level bargaining, as it is exhausting their resources, both financial and human. The union should also extend their participation in the Bargaining Councils where SACCAWU has substantial membership.
These are some of the areas that I thought of that could be considered by you delegates as you will be engaging each other in this important workshop.
COSATU Priority Campaigns
Key priority campaigns must include:
- 40th anniversary celebrations in Dobsonville Stadium
- Membership growth and service
- Health and safety at the workplace
- Local government elections
- Defence of Collective Bargaining
- Fight against Gender-Based Violence
- Working with Unions facing challenges
These are priorities we are expected to implement and we are already rolling them out as we speak.
The National Congress revisited the membership figures to be recruited and set a New target of 2.5 million by 2035.
Comrades this is a very modest target, I say this because statistics indicate that almost 70% of employed people across all economic sectors don’t belong to a union, meaning the four active Federations in the country including unaffiliated independent unions only organise 30% of the working people.
All this shows that our work is cut-out comrades, we must take recruitment seriously.
In practice this means that All COSATU Affiliates must grow their membership and we are glad that SACCAWU out of its National Congress has prioritised membership Growth, and we would want to encourage you to partake in the Federation’s “Red Friday Recruitment Campaign”.
This a COSATU recruitment campaign implemented by all 9 COSATU provinces working with Affiliates. Every Friday an industrial area and sector must be identified for recruitment.
The COSATU Organisational Commission recommended to the CEC that focus and attention should be put to the private sector unions considering that majority of workers who are unorganised are within the private sector. SACCAWU should take advantage of this period to grow its membership and truth be told comrades, SACCAWU has a potential of being the biggest union in the federation.
Comrades, much work continues to be done by COSATU with affiliates, in particular, SACCAWU at Nedlac, Parliament, in the industrial master plans and bargaining councils.
We must not forget that it was SACTWU in March 2020 who first proposed the Two Pot Pension Reforms. Today it is the law of the Republic with more than 3.5 million workers having received over R57 billion to date.
Engagements are taking place on reducing the tax burden upon workers, enabling fund members to access further relief and to ensure that workers losing their jobs are able to access all their savings.
Engagements are taking place at Nedlac on the labour law reforms led by the GS of SACCAWU, cde. Mdu. In 2022 when government and business tabled their proposals, we were shocked by their attempts to gut the progressive labour laws that took workers decades of hard-fought struggles to win.
We adopted a deliberate strategy to wear down government, to divide government from business and when the time was right after three years of intense monthly and weekly negotiations, to strike and offer compromises on areas that would not harm workers, to block proposals that would weaken workers’ rights and to score victories that would extend protections to millions.
SAFTU and other armchair critics claim the labour laws will be weakened and that COSATU has sold out. They claimed the same lies when we achieved the National Minimum Wage, the Two Pot Pension Reforms and countless other victories.
The reality is that SAFTU does not have capacity and only attended 3 out of more than 30 meetings. Yet they are always available to fly to Geneva!
Whilst COSATU did not achieve all we had sought at Nedlac, we are confident that we have managed to ensure workers’ rights remain secure and that many critical gains advancing workers’ protections have been won, including:
Defeating a variety of proposals to weaken our labour laws and roll back workers’ hard won rights.
- Defeating proposals to exempt SMMEs from the majority of labour laws.
- Defeating proposals to reduce the National Minimum Wage to R20 an hour.
- Defeating proposals to extend the limit on labour broking to 12 months.
- Defeating proposals to remove protections from dismissals for persons under 30 years of age.
- Defeating proposals to exempt SMMEs from having to pay retrenchment payments if they had not yet operated for 2 years.
- Increasing severance pay for workers losing their jobs from one to two weeks per year employed.
- Extending protections for the National Minimum Wage including from deductions.
- Guaranteeing on-call workers a minimum number of shifts to ensure they can earn sufficient income to take care of themselves.
- Requiring labour inspectors to check pension fund payments compliance by employers.
- UIF assisting workers in the event of an employer defaulting on monies owed.
- Recognising the rights of atypical workers to join trade unions and engage in collective bargaining e.g. artists, musicians and actors.
- Further negotiations that will take place soon on ensuring atypical workers enjoy the protection of the UIF and Compensation Fund.
- BCEA provisions compelling employers to pay their employees’ pension contributions will be strengthened including requiring interest to be paid for late payments to the workers’ funds.
Some areas of substantial disagreement remain, including exempting start-ups from collective bargaining council agreements. COSATU is continuing to engage with government on these to ensure that when the Bills are tabled before Parliament, those and all other remaining areas of disagreement are resolved in the interests of workers.
The Bills are now before the state law advisor and will then be released for public comment and later retabled at Nedlac for final consideration. They will then be submitted to Cabinet and Parliament, which would hold further public consultations. COSATU remains confident that the final legislation will continue to protect workers’ rights and that such protections will be further extended.
We hope that at some stage SAFTU’s leadership will mature to play a constructive role at Nedlac. Seeking media headlines may entertain friends over drinks but does nothing to strengthen workers’ rights in law or reality.
This same SAFTU again is absent from the Nedlac engagements on the Merchant Shipping Bill where through COSATU’s interventions we have secured agreement to extend all labour rights to merchant and fishing workers.
Again SAFTU is absent when we have been engaging on the Unemployment Insurance and Compensation of Occupational Injuries and Diseases Acts at Nedlac, and winning important victories through increases maternity leave benefits and extending cover to millions of atypical and unprotected workers.
Revolutions are won through honesty and hard work. Negotiations require you to pitch up and engage.
Comrades it is important that SACCAWU continue to work COSATU at Nedlac. In fact if it were not for SACCAWU’s leadership and support, we would not have achieved many of the victories we have won over many years at Nedlac.
It is equally important that we take this information to members and workers, train and empower them to claim their rights.
We will head to the most difficult local government elections in 2026 where if we cannot convince our members, their families and the working class on the importance of voting and voting for the Alliance, we may find the National Democratic Revolution and our many gains under severe threat.
We have seen coalitions breed instability with mayors changing left, right and centre and little progress made to fix local government or deliver basic services. We have seen municipal workers left unpaid, pensions pickpocketed, and companies close.
Again, our leadership in government needs to move much faster to turn things around before it is too late.
We need equally to ensure that the Alliance is not only radically reconfigured but also united. The African National Congress and the South African Communist Party are our allies. We respect and support them. But we need them not to divide workers.
The ANC and the SACP must engage and find each other and explain to us the modalities to unite the Alliance, including the SACP’s decision to contest state power.
This is a matter that Affiliates must deliberate on, not as leaders but with our membership across the country. We have set a process as the CEC to engage on this sensitive issue, including holding Special CECs and the September COSATU Central Committee and ultimately our National Congress in 2026.
Workers at the CC were clear. We must ensure that the Alliance is united, members are mobilised and the working class turns out in decisive numbers to return the movement to power in the local elections. Not to enrich politicians but to deliver a better life to all our people.
All of these can only be won, if we have a strong SACCAWU and COSATU.
We must raise the alarm bells that our membership continues to shrink, many affiliates remain fragile and our campaigns are not felt by workers.
SACCAWU remains an exception. A union that can be felt across the hotels, that is growing across shopping centres, that is engaged with members and responding to their needs.
SACCAWU needs to share these experiences with other unions who struggle to get the basics right.
But SACCAWU can and must do better. Your membership is too small. Can we not push it to 150 000 paid up by the Congress? Can we ramp up our campaigns to recruit and service restaurant workers?
Can SACCAWU not offer training sessions to shop stewards and organisers on how to recruit and service members? How to train and empower workers? How to manage investment funds to benefit members not leaders? How to maintain unity and democratic processes? How to exemplify the non-racial, non-sexist vision of the Freedom Charter?
These are the life and blood of the labour movement. We need SACCAWU to share these good stories with our comrades as many have forgotten these fundamentals.
In conclusion
Comrades, COSATU will be celebration its 40th Anniversary on the 6th of December 2025 at Dobsonville Stadium, we hope to see SACCAWU members in numbers at the Stadium, SACCAWU has been allocated to bring not less than 5000 workers, but this is just a guide, the union can mobilise far more than this figure.
Leadership allow me to conclude here, by thanking you for giving COSATU this opportunity to report to you, our members, and for all the support you have given the Federation and most importantly for all that you have done and continue to do for the working class.
Let me take this opportunity and thank you once more and wish you a fruitful deliberation in this workshop.
Amandla! VIVA SACCAWU! VIVA COSATU! VIVA ANC! VIVA SACP!