Provincial Leadership of the Federation of Ray Alexander,

Leadership of our Affiliates and Alliance Partners,

Most importantly the rank and file of the Federation, from Beaufort West to Stellenbosch.

Comrades please accept warm revolutionary greetings on behalf of the CEC of your Federation and our best wishes for your preparations for May Day in Mbekweni.

We are meeting as our members, the working class and the nation face many painful challenges.  It takes place as we prepare to celebrate Workers’ Day and 32 years of democracy.

It is essential that we remember those who laid the path for COSATU to be what we are today, the generations of Nana Abrahams and Oscar Mpetha.  We owe it to these stalwarts to continue in their footsteps and when we err, to correct our mistakes.

It is no exaggeration to state that the working class is under siege as never before since the democratic breakthrough of 1994.

The economy has barely grown at 1% for the last 17 years.  Unemployment continues to rise and is currently a painful 41.1% overall and 72% for the youth.  Poverty, inequality, crime and corruption remain entrenched.  This is greatest crisis facing the working class.

The public and municipal services the working class depend upon are reeling from years of budget cuts, corruption and mismanagement and struggling with critical vacancies.

The many gains we have made since 1994 from investing over 61% of the Budget in working class communities, to providing social grants to 27 million, to tackling the legacies of centuries of racism and sexism, are in serious danger of being eroded by budget cuts and the rising costs of living.

The gains we have made ending loadshedding, rebuilding Transnet and SARS, tackling corruption are at risk of being forgotten as electricity becomes unaffordable, the mining and manufacturing sectors shed jobs and comrades continue to steal from the state.

We now face a potential jobs losses resulting from the US and Israeli war of imperialism in the Middle East and the spike in international oil and fuel prices.  This is a blow the economy and workers cannot afford.  We are engaging government and the Reserve Bank to ensure the economy and workers are cushioned from the fuel hikes and inflation.

The Unemployment Insurance Fund must fix the challenges preventing workers from receiving relief, including the Temporary Employee Relief Scheme.  Workers should not have to queue for days at the Labour Centre in Cape Town waiting for relief due to them.

South Africa is at a crossroads that requires a budget that capacitates the state to provide the essential services the working class needs to survive, to stimulate inclusive economic growth to tackle unemployment and poverty and to provide a better life for all.

This requires government led by the African National Congress to engage with the Alliance, with Business and Labour and communities on a bold and progressive budget to take economic growth to the 3% needed to create decent jobs. 

It requires the leadership of government to be decisive in implementing programmes, to deal with those who fail to spend their budgets, to arrest those who break the law or steal.

Society is rapidly losing patience with all of us, even us as the labour movement.  We must go back to basics.  Be close to workers, service them, respond to their needs, report to them.  If we allow the gap to grow between us workers, we will find one day they will abandon us and go to those who are seen to be on the ground with them.

Comrades, much work continues to be done by COSATU with affiliates at Nedlac, Parliament, in the industrial master plans and bargaining councils.

We must not forget that it was our 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 R60 billion to date, the critical challenges is the high tax which COSATU is still engaging on it with SARS.

This is a major victory for workers.  No longer must workers resign from their jobs to access their pension funds.  No longer must they cash out their entire pension funds to access some relief.  Whilst it is not perfect, it is a progressive start and lays the foundation for further reforms to increase relief for workers.

Engagements are taking place with Treasury and industry 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.  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 self-appointed populist 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 available to fly to Europe!

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’ 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 workers 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.  COSATU is continuing to engage with government on these to ensure that when the Bills are finally tabled before Parliament, those and all other remaining areas of disagreement are resolved in the interests of workers.

The Bills have been released for public comment and will soon be retabled at Nedlac for final polishing.  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 was 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.

It has again been absent as we seek to improve protections and benefits for workers in the Nedlac engagements on the UIF and the Compensation Fund where we are winning critical victories extending cover to 4 million atypical and informal workers.

Revolutions are won through honesty and hard work.  Negotiations require you to pitch up and engage, not to moan and cry.

Comrades it is important that COSATU in the Western Cape continue to work closely with COSATU at Nedlac and Parliament.  This is key to ensuring that the struggles of farm workers in Worcester or clothing workers in Epping are able to feed their struggles to Nedlac and Parliament and for the Federation to be able to report back to them.

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 that 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.

The state of local government is extremely worrying.  Approximately 60% of municipalities in South Africa are in serious financial trouble.  We have seen up to 36 municipalities struggle to pay staff.  We have seen many struggling to provide basic services, including Kannaland in the Klein Karoo.

We intervened with COGTA to stop the retrenchment of 67 000 CWP employees.  We now need a permanent solution to the crisis of local government, including a new funding model, insourcing EPWP and CWP workers, tackling corruption and removing incompetent politicians and managers.  This is a struggle that SAMWU and COSATU must continue to lead.

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 and receive a clear mandate from workers, including holding Special CECs and the Central Committee in September and ultimately our National Congress in September.

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, from Vredendal to Knysna.

All liberation movements face a challenge once in power to remain loyal to their working class and rural bases.  In South Africa that the liberation movement led by the ANC, SACP and COSATU is no different.  This is not a challenge unique to South Africa but one that affects the region, the continent and all liberation movements and progressive organisations across the world.

It is not a challenge unique to the ANC, but one that faces the SACP, COSATU, SANCO and the broader mass democratic movement. 

Some like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union failed to identify or correct their mistakes until it was too late.  Others like the Communist Party of China, learned from these errors and moved with speed to correct them. 

In China the Party is keenly aware that you must remain in touch with the masses, address their needs, respond to their grievances.  If you don’t and you’re are seen to be corrupt, self-serving, out of touch and unresponsive, then the masses will abandon you.  That is the challenge facing the Alliance today.

When our people see us stealing from departments money meant for medical supplies, when workers see us stealing from their pension funds, when communities in Kimberley cannot access water; then the masses will condemn us.

Our challenge is to continue to cleanse and renew the movement, to rebuild the state and uproot the cancer of corruption, to grow the economy and create decent jobs, to provide relief for the poor and a better life for society.  That is the path to renewing the liberation movement.

Leadership, all of these can only be won, if we have strong Affiliates 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.

Affiliates in the Western Cape can and must do better.  Your membership is too small.  Can we not revive and ramp up our Red Friday Campaigns and go and work these farm, construction, mine, retail and many other workers by the COSATU Congress next year?

Can we ramp up our campaigns to recruit and service public and private sector workers, from Hermanus to Bellville?

The Federation with Affiliates must do more including arranging 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?

Gone those days when shop stewards believed that they were just mere shop stewards, relegating this great role to the lowest levels of oppo rtunities.it is an important to view the shop stewards role as an opportunity to grow and develop into greatness, as well as an opportunity to walk the corridors of the power , You will rise through the ranks , just like many of our of powerful leaders who have risen in this country, take yourself  seriously, shop stewards are the backbone of unions at the work place ,take your seriously and the unions must respect the role of shop stewards ,I urge all shops wards to size the moment , lead with purpose , leave an everlasting legacy,

Remember, to be elected as a shop steward is an honour and a privilege bestowed upon you by the workers, once you wear that crown, you carry the hopes and the aspiration of workers on your shoulders. Therefore, you have no excuse but to empower yourself with the requisite knowledge of relevant legislation, including policies, regulation, collective agreements, you must be responsive and emotional intelligent, most importantly ,you should contribute to a harmonious  working relationship in the workplace but don’t compromise your key responsibilities of defending the workers rights

These are the life and blood of the labour movement.  We need to share these good stories of the Federation with our comrades as many have forgotten these fundamentals.

COSATU must be felt in every workplace, town and township across the Western Cape.

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 and encourage all of you in this hall to mobilize all workers to attend May Day including being ready for national day of action on cost of living

Amandla!