President Cyril Ramaphosa, founding General Secretary of NUM,

President Vilakazi and General Secretary Phakedi,

Leadership and delegates of our militant NUM,

Leaders of the ALLINCE ,SACP, SANCO, ANC

Ministers and deputy ministers

International guest

I bring you revolutionary greetings on behalf of the CEC and membership of COSATU.

NUM, you are not just a union. You are a movement born in the belly of the beast. You were forged underground, in the heat of the rock face, under the barrel of apartheid’s guns and the boss’s boot. From the 1987 mineworkers’ strike that shook the foundations of capital, to the trenches of Lonmin, to every shaft where a comrade refused to be treated as a disposable commodity — NUM has carried the banner of working-class liberation.

You are the union that taught South Africa that when mineworkers move, the economy moves. When NUM stands up, the bosses tremble. When NUM is united, the working class is defended.

Today, as we meet on 29 June 2026, we do not meet in easy times. We meet at a moment of crisis, but also of possibility. A moment that demands militancy, unity, and struggle.

Comrades, let us speak plainly. The working class is bleeding.

Food is increasingly expensive wages. Electricity bills are choking households. Transport fares eat half a pay cheque. Rent is rising. Clinics and schools are overcrowded. The working class is told to “tighten their belts” while the rich count their dividends.

Unemployment remains a national emergency, with youth unemployment still above 60%. Mining communities in Rustenburg, Emalahleni, Carletonville, and Matjhabeng are being hollowed out by retrenchments, downscaling, and the slow death of shafts. A miner who gave 30 years to the industry is being thrown into poverty with a retrenchment package that will not last 12 months.

This is not an accident. This is the result of neo-liberal austerity, deindustrialisation, and a growth model that serves the boardroom, not the working class.

We say: Enough! The time has come for a mass, national cost-of-living campaign. COSATU and NUM must be at the forefront. We must march in every mining town, shut down the malls, and force government, business, and the energy regulator to act. We demand: a cap on basic food prices, a reduction in the fuel levy, free basic electricity for the poor, and a living wage across all sectors. We cannot allow workers to choose between feeding their children and paying the lights.

Comrades, mining is not a dying sector. It is a strategic sector. Platinum, gold, coal, manganese, chrome — these are the minerals that can power South Africa’s industrialisation and the global energy transition. But investment is being choked by a broken, corrupt, and bureaucratic mining rights application system.

Applications sit for years. Junior miners are locked out. Existing operations cannot expand. And while the paperwork gathers dust, jobs are lost.

NUM and COSATU must launch a joint national programme to smash the bottlenecks in the mining rights system. We demand a transparent, time-bound, one-stop system that prioritises labour-absorbing projects, BEE compliance that delivers real ownership, and environmental obligations that do not become excuses for delay.

Investment must flow. Shafts must reopen. New mines must be sunk. And every job created must be a NUM job, with NUM recognition, NUM wages, and NUM health and safety standards.

Comrades, let us pause and salute NUM. Since 1994, NUM, together with the Department of Mineral Resources and mineworkers themselves, has slashed mining fatalities and injuries by over 90%. From over 500 deaths a year in the 1990s to record lows in the last decade. That did not happen by accident. That happened because NUM fought for the Mine Health and Safety Act, for health and safety reps, for the right to refuse unsafe work, and for inspections.

COSATU and NUM will work shoulder to shoulder to ensure Parliament passes the Mine Health and Safety Amendment Bill without dilution. More inspectors. Criminal liability for negligent bosses. Stronger protection for workers who blow the whistle. And an end to contract labour being used to dodge safety responsibilities.

Every mineworker must return home alive. That is non-negotiable.

Comrades, illegal mining is a war on our members and our communities. Zama zamas are not “entrepreneurs”. They are criminal syndicates. They collapse shafts. They poison rivers with mercury. They rape, rob, and murder. They create ghost towns around our mines. And they kill NUM members who try to stop them.

We need a mass campaign led by NUM, in alliance with communities, SAPS, the SANDF, and municipalities. That means: shutting illegal shafts, arresting kingpins, seizing

explosives, and cutting the money trail. It also means giving communities alternatives — jobs, cooperatives, and skills programmes — so that desperation is not the only option.

No miner should die because a criminal is digging. No community should live in fear.

Comrades, let us give credit where it is due: the workers of Eskom defeated loadshedding. Through overtime, through skill, through sacrifice in the power stations, they kept the lights on. Salute to Eskom workers!

But now the same forces who said “Eskom has failed” want to unbundle it. They want to break it into pieces and hand it to private profiteers. COSATU’s position is clear: We oppose unbundling. Unbundling means job losses, higher tariffs, and less security of supply. It threatens Eskom jobs and it threatens energy security.

We must also confront municipal debt to Eskom. Over R120 billion is owed. That debt is killing Eskom’s balance sheet and forcing tariff hikes that make electricity unaffordable. Mining, smelters, and industry cannot compete when power costs are among the highest in the world. We demand a municipal debt relief plan tied to governance reforms, and a tariff path that protects industry and households.

And on energy mix: South Africa needs a strategic mix. Wind, solar, nuclear, gas — yes. But we will not abandon coal as our baseload. Coal mines and coal power stations employ hundreds of thousands. A just transition must mean just jobs*, not job destruction. COSATU and NUM will defend coal jobs while fighting for retraining, new industries, and leaving no worker left behind.

Comrades, we welcome the R1 trillion government infrastructure drive over the next three years. Roads, rail, water, housing, energy — this will bring jobs for the working class.

But we have been here before. Foreign labour. Illegal labour. Construction mafias. Employers who ignore bargaining councils. That must end.

We demand: South Africans and legally documented workers only on these sites. Full compliance with our labour laws. Bargaining council agreements must be enforced. And the construction mafias must be arrested, not negotiated with.

At the same time, government must crack down on crime in all its forms. Violent crime. Gender-Based Violence. Corruption. Syndicates. Immigration law violations that undercut wages. Law enforcement must be capacitated, paid, and protected. Without safety, there is no investment. Without investment, there are no jobs.

Karl Marx correctly implored the Proletariat of the World to Unite and that is what guides this Federation of Violet Seboni and John Nkadimeng.

Our struggles are not unique to South Africa. Workers from Zimbabwe to Myanmar are under siege. This is why COSATU and its Affiliates must continue to raise the red banner of international solidarity from the ILO to SATUCC, from ITUC to WFTU. We must leave no corner uncontested.

Whilst some may dismiss social dialogue, it is COSATU and the international labour movement with the support of our government, that forced the ILO to adopt Convention 190 to End Violence and Harassment in the World of Work. Today its principles have been cast into our labour and criminal laws to protect our daughters and sisters as they seek to earn living as waitresses or receptionists, as paramedics or cleaners.

Recently the International Court of Justice ruled in favour of our demand to declare the right to strike an inalienable right of all workers. This is a powerful tool in defence of workers and the labour movement by which all governments can be held accountable.

Some question why COSATU engages in matters of trade from AGOA with the US to the EPA with the EU, to the FTA with China and India yet it is our motor manufacturing, farm and clothing workers whose jobs will be lost if the voice of workers is not heard. It is the tax revenues that the state depends upon to pay the staff of SARS and Home Affairs that will be in danger if we do not ensure that South Africa exports can be sold.

We must not be naïve comrades, the most reactionary forms of right-wing chauvinism are on the rise across the world, from the industrialised west to even here at home. It is during these dark times that the left and the labour movement must be united.

It is during these naked assaults that we must ramp up solidarity, not slogans, to provide support to workers in Cuba, Venezuela, Palestine and eSwatini.

We must be equally clear that we reject all forms of xenophobia, violence, criminality and vigilantism. Our laws must be obeyed at all times, by South Africans and those who chose to come to South Africa. Only the state must enforce our laws.

Government must abandon the austerity budget cuts that have weakened the ability of the state to enforce the rule of law and it must act without fear or favour against criminals.

Equally we reject accusations that South Africa is xenophobic. We expect people, including visitors, to respect our laws, including immigration. We expect our sister African nations’ governments to embrace democracy and human rights and to create jobs and economic opportunities for their people in their countries.

South African cannot carry this burden along, not when we are battling a 43.7% unemployment rate, when our public services are overstretched and our crime levels are unacceptably too high.

Comrades, neo-liberalism has failed. Austerity budgets have crippled Home Affairs, SAPS, Health, Education, and Labour Inspectorates. You cannot fight crime with empty police stations. You cannot inspect mines with two inspectors for a province. You cannot grow an economy by cutting the state.

Government must abandon austerity. Tax the rich. Close loopholes. Stop bailouts for the connected. And fund the frontline services the working class depends on.

Comrades, a union is only as strong as its members and its machinery.

NUM has come through fire. Employers tried to derecognise NUM including at Impala. AMCU tried to intimidate our members. They failed, because NUM members stood firm. Congratulations to every shop steward who held the line.

Now we must go on the offensive. NUM must adopt a decisive recruitment strategy to take membership above 200,000 by December 2026. Every shaft, every contractor, every new project must be organised. We must service members better. We must train shop stewards. We must defend every hard-won right and every collective agreement.

NUM must remain the pillar of COSATU. COSATU can only be as strong as NUM. And NUM must defend the unity and independence of COSATU, so that COSATU remains the shield of workers and not a ladder for careerists.

Our September 2026 COSATU Congress must be a congress of unity, of struggle, of building the path to socialism. We know we can count on NUM to defend COSATU.

Comrades, our struggle is not in the workplace alone. It is political.

Former President Thabo Mbeki correctly said that “Gloom and despondency have never defeated adversity. Trying times need courage and resilience. Our strength as a people is not tested during the best of times.”

Our alliance with the African National Congress, the leader of the liberation movement, and the South African Communist Party, is not a fair-weather friendship, it is the most effective and only vehicle to secure the total emancipation of the working class. Yes, each Alliance Partner, including ourselves, are faced with serious challenges, and own goals, but to abandon the Alliance which defeated apartheid and set the nation on the path of transformation and ultimately of building socialism would be reckless at best.

The September 2025 COSATU Central Committee mandated the Federation to defend the Alliance and engage each Alliance Partner on the need to unite and to reconfigure the Alliance. We are encouraged that an Alliance Summit to do exactly this is to be convened by the beginning of August.

This is not a matter that we can abandon nor allow workers to be divided over. We need an ANC that is renewed and biased towards the working class. We need an SACP that is

capacitated and on the ground. We need an Alliance that is able to provide clear political direction to government at all levels and to hold it accountable.

We dare not fail when the very gains of the 1994 democratic breakthrough are at stake. The lessons of 2024 require the Alliance to unite and flesh out the modalities of contesting the 2026 local elections. We need our Alliance Partners to work with the Federation to find each other. Now is not the time not to allow our narrow differences to divide us.

NUM must continue to defend the unity of the Alliance. The ANC as the leader of the liberation movement. The SACP as the vanguard of the working class. COSATU as the leader of the trade union movement. Each has a role. None can be diminished.

As mandated by the COSATU Central Committee in September 2025, COSATU will soon convene an Alliance Summit. Its purpose: force government to address the cost of living, jobs, energy, and crime. And to ensure the Alliance enters the November 2026 Local Government Elections united and militant.

We must win those elections overwhelmingly. We must rebuild municipalities. We must ensure every ward has water, lights, sanitation, and safety. Local government is where the working class feels the state. We cannot abandon it to corruption and outsourcing.

We call on government to intensify the fight against labour brokers , subcontractors , we call on government to defend and respect the right of workers

Comrades of NUM, I end where I began: with unity.

Unity among NUM members in every shaft and smelter.

Unity as COSATU, across sectors and provinces.

Unity as the Alliance, marching together.

Unity as the working class, black and white, women and men, young and old.

If we are divided, we will lose. If we are united, we will win.

Thank you, comrades. Amandla!