The NOBs of the Federation and Affiliates, CEC delegates, Provincial leadership and officials, all protocols observed.
As always, it is a pleasure to be with you today and for what will be a critical CEC as we conclude the final preparations for the September Central Committee.
It is no exaggeration to state that the hopes and aspirations of the working-class rest upon our shoulders. Our task is to rise to the challenges and not disappoint them.
We must congratulate the newly elected leadership of our militant National Union of Mineworkers for their recent important congresses and regaining leadership at Impala. It is a sign that the union of JB Marks, Elijah Barayi and David Siphunzi is on the rise.
Similarly, we welcome robust discussions at the recent POPCRU and SAMWU political commissions. We know that these will help enrich the resolutions at our Central Committee.
We gather in the month of August and whilst this is a moment to honour the grandmothers, mothers and wives who carry the nation on their shoulders, it is also demands that as this collective we do more to ensure our women and daughters are protected from the scourge of gender based violence, enjoy equal pay for equal work and are free from sexual harassment at the workplace or in the community.
Whilst much of this CEC will correctly focus on our preparations for the CC, we must remember our fundamental task of saving and creating jobs. Since we last met, unemployment has risen due to an economy struggling to absorb new entrants, with overall unemployment sitting at 42.9%.
We are witnessing job losses at the Post Office, Good Year in Uitenhage, potential losses at Mercedes in East London, and thousands of possible losses in agriculture and manufacturing from the Western and Eastern Cape to Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng due to the United States’ President Trump’s decision to impose a devastating 30% tariffs on South African exports to the world’s largest economy.
We are seeing mining companies, foundries and Arcelor Mittal closing operations due to increasingly unaffordable electricity prices, sending thousands of workers into the unemployment queue, creating ghost towns in our rural areas.
We are observing municipalities, rural and urban, struggling to provide basic services to working class communities, leading to many companies closing and retrenching workers.
Whilst it is tempting to dwell on the many crises the working class is grappling with, including the crises of capital and neo-liberalism, we must focus on solutions and less on lamentations as the Federation.
COGTA is working on the White Paper on Local Government. What are our proposals guided by the challenges faced by working class communities and municipal workers?
The Minister for Finance will table the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement at Parliament in November. What are our proposals to capacitate the developmental state, stimulate inclusive economic growth, create decent jobs, provide relief for the poor and unemployed, ensure a fair tax regime?
We have committed to defending the National Health Insurance Act, let us action this pledge with pickets on the street and as friends of the court.
It is critical that COSATU play a leading role in the National Dialogue to ensure that it advances working class struggles and yields no space for those who may seek to roll back the many gains the Federation has won since the democratic breakthrough of 1994.
We applaud the work of the Secretariat in convening several Socio-Economic Commissions and related workshops on the Labour Law Reforms.
It is critical that we continue to build upon this work, to ensure that we update Affiliates, Provinces down to locals, shop stewards, organisers and members. To empower workers on the critical gains we have been able to secure at Nedlac from extending retrenchment payments from 1 week to 2 weeks per annum served, to protecting the National Minimum Wage from deductions, to extend collective bargaining to atypical workers and affirming arbitration to resolve disputes.
We must not panic when those who seek COSATU’s liquidation, be it SAFTU or an AMCU, claim that this Federation of Chris Dlamini and Ray Alexander has sold out. They chose to absent themselves from Nedlac when workers were depending upon us to defend their hard-won rights.
Today they quote outdated reports and are blissfully unaware that it was COSATU that blocked proposals tabled by the Department of Employment and Labour and Business to exempt SMMEs from our labour laws, to make it easy to fire workers under 30 years, to extend labour broking, to roll back the National Minimum Wage, to impose a 12 month limit on Section 77 certificates and block middle income workers from relief at the CCMA.
We should not forget that it was the same armchair revolutionaries who denounced COSATU for ensuring the National Minimum Wage that raised the wages of 6 million vulnerable workers and delivered the Two Pot Pension Reforms that has put R56 billion in the pockets of 3.5 million highly indebted workers. We should not be distracted by those who seek to derail this Federation to divide us and bring us down to their level.
Yes, we must unite the working class, but it must be based upon principled commitment to the National Democratic Revolution, the building of a socialist society, uprooting racism and sexism and revolutionary honesty. It cannot be based upon massaging egos and self-appointed traditional leaders.
Let us focus on building our machinery, recruiting and servicing members, including raising our membership to 1.6 million by the Central Committee and 2 million by Congress.
CEPPWAWU’s long standing matter is now before court. CWU’s administration has been shared with ourselves and the Registrar for Trade Unions. Let us ensure that we go to Congress with these affiliates in good standing. Let us expedite support for other struggling Affiliates including AFADWU.
2025 is an important year for the Federation. Not only have we celebrated the 70th anniversary of SACTU and the Freedom Charter but soon the 40th anniversary of the Federation.
Key to building the Federation is fundraising. We cannot continue to simply depend upon Affiliates who themselves are battling. We must not only ensure our Golf Day is a success but expand our fundraising efforts. Workers depend upon an active Federation whose presence is felt from Masiphumelele to Mussina. This requires money not best wishes.
Leadership part of our critical tasks this year is to begin our preparations for the 2026 local government elections. This will be a turning point for the Alliance and the NDR. Either the movement emerges victorious or our enemies will be preparing our tombstones.
This requires that government intensify efforts to stablise and rebuild dysfunctional municipalities, deliver basic services to communities and address the grievances of municipal and other workers. It demands a capacitated developmental state, a growing economy, rising employment, lowering the cost of living, tackling crime and corruption.
We cannot go to an election without a good story to tell. Neither can we afford to campaign with an Alliance that is not united, reconfigured, coherent or biased towards the working class. It is time that COSATU convene the ANC and the SACP to ensure that the Alliance is united and the modalities of how we will contest the local elections are resolved.
Leadership allow me to conclude here. We have much to discuss and decide upon, and more to do. I remain confident that this leadership collective here is up to the task and will continue to lead the working class with revolutionary integrity and clarity.
Thank you. Amandla!
