Taking COSATU Today Forward Special Bulletin, 13 March 2025 #CosatuProvCongress #CosatuProvGenderConf
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY #NoToVATIncrease, Austerity Measures and Budget Cuts, says #Cosatu #SACTU70 #ClassStruggle “Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism” #Back2Basics #JoinCOSATUNow #ClassConsciousness |
Taking COSATU Today Forward Special Bulletin
‘Whoever sides with the revolutionary people in deed as well as in word is a revolutionary in the full sense’-Maoo
Our side of the story
13 March 2025
“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- Department of Employment and Labour invites public comments on the repeal of Construction Regulations
- South Africa
- Budget Speech delivered by Treasury will exacerbate Energy Crisis in South Africa
- SACP initial response to the budget delivered on Wednesday, 12 March 2025
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- WFTU Presidential Council Declaration for the 80 years anniversary
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
Department of Employment and Labour invites public comments on the repeal of Construction Regulations
12 March 2025
In advancement of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) in the construction sector, the Department of Employment and Labour has published the new Draft Construction Regulations 2025 for comment.
Stakeholders with an interest in the construction sector are invited to make comments/inputs/corrections in writing on the proposed Draft Construction Regulations. The released Draft Construction Regulations 2025 are intended to replace Construction Regulations, 2014.
A comprehensive copy of the Draft Construction Regulations is available on the Departmental website: https://www.gov.za for comment.
The draft construction regulations were promulgated on the 12 March 2025 for public comments. The Department of Employment and Labour did identify the need to revise the current construction regulations to ensure more stringent requirements are placed upon the client, designer and contractors to prevent construction related incidents.
Key changes to the current construction regulations include:
(a) revision of existing definitions
(b) addition of new definitions
(c) redefining the scope of construction work
(d) introduction of construction health and safety manager appointment
(e) acceptance of electronic health and safety files
These Regulations are applicable to all persons involved in construction work for the duration of the project life cycle; owners of structures for the future lifetime of the structures; but exclude the construction work carried out is in relation to a single storey dwelling for a client who intends to reside in such dwelling upon completion thereof;
In terms of OHS interested persons who wish to comment on the draft regulations are invited to do so in writing within 90 days from the date of publication of this notice (12 March 2025). The closing date of submission is 12 June 2025.
Any person who contravenes or fails to comply with any provision of regulations will be guilty of an offence and liable upon conviction to a fine or to imprisonment for a maximum of 12 months and, in the case of a continuous offence, not exceeding an additional fine of R200 or additional imprisonment of one day for each day on which the offence continues - provided that the period of such additional imprisonment will not exceed 90 days.
All representations and comments must be sent by hand to the Director-General of the Department of Employment and Labour - for the attention: Hilton Ganesen
Laboria House
215 Francis Baard Street, Pretoria
or
By post: The Director General Department of Employment and Labour – Attention: Hilton Ganesen
Private Bag X117,
Pretoria 0001
or
By email: hilton....@labour.gov.za or derick...@labour.gov.za
For more information, contact:
Teboho Thejane
Departmental Spokesperson 082 697 0694/ Teboho....@labour.gov.za
-ENDS-
Issued by: Department of Employment and Labour
Budget Speech delivered by Treasury will exacerbate Energy Crisis in South Africa
Khangela Baloyi, NUM Energy Sector Coordinator, 12 March 2025
The National Union of Mine Workers (NUM) believes that the budget speech delivered by the minister of finance will exacerbate the energy crisis in South Africa. The government has taken the neoliberal path, which will see less public sector participation in the energy generation, transmission, and distribution business. The state has decided to open the energy business to the private sector.
The continuation of Eskom's legal separation into three businesses will not resolve the energy crisis; instead, it is a means to open the energy business to the free market. The decision to unbundle Eskom is not based on empirical reasons, but an ideological direction forced on the state by the imperialists who want to control our energy sector.
The minister announced that the last R70 billion debt takeover for Eskom will be replaced with R40 billion in 2025/26 and R10 billion in 2028/29. This will result in a saving for the government of about R20 billion. This reduction will negatively affect Eskom’s balance sheet.
As the NUM we are violently opposed to this reduction.
The main mandate of Eskom is to provide affordable electricity to businesses and communities. The state must realise that there is a bigger picture in supporting Eskom because the failure of Eskom will be disastrous to the economy. The only way to drive economic growth is to have a reliable electricity supply.
The Public-Private partnership which will be introduced in the contraction of the transmission lines will result in the privatised transmission business. This will indirectly push the price of electricity high. Poor people and small businesses will be unable to afford electricity. The minister announced the introduction of the Independent Transmission Programme will be launched later this year. This is another way of privatising the transmission business, hence the NUM is opposed to this neoliberal path. We still believe in the public pathway when it comes to the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity.
Privatising the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) will undermine the dreams of many of the poor people. The private sector is only interested in profit maximisation and not the provision of services. Only the state can provide reliable, affordable electricity to all South Africans. The private sector will only provide electricity to the rich.
________________________
SACP
initial response to the budget delivered on Wednesday, 12 March 2025
Dr
Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, Central Committee Member
National Spokesperson & Political Bureau Secretary for Policy and Research,
12 March 2025
Objection to VAT increases
The South African Communist Party (SACP) strongly objects to the government’s decision to implement 0.5-percentage point increase in Value-Added Tax (VAT) in the 2025/2026 and 2026/2027 financial years. The initial intention to increase VAT by 2 percentage points this year was met with widespread public resistance, particularly from the working class, and was ultimately reversed due to pressure from ordinary citizens and working-class organisations like the SACP, COSATU, SAFTU and progressive civil society organisations, including those in the People’s Budget process. However, the continued VAT hike, even at a reduced rate, remains unacceptable.
VAT increases have a disproportionate impact on the workers and poor, inclusive of working-class women, more so on the entire bottom 40 per cent of society in income terms. VAT is a regressive tax, meaning that it takes a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than from wealthier individuals. This discredits the pro-poor claim made by the Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana when he presented the budget to Parliament in Cape Town on Wednesday, 12 March 2025. For the poorest South Africans, VAT increases exacerbate existing class inequalities, including their racial and gender dimensions, by further eroding their meagre purchasing power. Essential goods and services become even less affordable, leaving the most vulnerable to suffer the harshest consequences. The poor are spread across the country, including in former Bantustan areas where there is no rail network, no passenger rail service and no integrated, affordable and safe public transport.
The poor, who already spend the vast majority of their income on basic goods and services, will bear a disproportionately high burden when VAT rates rise. On the other hand, wealthier individuals and large corporations, whose spending patterns involve a higher share of non-essential goods, are less affected by the VAT increase, thereby reinforcing social and economic inequalities. While it is important to expand the basket of VAT zero-rated goods, it is misleading and creates a false impression to suggest that the prices of the ingredients and inputs used in producing these zero-rated goods are exempt from VAT.
In contrast, alternative taxation measures present a more equitable solution. Modelling conducted by the Applied Development Research Solutions, for example, highlight that a mere 0.5 per cent wealth tax only targeting the richest 20 per cent of society could generate revenue comparable to a 2-percentage points VAT increase, not to speak of the combined 0.5 per cent VAT increase for the 2025/2026 and 2026/2027 financial years. Such a tax is progressive, meaning that it requires those who have the most to contribute more, without disproportionately burdening the poor and working class.
In addition to a wealth tax, other measures should be considered, such as increasing corporate income tax, introducing a capital transactions tax and implementing stronger regulation to combat illicit financial flows. Decisive actions should be taken to tackle corruption, fruitless and wasteful spending. By shifting the tax burden towards those who are better able to bear it – corporations, the wealthy and multinational interests – we can ensure a more equitable distribution of the tax burden and generate sustainable revenue for public goods.
The SACP calls on the government to reconsider its approach to taxation and prioritise fairness and social justice. Rather than continuing to increase VAT, which disproportionately harms the poor and working-class South Africans, the government must adopt tax policies that target wealth and corporate profits, while clamping down on illicit financial flows and corruption. This would create a more just society and a more sustainable economic future for all South Africans.
The 2025 Budget Review reflects a continuation of austerity measures despite the glowing picture that the minister sought to paint. This will negatively impact key developmental priorities. Below are some of the critical areas of concern for the SACP and indeed the working class broadly regarding budget cuts, slow expenditure growth, and the overall effect on social services and economic development:
Constrained growth in essential public services
The budgets for basic education, health and policing are only projected to grow at nominal annual averages of 5.9 per cent, 5.9 per cent and 5.2 per cent, respectively, over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework period of three years. With inflation factored in, these increases are barely sufficient to sustain existing services, let alone expand them to meet growing needs.
Expenditure for goods and services is expected to rise by 5.4 per cent, reflecting a squeeze on public critical supplies, which could further weaken state capacity, contradicting the imperative to transform South Africa’s to become a capable developmental state.
The youth unemployment crisis
The National Youth Development Agency receives R549.8 million under the Presidential Employment Initiative, but this is far below what is needed to address the crisis of youth unemployment.
Weak infrastructure investment growth
Despite claims of prioritising “growth-enhancing public investment”, medium-term capital payments and transfers will only grow at 6.6 per cent annually, a sluggish rate given South Africa’s dire infrastructure needs. The construction sector, crucial for both infrastructure development and employment creation, contracted by 6.2 per cent in the first three quarters of 2024 due to underinvestment, despite its high employment multiplier. In contradiction, South Africa needs a bold state-led infrastructure development, maintenance and security. The infrastructure bond that the minister announced should be examined from this perspective.
Review of the budgeting process
While the minister announced an intention to review the budget process, the SACP is concerned that there is no indication of efforts to strengthen measures aimed at eliminating class, racial, gender and spatial development inequalities in the way budget allocations are conceived and designed.
Driving broad-based industrialisation and large-scale employment creation, rejecting neo-liberalism
South Africa’s economic stagnation is the direct result of neo-liberal austerity, deindustrialisation and a crisis-ridden capitalist system that prioritises profit over social development. Since the 1990s, successive governments have pursued neo-liberal policies that, combined with state capture and other forms of corruption, have gutted manufacturing, weakened state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and entrenched a crisis of mass unemployment.
GDP growth remains sluggish, unemployment exceeds 42 per cent and manufacturing’s share of GDP has fallen below 13 per cent, exposing the failure of a market-driven approach. Instead of cutting social spending and squeezing the working class to appease credit rating agencies, the state must drive broad-based industrialisation through public investment in productive sectors such as steel, energy, transport and high-tech manufacturing. Revitalising Eskom, Transnet and PRASA, among others, under public ownership is critical to rebuilding infrastructure and reducing industrial costs. State intervention must reject the logic of profitability for capital and instead prioritise large-scale employment, decent work and remuneration, and structural transformation of the economy to serve the needs of the majority.
At the heart of this transformation must be the expansion of social security and public services to guarantee a dignified life for all. The National Health Insurance must be fully implemented to break the private healthcare monopoly and ensure universal access to quality care. The Social Relief of Distress Grant must be made permanent and expanded to form part of a comprehensive social security system, including a Universal Basic Income Grant, and to support the economy. These programmes are not “handouts” but essential redistributive measures to counteract deep inequalities and the exploitative nature of capitalism.
Austerity must be rejected outright, replaced by progressive taxation on corporate profits, wealth and financial speculation to fund industrial development and social security. The working class must mobilise against austerity and demand an alternative path – one that places economic power in the hands of workers, expands public ownership and drives socialist transformation to build a just, equitable and industrialised society.
Issued
by the South African Communist Party,
Founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa.
Media, Communications & Information Department | MCID
International-Solidarity
WFTU Presidential Council Declaration for the 80 years anniversary
13 March 2025
On October 3, 1945, in the aftermath of the Second World War, in the revolutionary fresh air of the great anti-fascist victory of the peoples with the Soviet Union at the forefront, at the historic Palais de Chaillot in Paris, trade unions from all around the world united to establish the World Federation of Trade Unions. This landmark moment, indelibly etched in the history of the international trade union movement, set in motion an enduring struggle for workers’ rights, dignity, and international solidarity, for permanent peace, against imperialist wars, for a world without discrimination, and the exploitation of man by man.
For 80 years, the WFTU has stood as a beacon of internationalism and a powerful voice for workers worldwide. Guided by an uncompromising commitment to class struggle and unity, its affiliates have mobilized across continents to face every challenge. Under the flag of the WFTU, the working class has achieved its greatest victories. The flag of the WFTU was raised in all the small and great struggles for national and social liberation. The WFTU defended the people and the revolution of Cuba, the people of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Korea in their right to follow their own independent path against colonialism and imperialism. It supported the struggle of the South African people against Apartheid for freedom and independence, struggled for the decolonization in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, and stood and continues standing by the heroic Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom and dignity!
Today, as we commemorate this historic milestone, we reaffirm the pillars that continue to guide our actions. Our resolute anti-imperialist struggle remains at the core of our mission, as we consistently oppose imperialist interventions and wars that undermine the sovereignty and dignity of the peoples around the world.
Central to our mission is the relentless protection of workers’ rights, guaranteeing access to health, education, dignified work, and social security for all.
The WFTU actively participates in international organizations, a participation which amplifies the voice of the working class and forges strategic alliances in our struggle against oppression.
We remain steadfast in our commitment to the education and ideological empowerment of workers, ensuring that every individual is equipped with the knowledge and tools necessary for an informed and militant struggle.
As we look back on the proud history of the WFTU and the sacrifices made by generations of trade unionists, we also celebrate the present strength and growing influence of the international class-oriented trade union movement. Today, the WFTU represents the voice of more than 105 million members from 133 countries—a testament to our expanding reach and enduring commitment to our just struggles. With each passing year, our membership grows not only in numbers but also in strength and unity, reaffirming our role and task as a pioneering force in the international trade union movement.
As we officially declare 2025 as a year of celebrations for the 80th anniversary, we announce that several activities, campaigns, and events will be organized by our bodies, structures, and affiliates. We call upon every worker of the world to join the World Federation of Trade Unions in this rich plan of action, in this rich plan of struggles! Our ambition with these celebrations is to highlight the history of the struggles and actions of the WFTU and to showcase its distinction from organizations of compromised trade unionists and yellow unions that promote class collaboration and integration into the system of exploitation.
This anniversary is not only a moment of remembrance but also a call to action. We reaffirm our dedication to advancing the founding principles of the WFTU by engaging workers across all sectors and generations, opposing imperialist interventions, and promoting universal rights to a life of dignity.
With dignity, honoring our 80 years of class struggles, we continue fighting for a future where workers are free from poverty, discrimination, and inequality. We honor the struggles of the international class-oriented trade union movement for peace and against imperialist wars, and we are committed continuing and strengthening these struggles.
With internationalism and solidarity!
WFTU Presidential Council
March 5, 2025
______________________________
Norman Mampane (Shopsteward Editor)
Congress of South African Trade Unions
110 Jorissen Cnr Simmonds Street, Braamfontein, 2017
P.O.Box 1019, Johannesburg, 2000, South Africa
Tel: +27 11 339-4911 Direct line: 010 219-1348