Taking COSATU Today Forward Special Bulletin, 6 July 2026
Norman Mampane
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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
6 July 2026
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- SADTU KZN Statement on the closure of uMzinyathi District Office
- Media Invite to the SAMWU National Day of Action
- South Africa
- NEHAWU notes the outcomes of the Portfolio Committee of Public Service and Administration on the Insourcing Bill
- Correctional Services on full management and operational responsibility of Mangaung Correctional Centre
- SACP welcomes Constitutional Court judgment against the Western Cape government in recognition of the right to adequate housing
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- Greece: Significant successes for PAME in critical battles
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics #ClassWar
SADTU KZN Statement on the closure of uMzinyathi District Office
Nomarashiya Caluza, SADTU KZN Provincial Secretary, 03 JULY 2026
The Union notes the notice issued by the KZN Department of Education informing employees about the temporary closure of the uMzinyathi District Office. This office closure is informed by the directives of the Department of Labour.
SADTU has been warning the Department about the dilapidating office buildings that are not being repaired nor properly maintained. This is not the first office to be closed.
The Head Office was closed in November 2025 and even now it remains inaccessible, the Zululand Ulundi office is closed. Umlazi, King Cetshwayo and uThukela buildings are also not in a good state and the Union has no doubt that should the Department of Labour visit these offices they will all be closed.
SADTU calls on the department to priorities the safety of employees while also making sure that services to all schools and the support that schools must receive from these offices is interrupted.
ISSUED BY KZN SADTU SECRETARIAT
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Media Invite to the SAMWU National Day of Action
Papikie Mohale, SAMWU National Media Officer, 3 July 2026
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) invites members of the media to cover its National Day of Action, which will take place on 9 July 2026 in Tshwane.
The march is expected to be attended by tens of thousands of municipal and water sector workers from across all nine provinces, as SAMWU takes to the streets in defence of workers, collective bargaining and public services.
SAMWU members and workers will gather at the Old Putco Depot in Marabastad, Tshwane, from where they will march to the National Treasury offices to deliver a Memorandum of Demands addressed to National Treasury, COGTA, SALGA and the Department of Water and Sanitation.
The march will raise critical issues affecting workers in municipalities and the water sector, including the underfunding of local government, National Treasury interference, the implementation of collective agreements, the City of Johannesburg PFA, the Wage Curve, Business Units, non-payment of salaries and benefits, outsourcing, consultants, load reduction, water boards and the victimisation of workers and shop stewards.
Details of the march are as follows:
Date:
9 July 2026
Gathering Point: Old Putco Depot, Marabastad, Tshwane
Time: From 9am
Destination: National Treasury offices
Purpose: Delivery of Memorandum of Demands to National Treasury, COGTA, SALGA and the Department of Water and Sanitation
Members of the media are invited to attend and cover the march by confirming attendance with Cde Papikie Mohale on 076 795 8670 or via email on pap...@samwu.org.za.
Issued by SAMWU Secretariat
Papikie Mohale
National Media Officer
076 795 8670
South Africa #ClassSolidarity
NEHAWU notes the outcomes of the Portfolio Committee of Public Service and Administration on the Insourcing Bill
Zola Saphetha, NEHAWU General Secretary, July 06, 2026
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] takes note of the outcomes of the Public Service and Administration Portfolio Committee, which sat on 24 June 2026. The session aimed to deliberate on the Insourcing Bill, introduced through a private member in Parliament in late 2025. The session received inputs from the Department of Public Services and Administration [DPSA], National Treasury and the Presidency on the Socio-Economic Impact Assessment System [SEIAS] of the Bill.
In August 2025, NEHAWU welcomed the introduction of this very progressive bill in Parliament, we viewed this developing legislation as a means to set in motion what NEHAWU has been calling for since the democratic breakthrough in 1994. The current character of our state is structured around its dangerous dependence on a highly compromised tender system for procurement in the delivery of services. This failed system has decimated Local Government, given rise to extortionist mafia rackets and it is led to the collapse of vital public infrastructure. The tender based state apparatus is also super-exploitative – reliant on labour brokering and only providing insecure casual work. The envisioned Insourcing Bill seeks to provide the legislative mechanisms required to ensure that all services rendered by the state are no longer outsourced, this includes: cleaning services; security services; gardening services; construction of buildings and infrastructure; maintenance of buildings and infrastructure; IT services; catering services; auditing services; transport services; administration services, and healthcare related services.
The deliberations and resolutions of our recent and successful 13thNational Congress have been consistent with our calls for the end to Neoliberal austerity policies that aim to hollow-out the state’s capacity and to hand these services over to the profit motivated private sector. We therefore saw the notice to introduce this bill as a positive step towards the realignment of our Developmental trajectory with a strong and well-resourced state capacity.
The attitude and response by the DPSA, Treasury and the Presidency are unfortunate but unsurprising. Instead of embracing this progressive proposal that is in line with our shared understanding of building a capacitated developmental state, the government’s Neoliberal bureaucracy in the committee reverted to their uncompromising and tired dogma of fiscal sustainability and economic growth, whilst recommending a staggered and phased approach to the introduction of this bill. The reality is that under the so-called Government of National Unity (GNU), economic growth has been non-existent and millions of our people remain unemployed. This feeble response and approach by government also confirms a massive deviation of prior commitments, through election manifestos and conference resolutions.
The presentations at the committee itself confirmed that many countries have adopted insourcing as a means to reduce costs, improve public accountability and strengthen workplace stability after massive failures of private sector contractors. The 2015-2017 FeesMustFall and OutsourcingMustFall campaigns are proven examples in our own context of the successes and necessity of insourcing. The recent Commissions of Inquiry into corruption and criminality have also exposed how deeply entrenched corruption, state collusion and even murder are engrained into the failed tender system. The latest evidence of this is the disgusting R228 million SAPS Health and Wellness tender scandal, involving a notorious criminal networks.
Blinded by its dogmatic and superstitious believe in the private sector, the same Treasury does not realise that outsourcing is not even affordable, apart from the shoddy quality of the services that it renders. Outsourcing as part of procurement is hidden under the budgetary item called Goods and Services, which has become a channel for corruption through the tenders – with inflated contracts.
As NEHAWU we have called upon the Treasury to undertake an Expenditure Review on total government’s spending under the Goods and Services across all tiers and agencies, instead of narrowly focusing only on the Compensation of Employees in dealing the so-called fiscal constraints. Of course, the Treasury, which is committed to privatisation and to use the fiscus to prop up the private sector at the expense of the workers who are casualised by the outsourcing companies has refused. Today, vast number of vacancies are unfilled due to the corrupt dependence on the parasitic private sector, which in turn causes work-overload on the workers in the frontlines of service delivery. Therefore, we reject with the contempt it deserves - this flimsy Neoliberal argument that claims that insourcing would be unaffordable at the time when government is led by a ridiculously over-bloated cabinet.
Finding resonance with some of the findings of the SEIAS was our 13th National Congress deliberations. We agree that the introduction of insourcing of all services rendered by the state has massive potential to generate progressive socio-economic gains, such as dignified employment and protections, reducing exploitation and income inequality, strengthening state and institutional capacity and public accountability, as well as some alignment with the principles of a developmental state.
NEHAWU therefore reiterates our call for an end to outsourcing, the scrapping of the corrupt and failed tender system and a reprioritisation of legislative mechanisms that will enable the state to rebuild its capacity, to render quality and essential services to our people which remains a key Constitutional obligation - currently handed over to the inherently corrupt for profit-private sector tenderpreneurs.
NEHAWU will be monitoring the progress of this bill, drawing in the voices of workers in the public service to strengthen our perspective in developing our submissions on the bill.
END
Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat.
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Correctional
Services on full management and operational responsibility of Mangaung Correctional Centre
01
Jul 2026
The
Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has officially assumed full management and operational responsibility of Mangaung Correctional Centre, now renamed Grootvlei Maximum Correctional Centre.
The facility will operate under the Grootvlei Management Area in the Free State/Northern Cape Region.
This transition follows the conclusion of a 25-year Public Private Partnership (PPP) agreement between the department and Bloemfontein Correctional Contracts (BCC), operated by G4S, which came to an end on 30 June 2026.
Procedures at the facility are in accordance with the Correctional Services Act, 1998 (Act No. 111 of 1998), and all applicable policies, regulations and operational standards governing correctional services in South Africa.
It can be confirmed that the centre is fully operational, ensuring continuity of services and the safe, secure and humane detention of inmates.
This marks the culmination of extensive planning in ensuring a seamless transition, with no disruption to the daily operations of the correctional centre.
Direct management by DCS reinforces government’s commitment to a correctional system that upholds constitutional values, promotes rehabilitation and reintegration, and places public safety at the centre of its mandate.
Enquiries:
Singabakho Nxumalo
Cell: 079 523 5794
E-mail: Singabakh...@dcs.gov.za
Call Centre: 0860 000 327
E-mail: enquiry.c...@dcs.gov.za
#GovZAUpdates
Issued by Department of Correctional Services
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SACP welcomes Constitutional Court judgment against the Western Cape government in recognition of the right to adequate housing
Mbulelo Mandlana, SACP Head of Media, Communications and Information, 4 July 2026
The SACP welcomes the Constitutional Court decision concerning a case brought by Western Cape activist groups against the Western Cape provincial government.
The judgment affirms the responsibility of government to provide housing, confirms the responsibility of the government to institute policy that intervenes to redress the apartheid legacy of spatial planning and upholds the responsibility of government towards the people rather than to the private sector and real estate bourgeois elites. The judgment also articulates the important principle that housing is not merely about making housing available but is also about the location of the housing relative to the social and economic needs of the people.
The case related to the decision of the Western Cape government to put on sale land in the Tafelberg Sea Point area in contravention of public interest. The sale was challenged by the Reclaim the City and Ndifuna Ukwazi activist groups, among others, representing working-class residents. The activist groups correctly argued that the land should be utilised for social housing to redress the legacy of apartheid spatial planning rather than be disposed of to balance government books and deepen gentrification of the area while promoting commercial interests of the real estate companies.
The case dealt with the interpretation and application of the Government Immovable Asset Management Act 19 of 2007 (GIAMA) and the Western Cape Land Administration Act 6 of 1998 (WCLAA), which regulate the actions of government in administering land under its ownership. The court had to determine whether the sale of the land, as proposed by the government of the Western Cape, was in line with the legislation and its policy intent and whether the sale was aligned with the constitutional obligations of the state regarding land use and public interest, specifically as it related to access to land and housing.
In its judgment, the Constitutional Court held that the sale of the property was in contravention of the provincial and local government’s constitutional and statutory obligations, especially the fulfilment of the rights of access to land and housing for the purpose of addressing the past spatial inequalities in central Cape Town.
Apartheid was a system of racial capitalism. Its key feature in cities was the forced removal of the black working class and poor to the urban periphery, far from jobs, transport, and services. This is "spatial apartheid". Sea Point is a well-located, amenity-rich asset in the inner city from which the elite have consistently sought to remove the ordinary citizens utilising a mirage of policies. The attempt to sell it to a private school instead of using it for social housing was a continuation of apartheid geography by market means. The Constitutional Court is correct to rule that adequacy of housing includes location. Confining the working class to the periphery while well-located state land is liquidated is to reproduce apartheid by other means, which is both unjust and incompatible with the redress objectives of the constitution.
The state must be developmental, not an auctioneer. The GIAMA and WCLAA are post-apartheid laws enacted to ensure state assets serve transformation rather than private-sector interests. The Western Cape government’s conduct reflects a DA-led, neo-liberal tendency to treat the state as a property trader, not as the custodian of public assets. Selling land to balance a budget is a right-wing fiscal approach.
The court also found that the cooperative government principle was violated in the processing of the sale of the land. The failure to consult the National Minister of Human Settlements constitutes a breach of the constitutional scheme. As the SACP, we insist on a strong, integrated, and capable developmental state whose responsibility includes transformative administration of land, taking a national posture rather than a narrow provincial one. In addition to these issues, the provincial government of the Western Cape is guilty of provincial parochialism that blocks national social housing objectives.
The judgment is also significant for municipalities, who are equally obliged to formulate and effectively implement appropriate policies aimed at facilitating and promoting access to land and affordable housing
This victory, however, is a tactical gain with some strategic limit. The judgment is a victory for Reclaim the City, SERI, and the housing movement in that it establishes an important precedent that location matters. The SACP welcomes this as part of advancing socio-economic rights. However, courts cannot build houses. The ruling does not expropriate, does not fund, and does not compel construction, and this still requires the positive actions of the state. The court orders "plans" and "timelines" in line with laws. Under a capitalist fiscal framework, these often remain paper commitments.
The Tafelberg case confirms that our constitution can be a site of struggle against apartheid geography. However, a judgment is not a house. The working class, through the Alliance and mass movements, must now ensure that the state uses this victory to build homes, not just write reports. Land in the city must serve the people, not the market. As the SACP, we seek, among others, to use the democratic state to advance working-class interests within the current stage of our struggle. The constitution and the statutory and policy regime must be appropriately employed to achieve transformation in South Africa. Spatial inequality cannot be addressed without fundamentally linking spatial planning and social housing development. The Adonisi judgment crucially clarifies the enforcement of rights and opens opportunities for judicial oversight over spatial transformation-related issues.
The SACP calls for a moratorium on disposal of well-located state land until a public audit against the transformation and spatial justice criteria is done. Land is not "surplus" if it can be used to reverse spatial inequality.
ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY,
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA.
Media, Communications & Information Department | MCID
International-Solidarity
Greece: Significant successes for PAME in critical battles
by WFTU HQ, 06 Jul 2026
Significant successes for PAME in critical battles in Greece
Two important battles that were underway in Greece’s trade union movement have been completed with significant successes for PAME, sending a hopeful message in the effort to change the balance of forces against employer-led and government-controlled trade unionism.
At the Labour Centre of Evia, in a region with a significant concentration of factories and workers, the workers and their trade unions reaffirmed their confidence in the forces of PAME, which in previous years had stood at the forefront of organizing the struggle. Despite the offensive of the employers, their mechanisms and the forces of employer-led and government-controlled trade unionism, including the leadership of GSEE, which attempted to undermine the mass participation of workers, the Labour Centre of Evia remained in the hands of the workers. The slate of PAME trade unionists emerged as the leading force with an absolute majority, winning 13 of the 15 seats on the new Administrative Council.
At the same time, at the 22nd Congress of OLME, the Federation of Secondary Education Teachers, the slate consisting of trade unionists of PAME emerged as the leading force for the first time in 46 years. This development constitutes an important step in strengthening the militant direction of the teachers’ movement against the forces of compromise, wait-and-see tactics, and support for government policy.
These two successes are the result of the daily, consistent, and unwavering activity of the class-oriented forces in workplaces, schools, trade unions, and federations. They are the workers’ response to the offensives of the government, the employers, and the EU against wages, labour rights, collective organization, and public and free education.
These results send a clear message that workers can push aside the forces that turn trade unions into mechanisms for supporting the employers, governments, the EU, and NATO. They can strengthen organization in workplaces and sectors, with trade unions that are alive, militant, democratic, and at the service of their own needs, not the profits of business groups and wars.
The class-oriented forces in Greece will continue with even greater determination the effort to reorganize the labour movement, to change the balance of forces, and to organize the struggle in every sector and workplace.
These victories belong to the workers, the teachers, the trade unions, and all those who refuse to compromise with submission and waiting for government “saviours” or solutions from above. They are a step forward in the struggle for trade unions in the hands of the workers, for life and work with rights, and for strengthening the class struggle in Greece and internationally.
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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