Taking COSATU Today Forward , 17 July 2015
Norman Mampane
Taking COSATU Today Forward
‘Building Unity and Cohesion of COSATU to Advance the National Democratic Revolution”
‘Whoever sides with the revolutionary people in deed as well as in word is a revolutionary in the full sense’-Mao
Our side of the story
Friday 17 July 2015
‘Strengthen COSATU for total emancipation.....The Struggle continues’
Contents
Workers Parliament
Ø COSATU #MandelaDay Programme of Action in Provinces
Ø COSATU Mpumalanga in partnership with ESKOM to host a #MandelaDay for kids and unemployed at Witbank
Ø COSATU North West participates in #MandelaDay activities
South Africa
Ø SACP saddened by the death of a selfless freedom fighter, Comrade Patrick Mabuya Baleka
Ø Mbuyiselo Ngwenda remains a true embodiment of the alliance
International
Ø World Congress delegates go to AFT TEACH en-route to Ottawa
Workers’ Parliament-Making Everyday a #MandelaDay; Dedicate your 67 minutes to help others in need!
COSATU #MandelaDay Programme of Action in Provinces
Norman Mampane, COSATU Acting National Congress, 17 July 2015
The Congress of South African Trade Unions will participate in various activities in Provinces to mark the international observation of #MandelaDay to dedicate 67 minutes to enhance social justice for others.
The late and first democratic President of the Republic of South Africa was born on the 18th July 1918 at Mveso in the Eastern Cape. And he rose within the Congress Movement to become a paragon of the struggle for social justice, freedom, democracy, liberation and reconciliation for humanity across the globe.
COSATU National Office Bearers will join communities to celebrate the memories of uTaTa Mandela; Workers’ Hero.
Forward with volunteerism!
Numerous activities will unfold as follows;
Activity | Province/Contacts of Provincial Secretaries | Affiliate | Institution | Place |
Food Distribution to Destitute and Unemployed Workers Providing 21st July 2015, 09h00
Food; Clothing Distribution,21st July 2015, 11h00
Celebration of the Day with Children with Disabilities | Mpumalanga Fidel Mlombo 0827195699/0795110947 | NUM | Department of labour
Klarinet Day Care
Vera Stimulation Centre | EMalahleni/ Witbank
Witbank
Belfast (Highveld Region) |
Food Parcel Distribution | North West Solly Phetoe 0823044055 |
| Aurora Workers | Rustenburg
|
Ground cleaning at Graveyard Local
School Yard Cleaning
Toys distribution at the Paediatric Ward and set up a soup kitchen for Aged
Taxi Rank Waste Management Exercise
Donation gifts to the Aged | Free State Monyatso oa Mahlatsi 0761159923
Local
Local |
| Hlohllwane Primary School
Botshabelo Hospital
4 Private households | Bultfontein
Clocolan
Botshabelo
Parys Taxi Rank
|
Structural Revitalisation, Donations of Toys, chairs; tables and Educational tools | Limpopo and Old Mutual Gerald Twala 0715872872 |
| Makeepsvlei Early Learning Centre | Sekhukhune District Rathoke Village |
Structural Revamp (Painting and Cleaning) | Gauteng Dumisani Dakile 0827271422 |
| Jabavu Old Age Home | Central Western Jabavu, Soweto |
COSATU/ POPCRU soil turning for Early Childhood Development Centre
Renovations of Thusong Children Home
An HIV/ AIDS Seminar on Hygiene and care to Care Givers | Northern Cape Anele Gxoyiya 0828291961 |
| Segami Day Care Centre
Thusong Children Home
Sinothando Childrens Home | Phutanang Galeshewe
Kimberley De Beers
Kimberly |
COSATU/ SACP blanket donation to the Elderly and children at Iqadini Nyuswa children’s Care Centre
ABH Old Aged Home Cleaning and Provision for lunch 23/07/2015 | KwaZulu-Natal Edwin Mkhize 0765228839 |
| Kwa Nyuswa Old Age Home | Stalin Mtshali District
Chatsworth- Durban |
Issued by COSATU
Cde Theo Steele
Cell: 0825636955
Cde George Mahlangu
Cell: 0824149024
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COSATU Mpumalanga in partnership with ESKOM to host a #MandelaDay for kids and unemployed at Witbank
Fidel Mlombo, COSATU Mpumalanga Provincial Secretary, 17 July 2015
The Congress of South African Trade Unions in Mpumalanga working in partnership with ESKOM has planned to host Mandela Day scheduled as follows:-
Activity 1 - (Providing soup to the unemployed)
Date : 21 July 2015
Time : 09h00
Venue : Department of Labour – Witbank surrounding CBD’s
___
Activity 2 - (Providing food parcels & distributing clothing to the kids)
Date : 21 July 2015
Time : 11h00
Venue : Klarinet Day Care Centre (Witbank)
Klarinet Day Care centre is situated in Witbank Nkangala Region it host more or less 150 kids
The centre is privately owned and provides Day Care for kids from 0 – 6 years in the area which is predominantly vulnerable community.
The centre is dilapidated and kids from that centre are from poor family background.
It is against this background that Congress of South African Trade Unions has identified the centre as suitable in order to extend a helping hand to that community.
We have therefore working in collaboration with ESKOM planned to assist the centre with the following:-
Ø Do Cleaning at the premises and yard.
Ø Painting the entire premises
Ø Provide food parcels for the kids
Ø Give clothing to the kids.
Ø Providing soup for the unemployed
Issued by COSATU Mpumalanga
For more information contact:
Cde Fidel Mlombo
COSATU Mpumalanga Provincial Secretary
Mobile: 079 511 0947| 082 719 5699
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COSATU North West participates in #MandelaDay activities
Solly Phetoe, COSATU Provincial Secretary, 17 July 2015
The Congress of South African Trade Union in the North West is calling all its members to participate in all the activity of Mandela activities that are going to take place from today until the end of the month of July month.
July is a Mandela month and we call on all our members to use their 67 minutes daily to do something that can charge the lives of the poor working class.
The late democratic President was born on the 18th July 1918 at Mveso.
And he requested that all of us both the South African Citizen and the international community, we must use our 67minutes to improve the life of the poor people. We must do something for your community; We must do something for your next door neighbour, who has nothing in the house.
We call our provincial government to do something for the poor workers of Aurora including those workers who are hunting cats and rats to have something to eat after they were exploited and dismissed by mine bosses in particular Aurora directors and Murray and Roberts in Rustenburg.
We call government to focus on real poor communities that are exploited and those who have nothing to eat every day.
COSATU North West calls on support for Aurora, Murray and Roberts, farmworkers and farm dwellers to be prioritized for Mandela Day.
As the federation in the North West, we must register our concern regarding farm workers and farm dwellers, who are evicted every after election or every after a national activity such as national/provincial and local election, including May Day activities.
We have workers, who were evicted in 2008, a day before May day and until today no action was taken against the farmer.
The court ruling has been undermined by both the farmers and the officials of government.
Workers were evicted in the area of Stella during the local government election in 2011 and until today have nothing for a recourse.
We call our members and the provincial government officials to think about those poor communities, who voted them the ruling party in to power and today are living in destitute conditions.
Let us use our 67 minutes on daily basis to improve the lives of the poor communities and deal with all those critical challenges facing the poor working class.
67minutes must be our daily activity in all our programmes, and we must bring services to the real poor working class as we are facing the 2016 local government election.
Famers must know that they have no power to evict farmworkers /farm dwellers, who did not support them during their electing campaign.
Issued by COSATU North West
For more information contact:
Cde Solly Phetoe
COSATU Provincial Secretary
Cell: 0823044055
South Africa
SACP saddened by the death of a selfless freedom fighter, Comrade Patrick Mabuya Baleka
Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, SACP Spokesperson, 16 July 2015
The South African Communist Party (SACP) conveys its deepest condolences to the family, friends, our entire Alliance and the democratic people of South Africa as whole, for the loss suffered from the death of Comrade Patrick Mabuya Baleka.
The SACP has been saddened by the news of the death of Comrade Baleka, who was popularly known as Western Sahara for his leading role in the international solidarity struggle with the oppressed people of Western Sahara, Africa`s remaining occupied colony.
Comrade Baleka was an internationalist activist of note. He took part in the South African based international solidarity movement in solidarity with the oppressed people of the world, and those who are suffering under the yoke of imperialist exploitation and isolation, such as the lovely Cuban people who are facing an economic blockade unilaterally imposed on them by the United States imperialist dictatorship.
In memory of Comrade Baleka, the SACP will deepen the anti-imperialist struggle to secure our democratic national sovereignty. This is direly needed for us to achieve the goals of the Freedom Charter and lay the indispensable basis for the advance to socialism.
A selfless freedom fighter, Comrade Baleka was the number one accused in the notorious Delmas Treason Trial during the reign of the apartheid regime.
Details of the memorial and funeral services are as follows.
Memorial Service
Date: 22 July 2015
Venue: Johannesburg City Hall, Gauteng
Time: 14h00
Details of the funeral service
Date: 25 July 2015
Venue: Tsomo Village, Eastern Cape
Time: 07h00
Issued by the SACP
- See more at: http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=4822#sthash.stzeCrid.dpuf
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Mbuyiselo Ngwenda remains a true embodiment of the alliance
Siyabonga Mdodi, SACP Provincial Spokesperson, 16 July 2015
The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Eastern Cape wishes to express its great appreciation of the Moses Kotane Award that was posthumously conferred to Comrade Mbuyiselo Ngwenda by the SACP at our 3rd Special National Congress last week.
The award was received on behalf of Mbuyiselo Ngwenda by his two children, Mbali and Naledi Ngwenda
Comrade Mbuyiselo Ngwenda was SACP Central Committee and Politburo member and the General Secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). He came from Nelson Mandela Metro, a District that is named after him in the SACP: Mbuyiselo Ngwenda District.
We are particularly pleased that he has been honoured during the time when the workers of South Africa and their giant federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) were confronted with, and in turn confronted those challenges.
He served both the organised workers and the working class with diligence throughout his life of activism, and never saw any contradiction in leading a trade union and serving in the leadership of the SACP at the same time as well as being an ANC activist. He always understood a dialectical link between a trade union, a union federation, the vanguard party of the working class and the leading component of the national liberation movement, the ANC.
Mbuyiselo Ngwenda we know would have never turned his back on the movement during trying times in the federation, during the neo-liberal offensive against our movement, during the imperialist onslaught on all the progressive international forces. He would have understood that at the centre of this counter-revolutionary forces are the two extremes, the extreme right-wing and the ultra-left, workerist demagogues. In no particular way would he have chosen both or sought collaboration or support from imperialist centres.
Ngwenda would have remained true to the founding principles of COSATU: one Industry one union; one country one federation; an injury to one is an injury to all.
We further call upon the workers to be vigilant and distinguish between the genuine revolutionaries and the unionpreneurs who masquerade as their servants. In the name of Mbuyiselo Ngwenda workers must never be fooled by any revolutionary rhetoric.
We will always remember him as the true hero of our people, a communist intellectual who contributed immensely in the working class movement and struggle. We wish to convey our greatest appreciation to the SACP`s 3rd Special National Congress for honouring this hero of our people.
As the SACP in the Eastern Cape, in honour of Mbuyiselo Ngwenda, we commit ourselves to work very hard with all the progressive forces to defend the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality in the 2016 Local Government Elections!
Issued by the SACP Eastern Cape
- See more at: http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=4823#sthash.5mwiDAj1.dpuf
International
World Congress delegates go to AFT TEACH en-route to Ottawa
Education International, 14 July 2015
Twenty-three delegates from nine Education International member countries are in Washington, DC, this week as participants in the American Federation of Teachers’ biennial professional development conference, “Together Educating America’s Children,” also known as TEACH.
In a warm up for Education International (EI)’s 7th World Congress, from the 13-15 of July the leaders of unions from Kenya, New Zealand, Mexico, the U.K., Ireland, Georgia, Mexico, Israel and Chile are participating as well as presenting in sessions on the battle against privatisation and commercialisation in education, how to use TALIS in promoting quality teaching and learning, addressing the impact in our schools of growing child poverty, and participating in the Speak Truth to Power human rights video competition. The sessions are part of a program that offers 150 workshops and technical practicums as well as informative seminars by the American Federation of Teachers’ (AFT) national leaders and education experts in the United States.
American Federation of Teachers officers -- President Randi Weingarten, Secretary-Treasurer Lorretta Johnson, and Executive Vice President Mary Cathryn Ricker -- hosted an informal meeting to introduce the AFT’s guests at TEACH to the AFT’s 50-person Congress delegation. They had the opportunity to share priorities and compare perspectives on the key issues that will come before the Congress. There was an air of anxious anticipation for the policy debates that are expected on privatization, social justice, the impact of austerity economics on public services, early childhood education, trade agreements and vocational education.
“The timing of the EI Congress could not be better, as our unions and our teachers are under severe attack around the globe - north and south; we must use this Congress to mobilise our resources and assert our leadership in the fight forward to secure a quality public education for all youth” said Davanand Sinanan, member of the EI Executive Board from Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association.
Everyone agreed that the TEACH Conference provided for worthwhile collaboration in preparing for the 7th World Congress, which runs from the 22-26 July.
Announcements
Enabling COSATU Members to Tweet Effectively
NB: @cosatu2015 has been revamped and now it’s @COSATU2015_
Introduction to COSATU Official Twitter Accounts
Ø @COSATU2015_
Official tweets on current affairs, ideological disposition and for a Question & Answer platform
Ø @COSATU TODAY @_cosatu
Seconds- COSATU roving official tweets on events, quotable sound-bites on speeches/interviews, newsflash etc.
How to Register a COSATU Member Twitter Account
Ø Go Google and type twitter/sign up
Ø Versions of name/surname must be completed
Ø Choose a username/password and don’t forget them
Ø Update your profile; picture, bio
o Picture size should be 700k
o Bio-short narrative who you are
Ø Examples of Bio; Africa's largest Federation Official tweets, the home of the toiling classes across the world, with more than 2million membership...Amandla! Johannesburg, South Africa · http://www.cosatu.org.za
Ø Choose who to follow and type @COSATU2015_ and @COSATU TODAY @_cosatu
Ø And you’re skinning in the game through COSATU tweets
Communicating messages that matter is like artwork
Social Media generation is here and is unavoidable
‘Let’s skin in the game of COSATU Tweets’
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Ntai Norman Mampane (Acting National Spokesperson)
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 or Direct: +27 10 219-1348
Mobile: +27 72 416 3790
Twitter: @_cosatu / @COSATU2015_
Web: www.cosatu.org.za
‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles’-The Communist Manifesto
