Taking COSATU Today Forward, 25 March 2025 #DenosaCongress
Norman Mampane
|
COSATU TODAY #Cosatu wishes #Denosa 9th National Congress underway at Boksburg successful deliberations #SACTU70 #ClassStruggle “Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism” #Back2Basics #JoinCOSATUNow #ClassConsciousness |
Taking COSATU Today Forward
‘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
24 March 2025
“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”
Organize at every workplace and demand respect for labour rights Now!
Defend Jobs Now!
Join COSATU NOW!
Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- SAMWU condemns widespread salary delays in Municipalities and demands immediate intervention and Comprehensive Funding Model Overhaul
- South Africa
- NEHAWU wishes DENOSA a successful 9th National Congress
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- ILO urged to enforce Article 33 on Myanmar
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
SAMWU condemns widespread salary delays in Municipalities and demands immediate intervention and Comprehensive Funding Model Overhaul
Dumisane Magagula, SAMWU General Secretary, 25 March 2025
The South African Municipal Workers' Union (SAMWU) expresses its profound outrage at the ongoing and systemic failure of municipalities to pay workers' salaries, a crisis that has escalated to catastrophic levels and represents nothing short of economic violence against municipal workers.
Today, municipal workers across the country will be receiving their salaries, however, workers at Umzinyathi (KwaZulu-Natal), Thembelihle (Northern Cape), Keis (Northern Cape), Mamusa (North West), Mafube (Free State), and Kopanong (Free State) will not be receiving their salaries as per the letters they have received from their employers.
This situation is not merely unfortunate, it is the direct consequence of National Treasury's dereliction of duty in providing adequate, predictable, and sustainable funding to municipalities, particularly those serving rural and economically marginalised communities.
This crisis stems from a fundamental betrayal of municipal workers. Rather than supporting these essential institutions that form the backbone of service delivery, National Treasury has systematically abandoned municipalities to financial ruin, effectively setting them up for failure while simultaneously betraying both workers and the communities they serve.
The evidence of this institutional neglect is incontrovertible.
The equitable share system, ostensibly designed to ensure poorer municipalities can meet their constitutional obligations, has become completely dysfunctional and characterised by chronic delays, chronic underfunding, and systemic misallocation of resources.
Compounding this crisis, National Treasury has ruthlessly imposed draconian austerity measures and unfunded mandates on municipalities, forcing them to deliver constitutionally mandated services without providing the necessary financial resources. This constitutes not mere administrative negligence, but rather a deliberate policy choice that has pushed countless municipalities into financial ruin. The human consequences are devastating: dedicated municipal workers, already overburdened and underpaid, are being forced to work for months without salaries while simultaneously witnessing the communities they serve endure ever-worsening service delivery failures.
The situation in Mamusa Local Municipality, where workers have been denied salaries since January 2025, and Kopanong Local Municipality, where employees are illegally paid only on a quarterly basis in flagrant violation of their employment contracts, exemplifies the unconscionable human cost of this systemic failure.
These workers who include water services technicians, waste management personnel, and infrastructure maintenance teams are expected to report for duty daily, maintaining critical services that keep communities functioning, all while facing impossible choices between feeding their children, paying their rents, or settling their debts. This goes beyond unfairness, it represents a fundamental moral failure of governance.
The crisis extends far beyond delayed salaries. Municipalities including Renosterburg, Kheis, Thembelihle, Mohokare, Kopanong, Mahikeng, Mamusa, Maquassi Hills, Tswaing, Naledi, Ditsobotla, Nkomazi, and Enoch Mgijima have committed an unforgivable breach of trust by systematically deducting workers' contributions for medical aids, pension funds, funeral policies, and union subscriptions, only to withhold these funds for months on end.
This constitutes nothing less than institutionalised theft, with devastating human consequences such as gravely ill workers are denied critical healthcare as their medical aid coverage lapses and grieving families facing the unbearable indignity of being unable to bury loved ones when funeral benefits are unpaid.
Additionally, workers are loosing out on the interests that would have accrued if their pensions were paid over.
SAMWU categorically rejects the convenient narrative that seeks to blame municipalities exclusively for this crisis. While we acknowledge that poor financial management and corruption at local government level must be addressed, we maintain that the root cause lies in a fundamentally flawed funding model that systematically disadvantages poorer municipalities.
National Treasury cannot continue pleading helplessness while municipalities collapse around it. The Treasury possesses both the constitutional authority and moral responsibility to ensure municipalities are properly funded and supported. Instead, it has chosen to implement punitive cost-cutting measures while deliberately ignoring the devastating consequences for workers and communities alike.
SAMWU therefore demands the following immediate actions:
1. Emergency Salary Funding Intervention: National Treasury must immediately release emergency funds to all defaulting municipalities to ensure all outstanding salaries are paid in full, including compensation for the financial hardships caused by these delays.
2. Complete Overhaul of the Equitable Share System: The current funding formula must be completely redesigned to prioritise the needs of rural and under-resourced municipalities, with legally binding guarantees of timely disbursements to prevent future salary crises.
3. Immediate Moratorium on Unfunded Mandates: National Treasury must either fully fund all mandated services or immediately rescind these unfunded obligations. It is fundamentally unjust to demand services while withholding the necessary resources.
4. Comprehensive Municipal Debt Relief Programme: National Treasury must implement an urgent, structured debt relief programme for municipalities trapped in cycles of unsustainable debt and unfunded liabilities.
5. Urgent Intervention by Labour and Cooperative Governance Authorities: The Departments of Employment and Labour and Cooperative Governance must immediately intervene to enforce labour laws and ensure no worker is compelled to work without remuneration.
Municipalities violating employment contracts must face immediate legal consequences.
As SAMWU, we are particularly appalled by the deafening silence from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), the custodian of the country’s municipalities. Earlier this year, we presented the Minister of COGTA with incontrovertible evidence of the collapsing local government sector, including rampant unpaid salaries, crumbling infrastructure, and workers being treated as indentured labourers. We sounded the alarm.
We demanded action, yet to date, we have witnessed nothing but a continued collapse of municipalities.
The time for empty rhetoric has passed.
COGTA and National Treasury must act immediately to protect municipal workers and preserve service delivery.
SAMWU will not stand idly by while municipal workers are reduced to conditions resembling modern-day slavery.
We demand immediate action!
Issued by the SAMWU Secretariat
|
|
NEHAWU wishes DENOSA a successful 9th National Congress
Zola Saphetha, NEHAWU General Secretary, March 25, 2025
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] wishes its sister union, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa [DENOSA] a successful and productive 9th National Congress convened as from today, the 25th until 28th March 2025 in Birchwood Hotel, Boksburg.
The National Congress is convened under the theme “Promoting Organisational Growth through Innovative Practices towards Resilient Quality Healthcare and Effective Member Servicing.”
Indeed, the congress takes place at a time where workers are faced with a new escalation of miseries, pains and suffocations that threatens their historic gains and meagre livelihoods; and by implication, the working class in its entirety as a result of the implementation of neo-liberal policies of austerity by the government. As a result of the austerity programme of government, the public healthcare system is understaffed and the quality of service delivery is compromised.
The congress presents DENOSA with an opportunity to grapple with various pertinent matters affecting the state of our healthcare system more important of nurses such as education and training, transformation of the nursing profession amongst others and develop a concrete programme of action that will respond to the transformation of the healthcare system.
As NEHAWU, we look forward to the progressive resolutions that will emerge from the congress with a strategic objective of accelerating the transformation of the nursing’ fraternity, as nursing is central and pivotal vehicle of championing the revitalisation the healthcare system.
We wish DENOSA a successful 9th National Congress.
END
Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat.
International-Solidarity
ILO urged to enforce Article 33 on Myanmar
20 March, 2025
On 15-16 March, peaceful demonstrations erupted across Myanmar, demanding that the ILO invoke article 33 of its constitution and strictly enforce the commission of inquiry recommendations.
Earlier this month, hundreds of people paraded the streets in Hpakant Town, Upper Kachin state, Southern Kayin State, Eastern
Shan State, Sagaing region and the business district of Yangon region, holding banners with the message "ILO - we need article 33 to stop forced labour, child soldiers, forced military conscription and bombing of villages."
The Myanmar military junta who violently seized power on 1 February 2021, has failed to comply with the recommendations of the ILO Commission of Inquiry published in 2023. The Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar (CTUM) and Industrial Workers’ Federation
of Myanmar (IWFM) have launched a global campaign to invoke the article 33 of the ILO Constitution, which would empower the ILO Governing Body to recommend actions to secure compliance with the commission report.
The Commission report called for the immediate cessation of all forms of violence and torture against trade union leaders that undermine the exercise of freedom of association, the unconditional release of all trade unionists detained and sentenced for participating in legitimate trade union activities, the withdrawal of all criminal charges pending against trade unionists, and the end of the exaction of forced or compulsory labour by the army and the forced recruitment of persons including children into the military.
On 17 March, the ILO Governing Body published a follow-up to the Commission report. It noted the communications of the National Unity Government (NUG), CTUM and IndustriALL Global Union on widespread violations of workers' rights in Myanmar.
The Governing Body had received a report from the Myanmar military junta on 15 January and observed that the report did not provide specific action related to the Commission report. The communication merely reported on "labour relations, dispute resolution, training, awareness-raising and inspection activities." The military invited an ILO high-level delegation to visit Myanmar to assess the working conditions.
As a result, the ILO Governing Body drafted a decision on the restoration of democracy and respect for fundamental rights in Myanmar, recommending the International Labour Conference consider measures under article 33 of the ILO Constitution to secure compliance by Myanmar with the commission report.
“We welcome the draft decision of the ILO Governing Body that gives a positive signal to invoke article 33 of the ILO Constitution. The everyday hardship under the terrorist military junta must end. International organizations must stand up for the universal human rights values advocated by them,”
says IWFM president Khaing Zar.
IndustriALL general secretary Atle Høie says:
“We stand in solidarity with the Myanmar people and workers in the fight for the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in the country. IndustriALL will extend every possible support to our affiliates to campaign for the full and immediate implementation of the commission of inquiry recommendations at international and regional forums.”
______________________________
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