Taking COSATU Today Forward, 23 May 2022 #CosatuCEC
Norman Mampane
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#2022YearofWorkersParliament COSATU holds its ordinary CEC session at Kempton Park, Gauteng #InternalDemocracy #WorkerControl #EndChildLabour #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
Monday, 23 May 2022
‘Deepen
the Back to Basics Campaign, Consolidate the Struggle for the NDR and Advance the Struggle for Socialism’
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- Media Reminder: COSATU holds its ordinary CEC meeting this week
- POPCRU to hold a Bargaining and Policy Conference
- South Africa
- POPCRU Eastern Cape distraught over the brutal murder of Singwa Namhla Mtwa
Ø Employment and Labour on conclusion of 5th Global Conference of the Elimination of Child Labour
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- Organizing Madagascar’s textile and garment industries
Ø Employment and Labour on conclusion of 5th Global Conference of the Elimination of Child Labour
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
Media Reminder: COSATU to holds its ordinary CEC meeting this week
Sizwe Pamla, Cosatu National Spokesperson, 22 May 2022
The Congress of South African Trade Unions will convene its ordinary three-day Central Executive Committee [CEC] meeting from the 23th-25th of May 2022 to discuss organisational, political and socio-economic issues affecting workers and the working class in general.
The
meeting will be followed by the usual media briefing to communicate the meeting outcomes:
The details of the media briefing are as follows:
• Date : 26 May 2022
• Time : 11h00
• Venue : COSATU House, 110 Jorissen Street, Braamfontein.
All members of the media are invited to the briefing.
Issued by COSATU
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POPCRU to hold a Bargaining and Policy Conference
Richard Mamabolo, POPCRU National Spokesperson, 23 May 2022
The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) will be holding a Bargaining and Policy Conference from the 25th to the 27th of May 2022 under the theme “Defending our Gains and Advancing our Struggles against attacks on Collective Bargaining” at the Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre.
This Bargaining and Policy Conference will be taking place in the midst of the many challenges faced by collective bargaining in the country and beyond, with public servants reeling from stagnant salaries over the past two years despite their frontline role during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic wherein most lost their lives.
Collective bargaining constitutes one of the utmost important member service delivery processes within the trade union movement, and it is for this reason that we regularly hold such events to reflect and assess the and strategically position our union from time to time, while striving to improve service conditions and the quality of life of members.
Noting that it has an important influence on the improvement of socio-economic conditions of workers, this Conference will therefore reflect of the state of collective bargaining, including strategizing on new approached and developing new policy positions.
In ensuring that POPCRU remains vigilant that its membership, shop stewards and negotiators are continuously upskilled and disciplined to address critical issues during negotiations in order to avert the reversal of our hard-earned gains that advance better living conditions of all members, this upcoming Bargaining and Policy Conference will provide a platform to define our way forward.
The media fraternity is therefore invited to cover the Conference.
Issued by POPCRU
South Africa
POPCRU Eastern Cape distraught over the brutal murder of Singwa Namhla Mtwa
Xolani Prusente, POPCRU Eastern Cape Provincial Secretary, 22 May 2022
The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) in the Eastern Cape is distraught over the brutal murder of Singwa Namhla Mtwa, who was killed by her alleged boyfriend on her driveway at Sdwadwa View in Mthatha.
Such incidents have been recurring, and it is worrying that despite multiple awareness campaigns, they seem to continue unabated.
Gender Based Violence (GBV) is one of the most widespread human rights abuses in the world, affecting individuals everywhere, with consequences that reach beyond the individual and can affect entire families and communities at large. In our South Africa context, the unacceptably high levels of GBV and femicide are a blight on our national conscience, and a betrayal of our constitutional order for which so many fought, and for which so many gave their lives.
South Africa holds the shameful distinction of being one of the most unsafe places in the world to live in, and we have amongst the highest rates of intimate partner violence, and the continued released data from Statistics SA show that rape and sexual violence have become hyper-endemic.
This is a scourge that affects us all: young and old, black or white, rich and poor, rural or urban. It pervades every sphere of our society.
We need to work more closely in ensuring our police stations become friendly-zones, in ensuring more victims come forward, while ensuring pro-active mechanisms are developed in countering such acts before they occur.
This includes ensuring a standardised syllabus for our young men in teaching them the values around gender equality and entrenching values that debunk the myths encouraging male superiority.
In the long-term, the solution to South Africa’s gender-based violence crisis is not to task women with the responsibility of arming and protecting themselves, but rather to change the societal narrative around women and their bodily autonomy.
As we urge law enforcement officers to speedily bring the alleged culprit to book, the union will also intensify its campaigns against GBV.
The best protection is to teach nonviolence and respect for women, only then can we create a safer society for marginalised identities, so that they don’t have to protect themselves in the first place.
Issued by POPCRU
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Employment and Labour on conclusion of 5th Global Conference of the Elimination of Child Labour
20 May 2022
Curtain falls as the 5th Global Conference of the Elimination of Child Labour adopts a six-point plan to eliminate child labour
The 5th Global Conference of the Elimination of Child Labour today closed with the adoption of ‘Durban Call to Action’ to deal with the scourge of child labour.
Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi said the message has been clear: “unless governments pass the necessary legislation. Unless governments and business accept that we need structural change to the economy, child labour will not be eliminated. It must not be about profit, but also about people at the centre. It will also be an oversight on our part not to recognise children’s voices”.
Nxesi said the challenge was how does the conference consolidate the gains made to benefit the vulnerable, “so that we do not go back. How do we strengthen basic education, provide kids with necessary transport, provide a meal a day and ensure children have access to social protection?”
Presenting the Durban Call to Action six-point plan Department of Employment and Labour Director-General Thobile Lamati said the drafting committee had worked day and night to come up with a collective document.
He said in doing its work the drafting committee after having gone through inputs decided that the ‘Call to Action’ should focus on:
- Accelerating multi-stakeholder efforts to prevent and eliminate child labour with priority given to the worst forms of child labour by making decent work a reality for adults and youth above the minimum age for work and;
- End Child labour in agriculture;
- Strengthen the prevention and elimination of child labour including its worst forms, forced labour, modern slavery and trafficking in persons and the protection of survivors through data driven and survivor informed policy and pragmatic responses;
- Realise children’s right to education and ensure universal access to free compulsory, quality, equitable and inclusive education and training;
- Achieve universal access to social protection; and
- Increase financing and international co-operation for the elimination of child labour and forced labour.
The 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour follows Oslo, The Hague, Brasilia and Buenos Aires. The conference brought together ministers, national agencies, international and civil society organisations, businesses, children and academic institutions. The participants had gathered in Durban, South Africa to discuss measures to prevent and eliminate child labour and forced labour.
Delegates discussed subjects ranging from prevalence of child labour in agriculture; the formalisation of the informal economy and the creation of decent work; the need for additional resources and targeted policies addressing the root causes of child labour; the challenge of COVID-19 eventually reverting years of progress in the fight against child labour; forced labour and child trafficking; supply chains and child labour.
For more information contact:
Mokgadi
Pela
Acting Departmental Spokesperson
082 808 2168
mokgad...@labour.gov.za(link
sends e-mail)
Issued by: Department of Employment and Labour
International-Solidarity
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Organizing Madagascar’s textile and garment industries
23 May, 2022
Under the theme - union organizing dynamics in the textile, garment, shoe, and leather industries in Madagascar - the unions that organize in the sectors met in Antananarivo 16-17 May to discuss how to sustain and build union power in a post-Covid economy.
The strategies and tactics discussed at the workshop included having an active trade union membership, shop steward training that improves negotiation skills, how to engage effectively in collective bargaining, representing workers’ interests in social dialogue, defending workers’ rights through enterprise committees, fighting gender-based violence and harassment in factories, and electing effective and democratic trade union leadership.
Further,
shop stewards were urged to study and understand the labour code and important provisions including on labour inspectors, and international labour standards, and how to leverage on existing global framework agreements. Currently, there are global framework
agreements with ASOS and Inditex.
The workshop also discussed the importance of learning about the textile and garment industry global supply chains, and how they were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Knowledge about the supply chains is important to collective bargaining.
On
living wages, the workshop agreed to demand living wages of at least 600 000 Malagasy Ariary (US$150). The government’s proposed 260 000 Ariary (US$65) is seen by workers as a poverty wage. The workshop stated that some of the negotiating strategies and tactics
that were useful in wage negotiations involved having valid arguments that are backed by statistics and data on wages. This bolstered the living wage demands.
Lovasoa Fetra Harinoro, the women’s chairperson for IndustriALL Madagascar which is made up of IndustriALL affiliates from island and one of the facilitators said:
“One of the goals of this workshop is to build dynamic unions in Madagascar. When unions are dynamic, they can quickly embrace change and are always learning new ways of organizing and developing new union cultures. Being dynamic allows unions to adapt to change and deal with challenges.”
Barson
Rakotomanga also from IndustriALL Madagascar was the co-facilitator.
Paule France Ndessomin, IndustriALL regional secretary for Sub Saharan Africa said:
“This is a valuable shop stewards’ workshop as it builds on the skills acquired through previous training. These skills are key to unions’ capability to demand improved working conditions and living wages in the textile and garment sector. We commend IndustriALL Madagascar for facilitating this crucial workshop, and for their active participation by the shop stewards and trade union representatives. Unions are living in a changing world and must keep adapting their skills set to meet the needs of the changing factories and the future of work.”
The workshop, which was held with support from the Sub-Saharan Africa regional office and FES Madagascar, was attended by 39 participants from factories in Antananarivo and Antsirabe who are members of IndustriALL affiliates FISEMA-SEMPIZOF and SEKRIMA. Other participants joined the meeting online.
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Global Child Labour Conference agrees Durban Call to Action to end child labour
20 May 2022
The ‘Durban Call to Action’ includes strong commitments on action against child labour while raising concerns that existing progress has slowed and is now threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflict, as well as food, environmental and humanitarian crises.
(ILO News) – Delegates attending
the 5th
Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour have
agreed the Durban Call to Action, which outlines strong commitments to end child labour.
The concluding document emphasizes the need for urgent action, because “the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflicts, and food, humanitarian and environmental crises threaten to reverse years of progress against child labour”.
The Durban Call to Action includes commitments in six different areas:
· Make decent work a reality for adults and youth above the minimum age for work by accelerating multi-stakeholder efforts to eliminate child labour, with priority given to the worst forms of child labour.
· End child labour in agriculture.
· Strengthen the prevention and elimination of child labour, including its worst forms, forced labour, modern slavery and trafficking in persons, and the protection of survivors through data-driven and survivor-informed policy and programmatic responses.
· Realize children’s right to education and ensuring universal access to free, compulsory, quality, equitable and inclusive education and training.
· Achieving universal access to social protection.
· Increasing financing and international cooperation for the elimination of child labour and forced labour.
More than 1,000 delegates from governments,
workers’ and employers’ organizations, UN agencies, civil society and regional organizations attended the conference in Durban, South Africa. They were joined by another 7,000 online participants.
The event was also attended by child delegates – for the first time in the history of these global child labour conferences – who made clear their expectations that decision-makers should step up their efforts and accelerate progress.
The Durban Call to Action comes as there are just three years left to achieve the goal of eliminating all child labour by 2025 and only eight years to eliminate forced labour by 2030, as outlined in Target 8.7 of the UN
Sustainable Development Goals .
The Durban conference, held from 15-20 May, was the first of the global child labour conferences to be held in Africa. The six-day event included more than 40 thematic panels and side events, focusing on a wide variety of issues related to child labour.
The four previous global conferences were held in Buenos Aires (2017), Brasilia (2013), The Hague (2010), and Oslo (1997). The purpose of the meetings has been to assess progress, renew and strengthen commitments, mobilize resources, and establish a strategic
direction for the global movement against child labour.
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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