Taking COSATU Today Forward, 22 April 2026 #CosatuMayDay2026
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY COSATU Call Center Contacts: 010 002 2590 #COSATU National May Day will be celebrated at Polokwane, Limpopo on May 1 #ClassWar #Cosatu40 #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
22 April 2026
“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- COSATU mourns the death of SACTWU shop stewards
- NEIL AGGETT LABOUR STUDIES UNIT (NALSU) Topic: "Informal Construction Labour and the Meanings of Skill: Roadside Hiring in Buffalo City, South Africa"
- Media accreditation for COSATU May Day celebrations officially open
- South Africa
- SADTU KZN refutes the lies circulating on social media regarding voting for ANC or SACP
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- Malaysian workers vote for union — Boeing fights back
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics #ClassWar
COSATU mourns the death of SACTWU shop stewards
Zanele Sabela, COSATU Spokesperson, 22 April 2026
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) joins its Affiliate, the Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers Union (SACTWU), in mourning the loss of three of its shop stewards in a car accident yesterday.
The worker representatives were on route to a Bursary Scheme Stakeholder Committee (BSSC) meeting in Northern Natal, when they were involved in the accident. Other shop stewards who were in the same vehicle were critically injured and hospitalised.
COSATU sends its sincerest condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the deceased comrades. We also wish the injured a speedy recovery.
Issued by COSATU
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NEIL
AGGETT LABOUR STUDIES UNIT (NALSU): Labour Studies Seminar Series, Rhodes University, South Africa
SEMINAR / WEBINAR: 4PM, Wednesday 22 April 2026, Steve Biko Room (Sociology Department), Rhodes University, & via Zoom (details below)
SPEAKER AND TOPIC: Anele Dloto, University of Fort Hare, "Informal Construction Labour and the Meanings of Skill: Roadside Hiring in Buffalo City, South Africa"
THE PAPER: Anele Dloto examines how skill becomes meaningful and consequential in Buffalo City's informal construction labour market. Focusing on roadside hiring encounters, his paper analyses these intensified moments of judgement: decisions must be
made quickly, with limited information, and without formal screening mechanisms. Drawing on ethnographic research, the study shows that skill is neither absent, nor formally stabilised in this labour market, but actively produced as a negotiated and relational
judgement. Workers actively assert skill through fleeting roadside encounters, reputations, repeated hiring, and demonstrations of reliability over time. Employers recognise competence, which they need to manage risk and complete work, but resist credentialed
forms of recognition that would strengthen workers' bargaining power.
Skill is recognised, contested, and negotiated in informal labour markets, and worker agency is crucial to how workers navigate exclusion, assert their skills, and resist the precarious conditions they face. By reframing skill as a situated social judgement
shaped by uncertainty, interests, and unequal power, the paper shows that informality does not flatten skill, but relocates its production into everyday interactions. This analysis challenges human capital approaches that treat skill as an individual attribute
awaiting credentialed recognition, and informality perspectives that argue that labour surpluses render workers interchangeable. By offering a clearer explanation of how skill and inequality are reproduced in informal labour markets, this paper helps explain
why policy efforts centred on training and credentialing often fail.
SPEAKER: Mr Anele Dloto is a PhD Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand and Sociology Lecturer at the University of Fort Hare. His research examines the social construction of skill within informal labour markets,
with a particular focus on roadside hiring sites in Buffalo City's informal construction economy.
ONLINE: Register in advance at https://tinyurl.com/3nyy7pbt
(you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining).
ALL WELCOME. LIGHT SNACKS PROVIDED.
HOSTS: Based in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, NALSU is engaged in policy, research and workers' education, has a democratic, non-sectarian, non-aligned and pluralist practice, and active relations with a range of advocacy, labour and research organisations.
We are named in honour of Dr Neil Hudson Aggett, union organiser and medical doctor who died in 1982 in an apartheid jail after enduring brutality and torture.
MORE: https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu
Kind regards,
Valance
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Media accreditation for COSATU May Day celebrations officially open
Zanele Sabela, COSATU Spokesperson, 08 April 2026
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has officially opened media accreditation applications for Workers’ Day celebrations on 1 May 2026. The Federation will continue with its tradition of hosting celebrations across the country, with the national rally to be held at Old Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane.
The President of COSATU, Zingiswa Losi will deliver the keynote address, with messages of support from leaders of Alliance Partners: the African National Congress (ANC), South African Communist Party (SACP) and South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO).
COSATU National Office bearers will lead provincial commemorations, alongside leaders of affiliated trade unions and members of the Federation’s Central Executive Committee (CEC).
Applications to cover the national rally may be submitted to mam...@cosatu.org.za or non...@cosatu.org.za.
Alternatively, an application form can be completed via this link:
Media accreditation for COSATU May Day celebrations officially open – Fill out form
Applications to cover provincial rallies can be sent to the following contacts:
1. Western Cape- Mbekweni Sport Stadium (Paarl) at 10:00
Malvern de Bruyn 060 977 9027 or Cleopatra Kakaza 072 312 6822
2. Gauteng - Tsakane Stadium (Brakpan) at 10:00
Louisa Modikwe 082 297 2659 or Itumeleng Moloantoa 071 873 5238
3. Free State- Bultfontein Stadium (Bultfontein) at 10:00
Tiisetso Mahlatsi on 077 607 3012 or Mongezi Mbelwane on 072 308 7658
4. KwaZulu Natal Curries Fountain Stadium (Durban) at 10:00
Edwin Mkhize 082 339 7756 or Khaliphile Cotoza 082 339 5760
5. Mpumalanga- Kamagugu Stadium (Mbombela) at 10:00
Thabo Mokoena 082 799 5699 or James Mahlabane 064 753 9055
6. Northern Cape- Open Air Arena (Galeshewe) at 10:00
Thandi Makapela 079 481 9077
7. North West- Olympia Stadium (Rustenburg) at 10:00
Kabelo Kgoro 067 410 4696
8. Eastern Cape - Nangoa Jebe Hall – Gqeberha, Orient Theatre (kuGompo) – Buffalo City, Tobi Kula Indoor Sports Centre (Komani) and Lusikisiki College Great Hall at 10:00
Mkhawuleli Maleki 082 339 5482
Issued by COSATU
Zanele Sabela (COSATU Spokesperson)
Mobile: 079 287 5788 / 077 600 6639
Email: zan...@cosatu.org.za
South Africa #ClassSolidarity
SADTU KZN refutes the lies circulating on social media regarding voting for ANC or SACP
Nomarashiya Caluza, SADTU KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Secretary, 21 April 2026
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) in KwaZulu Natal notes with serious concern the lies peddled on social media platforms including the Asikhulume Online Facebook page and the Comrades in Arms WhatsApp Group whose Administrators are Vusi Gaddafi Mdluli and Sikhumbuzo.
A message is being circulated in these social media platforms that the Provincial Secretary of SADTU has made a call about whether members of SADTU must vote for either ANC or SACP. It must be noted that these are lies and SADTU is challenging the administrators of these pages to make public the recording of such pronouncements by the Provincial Secretary, this includes any evidence to support the claim.
Just for a record, SADTU is a trade union and embraces all members regardless of their political affiliation. Members of SADTU know that they are welcomed in their Union, SADTU and no one asks them about their political affiliations. SADTU belongs to all teachers and education support personnel. It is the only home for education-loving education workers.
If the circulation of these lies is meant to create confusion to SADTU members believing that they will then leave their union, SADTU wants to reiterate that members know and understand the decisions of their union.
Furthermore, members of SADTU are educated enough to distinguish between facts and lies.
International-Solidarity
Malaysian workers vote for union — Boeing fights back
21 April, 2026
Workers at Boeing Composites Malaysia (BCM) voted overwhelmingly to join a union in December 2025, but the company is refusing to accept the result and has taken the case to court in an attempt to overturn it.
The National Union of Transport Equipment and Allied Industries Workers (NUTEAIW), affiliated to IndustriALL Global Union, won a secret ballot at the plant with 85 percent support on 10 December last year. Instead of recognizing the result, BCM management, together with members of the company’s Joint Consultative Committee (JCC), pressured workers to sign a petition against the union. Workers describe signing under duress, in an atmosphere of fear.
BCM then used those signatures to file a judicial review at the high court on 10 February 2026, seeking to overturn the democratic vote.
NUTEAIW general secretary Gopal Kishnam Nadesan says:
“The post-election petition manufactured by the employer has no legal standing in the Industrial Relations Act and serves only to undermine the democratic process. The law clearly prohibits an employer from interfering with employees exercising their right to join a trade union. This is the utmost disrespect of the democratic process and workers’ freedom of association.”
Malaysia has ratified ILO Convention 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining. The Convention protects worker organizations against interference by employers in their establishment or functioning.
IndustriALL regional secretary for South-East Asia Ramon Certeza says:
“BCM’s acts of union busting have clearly violated international and domestic labour law. IndustriALL stands in solidarity with NUTEAIW members and urges the Malaysian government to intervene in the dispute immediately, requesting the company to drop the judicial review and grant recognition voluntarily.”
BCM is wholly owned by the Boeing Company and produces composite and structural products for Boeing commercial aircraft. The company acquired the Aerospace Composites Malaysia manufacturing facility and renamed it in 2023.
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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