Taking COSATU Today Forward, 29 June 2026
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY COSATU Call Center Contacts: 010 002 2590 #NEHAWU scheduled to wrap up its 13th National Congress proceedings today at Boksburg… #WorkerControl #CosatuNationalActionAgainstHighCostofLiving #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
29 June 2026
“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- Media Advisory: Western Cape Coalition Against Xenophobia (WCC-AX) and
- COSATU to hold press conference rejecting the 30 June "Deadline"
- SADTU North West Statement Post Provincial Executive Committee Meeting.
- COSATU KZN submission on KZN Summit on undocumented foreign nationals
- Media Advisory-Media Accreditation: NUM Central Committee Meeting (29 June – 2 July 2026)
- South Africa
- COSATU President Zingiswa Losi message of Support NEHAWU National Congress
- June 27, 2026
- COSATU General Secretary Message of Support: Online Rally Against the 30 June National Shutdown Call
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- AI and cognitive offloading: supporting teachers to shape AI’s impact on learning -Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics#ClassWar
Media Advisory: Western Cape Coalition Against Xenophobia (WCC-AX) and
COSATU to hold press conference rejecting the 30 June "Deadline"
28 June 2026
You are cordially invited to a joint press conference hosted by the Western
Cape Coalition Against Xenophobia (WCC-AX) and the Congress of South
African Trade Unions (COSATU) Western Cape.
The purpose is to address our collective rejection of the so-called "30 June
deadline" and to outline our position on the matter.
Date: Monday, 29 June 2026
Time: 12H00 (Noon)
Venue: Community House
41 Salt River Road
Salt River, Cape Town
Speakers:
The WCC-AX and COSATU stand united in opposing the 30 June deadline,
which we view as unjust and harmful to vulnerable communities. This press
conference will detail our formal stance, the reasons for our opposition, and
the way forward.
We look forward to your attendance.
Issued by COSATU Western Cape and the Western Cape Coalition Against
Xenophobia (WCC-AX).
For interview requests, or further information, please contact:
Malvern De Bruyn on 060 977 9027
Roger Etkind 082 585 5385
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SADTU North West Statement Post Provincial Executive Committee Meeting.
George Themba, SADTU North West Provincial Secretary, 27 June 2026
The Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) of SADTU North West convened its first meeting following a highly successful Provincial Conference, which adopted progressive resolutions aimed at strengthening the organisation and advancing the interests of educators, workers, learners, and communities across the province.
The PEC reflected on the outcomes of the Provincial Conference and reaffirmed its commitment to implementing the resolutions adopted by delegates. These resolutions are intended to deepen organisational unity, strengthen workplace organisation, and enhance the union's capacity to effectively represent its members.
The PEC also undertook a comprehensive assessment of the state of education in the province and expressed serious concern over several persistent challenges confronting employees and the broader education sector.
These include:
- Delays in the processing and payment of pension benefits to qualifying employees;
- The continued non-payment of acting allowances to deserving employees.
- The poor state of infrastructure in departmental offices and institutions, which poses serious Occupational Health and Safety concerns for employees and the public.
- The failure to fill critical vacancies for school support staff.
- Delays in the conversion of temporary educators to permanent positions.
- The incorrect implementation of Collective Agreement 4 of 2016.
- The challenges affecting schools due to Post Provisioning Norms (PPN) and
- Other labour relations and human resource challenges negatively affecting service delivery and employee morale.
The PEC noted with concern the slow pace at which the Department of Education is responding to and resolving these longstanding matters. While engagements have taken place on some of these issues, progress remains unsatisfactory and continues to disadvantage workers and undermine the effective functioning of schools and offices.
The PEC therefore resolved to intensify its efforts in ensuring that these matters receive the urgent attention they deserve. SADTU will utilise all available and relevant engagement platforms, including bilateral meetings, collective bargaining structures, and other established forums, to push for concrete interventions and lasting solutions.
SADTU remains committed to constructive engagement with the Department while steadfastly defending the rights and interests of its members. The union will continue to hold the employer accountable and ensure that commitments made are translated into tangible outcomes.
However, should these engagements fail to produce satisfactory outcomes, the union reserves the right to mobilise its members and pursue all possible avenues and collective actions necessary to defend the interest of educators and learners.
The PEC further called on all SADTU structures and members to remain united, vigilant, and actively involved in the implementation of conference resolutions as the union continues to champion quality public education and decent working conditions for all education workers.
ISSUED BY Provincial Secretariat
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COSATU KZN submission on KZN Summit on undocumented foreign nationals
Edwin Mkhize, COSATU KwaZulu Natal Provincial Secretary, 25 June 2026
South Africa, Migration, and the Need for a Balanced Approach
South Africa's challenges relating to undocumented foreign nationals must be understood within their proper historical, social, and economic context.
Migration crisis is not just an African problem alone, other continents and states such as Germany, France, Italy and Greece challenge in Europe, India, United States etc, have also faced similar challenge. In all these countries, debates focus on balancing human rights, national sovereignty, economic planning, labour standards, and public safety.
South Africans have historically demonstrated solidarity with neighbouring countries and liberation struggles throughout the continent. The values of Ubuntu, African solidarity, and internationalism have long shaped our relations within the SADC region, and the African Continent at large. During the struggle against apartheid, many neighbouring countries made enormous sacrifices in support of South Africa's liberation. These historical ties must never be forgotten.
Our understanding is that the issue, many South Africans raise is not opposition to migration itself, but rather the need for lawful, regulated migration, effective border management, and accountability from both the state and employers.
The overwhelming majority of South Africans are not calling for the exclusion of people from neighbouring countries or elsewhere on the continent. Rather, they are calling for a lawful, regulated, and fair immigration system where every person residing in South Africa possesses legitimate documentation and is subject to the same legal and administrative processes.
Every sovereign state has a responsibility to know who is within its borders, to combat criminality, to protect workers from exploitation, and to ensure that development planning is informed by accurate demographic and economic data.
Workers of the world unite; we have nothing to lose but our chains. The chains confronting workers today are inequality, poverty, unemployment, exploitation, corruption, and capitalist greed. These are the fundamental enemies of both South African and migrant workers.
The challenge of undocumented migration cannot only be addressed by targeting vulnerable people while ignoring the systemic failures that create the problem. There must be be a balance approach and our focus should be on the following priorities:
- Strengthen Border Management and Eliminate Corruption
The first priority must be securing and modernising border management systems. This includes combating corruption among officials, strengthening border controls, improving immigration systems, and ensuring that entry and exit processes are properly monitored and enforced.
- Ensure Fair and Consistent Immigration Enforcement
South Africa must apply immigration laws consistently. Enforcement should not focus only on poor African migrants who cross borders through rivers and fences. It must also address visa overstays, fraudulent permits, and undocumented residents who enter through airports and formal channels, irrespective of nationality, race, class, or economic status.
Combat Organised Crime - law enforcement agencies must prioritise individuals and syndicates involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, violent crime, illicit financial activities, and other criminal enterprises, regardless of nationality. Criminality must not be confused with migration.
Address Long-Standing Criminal Networks - persistent challenges, including prostitution syndicates, human trafficking networks, labour brokerage abuses, and other organised criminal activities, require coordinated action from law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Intensify the Fight Against Crime and Corruption - crime and corruption weaken state institutions and undermine public confidence. South Africa must support honest officials and strengthen the capacity of institutions responsible for combating corruption and organised crime.
Hold Exploitative Employers Accountable - many employers deliberately employ undocumented workers to suppress wages, avoid labour legislation, evade taxes, and undermine collective bargaining. These employers contribute directly to worker exploitation and unemployment. Strong action must be taken against businesses that profit from illegal labour practices.
Close Illegal Businesses - authorities must act decisively against businesses operating outside legal and regulatory frameworks, including those that evade tax obligations, labour standards, licensing requirements, and municipal regulations.
Eliminate Counterfeit and Illicit Trade - the proliferation of counterfeit goods and illicit trading networks undermines legitimate businesses, destroys jobs, deprives the state of revenue and workers pay more tax, and places consumers at risk. Stronger enforcement is required across the value chain.
Protect Women and Vulnerable Communities - measures must be strengthened to combat human trafficking, forced marriages, marriages of convenience for financial gain or immigration purposes, gender-based violence, and all forms of exploitation targeting women and vulnerable groups.
Advance Inclusive Economic Development - the long-term solution lies in economic transformation, industrialisation, job creation, skills development, and the equitable distribution of wealth and opportunities. Poverty and unemployment create conditions that fuel social tensions and vulnerability to exploitation.
Strengthen Accountability Across State Institutions - Institutions responsible for migration management, labour regulation, border security, customs enforcement, and law enforcement must be held accountable for fulfilling their mandates. These include the Department of Home Affairs, the Border Management Authority, customs authorities, labour inspectors, law enforcement agencies, and all relevant state departments.
Institutions such as African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) must engage on matters of the creation of conducive environment for the working class, protection of human rights, democracy, and progressive economic policies.
South Africa requires a balanced approach that upholds human dignity, respects human rights, protects workers, strengthens state capacity, combats criminality, and ensures that migration occurs within a lawful and regulated framework. Such an approach is consistent with the values of Ubuntu, international solidarity, and the constitutional principles upon which our democracy is founded.
COSATU KZN is concerned about the slow pace in processing the undocumented foreign nationals who have come forward for repatriation processes. This has subjected the people in severe human rights degradation. We call on government to improve its capacity to fast track the process.
To this end, we also wish to raise a concern with the lack of proper planning to protect the economy and small businesses through the development of skills and and financial support for SMMEs, cooperatives and emerging businesses.
We call on our people to approach the current challenges in a more balanced approach.
We call on our government to improve its capacity in handling the matter of undocumented foreign nationals.
Issued by COSATU KwaZulu Natal
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2026 National Employment Equity Workshops Schedule
https://www.labour.gov.za/.../2026%20National...
_____________________
Measuring the Impact of the 2025 National Minimum Wage Increase: A Technical Report for The National Minimum Wage Commission
https://www.labour.gov.za/.../Measuring%20the%20Impacts...
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Media
Advisory-Media Accreditation: NUM Central Committee Meeting (29 June – 2 July 2026)
Livhuwani Mammburu, NUM National Spokesperson, 23 June 2026
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) will convene its Central Committee (CC) meeting from 29 June to 2 July 2026 at the Birchwood Hotel & OR Tambo Conference Centre in Boksburg.
This year’s Central Committee is organized under the theme: “Consolidate Worker Control To Build A Road Map To Socialism.”
Key Speakers & Guests:
The event will feature addresses from high-profile leaders and key industry regulators, including:
• His Excellency, President Cyril Ramaphosa
• Dr. Kgosientsho Ramokgopa – Minister of Electricity and Energy
• Gwede Mantashe – Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources
• Nomakhosazana Meth – Minister of Employment and Labour
• Sihle Zikalala – Deputy Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure
Fraternal Messages of Support
Leadership from the following alliance partners and international labour organizations are also scheduled to deliver messages of support:
• Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) President, Zingiswa Losi
• African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General, Fikile Mbalula
• South African Communist Party (SACP) General Secretary, Solly Mapaila
• South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO)
• World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU)
• IndustrALL Global Union
• Building and Wood Workers' International (BWI)
Accreditation Process
Members of the media are urged to apply for accreditation timeously. Please note that the NUM will not be able to accommodate last-minute or late accreditation requests due to security protocols.
To apply, please email your details (Full Name, Media House, Designation, and Contact Number) to the following officials:
• Livhuwani Mammburu (NUM National Spokesperson)
◦ Cell: 083 809 3257
◦ Email: lmam...@num.org.za, mamm...@gmail.com,
• Luphert Chilwane (NUM Media Officer)
◦ Cell: 083 809 3255
◦ Email: lchi...@num.org.za
South Africa #ClassSolidarity
COSATU President Zingiswa Losi message of Support NEHAWU National Congress
June 27, 2026
Zingiswa Losi, COSATU President, June 27, 2026
Programme Director, Comrade Mike Shingange, President of NEHAWU and First Deputy President of COSATU;
General Secretary Zola Saphetha;
National, provincial and local leadership of our militant affiliate, NEHAWU;
Leadership of the ANC led by Cde 1st DSG Nomvula Mokonyane
Leadership of the SACP, led by Cde GS Cde Solly Africa Mapaila
CEC of COSATU;
Former leaders of this glorious union
International guests and friends, Most importantly, the members of NEHAWU.
Thokozani, Camagwini kubantwana bethongo
Comrade Mike Shingange,
Thank you for inviting your Federation, to join you for this historic congress. We are honoured to be here, to offer our full support to NEHAWU and most critically, to hear the struggles of our members from public service departments to public sector entities and to listen to the successes and challenges facing workers on the ground.
We thank President Shingange and General Secretary Zola Sapetha and the collective leadership of NEHAWU for being consistent and active members of the CEC of COSATU, for engaging in robust but progressive debates and for defending the collective resolutions and decisions of the Federation.
We must congratulate the union of Yure Mdyogolo and Bhekokwakhe Mkhize for reaching this milestone of 39 years. It is a path of revolutionary struggle that has shielded cleaners and nurses from some of the worst forms of exploitation, defended Community Health Workers and uplifted ordinary public servants from the shackles of apartheid to being recognised for the public service they provide to the nation.
We salute you on behalf of the entire Federation of Elijah Barayi and Ray Alexander.
It is no accident that COSATU will soon be celebrating 41 years of continuous struggle. We are humbled that throughout this journey of toil and sacrifice, COSATU and NEHAWU have stood as one.
This is a unity of the working class that is grounded in ideological consciousness…in pursuit of the principles of scientific socialism and whose unity must always be jealously guarded. We dare not take our Affiliates, our Federation, our Alliance for granted.
It is important that we pay heed to the wise words of Amilcar Cabral “Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children”.
The challenges facing the working class and the rural poor are immense, they are dire. It is no exaggeration to state that the working class is under siege.
Workers, in particular the youth, battle to find work in an economy barely growing at 1% per annum, with a 43.7% unemployment rate. We remain the world’s most unequal society, faced with entrenched levels of poverty and inequality.
This necessitates that we respond collectively and decisively as the Alliance. We cannot continue naively, upon a path of neo-liberalism and reckless austerity budget cuts. To repeat the mistakes of the past is to continue to reap the very same socio-economic crises.
COVID-19 proved beyond doubt, the critical role of a capacitated developmental state. The working class and the poor do not have the luxury of medical aid, private schools and security. They depend upon a well-oiled state to uplift them from the bondages of poverty.
It was during COVID-19 that our healthcare workers protected the nation, saving millions of lives. It was during this global pandemic that, COSATU with government and social partners put in place one of the world’s largest economic and social relief packages, including more than R65 billion from the Unemployment Insurance Fund that enabled 5.7 million workers from our restaurants to our textile factories to feed their families.
We must be careful in our moments of anger not to abandon the battlefield of class struggle. Some ask, what is the point of Nedlac, our statutory social dialogue forum? Yet…it is at Nedlac that time and again we have defended the hard-won rights of workers and improved the lives of the working class.
When some wanted to end the COVID-19 socio-economic relief package, it was COSATU that stepped to ensure it continued.
Today, 8 million unemployed persons receive the SRD Grant, that with all its limitations…. is a foundation for the Basic Income Grant.
It was COSATU that intervened with the recent fuel price hikes with government, to ensure that R18 billion fuel levy relief was provided to cushion commuters.
We are not elected to merely lament on the challenges facing workers but to find and implement progressive solutions. When clothing workers were not paid during COVID and the UIF was unable to dispense relief in time, COSATU and SACTWU tabled the Two-Pot Pension Reforms. Today more than 4 million workers, including many public servants, have received over R70 billion relief.
We are now engaging government on the next phase of these reforms, to reduce the suffocating tax and provide greater relief for struggling workers. Whilst we continue to push forward, we must avoid the temptation to denounce our own victories.
Workers are battling retrenchments on a daily basis, and many are injured during the course of work yet, when they go to claim monies due to them from the UIF and the Compensation Fund, they are met with never ending queues, delays and frustration. Can we emerge from this conference with a concrete set of proposals on what must be done to fix these public sector institutions that exist to serve the working class?
We must congratulate our public sector unions and the Federation on a battle won to stop the abusive increase GEMS sought to impose upon members. This is what a fighting trade union movement does. We must extend such campaigns across all medical aids.
We must ramp up our fight in defence of the National Health Insurance as the only path to achieving universal healthcare. We dare not lose this war comrades. We must be on the ground and in the courts.
COSATU was insulted when we tabled the Eskom debt relief package in 2019, we persevered and today Eskom has turned the corner and defeated the loadshedding that once crippled the economy. Now we must defend this anchor of industrial growth and block any attempt to privatise it. We must ensure that Eskom is assisted to make electricity affordable for economic growth.
The recovery of Transnet and Metro Rail prove that the state can and must be fixed and not abandoned to privatisation. More must be done to return these and other critical State-Owned Enterprises to full capacity. This is not a luxury but essential to growing the economy and creating decent jobs.
The Federation has long agreed to champion Proudly South Africa and Buy Local. But when we ask affiliates for reports on this, we are met by silence. Are our investments supporting companies that produce locally produced goods? Are the t-shirts and bags purchased for this conference made in South Africa?
A discussion is needed about the role of the Public Investment Corporation. These are workers’ hard-earned pensions and insurance funds. They must be used to ensure workers can retire in comfort and to provide relief for workers when in need. They must be mobilised to stimulate inclusive economic growth and industrial development, to tackle unemployment and to ease the cost of living burden upon members.
We must express our frustration about the challenges many public servants, teachers and police officers face when it comes to the affordability of housing.
What is our plan to ensure the GEPF provides affordable home loans and housing subsidies for our members?
Why is this a matter for conference resolutions but not for implementation?
The Minister for Higher Education and Training has correctly called for an overhaul of our SETAs. This is long overdue. Our economy is struggling to grow, and our youth lack the skills of the economy of today, let alone tomorrow.
Why are we silent as comrades who organise the SETAs on this urgent matter?
Or are we content to allow the mismanagement and looting of workers’ monies?
The danger of the call by some to abandon Nedlac, to withdraw from engaging, even your class enemies, is that you will leave the site of contestation to your opponents and rivals. When the original proposals to amend the labour laws were tabled at Nedlac, they were nothing less than an assault upon the hard-won rights of workers that generations fought for. We were presented with a fait accompli that would have gutted our labour protections.
Some chose to run away from engaging at Nedlac. COSATU stayed and persevered and succeeded securing agreement to double severance pay, to expand maternity and parental leave, to extend labour protections to vulnerable workers, to protect the Minimum Wage from deductions, and most critically to defend our hard-won rights.
It is easy to criticise and denounce.
We were insulted as COSATU when the National Minimum Wage came into effect yet today it has doubled for 1 million domestic workers, increased by 66% for 1 million farm workers and by 50% overall in the few years it has been here. It has raised the wages of 6 million vulnerable workers from construction sites to petrol stations. This is victory of the Federation of John Gomomo and Nana Abrahams.
Former President Thabo Mbeki correctly said that “Gloom and despondency have never defeated adversity. Trying times need courage and resilience. Our strength as a people is not tested during the best of times.”
Our alliance with the African National Congress, the leader of the liberation movement, and the South African Communist Party, is not a fair-weather friendship, it is the most effective and only vehicle to secure the total emancipation of the working class. Yes, each Alliance Partner, including ourselves, are faced with serious challenges, and own goals, but to abandon the Alliance which defeated apartheid and set the nation on the path of transformation and ultimately of building socialism would be reckless at best.
The September 2025 COSATU Central Committee mandated the Federation to defend the Alliance and engage each Alliance Partner on the need to unite and to reconfigure the Alliance. We are encouraged that an Alliance Summit to do exactly this is to be convened by the beginning of August.
This is not a matter that we can abandon nor allow workers to be divided over. We need an ANC that is renewed and biased towards the working class. We need an SACP that is capacitated and on the ground. We need an Alliance that is able to provide clear political direction to government at all levels and to hold it accountable.
We dare not fail when the very gains of the 1994 democratic breakthrough are at stake. The lessons of 2024 require the Alliance to unite and flesh out the modalities of contesting the 2026 local elections. We need our Alliance Partners to work with the Federation to find each other. Now is not the time not to allow our narrow differences to divide us.
Karl Marx correctly implored the Proletariat of the World to Unite and that is what guides this Federation of Violet Seboni and John Nkadimeng.
Our struggles are not unique to South Africa. Workers from Zimbabwe to Myanmar are under siege. This is why COSATU and its Affiliates must continue to raise the red banner of international solidarity from the ILO to SATUCC, from ITUC to WFTU. We must leave no corner uncontested.
Whilst some may dismiss social dialogue, it is COSATU and the international labour movement with the support of our government, that forced the ILO to adopt Convention 190 to End Violence and Harassment in the World of Work. Today its principles have been cast into our labour and criminal laws to protect our daughters and sisters as they seek to earn living as waitresses or receptionists, as paramedics or cleaners.
Recently the International Court of Justice ruled in favour of our demand to declare the right to strike an inalienable right of all workers. This is a powerful tool in defence of workers and the labour movement by which all governments can be held accountable.
Some question why COSATU engages in matters of trade from AGOA with the US to the EPA with the EU, to the FTA with China and India yet it is our motor manufacturing, farm and clothing workers whose jobs will be lost if the voice of workers is not heard. It is the tax revenues that the state depends upon to pay the staff of SARS and Home Affairs that will be in danger if we do not ensure that South Africa exports can be sold.
We must not be naïve comrades, the most reactionary forms of right-wing chauvinism are on the rise across the world, from the industrialised west to even here at home. It is during these dark times that the left and the labour movement must be united.
It is during these naked assaults that we must ramp up solidarity, not slogans, to provide support to workers in Cuba, Venezuela, Palestine and eSwatini.
We must be equally clear that we reject all forms of xenophobia, violence, criminality and vigilantism. Our laws must be obeyed at all times, by South Africans and those who chose to come to South Africa. Only the state must enforce our laws.
Government must abandon the austerity budget cuts that have weakened the ability of the state to enforce the rule of law and it must act without fear or favour against criminals.
Equally we reject accusations that South Africa is xenophobic. We expect people, including visitors, to respect our laws, including immigration. We expect our sister African nations’ governments to embrace democracy and human rights and to create jobs and economic opportunities for their people in their countries.
South African cannot carry this burden along, not when we are battling a 43.7% unemployment rate, when our public services are overstretched and our crime levels are unacceptably too high.
Amilcar Cabral reminded us to “Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories”.
If we are to win these wars, to protect and uplift the working class, then we must ensure NEHAWU, COSATU and the labour movement are battle ready.
Slogans are not enough.
Are we content with only 25% of workers being unionised and half of these being members of COSATU?
Have we abandoned the call of one industry, one union, one country, one federation? What is our plan to take NEHAWU to over 300 000 members?
Do we appreciate that recruitment is a step and not the end? Are we empowering our branches and servicing our members?
The reality is no as we are flooded with calls on a daily basis.
Are we servicing and supporting our Branches or are we distracted by our narrow differences and conference ambitions?
We must raise our serious concerns about the loss of once vibrant Branches such as UWC and the dangers we face in repeating this fate at Parliament, NECSA and elsewhere. Let us not be complacent when members raise their frustrations.
Our most effective recruitment tool is a happy member. Let us action our Cost-of-Living campaigns from securing better wages to providing affordable housing to our members.
NEHAWU has always been a pillar of support for COSATU. We are heading to our national congress in September. We need NEHAWU to continue being a source of revolutionary ideas and a defender of COSATU and workers’ unity.
The tasks facing NEHAWU at this conference are immense.
COSATU can only be as strong as our Affiliates, we are confident NEHAWU will continue to be a defender an engine of the Federation of Mark Shope and Dora Tamana. We need to see a fighting, militant, coherent and united NEHAWU emerge. We need to see a decisive and bold programme of action adopted and implemented that unites workers, builds the state, grows the economy, creates jobs and lays the path for socialism.
We do not during these dark days facing the working class have the luxury to give up or wallow in self-pity, nor do we have the time to rest upon our laurels and engage in slogans.
We are confident that NEHAWU will continue to make us proud, to push COSATU to do more and to defend the working class.
Thank you.
Enkosi.
Amandla!
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COSATU General Secretary Message of Support: Online Rally Against the 30 June National Shutdown Call
Solly Phetoe, #COSATU General Secretary, June 27, 2026
“Defend Democracy. Reject the Shutdown”
Comrades, fellow workers, members of the media,
We stand together today as COSATU and Organised Labour, in South Africa and across Africa, because the working class is under severe pressure, and we will not allow that pressure to be turned against fellow workers.
We see the anger. We share it. Millions of South Africans are facing unemployment, poverty, inequality, crime, and collapsing public services. These grievances are real and legitimate. They demand urgent, practical solutions.
But let us be blunt: South Africa and Africa’s economic crises were not created by migrants. It is rooted in economic stagnation, deindustrialisation, mass unemployment, corruption, austerity, and weak governance. Migrants did not close factories, loot the state, or defund Home Affairs and Labour Inspection. Removing foreign nationals from workplaces or communities will not reopen plants, repair municipalities, or create sustainable jobs.
What concerns us deeply is that the current anti-migrant mobilisation appears increasingly coordinated and political. Its purpose is to divide the working class, redirect legitimate anger away from the real causes of our crisis, and portray South Africa internationally as a nation consumed by xenophobia. It also sows tribalism and conflict among African people, threatening the very unity workers need to confront exploitation.
An injury to one is an injury to all. We reject every attempt to divide us by nationality, ethnicity, or origin.
Organised Labour is unequivocally opposed to vigilantism. Only the democratic state may enforce immigration, labour, and criminal law. No individual or group has the right to stop people in the streets, demand documents, raid workplaces, or deny access to services.
You have the right to march and petition for effective immigration control. But protest is not a licence for intimidation, unlawful detention, or violence. We have seen where this leads – in 2008 and after. We will not allow history to repeat itself.
We are equally firm on employers who hire undocumented workers to pay lower wages, evade labour laws, and weaken collective bargaining are central to this crisis. They exploit South African and migrant workers alike. They must be prosecuted, and punished.
Crucially, we must address the root causes of high levels of migration itself. People do not leave their homes lightly. They migrate because of unemployment, poverty, repression, and lack of opportunity. The solution is to support democracy, respect for human rights, and the creation of decent jobs and economic opportunities in the home countries of migrants.
Unless African states tackle unemployment, corruption, and underdevelopment, migration pressures will continue. Employers will keep exploiting that vulnerability to suppress wages and divide workers.
We therefore call for a coordinated regional and continental development programme, and for organised labour across Africa to hold governments accountable so that citizens can live, work, and prosper safely in their own countries.
Governments in all countries, not only South Africa, must accept responsibility. Weak border management, failing Home Affairs systems, too few labour inspectors, and corruption have eroded public confidence. You cannot weaken the state through austerity and then be surprised when it collapses.
We demand a capable, properly resourced, and accountable state with stronger inspection, digitised but staffed systems, and zero tolerance for bribery.
We support lawful migration management and stronger measures against employers who break the law. But legislation is meaningless without capacity.
On the call for action on 30 June: This is not a protected strike called by recognised federations. Workers should report for duty. Government must act decisively against intimidation and violence against migrants or workers, including our members.
In closing, comrades: Migrants are not the cause of South Africa’s crisis. Exploitation, unemployment, corruption, and state failure are.
Our answer is unity, not division. Law, not lawlessness. Jobs at home and across the continent, not scapegoats.
Amandla!
International-Solidarity
#Internationalism
AI and cognitive offloading: supporting teachers to shape AI’s impact on learning-Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4
24 June 2026, written by: Leslie Loble
Artificial intelligence (AI) is unlocking both opportunities and challenges for education, with teachers on the front line of this paradox navigating questions of how to best use AI for
learning and knowledge gain.
The report I recently authored with Pr. Jason M. Lodge, Artificial intelligence, cognitive offloading and implications for education, investigates a profound new challenge: the risk that students will outsource too much of the cognitive work that is crucial
to establishing the knowledge, skill and ‘thinking infrastructure’ that enables both schooling success and lifelong capacity for learning and understanding.
There is a growing body of evidence that using AI can short-circuit the cognitive effort required for sustainable, deep learning, thus creating ‘false mastery’ with potentially long-term consequences. This cognitive offloading from human to AI is especially
risky for school students (‘novice’ learners who are building foundational knowledge and skills) when they turn to AI as a tempting substitute, not an amplifier, increase their dependency on the tool and lose access to deeper learning.
The true educational risk of AI therefore is not simply that students will use it to cheat on an essay. The far more profound risk is that AI may fundamentally interfere with the cognitive processes of knowledge construction and verification, the very processes
that build the long term memory stores and subsequent skills upon which critical thinking depends.
While there can be both beneficial and harmful offloading with AI, emerging data support the observation that unstructured AI use trends toward detrimental offloading, creating a performance paradox: students’ short-term performance on tasks improves, while
their durable, long-term learning is harmed. This trend appears to be driven by the fluency of AI-generated output, which creates an illusion of competence and encourages metacognitive laziness, leading learners to abdicate the generative effort required to
build deep knowledge.
AI, when used as an answer oracle, is the ultimate passive review tool. It allows the learner to bypass the generation effect entirely. By providing the answer, the solution, or the essay, it robs the learner of the very cognitive struggle that is necessary
to build lasting knowledge.
Cognitive outsourcing also introduces extra equity risks. Research suggests that students who possess high levels of content knowledge and strong metacognitive skills are better able to leverage AI to accelerate and deepen their learning and critical thinking.
Conversely, students lacking such skills, often those already experiencing disadvantage, are potentially more susceptible to harmful offloading and missing the learning they need.
The good news is that these harmful effects can be counteracted through purposeful teaching and learning strategies and effective design of AI education technology. These strategies reinforce the importance of quality teaching, with AI in a subsidiary, supporting
position. The most powerful use of AI in K–12 education may not be to replace or bypass the teacher with AI tutors, but to augment the teachers themselves.
The pedagogical solution: From cognitive atrophy to augmentation
The evidence for detrimental offloading is compelling, but it is not deterministic; our report outlines three key pathways to promote effective AI use.
Path 1: Beneficial offloading and load reduction instruction
AI can be used for beneficial offloading, managing extraneous load to free up resources for intrinsic learning. This requires an explicit pedagogical framework such as Load Reduction Instruction, which adapts explicit instruction principles useful for managing
learning with AI. Drawing on this model, AI can be used to provide scaffolding, structured practice, and feedback, all aimed at managing the cognitive burden on the learner and enabling progressive independence, in other words, helping students to become better
self-regulated learners. As validated by recent studies, students explicitly taught this cognitive offload instruction model (such as offloading low-order writing tasks) showed significantly greater gains in critical thinking.
The key is to apply evidence-backed approaches like explicit teaching and cognitive load theory when using generative AI. The NSW Department of Education, Australia’s largest public education system, provides training for teachers in how to incorporate these
practices when prompting AI to produce lesson plans and activities that enable progressive independence and mastery. This can involve incorporating case studies or research of load reduction instruction into the prompt, for example.
Path 2: Scaffolding metacognition to counter laziness
The more profound solution is one that directly tackles the core problem of metacognitive laziness. If the problem is that the convenience of AI encourages learners to abdicate their metacognitive responsibilities, the solution is to design AI interactions
that explicitly demand and scaffold those responsibilities. While these design parameters may not be within the direct control of educators, these kinds of prompts can be used in a wide range of scenarios to help students develop these capabilities. It will
be helpful when AI tools increasingly have these capabilities built in, but technology is not required for teachers to use these approaches.
Teachers can help combat metacognitive laziness by bringing their professional expertise in building student metacognitive capacity and self-regulation explicitly into the AI context. For example: teaching students how to use AI as a tool to check and challenge
their reasoning, thus affording opportunities for learning and reflection; getting students to check AI claims by investigating source information; or asking AI to explain a maths process differently, provide worked examples or generate practice problems.
Path 3: Designing AI as a cognitive mirror and verification partner
The most advanced pedagogical and technological design solutions shift the fundamental role of AI from an answer oracle (which invites passive outsourcing) to a tool that provokes intrinsic cognitive load.
AI as cognitive mirror: The AI is engineered as a teachable novice with a pedagogically useful deficit. It feigns confusion and asks clarifying questions, forcing the human learner into the effortful, generative act of explanation and reflection, thus triggering
the generation of knowledge creation.
AI as Socratic partner: AI is used to create desirable difficulties. Instead of bypassing effort, the AI is used as a cognitive partner to generate retrieval-practice questions, case studies, and Socratic dialogues that force the effortful processing required
for durable learning.
AI as verification partner: Ensuring a model of intelligence equilibrium where the human maintains primary cognitive agency and continuously evaluates and corrects the AI output, guided by a verification mindset.
Conclusion
In a world where cognitive and metacognitive offloading is the norm, the educational imperative is to ready students for it, through deep knowledge and adaptive, transferable skills. This preparation has two non-negotiable components:
Arming students with the deep, domain-specific knowledge and analytical thinking capabilities they need to think critically about the fluent, unreliable output AI can and does generate
Fostering the robust metacognitive judgement and self-regulated learning skills they need to think critically with it, avoiding detrimental offloading and abdication
While the extent and scale to which students shift their knowledge and skill acquisition to AI raises fundamental questions for teaching and learning, it also brings an important opportunity to validate and bolster the role of teachers. AI may be a new technological
vector for education, but the strategies for its successful integration require a strong pedagogical response: enhancing the central role of teachers; drawing upon well-researched approaches for quality teaching and learning; and ensuring close attention to
equity.
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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