Taking COSATU Today Forward Special Bulletin, 1 July 2025
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY #CosatuCallCentre number is 010 022 2590 #DecentWork #DecentLives #SACTU70 #ClassStruggle “Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism” #Back2Basics #JoinCOSATUNow #ClassConsciousness |
Taking COSATU Today Forward Special Bulletin
‘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
1 July 2025
“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”
Organize at every workplace and demand respect for labour rights Now!
Defend Jobs Now!
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- POPCRU holds a National Political Workshop this week
- COSATU will present its submissions on the Appropriation, Eskom Debt Relief and SARB Amendment Bills to Parliament, Wednesday, 02 July
- DITSELA Institute holds a Siyakhuluma Seminar-Is the Challenge on Employment Equity an assault on Transformation?
- South Africa
- SACP congratulates NUM on its successful 18th National Elective Congress
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- IndustriALL congratulates NUM on its successful 18th National Congress
- WFTU condemns the alleged οperations that company SINEDOR is carrying out with Israeli companies
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
POPCRU holds a National Political Workshop this week
30 June 2025
The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) will be hosting its first National Political Workshop at the Birchwood hotel, Boksbrg from the 2nd until the 4th of July 2025, under the Theme: "Workers First-Building a Progressive Political Awareness and Consciousness."
Delegates will receive powerful engagements from POPCRU leadership, Alliance partners, ANC, SACP and also from the federation, COSATU.
And other leading voices will share their political analysis, and other inputs will be received from civil society organisations.
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COSATU will present its submissions on the Appropriation, Eskom Debt Relief and SARB Amendment Bills to Parliament, Wednesday, 02 July
Matthew Parks, COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator, 01 July 2025
COSATU will present its submissions on the 2025/26 Budget’s Appropriation (allocations to national government) and Eskom Debt Relief Amendment Bill to Parliament’s Standing Committee: Appropriations as well as the South African Reserve Bank Amendment Bill to the Standing Committee: Finance from 0900 Wednesday 02 July 2025.
Issued by COSATU
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DITSELA Institute holds a Siyakhuluma Seminar-Is the Challenge on Employment Equity an assault on Transformation?
Dear Comrades,
You’re cordially invited to DITSELA’s National Siyakhuluma Seminar.
Topic: Is the Challenge on Employment Equity an assault on Transformation?
Date: 08th July 2025
Time: 11H00AM- 13H00PM
Venue: ZOOM
https://ditsela-org-za.zoom.us/j/94152009081...
Meeting ID: 941 5200 9081
Passcode: 620707
Contact: nele...@ditsela.org.za or ma...@ditsela.org.za for any enquiries.
See you there!
SACP congratulates NUM on its successful 18th National Elective Congress
Mbulelo Mandlana, SACP Head of Media, Communications and Information, 1 July 2025
The South African Communist Party (SACP) congratulates the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on a successful national congress and its election of its national leadership led by Phillip Vilakazi as President and Comrade Mpho Phakedi, elected as General Secretary. We congratulate the collective as a whole on their election.
The SACP reaffirms its position to work together with the NUM and all workers in the working-class struggles against neo-liberal economic restructuring, including retrenchments in the mining and other sectors. The NUM Congress presents an opportunity for the working class to galvanise its efforts towards defeating the forces that stand in opposition to the national minimum wage, attacking our collective bargaining framework and waging resistance to the National Health Insurance, among other neo-liberal assaults on the working class and poor.
The SACP is concerned by the proliferation of illegal mining activities both in the formal and informal sectors, impacting upon the health and safety of workers while at the same time deepening the exploitation of the most vulnerable groups within the working class. The SACP reiterates its call for the clamp-down of illicit minerals trade and financial flows in the extractive sector and calls upon the state to verify each particle, composition, weight, and value of each mineral extracted in South Africa. This is the only way to confirm if the mining houses are sincere in their declaration of the minerals that they have extracted in our country, and to ensure that they pay the correct amounts of tax and royalties.
Towards true ownership of our natural resources by the people, the SACP repeats its call for a review of mineral royalties to reaffirm the clarion call of the Freedom Charter that the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people. This, in turn, demands unity of the working class, across union and federation affiliation, for the dismantling of monopoly capital’s iron grip on our economy.
ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY,
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA.
Media, Communications & Information Department | MCID
International-Solidarity
IndustriALL congratulates NUM on its successful 18th National Congress
30 June 2025
On 24-26 June, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), South Africa’s largest mining union with 180,000 members
, convened its 18th national congress in Johannesburg
🇿🇦 under the theme “Epoch for the dictatorship of the proletariat now or never.”
Vibrant debates were punctuated by chanting of slogans, singing, and toyi-toyi by workers clad in the vivid union colours. There was joy and laughter as members exchanged greetings, but seriousness when it came to the business of the union.
The congress was attended by 747 delegates and guests from IndustriALL-affiliated unions in Australia
🇦🇺, Namibia
🇳🇦, the US
🇺🇸, Zambia
🇿🇲, Zimbabwe
🇿🇼, the Congress of South African Trade Unions , alongside government and
labour representatives, underscoring NUM’s enduring influence in a sector critical to South Africa’s economy Mining contributes about 8 per cent to GDP and accounts for 60 per cent of exports, driven by gold, platinum, coal, iron ore, manganese, diamonds and
rare earth elements.
Phillip Vilakazi, newly elected NUM president, stressed unity and union revitalization from the branch level as strategies to increase membership in the future.
Mpho Phakedi, newly elected general secretary, delivered the organizational report, emphasizing resilience
amid adversity:
“Our achievements and struggles reflect the unity of our membership and the evolving realities of our sectors,” he said.
However, he flagged a gradual decline in mining jobs due to mechanisation, automation, contractor reliance, and layoffs, posing challenges to union recruitment and job security. South Africa’s unemployment rate, hovering at 32.9% in Q1 2025 according to Stats
SA, worsens these pressures, intensified by persistent poverty, inequality , and rising gender-based violence and sexual harassment in the mines.
Atle Høie, IndustriALL general secretary, said:
“We need human rights due diligence in supply chains, notably for batteries , amid rising job losses, and Section 189 retrenchment notices need international attention.”
He reiterated solidarity rooted in a decades-long partnership, and highlighted collaborative efforts on a Just Transition , particularly in coal, through the Sub-Saharan Africa Energy Network. Additionally, he called for action against multinationals that
violate workers’ rights through company networks like Glencore, Anglo American and Rio Tinto.
The congress discussions reaffirmed the union’s role as a shield against sectoral decline, protecting workers’ rights in a vital yet volatile industry. Yet, with automation and global trade disruptions intensifying , the union continues to confront challenges
as it fights to save jobs.
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WFTU condemns the alleged οperations that company SINEDOR is carrying out with Israeli companies
BY CENTRAL WFTU, 30 JUN 2025
The World Federation of Trade Unions, representing more than 110 million workers in 134 countries of the 5 condinents strongly condemns the allegedly operations that company SINEDOR is carring with Israeli companies, knowing that the product being offered is being used to develop tanks involving in the committing genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
The WFTU strongly condemns any collaboration with the war machine of the murderous state of Israel and calls for a boycott of Israel, especially for activities linked with its military operations and the crimes against Palestinians.
-Noting that on 26 January 2024, the International Criminal Court ordered Israel to ‘take all possible measures’ to ‘prevent’ genocide in Gaza, recognising that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it sought protection were plausible.
-Noting that on 26 May 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel must ‘immediately’ stop its military offensive in Rafah, in southern Gaza, in response to South Africa’s request that the court issue this decision as an emergency measure, stating that Israel’s activities in Rafah constitute a ‘genocidal’ operation and threaten the survival of the Palestinian people.
-Noting that on 20 May 2024, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced that he had requested arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Galant, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
-And if the news published in various media outlets about the SINEDOR collaboration with the Israeli murderous state is true, we demand the immediate and unconditional end of the partnership without exception.
No support of the Israeli crimes
Stop the Genocide – Free Palestine
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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