Taking COSATU Today Forward, 15 May 2025
Norman Mampane
|
COSATU TODAY #COSATU participated in the Inaugural Elijah Barayi Memorial Lecture at UJ Campus in Soweto #Back2Basics #ElijahBarayiBrigades #VoteANC #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
15 May 2024
“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”
Organize at every workplace and demand Personal Protective Equipment Now!
Defend Jobs Now!
Join COSATU NOW!
Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- NUM National Women Structure Post-Constitutional Meeting
- South Africa
- COSATU welcomes the NCOP's passage of the BELA Bill
- SAEPU fully supports the signing of the National Health Insurance Bill into Law
- DENOSA welcomes the signing of NHI Bill by President
- NEHAWU Statement on the NHI Bill
- COSATU welcomes Parliament's adoption of the Railway Safety Bill
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- WFTU condolences for the loss of Haider Akbar Khan Rano
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
NUM National Women Structure Post-Constitutional Meeting
Mathapelo Khanye, NUM Women Structure National Secretary, 14 May 2024
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) National Women Structure convened its constitutional meeting on the 08th – 09th May 2024 at Elijah Barayi Memorial Training Centre in Midrand. The meeting was organised under the theme: “Women, LGBTQIA+ inclusion and Gender Transformation are the centre core of the NUM championed by the Women Structure” Amongst priority issues discussed at the meeting are: Increasing rate of Gender-Based Violence
The Women Structure has noted with dismay increasing rate of gender-based violence that has left many women and children in various communities living in fear. Such acts are being committed by people very closed to the victims. On such matters, we want to call on our government to be proactive, and take much stronger actions against the perpetrators. Gender-Based Violence is a serious criminal offence that deserves harsher penalty.
As the NUM Women Structure, we further want to challenge the Minister responsible for Women, Youth and People with Disabilities to be firm when dealing with gender-based violence.
As the country is gearing up to the commemoration of Women’s Day and the 16 Days of Activism Against Women and Children, as Women Structure, we demand to see the following being modified:
•Protection Order
•Decent accommodation for GBV victims, and those shelters be extended from the current minimus of 18 months to 36 months
•Allocation of budget that will provide proper and adequate funding for the well being and security of all GBV victims Gender-based violence against women and children is a global pandemic that affects 1 in 3 women in their lifetime, surprisingly and or sadly men are also victims of the scourge.
Considering the pandemic of GBVHF in home and workplace, the NUM National Women Structure has established what is called Syked. Syked is a company of professional Therapists and Social Workers that provide counselling on various challenges faced by members of the NUM and their dependants.
NUM Members have an option of engaging with the GBV hotline via virtual, that is telephonic and video contact sessions or self-help resources or face to face sessions.”
Modes of communication are: WhatsApp support line: 010 746 0844
Website query chat: www.syked.co.za
Office line: 010 746 0844
Email: sup...@syked.co.za
GBV Hotline (24 hours): 010 746 3755
Women on Women Victimisation and Harassment
We are strongly opposing the trend and behaviour of women in higher positions using power to harass and or victimise other women within places of work.
No one has a right to abuse, harass and victimise another individual / employee / members regardless of their gender, sex orientation / preference, race, believes, work and or position. Sibanye-Stillwater Job Losses Our country’s economy is faced with significant challenges in terms of job losses. The attitude demonstrated by Sibanye-Stillwater adds salt in the wound of the already fragile economy. The plan to retrench more than 4 000 workers would heavily impact in most family households, with women being the ones carrying the brunt.
When one job is lost, a woman is the one to carry the responsibility of keeping fires burning in the homes. When there are job cuts women and the youth are the ones to be first on the list and solely because of the “Last in First Out” principle, and we are demanding that principle should be amended. If Sibanye-Stillwater is unable to save and protect jobs they must just hand-over the mining certificate to other potential investors who can do things much differently for the betterment of the country’s economy. Regional and Branch Conferences The year 2024 is the year of branches and regional conferences. As the National Women Structure, we would like to wish all NUM members, women membership in particular, that in their preparations and participation towards these conferences they should be driven by one thing, to save the union from the predators. We need to have capable and progressive leaders taking over and pushing forward the women workers agenda.
COSATU welcomes the NCOP's passage of the BELA Bill
Matthew Parks, COSATU Acting National Spokesperson & Parliamentary Coordinator, 14 May 2024
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) welcomes the National Council of Provinces’ passage of the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill. The BELA Bill contains many common sense and progressive provisions that will help to protect the rights of learners to dignity and protection. It is a tragedy that in the course of the public debate some have chosen to deliberately distort some of its provisions and others have simply decided to fabricate things which are actually not in the Bill.
The BELA Bill contains several progressive and some long overdue provisions, including:
- Establishing Grade R as a required part of schooling for all learners. This will help lay a stronger foundation for learners entering Grade 1.
- Strengthening provisions requiring learners to attend school and holding parents accountable for their children’s attendance.
- Clear guidelines for school admission and diversity and inclusivity policies to prevent unfair discrimination and exclusion of learners.
- Clear guidelines as well checks and balances for school language of instruction policies to ensure that learners’ needs, diversity and all South Africans’ linguistic rights are accommodated.
- Recognition of South African Sign Language as a language of instruction and learning.
- Strengthening rules prohibiting drugs, alcohol and weapons from schools and empowering schools to search for and confiscate such items as needed.
- Banning corporal punishment and initiation practices from schools.
- Centralised procurement of key materials, e.g. textbooks, which can help save costs and reduce corruption.
- Making it easier for single parents to register their children at school when their ex-partners are absent.
- Measures to ensure financial accountability and prohibit officials from doing business with schools.
Whilst welcoming these progressive provisions, COSATU remains deeply concerned with several problematic provisions in the Bill that need to be amended by Parliament.
COSATU is deeply opposed to the Bill’s provisions allowing alcohol to be sold on school premises for fundraising. Whilst there is a place for the responsible consumption of liquor in society, school is not that place. South Africa has a serious problem with the over consumption and abuse of alcohol. The high rates of road accidents and fatalities, domestic and gender-based violence, and Foetal Alcohol Syndrome are evidence of society’s dangerously unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Young people are particularly susceptible to alcohol and binge drinking. If we are serious about tackling alcohol abuse, then Parliament must remove the provisions allowing alcohol sales at schools.
The Federation remains concerned about the Department of Basic Education’s over reliance on learner numbers as the criteria for closing or merging schools. This places learners in farming and remote rural areas who live far from schools at a serious disadvantage. Additional criteria need to be included, in particular the distance learners must travel to school and the availability of learner transport.
COSATU urges Parliament to be bold and extend the compulsory school years from Grade 9 to 12. An unaffordably high number of learners exit schools at age 15 or Grade 9 as currently allowed. This is sending an army of youth into the economy without the necessary education, skills and qualifications needed to find work and to take care of the families.
Learners should be required to remain in school until completing Grade 12 or in a TVET or vocational college.
If we are to ensure young people can find work, grow the economy and create jobs, then we need to increase, not decrease the number of learners in schools and colleges.
Issued by COSATU
_________________
SAEPU
fully supports the signing of the National Health Insurance Bill into Law
Mpho Mpogeng, SAEPU President, 15 May 2024
The South African Emergency Personnel’s Union fully supports the National Health Bill as it seeks to transform historical injustices and inequalities caused by the former apartheid state. The president is supposed to sign the Bill into Law today in the parliament (Cape-Town).
The impending signing of the National Health Insurance has shown the true colours of the Democratic Alliance (DA) as a party of white privilege and exceptionalism. Democratic Alliance defines itself as being the most trusted and inclusive party but it waste no time to protect only the whites whenever they think that they are treated unfairly. Majority of the influencers that are opposing the Bill has shown that it is vulnerable to corrupt tendencies and cite many unfathomable but feeble reasons.
The government must first improve the conditions of public hospitals to be on the same level as the private ones before they can implement the NHI. The whites are not willing to share the health facilities with underprivileged “wretched of the earth” human being. Some in the medical aid industry are silent about the policy that is threatening their profit margins from gorging the medical aid prices. They even threatens that the doctors will relocate to other countries if the bill is signed into law.
The normal price of giving birth at private health facilities range from R9 000 to R30 000, the current status quo is a fertile ground for profit maximisation by the private sectors. The white privilege are now whining due the signing of the NHI because they are not ready to accept equality and universalisation of health care services.
The NHI Bill seeks to provide for universal access to health care services in the country in accordance with the National Health Insurance White Paper and the constitution of South Africa. It will also create mechanisms for the equitable, effective and efficient utilisation of the fund’s resources to meet the health needs of users and prohibit unethical and unlawful practices in relation to the fund.
END
Issued by SAEPU
______________
DENOSA welcomes the signing of NHI Bill by President
Sibongiseni Delihlazo, DENOSA Spokesperson, 15 May 2024
PRETORIA – The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) warmly welcomes the signing of the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa today, which marks a remarkable move away from the undesirable legacy of two unequal healthcare systems in one country.
The signing of the Bill will further make way for the implementation of what will now become Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in South Africa, where everyone will have equal access to quality healthcare based on their healthcare needs and not based on how deep their pockets are.
From a nursing service perspective, this move will add confidence and improve job satisfaction to the nursing professionals, who are the majority healthcare professionals in the healthcare system, as they will be able to provide comprehensive healthcare services to their patients without having to worry about unavailability of medication, equipment and resources, which are the areas that will be overseen by the various relevant independent governance structures and sub-committees of the NHI.
Furthermore, the signing of the NHI Bill finally fulfills the nurses’ pledge of services which, in parts, say, “The total health of my patients will be my first consideration”, and “I will not permit consideration of religion, nationality, race or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient.”
The signing of the Bill also fulfills Section 27 (1)(a) of the country’s Constitution, which says “everyone has the right to have access to healthcare services, including reproductive health care…”
End.
Issued by DENOSA.
___________________
NEHAWU Statement on the NHI Bill
Zola Saphetha, NEHAWU General Secretary, May 15, 2024
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] commends the President of the Republic, Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa, for the much anticipated and long-awaited signing of the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill into law.
This is indeed a watershed moment that must be celebrated by all those who uphold the principles, values and injunctions of the country’s Constitution. It signifies a progressive step towards government fulfilling the Constitutional obligation, more particularly, Section 27, Subsection 1, which enjoins government to ensure that everyone has access to healthcare.
The signing of the Bill into law will also set in place legislative provisions that will ultimately dismantle the highly unequal two-tiered health system. The NHI Bill is a result of over twenty-years of dedicated struggle, NEHAWU salutes all the workers, academics, doctors and progressive organisations that made many sacrifices towards the development, adoption and now ascension of the Bill. The NHI Bill went through extensive scrutiny and debate, in NEDLAC, in the Portfolio Committee on Health, two Presidential Health Summits and through public participation processes in all nine provinces through the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces.
The current conditions facing workers’ and the poor necessitate a properly resourced healthcare system. More than half of the country’s health spending takes place in the private healthcare system, which only services 16% of the population and only 9% of the African population are members of the medical aid schemes.
NHI therefore seeks to transform the healthcare spending patterns in order to address the healthcare needs of 84% of the population. It seeks to provide quality healthcare to all South Africans, regardless of their class or race and it also seeks to overhaul the persisting systematic inequalities resulting from the two-tiered system in realising Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
In pursuit of the ultimate goal of the UHC through the establishment of the NHI Fund, which shall be the sole entity to purchase medicine and equipment as well as to reimburse the healthcare providers, this NHI legislation would enable the achievement of the following:
· Access to healthcare for rural communities.
· Better and improved medical equipment in healthcare institutions.
· Dismantling the two-tier health system.
· Access to medical specialist and dentists for all.
· Reduction of the cost of private healthcare.
· Adequate staffing of healthcare institutions to shorten waiting time and increase the quality of healthcare provided.
Whilst NEHAWU is proud to have contributed to the enactment of this legislation, we remain vigilant and are fully aware of the expected litigations by those seeking to maintain the two-tiered health system, which is a relic of the Apartheid system. The opponents of the UHC have become more brazen in recent days, the likes of Afriforum, Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), the Democratic Alliance and other anti-working class elements as they have even threatened the President with legal action should he sign NHI Bill into law.
The irony is that some of these elements were active participants during the NEDLAC engagement processes, they were present at both Presidential Health Summits and had ample opportunity to follow the due protocol on engaging the Bill. The fact that they are now threatening the President with legal action is a reflection of them negotiating in bad faith and in undermining the social compact that they have committed to form part of.
Going forward, NEHAWU will endeavour to popularise the context and content of NHI amongst workers and communities, we will elevate the importance of Human Resources for Health 2030 as a key mechanism to bolster investment in our health workforce and we will be relentless in mobilising workers and communities in our call to end National Treasury’s fixation with neoliberal fiscal consolidation.
The NHI will not succeed in providing millions of South African’s with quality healthcare services if austerity remains. Therefore, NEHAWU demands that the President and National Treasury put their full political weight behind a properly resourced NHI.
END
Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat.
____________
COSATU welcomes Parliament's adoption of the Railway Safety Bill
Matthew Parks, COSATU Acting National Spokesperson & Parliamentary Coordinator, 14 May 2024
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) welcomes Parliament’s adoption of the Railway Safety Bill. This is a long overdue and important Bill to ensure railway workers, commuters and freight can travel and arrive at their destinations safely.
COSATU supports the progressive objectives and provisions of the Bill that seek to overhaul our often-weak health and safety provisions governing our passenger and freight railway network.
Key critical progressive clauses in the Bill intending to improve railway safety include empowering the Railway Safety Regulator and its inspectors to inspect, seize documents and other relevant evidence as well as to suspend railway operations where needed to protect lives and cargo.
We welcome its provisions providing for worker representation on the Railway Safety Regulator’s Board. It is workers who run our railway network. Their inclusion on the Board will enable them to raise serious concerns and challenges immediately, allow them to table practical interventions and solutions, and help ensure the collective buy in of workers of the Regulator’s railway safety plans.
The Federation looks forward to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s assent to this important Bill.
Whilst COSATU welcomes the progressive objectives of the Bill, Government, Metro Rail and Transnet as well as law enforcement need to move with speed to enforce its full implementation if we are to ensure the safety of railway workers, commuters and freight.
We cannot afford a business as usual approach when the lives and jobs of workers hang in the balance.
Issued by COSATU
International-Solidarity
WFTU condolences for the loss of Haider Akbar Khan Rano
13 May 2024
The World Federation of Trade Unions expresses its deep condolences for the loss of Comrade Haider Akbar Khan Rano, the historic leader of the working class movement of Bangladesh.
Comrade Rano identified his name and action with the struggles of the working class of the country, and particularly with the mass rising of 1969 lead by the trade union movement, which drove Bangladesh towards the liberation war 2 years later.
Haider Akber Khan Rano passed away on the 11th of May 2024, at the age of 82 years, but his example and his legacy will continue inspire the struggles of the working class in Bangladesh.
The WFTU expresses the condolences to comrade Rano’s family and comrades.
____________________
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