Taking COSATU Today Forward Special Bulletin, 21 October 2025 #Cosatu@40 #Cosatu40thAnniversary
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY #Cosatu scheduled to convene a Just Transition Global South Exchange next week at Boksburg... #Cosatu scheduled to hold its 40th Anniversary at Dobsonville, Soweto on December 6 #Cosatu@40 #Cosatu40thAnniversary #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
21 October 2025
“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”
Organize at every workplace and demand respect for labour rights Now!
Defend Jobs Now!
Join COSATU NOW!
Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- The Emancipation of Women is the Emancipation of the Whole Working Class-Address by the General Secretary of COSATU to the Free State Provincial Structure, 21 October 2025
- South African Communist Party Press Alert-Activation of the People’s Red Caravan at Mqhekezweni Village, Eastern Cape Province
- COSATU to host lectures in the lead up to 40th anniversary
- South Africa
- Keynote address at the launch of the first community-owned store in Hammanskraal
- Government Communications on National Press Freedom Day
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- IndustriALL demands accountability for attack on PGFTU headquarters
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
The Emancipation of Women is the Emancipation of the Whole Working Class-Address by the General Secretary of COSATU to the Free State Provincial Structure, 21 October 2025
Solly Phetoe, COSATU General Secretary, 21 October 2025
Comrades, leaders of the Federation in the Province, the affiliates, the women workers, and the youth who carry the flame of our revolution.
I greet you in the enduring spirit of unity, struggle, and transformation.
We stand today in the heart of the Free State, not as spectators of history, but as its makers.
We gather under the banner of COSATU the living conscience and voice of the working class at a time when our movement marks forty years of relentless struggle and unmatched resilience.
COSATU@40 is not a commemoration of the past; it is a call to intensify our mission, to reaffirm that the liberation of workers cannot be complete without the liberation of women.
As we prepare for the Central Executive Committee in November, we are called upon to confront the balance of forces both domestically and internationally, to read the moment with revolutionary clarity, and to act with courage.
We cannot separate gender emancipation from economic justice, nor economic justice from moral renewal.
Gender equality is the pulse of the revolution; it is the moral compass that determines whether we are still walking the path envisioned by Elijah Barayi, Ray Alexander Simons, Emma Mashinini, and Alina Rantsolase.
These were not mere leaders they were architects of conscience who declared that a movement which does not liberate women cannot liberate society.
Today, COSATU is honoured to be under the stewardship of its first Woman President, Comrade Zingiswa Losi, a leader whose clarity, discipline, and revolutionary commitment continue to guide the Federation through turbulent waters.
She stands on the shoulders of pioneers such as Comrades Connie September and the late Violet Seboni, our first Deputy Presidents, who helped reimagine leadership and anchored the Federation’s commitment to gender justice.
Their courage paved the way for women like Alina Rantsolase, COSATU’s first woman National Treasurer, who shattered the financial glass ceiling and redefined women’s power within the movement. Together they remind us that the future of this Federation is inseparable from the struggle of working-class women.
When Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (Marx & Engels, 1848), they named the essence of exploitation.
But as Alexandra Kollontai, the Bolshevik feminist revolutionary, later warned, class struggle without gender emancipation is an incomplete revolution (Kollontai, 1909/1988).
She understood that capitalism reproduces itself not only through wage exploitation but also through the unpaid domestic labour of women, the invisible scaffolding upon which inequality stands.
In our South African reality, this means the black working-class woman still carries a double yoke: exploited in the workplace and unrecognised in the home.
It is this truth that drives our Federation’s mission in the present. COSATU’s Gender Policy (2011) reminds us that gender transformation is not a charitable gesture; it is a class demand.
To build socialism, we must build feminist consciousness within our movement.
We must deconstruct the patriarchal culture that limits women’s voices in our unions, our communities, and even our families.
We must teach our male comrades that feminism is not an attack on manhood, but a revolutionary duty a step toward human liberation itself.
Comrades, as we meet here today, the Matric Class of 2025 begins its final examinations.
Across the nation, young minds the sons and daughters of workers and working class are sitting for what may be the most decisive test of their lives.
Some study under dim light; others travel long distances through unsafe areas; many faces poverty, hunger, and uncertainty about their future.
Yet they persevere.
We salute them.
We say to the Class of 2025: your courage gives meaning to our struggle.
You are the generation that must rebuild trust, restore values, and reclaim the future from corruption and decay.
COSATU stands with you because your success is the victory of your families, your communities, and the working class itself.
Comrades, as we reflect on the courage of our youth, we must also confront the harsh realities surrounding them.
The collapse of the telecommunications sector, once a beacon of innovation and a symbol of state capacity, now reflects the decay of governance.
The public networks built through workers’ taxes have been eroded by outsourcing, mismanagement, and privatisation.
Workers are retrenched, rural areas remain disconnected, and the digital divide widens.
The same tragedy is unfolding in the mining, engineering, and manufacturing sectors, which once formed the backbone of our industrial economy.
Mines are closing, factories stand silent, and skilled workers are cast aside by mechanisation and automation.
A nation that once produced steel and machinery now imports what it once built. This is not development; it is regression.
And as if that were not enough, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) the custodian of workers’ hard-earned pensions is again mired in scandal.
The savings of the working class, meant to build infrastructure and employment, are being looted through elaborate networks of political and corporate corruption.
The commissions of inquiry continue to reveal the depth of rot in our institutions. Even the South African Police Service, entrusted with protecting the people, is now engulfed in crises of integrity.
Corruption in its ranks has destroyed public trust, demoralised honest officers, and left communities vulnerable.
A nation whose police are compromised cannot protect the working class; it can only police poverty.
These crises, comrades, are not isolated they form part of a wider moral, political, and economic breakdown.
They represent a state captured not by ideology, but by greed.
They reveal that the revolution, unfinished, demands renewal.
It is time for the working class to reclaim the moral high ground, to insist on accountability, to rebuild the ethical foundations of public life.
COSATU must be that force, uncompromising, fearless, and visionary.
Comrades, as we build towards COSATU@40, we do so under the banner: “40 Years of Struggle — She Led from the Picket Line to the Frontline. COSATU Rise!”
This theme is both an acknowledgment and a challenge.
It reminds us that our Federation’s history has been written by women’s hands and women’s courage.
Our anniversary campaign must therefore do more than celebrate; it must mobilise.
Forty biographies of women leaders are being documented to honour those who transformed unions and linked workplace struggles to broader social change.
But these stories must not end in archives they must become tools of consciousness, guides for mentorship, and lessons for leadership renewal across our affiliates.
In the Free State, we have both the obligation and the opportunity to set the tone for transformation.
Our campaigns must be rooted in lived experience.
We know that women here still wake before dawn to walk unsafe distances to farms and factories, return home to unpaid care work, and endure both poverty and gender-based violence.
These are not statistics; they are the lived conditions of our members. The latest SAPS statistics show that the Free State remains among the provinces most afflicted by GBV, rape, and sexual assault (SAPS, 2025).
We cannot remain silent. Gender-based violence is not a private matter; it is a class issue, a workplace issue, a union issue.
Our Federation must demand that every workplace adopt and enforce anti-harassment policies, that every employer provide safe transport, parental leave, and flexible working hours, and that gender audits become standard practice.
Collective bargaining agreements must include clauses that advance the rights of women and gender-diverse workers.
Equality must be written into the DNA of our contracts.
Let us also be clear that austerity is gender violence by another name.
Cuts to healthcare, childcare, education, and transport disproportionately affect working-class women.
When government freezes posts in hospitals, it is women nurses who carry the burden; when transport systems collapse, it is women domestic workers who walk unsafe roads.
That is why COSATU’s fight against austerity is a feminist economic struggle.
We must resist budget cuts that deepen inequality and demand public investment in social services that liberate women from unpaid labour.
To achieve this, the implementation of our gender priorities must align with COSATU’s broader campaigns leading to the November CEC and COSATU@40.
Our recruitment drive must include a gendered lens, ensuring that new members particularly young women in precarious sectors find a home in our unions.
Our organisational renewal programme must reflect gender balance in leadership development.
Our education programmes must challenge patriarchal culture, train young women activists, and build a new cadre of feminist trade unionists.
At the November CEC, comrades, we must demonstrate measurable progress not only in representation but in consciousness, in the integration of gender equity into bargaining, and in the political work of our Federation.
The Free State must stand as a model of how COSATU transforms workplaces, communities, and the nation itself.
Comrades, Alexandra Kollontai once wrote that “only by breaking the domestic yoke will we give women a chance to live a richer, happier, and more complete life” (Bryant, 1923).
Let those words be our moral compass.
Let us build a trade union culture where women’s voices thunder from the centre, not whisper from the margins; where young workers see unions not as relics but as instruments of freedom; where integrity triumphs over greed, and hope defeats despair.
For when a woman rises, the class rises.
When a student triumphs over adversity, the nation rises.
When the working class unites across gender, race, and generation the revolution advances.
Amandla! Viva the revolutionary women of the working class, viva! Viva the Matric Class of 2025 — the hope of our tomorrow, viva!
Viva COSATU@40 — the fortress of worker power, viva!
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South African Communist Party Press Alert-Activation of the People’s Red Caravan at Mqhekezweni Village, Eastern Cape Province
Mbulelo Mandlana, Head of Media, Communications and Information, 17 October 2025
The South African Communist Party (SACP) invites the media to cover the activation of The People’s Red Caravan initiative under the theme, “The people’s movement for self-reliance and sustainability”.
The SACP General Secretary, Solly Mapaila, will lead the activation programme.
Details of the activation of The People's Red Caravan are as follows:
Date: 20 – 26 October 2025
Time: 10h00
Venue: Mqhekezweni Village, OR Tambo District, Eastern Cape Province
The People’s Red Caravan is an initiative that is being rolled out nationwide as part of village development. It was launched on 6 June 2025 at Motlhabe Village in the North West Province. The following month (21-27 July 2025), the SACP held the programme in Matibidi Village in Mpumalanga Province.
This SACP all-inclusive programme is aimed at deepening inviolable ties with the people at the community level, where households and individual community members confront the daily challenges imposed by the capitalist system – which organises society based on exploitation of the working class.
The People's Red Caravan is not an act of charity or external provision. It is a process through which members and leaders of the SACP work in and with communities to collectively address and resolve the problems that the communities experience. It is a practice of building alongside the people, not on their behalf.
Rooted in the pursuit of self-empowerment and self-reliance, the Red Caravan initiative rejects disorganising notions of absolute dependency on a "wheelbarrow-like 'delivery' state".
The SACP's work during The People's Red Caravan focuses on several critical areas, including food security, food sovereignty and food production, community safety and security, health, education, arts and culture, recreational activities, initiatives to move towards the realisation of the right to work for all in practice by revitalising community-based productive activities, and infrastructure work – water, sanitation, access roads and other infrastructure.
While the Red Caravan initiative will be stationed in each identified community for seven days during its activation phase, the initiatives undertaken will be designed to ensure long-term social mobilisation of our communities into collective developmental efforts and sustainability. Already, there are positive fruits borne out of this work in both Motlhabe and Matibidi villages.
In essence, this is a programme that demonstrates, through practical work, what building socialism from the ground at a local level can look like.
The seven-day programme will be released by request to members of the press.
ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA.
Media, Communications & Information Department | MCID
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COSATU to host lectures in the lead up to 40th anniversary
Zanele Sabela, COSATU National Spokesperson, 25 September 2025
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is set the host a series of lectures in the lead up to its 40th anniversary celebration at Dobsonville Stadium on 6 December.
The culmination of four years of unity talks, COSATU came into being on 1 December 1985, and brought together 33 competing unions and federations opposed to apartheid and whose common goal was to bring about a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society.
The Federation has been at the forefront of advancing, defending and protecting the interests and rights of workers since, and has led in the formation of the country’s progressive labour laws including workers’ rights to form trade unions, collective bargaining and to strike, minimum conditions of service, National Minimum Wage, etc.
From its vehement resistance of apartheid to the ushering in of the democratic dispensation and improving the economic and social wellbeing of the working class 31 years post democracy, COSATU has stood the test of time.
In the lead up to its 40th anniversary in December, the Federation will host a variety of activities starting with a series of lectures by its National Office Bearers.
The lectures will tackle diverse subjects from COSATU’s pivotal role in gender struggles to the strike that broke the back of industry-wide exploitative labour practices as far back as 1959.
Province:
Northern Cape
Date:
30 October
Topic: COSATU and the Liberation Movement
Main Speaker: Solly Phetoe, COSATU General Secretary
Province:
North-West
Date:
19 November
Topic: Strengthening Industrial Unions to build a militant COSATU
Main Speaker: Duncan Luvuno, COSATU 2nd Deputy President
Province:
Eastern Cape
Date:
20 November
Topic: COSATU and the Reconfiguration of the Alliance
Main Speaker: Mike Shingange, COSATU 1st Deputy President
Province:
Gauteng
Date:
21 November
Topic: COSATU and the Mass Democratic Movement
Main Speaker: Zingiswa Losi, COSATU President
Issued by COSATU
Government Communications on National Press Freedom Day
19 Oct 2025
On 19 October 2025, South Africa will commemorate Black Wednesday, also known as National Press Freedom Day. The National Press Freedom Day marks 48 years since the historic events of Black Wednesday in 1977, a day that forever changed the landscape of South African journalism.
The 19th of October should be used to remember the courageous journalists and publications that were banned by the apartheid regime for exposing the truth. Their resilience in the face of censorship remains a lasting reminder of the sacrifices made for the freedoms the country enjoys today. The role of the media in strengthening democracy extends beyond newsrooms, it includes navigating the challenges of misinformation, digital disruption, and online safety, and Government recognises these realities and continues to work towards fostering an environment where credible journalism can thrive in both traditional and digital spaces.
Government reaffirms its unwavering commitment to safeguarding media freedom, which is one of the cornerstones of our constitutional democracy. A free, diverse, and independent media ensures that citizens are informed, that leaders are held accountable, and that society continues to progress through open dialogue and transparency.
As the country reflects on this day, Government pays tribute to all journalists - past and present - who continue to inform, challenge, and inspire the nation. Let us continue to preserve the hard-won freedoms that ensure every South African has access to truthful and reliable information.
Enquiries:
Mr William Baloyi
Deputy Government Spokesperson
Cell: 083 390 7147
E-mail: William...@gcis.gov.za
Issued by Government Communications
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Keynote address at the launch of the first community-owned store in Hammanskraal
Solly Mapaila, SACP General Secretary, 17 October 2025
Comrades, members of the Rebothle Consumer Co-operative, leaders of the Dora Tamana Co-operative Agency (DTCA), the United Communities Consumer Co-operative (UC²), members of the Traditional Council, Party structures, and the people of Hammanskraal, revolutionary greetings.
Today, we are not simply opening a store. We are opening a new chapter in people’s power in the economy. This small community-owned shop symbolises a much greater idea – that working people can unite to build and own their own economy from the ground.
We thank our Traditional Council for joining us here. Your presence affirms that the struggle to build a people’s economy is also a struggle to restore community dignity and collective ownership of local resources.
The store we open today: small in size, great in purpose
The store we opened today is a small square shop – simple, modest, yet filled with great purpose. It represents ordinary people taking the first real steps towards controlling their own economy. From small beginnings like this, great movements are born.
The members started this journey in 2023, through a monthly order and direct-delivery system, bringing affordable goods directly to households and buying clubs. And today, through determination and unity, you have taken the next step by opening a physical store that belongs to its members and serves its community.
This store is a seed of the people’s economy, planted in the soil of Hammanskraal and watered by the hard work of its members. What we see here today is proof that building a new economy is not a dream; it is a living, growing practice rooted in the community.
From Matibidi to Hammanskraal: expanding the people’s economy
Earlier this year, I had the honour of opening the first community-owned store in Matibidi Village, Mpumalanga. Today, Hammanskraal becomes the second community-owned store in South Africa, a continuation of that historic process of rebuilding our economy through people’s ownership.
The Rebothle Co-operative is not a private venture. It is a collective effort by its members, supported by the DTCA and the United Communities Consumer Co-operative (UC²), a secondary co-operative linking local consumer cooperatives into one national movement of ownership, participation, and solidarity.
Supporting local communities’ producers: small step with a big vision
Rebothle has already begun to take important steps to support local producers. Some of the toiletries sold on these shelves are produced by another co-operative right here in Hammanskraal, showing that community trade can sustain local livelihoods. The store is also already selling fresh produce from local growers, farmers and households around Hammanskraal who are beginning to supply directly to this community shop.
And this is only the beginning. More local products will come as the network expands – eggs, vegetables, fruit, poultry, and other essentials grown and made by our own members.
This is how we build a self-sustaining community economy, an economy that keeps money circulating locally, supports workers, and strengthens community control over production and trade. Plans are already underway to expand household and small-scale production in this area. This area is rich in mangoes, avocados, lemons, poultry, and vegetables. Imagine local co-operatives turning these resources into products such as juice, jam, soap, poultry products, and fresh produce – all stocked right here.
We also celebrate the formation of a worker-owned toilet-paper manufacturing co-operative, a major step in developing productive capacity owned by workers themselves. Through this, we build community self-reliance and a self-sustaining economy.
These small but strategic steps are laying the foundation for a strong co-operative economy that can grow throughout Tshwane and inspire similar projects across the province.
Mobilising and organising our collective purchasing power
The greatest power we hold is our collective purchasing power. Each rand we spend has direction. It can either leave our communities or strengthen the co-operative.
When we buy from Rebothle, we are not simply shopping, we are building our own economy. Every rand spent here supports local jobs, empowers co-operative producers, and keeps wealth circulating within the community.
That is why every household in Hammanskraal must become a member-owner. Join this co-operative. Buy from your own store. Encourage your neighbours, friends, and stokvels to do the same. When we unite our spending, we unite our strength - and we take one more step towards building the people’s economy.
Building the people’s economy
What we celebrate today is not separate from the vision of the South African Communist Party (SACP). The SACP has always stood for a people’s economy, one that puts social need before private greed, community benefit before private profit.
We have always said that building a new economy cannot only happen in government. It must be built in the community, through collective ownership and production. Every co-operative store, every worker-owned enterprise, every household producer forms part of this broader movement.
Rebothle and the United Communities Consumer Co-operative (UC²) are not charity projects. They are instruments of transformation, uniting producers and consumers, linking trade with education, and building power in the hands of the people themselves.
Conclusion – the road ahead
Comrades, the store we open today may be relatively small, but it opens a big door to the future. It proves that the people can govern not only politically, but economically too.
From Matibidi to Hammanskraal, and soon throughout Tshwane, we are witnessing the rebirth of the people’s economy, an economy owned by the people, serving the people, and controlled by the people.
And comrades, let us have more of these, and even larger stores in every community across the country. Let us expand this movement so that every village, township, and ward can have its own people-owned shop, its own local producers, its own co-operative network.
This is the future we are building; a people’s economy grounded in ownership, co-operation, self-reliance, and solidarity.
Forward with community-owned stores!
Forward with household and co-operative production!
Forward with worker ownership and manufacturing!
Forward with community self-reliance and the people’s economy!
Thank you.
International-Solidarity
IndustriALL demands accountability for attack on PGFTU headquarters
20 October, 2025
The brutal attack on the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) on 15 October by Israeli forces is a flagrant violation of international law and a direct assault on the independence of trade union organizations.
Israeli occupation forces raided and vandalized the PGFTU headquarters in Nablus, smashing offices, breaking doors, and destroying electronic equipment across key departments, including the general secretariat, legal affairs and services. The building was reportedly turned into a military interrogation centre.
The assault breaches ILO Convention 98, which guarantees the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining, rights that Israel, as a signatory, is obligated to uphold. It represents a deliberate attempt to paralyze union work and intimidate members, and a gross violation of international labour standards and human rights.
Says IndustriALL Global Union general secretary Atle Høie:
"IndustriALL Global Union stands in full solidarity with the PGFTU and all Palestinian workers in the face of a grave and unprecedented assault on trade union and human rights. We demand an immediate end to all attacks on Palestinian trade unions and workers, and full accountability for those responsible.
“The international community must intensify pressure on Israel to comply with international law and uphold human and trade union rights. In the face of brutal repression and occupation, we stand firmly with the PGFTU and the Palestinian workers it represents.”
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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