Taking COSATU Today Forward Special Bulletin, 8 May 2024
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY #Back2Basics #ElijahBarayiBrigades #VoteANC #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
8 May 2024
“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- MEDIA INVITATION: Health Minister, Mpumalanga Premier and Health MEC to address nurses at International Nurses Day national event in Siyabuswa on Friday, 10 May 2024.
- South Africa
- COSATU rejects with contempt the DA's shocking proposals to cancel women workers' protections
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- SACP condemns closure of the Rafah border and continuing apartheid Israeli settler state genocide on Palestinians, calls for a complete cut-off of ties with the Israeli regime and prosecutions to ensure justice for the Palestinian people
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
MEDIA INVITATION: Health Minister, Mpumalanga Premier and Health MEC to address nurses at International Nurses Day national event in Siyabuswa on Friday, 10 May 2024.
Sibongiseni Delihlazo, DENOSA Spokesperson, 8 May 2024
Join DENOSA President, Simon Hlungwani, Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla, Premier of Mpumalanga, Mrs Refilwe Matsweni-Matsipane, and MEC of Health, Ms Sasekani Manzini, Executive Mayor of JS Moroka Municipality, Mtsweni, Ms Nomsa Mtsweni, and other distinguished guests as the country will gather for a national commemoration of the International Nurses Day, to be held at the Hope for Africa Christian Church in Siyabuswa in Mpumalanga on Friday, 10 May 2024, between 09h00 and 13h00.
This year's International Nurses Day is held under the theme: Our Nurses. Our Future. The Economic Power of Care, and seeks to highlight the significant role that nursing and nurses play in the relationship between the people and the country's economy and draws the country's attention to what areas of healthcare and nursing services need special attention to realise this Economic Power of Care.
Led by the country's Number One nurse, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer Dr Nonhlanhla Makhanya, about 1500 nurses from bed-side nursing practice, nursing education, nursing academics, nurse managers and leaders from across all the districts of Mpumalanga, and beyond, will gather in Siyabuswa for this year's national commemoration to observe the day that belongs to the majority professionals in the healthcare sector.
The event is a close collaboration between DENOSA as a national nursing association and the Mpumalanga Department of Health.
Members of the media are invited to be part of this significant occasion for all the 272 000 members of the Noble Profession in South Africa.
The details of the national event are as follows:
DATE: Friday, 10 May 2024.
VENUE: Hope for Africa Christian Church, Siyabuswa, Mpumalanga.
TIME: 09h00 - 13h00.
MEDIA RSVP (before COB on Thursday, 9 May): Sibongiseni Delihlazo: 072 584 4175.
End.
Issued by DENOSA.
For more information and interview requests, contact:
Sibongiseni Delihlazo, DENOSA Spokesperson.
Mobile: 072 584 4175.
#IND2024
COSATU rejects with contempt the DA's shocking proposals to cancel women workers' protections
Matthew Parks, COSATU Acting National Spokesperson & Parliamentary Coordinator, 08 May 2024
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) rejects the Democratic Alliance (DA)’s shocking proposals to cancel the many labour rights women workers have achieved since the dawn of democracy.
The DA seemingly not content to merely deny 6 million plus workers the right to a minimum wage, now has proposed that more than 90% of employers be exempted from our entire labour protections framework. This approach will spell doom for 8 million women workers amongst others. It will mean the end of every single gain women have enjoyed under our labour laws.
The DA in its self-declared war on workers, has committed a DA regime to exempting employers from the:
- National Minimum Wage that has raised the wages of over 6 million farm, domestic, retail, restaurant, hospitality, construction, cleaning and other workers; the majority of whom are women.
- Occupational Health and Safety Act that guarantees workers the right to work in a safe environment and to have adequate protections from risks to injuries, diseases or death. Seemingly the DA misses the days when one mine workers died daily at work before 1994. The tragedy of the George building collapse this week is a reminder that this is not a joke.
- Compensation of Occupational Injuries and Diseases Fund that provides protections and financial relief for workers who have may been injured, disabled or affected by a disease or post-traumatic stress or passed away from workplace incidents. One would have thought the DA would have celebrated the inclusion of 900 000 domestic workers under the Compensation Fund in 2023, but seemingly no, Black women are good enough to clean up after the entitled DA Members of Parliament and their Bishops’ dinner parties but not good enough to have workplace insurance.
- Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) that provides relief to workers when they lose their jobs and paid maternity, parental and adoption leave. Whilst the DA claims it wants to increase maternity and parental leave, these commitments are meaningless if employers are exempted from the Unemployment Insurance Act which provides for these to be paid leave. The DA claims to be a champion of the unemployed, but it’s the same UIF whose mandate has been extended to provide support for struggling companies and their employees while they implement turnaround plans.
- Employment Equity Act which requires employers to make progress in addressing the legacies of the past and the still prevalent inequalities of today. Under a DA regime employers would have no obligation to move from a place where over 56% of senior management posts in the private sector are held by White males.
- Labour Relations Act which provides a legal framework for how labour relations are to be conducted in pursuit of labour market stability. In fact, the DA’s proposals to exempt companies from the LRA which governs the right to unionise, collective bargaining and when aggrieved to strike; would fail constitutional muster as these rights are provided for in the Constitution!
The DA’s proposals will collapse every single labour right and protection workers, and in particular women have painstakingly achieved since 1994.
The message of the DA to women workers is clear. Under the DA the rights and benefits millions of women have enjoyed from paid maternity leave to equal pay for equal work, from protection from sexual harassment at the workplace to unemployment insurance would be gone. Whilst the rest of the world is moving forward, the DA wants to take South Africa backwards.
Whilst these incendiary antics may excite the DA’s youthful but clearly inexperienced MPs, they are deeply offensive to the nurse in Bishop Lavis, the farm worker in De Doorns and the cleaner in Manenberg.
This is precisely why COSATU is visiting workplaces across the country to ensure workers know what is at stake, that we come out in our millions to defend the gains workers have won since 1994 and that the only party that has championed the needs of workers and the unemployed, not only now in the excitement for votes, but where it counts, in passing our progressive labour laws; the African National Congress is returned to office with an absolute majority.
Issued by COSATU
International-Solidarity
SACP condemns closure of the Rafah border and continuing apartheid Israeli settler state genocide on Palestinians, calls for a complete cut-off of ties with the Israeli regime and prosecutions to ensure justice for the Palestinian people
Dr Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, Central Committee Member
National Spokesperson & Political Bureau Secretary for Policy and Research,, 7 May 2024:
The South African Communist Party (SACP) strongly condemns the storming of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt at dawn on Tuesday, 7 May 2024, by the apartheid Israeli settler state. “We are calling
for comprehensive international isolation of the Israeli settler state in every aspect of international relations and co-operation.
To ensure accountability and justice for the Palestinian people, the leaders of the apartheid Israeli settler state who have ordered and have been presiding over the genocide since it started must face arrest and prosecution at an international level. So must the citizens of every other country who are involved in the Israeli army and its genocidal campaign”, said the SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila in denouncing the escalation, which dangerously targets a civilian population protected by international law.
Mapaila emphasised the importance of an immediate permanent ceasefire. We stand for the freedom of historical Palestine and reiterate our solidarity with the Palestinian people in their just struggle against colonial occupation, land expropriation and other injustices. The SACP reiterates its call for a complete cut-off of ties with the apartheid Israeli settler state, a regime which has defied the International Court of Justice and the United Nations.
Since October 2023, the Israeli settler state has killed over 34,600 Palestinians, of whom 75 per cent are children, women and elderly people. Children make up over 14,800 while women make up over 9,800 of the victims.
The Israeli regime has been carrying out the genocide by other merciless methods, including starving the targeted population of food, blocking humanitarian aid and depriving the victims of healthcare. By closing the border and the Gaza strip, the Israeli regime is intensifying its continued prevention of the flow of emergency relief to the Palestinian people who it has besieged. The apartheid Israeli settler state has destroyed water, healthcare, education, roads, sanitation and other infrastructure.
Issued by the South African Communist Party,
Founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa.
Media, Communications & Information Department | MCID
____________________
Norman Mampane (Shopsteward Editor)
Congress of South African Trade Unions
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