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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
1 April 2026
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Contents
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
Employment and Labour Deputy Minister Jomo Sibiya urges strict compliance with South African labour laws – as Chinese business
31 March 2026
Employment and Labour Deputy Minister, Jomo Sibiya today (31 March 2026) told an advocacy session aimed at raising awareness of South African Labour Laws to Chinese businesses, that “where non-compliance is persistent, there must be consequences".
“Failure to comply with labour laws undermines worker dignity, fair competition, and economic stability. Fair and equitable wages, working hours, leave periods and fair working conditions in general must be adhered to. Furthermore, it should be an anomaly to have workers who get injured in the course of work, contract diseases or worse, lose their lives.
“We remain optimistic that there will be full compliance to our employment and labour laws. After all, where there is a will, there is always a way. This event comes at the heels of a similar intervention that was held in Newcastle earlier this month. I must say that these gatherings are a silver lining in the dark cloud of noncompliance," he said.
Sibiya was speaking during an advocacy meeting with Chinese business owners, especially those in retail and wholesale sector in an initiative to ensure labour law compliance. The advocacy was held in Johannesburg, Main Reef Road, Amalgam.
The session was attended by Department's senior officials, China Mall management, Chinese businesses and officials of the Chinese Diplomatic Corps.
Sibiya said the genesis of today's session started last December (2025) when the Department officially met with the Chinese Diplomatic Service in Pretoria and shared its concerns about the flagrant non-compliance with South African employment and labour laws by Chinese businesses in South Africa.
The Deputy Minister said the session was long overdue. He said it was necessitated by serious and unacceptable working conditions that workers are subjected to and have had to endure in Chinese workplaces. He said a case in point would be the textile factories in the Mandeni and Newcastle area – where he said he had a first-hand experience of the plight of workers in those areas.
“What is happening in Newcastle is not something we want to see across the country. The dignity of our people is trampled. We would rather not have investment if our people are trampled," he said the Department is encouraged by the change in attitude, “the message is - let us desist from employing illegal and undocumented foreigners. Don't be an enabler of illegality".
He said the Department does not want to be a problem to anyone.
Reflecting on the September 2025 Gauteng High Court sentencing of seven Chinese nationals in a human trafficking and child labour case, Sibiya said this was a “game changer" in strengthening labour law enforcement, “we do not want a repeat of the ironic story of Beautiful City".
The Department's advocacy session coincided with what the Chinese termed: “Publicity Week on Lawful and Compliant Operations".
In a circular circulated during the session the Chinese committed to:
Johannesburg
China Mall Chairman, Xu Changbin said the Chinese business were mindful of their responsibility as espoused in commitments made as part of Week on Lawful and Compliant Operations. Chungbin said compliance is not only a requirement, but the cornerstone for
sustainable development.
The Chinese business owners have come under the radar of the Department in recent years for non-compliance. The Department's Inspection and Enforcement Services (IES) has found that the Chinese businesses are guilty of employing undocumented foreign nationals,
engaging in child labour, paying at rates below the National Minimum Wage, failing to provide workers with employment contracts, failing to register for social security with the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and the Compensation Fund for occupational injuries
and diseases, and housing and keeping workers under high walls and locked gates and making worker work in unsafe or unsuitable conditions - among a litany of non-compliances.
Today's engagement was also accompanied by presentations by the Department's Inspection and Enforcement Services; the Commission for Conciliation Mediation (CCMA) and the Public Employment Services (PES) branch.
For
media enquiries, please contact:
Teboho Thejane
Departmental Spokesperson
082 697 0694/ teboho....@labour.gov.za
-ENDS-
Issued by: Department of Employment and Labour
South Africa #ClassSolidarity
SACP 14th Plenary Session of the 15th Congress Central Committee Statement
Solly Mapaila, SACP General Secretary, 27–29 March 2026, COSATU House, Braamfontein, Johannesburg
Rebuild working-class power, defend sovereignty, advance socialism
The South African Communist Party (SACP) convened its 14th Plenary Session at a moment defined by deep systemic capitalist economic crisis, intensifying class contradictions, and the violent reconfiguration of global capitalism. This is not a cyclical downturn but a structural crisis of capitalism itself, expressed through imperialist war, ecological destruction, economic stagnation, and the ruthless super-exploitation of the working class. These global realities are felt directly here at home in our economy, in our communities and in the daily struggles of our people through the inflationary impact of the daily necessities raising the price of food, transport and energy.
The Central Committee reaffirmed that this crisis presents both grave dangers and historic revolutionary possibilities and that we must consciously seize this moment through militant organisation and mobilisation, ideological clarity, and decisive and clear working-class leadership.
Imperialism, war, assassination and global domination
Wars and instability are not accidents either; they are calculated expressions of how the current global system operates. Militarism, sanctions and economic pressure are tools deployed to control countries and their resources. The working class and the poor are the ones who pay the price of war through destruction of their livelihoods, poverty and unemployment. Peace requires sovereignty, and sovereignty requires development and vice versa. Countries of the Global South must work together to build their economies, strengthen productive capacity, strengthen their security and defence capacities and reduce dependence on other countries, especially the erstwhile colonisers.
At the same time, the world is changing; we are part of the changes. We are witnessing the emergence of a more multipolar global order from the current unilateral disorder. Countries such as the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, India, Brazil and South Africa in BRICS and BRICS Plus, with many others, are playing a growing role in shaping the new international order and possibilities.
The Central Committee condemns in the strongest terms the intensification and escalation of imperialist wars, including the intensifying US-Israeli war of aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran. We denounce the assassination of senior Iranian leadership, including the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, alongside his family members and senior political, military and government officials, including the Minister of Intelligence, and school infrastructure in a targeted strike. Critical infrastructure, including energy infrastructure, homes, hospitals and entire communities has been destroyed. More worrying, even attacks on nuclear plants have been carried out, posing a grave danger to organic life itself on a long-term basis. The deliberate targeting of civilians and ecological systems constitutes a grave crime under international law.
These acts constitute state terrorism, a flagrant violation of international law, and are a direct assault on national sovereignty and territorial integrity, in violation of the UN Charter, Article Two. This aggression, alongside the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the intensified new offensive war of occupation and destruction of Lebanon since the beginning of March 2026, shows apartheid Zionist Israel has crossed all the red lines of international law, decency and neighbourliness. The working masses and religious fraternity must understand that this is not a biblical Israel but a state that was established on a foundation of dispossession and blood. Some want to portray this as a religious war, which is a fallacy. It is high time that all peace-loving countries and progressive forces isolate the US administration under Donald Trump, who enjoys blowing his own trumpet.
On the other hand, the new measures on the economic blockade of Cuba, especially the oil blockade, reflect not only a desperate US imperialist system attempting to reassert control through violence but also an arrogant display of unilateralism of a system refusing the collapse of its hegemony in its desperate efforts to recolonise the world, as they implied at the recent Munich Security Conference in Germany. The Central Committee calls for people all over the world, especially on the African continent and the Global South, to pledge their unwavering solidarity with socialist Cuba and send any form of aid possible, such as non-perishable goods and solar energy equipment, to mitigate this unprecedented US action. We will be part of the May Day brigade to Cuba this year and call on the youth to join this solidarity brigade.
The Central Committee further reaffirms unwavering solidarity with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the current period of deep imperialist destabilisation, aggression and interference in its domestic affairs.
We express our deep solidarity with the abducted constitutionally and democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro Moros and First Combatant Cilia Flores. We wish them more strength as they face trial in the US and call for their immediate unconditional release.
The Central Committee calls for the immediate end to imperialist wars and assassinations, global mobilisation against US-led militarism, and defence of all nations asserting sovereignty, including South Africa, and appreciates the recent ANC-led march for the defence of national sovereignty and independence. We also call for intensified Global South coordination and acceleration of the de-dollarisation of their economies to avoid undue influences and intimidation of government and political leaders by Western financial institutions used politically by the US mob of the political class.
On the National Health Insurance: another decisive front of working-class struggle
The struggle for transformation must be fought in concrete, practical forms, and health care is among the most important ones. Healthcare is a right, not a commodity. The National Health Insurance (NHI) Act is law. Yet its implementation has been delayed, with no provisions currently being brought into operation pending a court ruling.
Meanwhile, tens of billions of rands in public funds continue to subsidise private health care. This reflects a political choice, not an administrative inevitability. The risk is that the NHI is quietly allowed to stall through the threats to courts. The SACP calls for:
Finance capital and the war against the poor: towards housing and financial justice
The Central Committee reiterates its full support for the class action led by the Lungelo Lethu Human Rights Foundation against the banking sector. The mass repossession of homes, sale of properties at negligible prices, and dispossession of working-class families represent financialised violence against the people and a continuation of apartheid-style displacement under capitalist conditions. We call for mass mobilisation behind the class action, full restitution and justice for affected communities, and accelerated transformation of the financial sector, including the speedy establishment of a state-owned bank under democratic control.
The R60 billion case against major banks highlights the depth of injustice embedded in our financial system. Working-class families have lost their homes and life savings through predatory and abusive practices by the banks, all with a government watching helplessly despite concerted efforts to show them the crisis. For us in the SACP, housing is a right, not a commodity. All efforts to protect people from vulnerabilities to the working class are important. The SACP calls for:
The SACP stands in full solidarity with all affected homeowners and communities.
Neo-liberalism and “Operation Vulindlela”, the new front of state capture
The Central Committee asserts that South Africa’s deepening crisis is the direct product of neo-liberal restructuring. Operation Vulindlela, located in the Presidency, represents a new phase of state capture by capital, repackaged as “policy reforms”. Under the guise of efficiency and growth, Operation Vulindlela advances the privatisation of strategic state-owned enterprises like Eskom unbundling; liberalisation of network industries (energy, transport, and water), deregulation to favour private capital; and centralisation of decision-making power with proximity to the Presidency, ensuring greater and increasing influence of big business in policy and procurement processes. We condemn the collaboration of the National Treasury, Eskom and water boards who are on steroids to liquidate the capacity of municipalities through handing power to private capital. The policy direction shows a political choice to sell our sovereignty, as we saw with the adoption of the GAIN policy.
This constitutes a technocratic capture of the state, where capital uses policy instruments, advisory structures, and proximity to executive authority to shape outcomes in its favour. This is not reform. It is a class project consolidation and must be rolled back if our economy is to make a turnaround and benefit the majority. The people of South Africa never voted for capital or business bodies to run the state, like we see with BUSA commanding a state that is on autopilot.
The Central Committee warns that South Africa is witnessing a transition from overt corruption-based state capture to a more sophisticated, policy-driven capture led by monopoly capital. We reject this trajectory and call for the following:
Reject retrenchments and defend jobs and livelihoods
The Central Committee strongly condemns the wave of retrenchments across multiple sectors of the economy. These job cuts are not inevitable. They are a direct consequence of profit maximisation strategies by capital, deindustrialisation and financialisation, weak state intervention and neo-liberal policy frameworks. We condemn and caution against intentions to retrench even within state entities like PRASA and the Long Distance Division that has already filed for section 189.
Workers must not pay for a crisis they did not create. The SACP calls for:
Neo-liberalism: the architect of South Africa’s crisis
At the centre of this crisis is the direction of the economy. For many years, economic policy has been shaped by austerity as well as the ideology and strategy of limiting the role of the state; neo-liberalism. This has constrained investment in jobs, industry and public services. At the same time, key sectors are increasingly being opened to private interests. Programmes such as Operation Vulindlela are deepening this trend. Within the so-called Government of National Unity, this direction is being reinforced.
The Central Committee asserts that South Africa’s crisis is not accidental. It is the direct outcome of decades of neo-liberal policy choices imposed in the democratic era.
These include, but are not limited to:
These policies have entrenched unemployment, deepened inequality, weakened the state, and subordinated the economy to monopoly capital. Neo-liberalism in South Africa has succeeded in advancing the interests of capital at the expense of the working class, and with the Presidency and Treasury being the catalyst for capital accumulation.
Rebuilding the mass movement and working-class power and localising the People’s Red Caravan
Rebuilding the mass movement is essential if transformation is to succeed. This effort must encompass the full range of working-class forces, organised workers in trade unions, workers in the informal economy, cooperatives, youth, women and community formations.
The mass movement must be rebuilt in both workplaces and communities, linking economic and social struggles into a single, coordinated programme. This requires strengthening trade unions, organising the unorganised, advancing cooperative development, and building local people's economies under democratic and collective control.
Within this broader effort, the People's Red Caravan (PRC) is emerging as an important pillar of organising, mobilisation and political education in both rural and urban areas. It is helping to rebuild grassroots presence and to connect the struggle for transformation with livelihoods and local development.
Rebuilding the mass movement requires unity, coordination and a clear programme rooted in the lived realities and conditions of the working class and poor.
The Central Committee calls on all communities to actively support and participate in the People’s Red Caravan. The Caravan must be localised as a mass-based programme of food sovereignty and local production, cooperative economic development, community organisation and solidarity, political education and mobilisation. This is a practical instrument of socialist transformation building people’s power from below.
Our next activation is on 20-26 April 2026 at Gladstone Village, Thaba Nchu in the Free State province. We call upon professionals, artisans, experts and volunteers to join us in the quest to transform our communities for self-reliance and sustainability. Your lending hand will go a long way in ending poverty and unemployment in our communities.
The national democratic revolution at an interregnum and regressing
The national democratic revolution stands at a decisive moment. The systemic crisis of the state shaped by both corruption and neo-liberal restructuring has weakened its transformative capacity. Without decisive working-class leadership, the national democratic revolution risks capture by elites and stagnation. The Central Committee calls for a decisive rupture with neo-liberal macroeconomic policy: expansion of public and social ownership of the economy, rebuilding a capable, developmental state, and embedding working-class power across all sites of decision-making.
The Government of Neo-liberal Unity is the biggest threat to the advancement and deepening of the national democratic revolution. These global pressures are directly reflected in our own country. The national democratic revolution remains the most effective and principled path towards transformation and building a country that works for the majority, not a privileged minority.
But today, the national democratic revolution faces a regression and possible defeat if the left forces do not unite and consolidate the working class in defence of the South African revolution. South Africa faces a deep and compounding crisis of unemployment, inequality and growing hardship across communities.
The result is a fundamental contradiction, wherein transformation is promised but the prevailing economic framework makes meaningful transformation difficult to achieve.
As this continues, the state itself has weakened. Evidence from the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, known as the “Zondo Commission”, and the Madlanga Commission shows that criminal networks have penetrated parts of the state apparatus. What began as corruption has grown into a more serious structural problem: networks that combine financial power, political influence and criminal activity that reduce us into a mafia country which is now beyond kleptocracy.
Recent developments within the South African Police Service further highlight this. Ongoing investigations, court proceedings and tensions in leadership point to deeper institutional challenges that must be addressed through the rule of law and due process. These matters also highlight the ongoing vulnerability of state institutions to capture through outside interference.
The SACP calls for the rebuilding of a capable, ethical and people-centred state. Unless the working class leads – organised, active and with a clear programme – the national democratic revolution risks losing its direction entirely.
On the Alliance and recent by-elections
The Central Committee reaffirms the strategic importance of the Alliance and defends dual membership as essential to unity. The Alliance was never an electoral pact but a unity of independent and equal member organisations through the national democratic revolution.
The Central Committee mandated the Extended Secretariat to ensure urgent finalisation of bilateral discussions with the ANC. There is a need to have collective clarity on the modalities of management of elections in a peculiar situation where both parties will be on the ballot, speaking for their specific interests, while still in alliance on broader aspects affecting the working class and poor.
There also must be collective clarity on how the rights of members who opted to be members of both organisations to protect and promote the interest of the working class and poor, as allowed by the constitutions of both organisations, are going to be protected during the local government election campaigns. This is an urgent matter that needs to be finalised, without prejudice, as preparations for elections are hotting up.
The SACP is worried that some ANC leaders seem to opt for a pompous and arrogant kind of approach, including spitting unfortunate misleading, venomous information from its senior leaders, especially the officials. The SACP is looking at this matter seriously and will be engaging the affected members in a respectful manner, without throwing threats and insults against them, as we understand that it is them, in their own right, who made this decision voluntarily allowed by the constitutions of our respective organisations.
The Central Committee expresses its appreciation to SACP structures in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape for their tireless work and commitment during the recent by-elections. Their efforts reflect the resilience and dedication of our cadres on the ground and lifted the support of the SACP from the people on the ground. Whilst we have characterised the by-elections as important, it was merely an affirmation of our resolution to contest elections and prepare our members for an independent campaign and contest. We have convened successful elections workshops across the country, and our members must remain focused and be on the ground with our communities, not for our interest but for working-class representation and to transform local government to serve the people.
Our members, including those in the other fraternal alliance and broader movement structures, must never be defocused on their tasks of asserting the independence of the SACP. They must understand that they are not there by mistake but are fulfilling their obligations as members of the vanguard party of the working class and poor.
Forging ahead with the Conference of the Left
As
part of building fronts in the interest of the working class, the meeting received a detailed report on the preparations of the historic convening of the Conference of the Left, which is scheduled for May 2026.
We call upon all progressive left forces and community-based organisations representing various sectors of society to be part of this moment to save the South African revolution. This Conference must serve as a decisive platform to unite working-class forces
and advance a common radical transformation agenda and rescue the South African revolution from the abyss of neo-liberal crisis and possible defeat.
Organise, agitate and forge ahead for working-class struggles
The Central Committee calls on all workers, communities, and progressive forces to intensify the struggle and to:
As we approach the Easter and Passover period, the SACP wishes all South Africans a safe and peaceful Easter weekend and wishes them to travel safely and protect one another on our roads. To our structures, the struggle continues, and no one said it will be smooth sailing! The crisis of capitalism is deepening. The ruling class has no solutions for the working class. The future will not be given; it must be fought for until victory is attained.
The
struggle continues! Aluta Continua!
Let us intensify the struggle! Let us rebuild working-class power!
Let us advance socialism without compromise!
Forward to a powerful socialist movement of the workers and poor!
Amandla!
International-Solidarity
Turning due diligence laws into real results for workers
30 March, 2026
A new centre dedicated to making human rights due diligence laws deliver real results for workers was launched in Berlin on 26 March, bringing together trade unions, companies, policymakers and practitioners for a day of debate on how binding regulation can shift power to workers in global supply chains.
The Competence Centre for Human Rights Due Diligence was established by IndustriALL Global Union, UNI Global Union, the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. It is a non-profit foundation registered in the Netherlands, backed by initial funding from the German federal ministry for economic cooperation and development.
The Competence Centre will support a fundamental shift: from voluntary approaches to binding legal frameworks. This shift creates new opportunities for workers worldwide to access accountability and remedy. The launch event, hosted by FES, opened with a clear statement of purpose. Only by putting human rights at the centre of business life can the world become a more just place.
Kelly Fay Rodríguez, head of the centre, opened with a call to visualize the workers these laws are meant to protect — garment workers in Bangladesh, miners in Zambia extracting cobalt for electric vehicle batteries, warehouse workers in countries where organising can cost you your job, content moderators reviewing harrowing material for as little as two US dollars an hour.
“For too long, when their rights were violated, companies could walk away. Distance was a shield. That era is ending.”
During the day, three panels explored how to put that principle into practice. They covered the legal landscape, union recognition in global supply chains and the specific realities facing workers in critical minerals and tech. Speakers from Zimbabwe, Kenya, Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire and Romania gave first-hand accounts of what it takes to organize, bargain and secure remedy. The message across all three was consistent: laws create leverage, but only if workers have a voice at the table.
“As IndustriALL we have tools; global framework agreements, the Accord, the OECD guidelines. But even the best tools have limits. Workers need remedy and they cannot wait years for it,”
said IndustriALL general secretary Atle Høie.
Putting human rights due diligence to work
The discussion made clear that laws alone are not enough. Without meaningful union involvement, due diligence risks becoming a box-ticking exercise. With workers at the table, these laws can become powerful instruments for accountability.
Closing the day, IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan put it plainly:
“Voluntary initiatives are not enough to change the situation for workers — or for the environment. We need binding regulation. We need to make companies accountable and workers’ voices heard.”
The centre will support unions through a help desk providing advice, guidance and referrals. It will help unions identify which laws apply, where leverage exists and how to access enforcement mechanisms and remedy pathways. There will also be a legal impact lab bringing together HRDD legal experts, practitioners and union specialists. Its purpose is to map those pathways and identify barriers to enforcement.
______________________________
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