Taking COSATU Today Forward Special Bulletin, 20 November 2025 #Cosatu@40 #Cosatu40thAnniversary
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY Tomorrow, it’s #CosatuRedFridays… #G20SouthAfrica #VioletSeboniBrigade #Cosatu40thAnniversary #COP30noBrasil#JustTransition #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
20 November 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!
- SADTU condemns premature termination of temporary educators ahead of conversions under Collective Agreement 2 of 2024
- Applications for media accreditation to cover COSATU 40th Anniversary rally officially opened
- South Africa
- COSATU welcomes the SARB decision to provide badly needed relief with a repo rate cut of 25 basis points
- COSATU’s “40 Women • 40 Years” Exhibition at the People’s Summit – We the 99%
- COSATU Western Cape Statement on the death of Ambassador Franklin Sonn
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- SAMWU wishes government well on hosting G20, commits to intensifying the fight for workers
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
SADTU condemns premature termination of temporary educators ahead of conversions under Collective Agreement 2 of 2024
George Themba, SADTU North West Provincial Secretary, 20 November 2025
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union in the North West (SADTU NW) strongly condemns and rejects the Department of Education’s intention to terminate the contracts of temporary educators before fully implementing Collective Agreement 2 of 2024, which provides for the conversion of qualifying temporary educators into permanent posts.
Collective Agreement 2 of 2024 is a binding ELRC agreement aimed at promoting stability, fairness, and continuity in the education system. The Union views any move to terminate contracts prior to the completion of the conversion process as unlawful, premature, and a direct violation of the spirit and letter of the agreement.
Such actions by the Department:
• Undermine legally concluded collective bargaining processes.
• Destabilise teaching and learning, particularly in schools already facing acute staffing shortages.
• Create undue anxiety and insecurity among educators who have dedicated themselves to serving learners, often in under-resourced and rural schools.
• Compromise the quality of education at a critical time in the academic calendar.
SADTU reiterates its position that no temporary educator’s contract should be terminated until:
1. All qualifying educators have been identified and verified,
2. The conversion into permanent posts has been completed in line with the agreed-upon criteria, and
3. Measures are in place to avoid disruption to teaching and learning.
2
Should the Department proceed with these premature terminations, SADTU will have no option but to invoke all organisational, legal, and ELRC dispute-resolution mechanisms at its disposal. The Union is prepared to mobilise its members across the province to defend their rights, protect job security and uphold the integrity of collective bargaining.
The Union calls on the Department to honour its commitments and to act in good faith by fully implementing Collective Agreement 2 of 2024 without further delay.
Stability in our schools and the very well-being of educators must remain central to decisions affecting the sector.
ISSUED BY Provincial Secretariat
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Applications for media accreditation to cover COSATU 40th Anniversary rally officially opened
Zanele Sabela, COSATU National Spokesperson,10 November 2025
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) invites all members of the media to apply for accreditation to attend and cover the Federation’s historic 40th Anniversary rally. This momentous event is scheduled to take place on 6 December at Dobsonville Stadium in Soweto.
COSATU was launched on 1 December 1985, at the height of the struggle against apartheid. Its formation brought together 33 competing unions and federations that were opposed to apartheid but committed to a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa.
Alliance partners, local and international guests have been invited to celebrate 40 years of this vibrant movement advancing, defending and protecting the interests and rights of workers and the working class in South Africa and beyond.
Applications for accreditation may be submitted to mam...@cosatu.org.za or non...@cosatu.org.za with the following details:
Name:
Surname:
ID number:
Media House/Address:
Contact number/email:
Alternatively, an application form can be completed via this link:
COSATU 40th Anniversary Media Accreditation Application Form – Fill out form
Issued by COSATU
Zanele Sabela (National Spokesperson)
Mobile: 079 287 5788 / 077 600 6639
Email: zan...@cosatu.org.za
COSATU welcomes the SARB decision to provide badly needed relief with a repo rate cut of 25 basis points
Matthew Parks, COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator, 20 November 2025
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) welcomes the South African Reserve Bank (SARB)’s decision to provide workers and the economy badly needed relief with a repo rate cut of 25 basis points.
The National Credit Regulator reports on household debt paints a scary picture of the working and middle classes drowning in debt. This crisis has been made worse with the 475 basis points hikes since the war in Ukraine started three years ago and international oil prices skyrocketed.
Repo rate hikes have made life unbearable for millions of poorly paid workers struggling to buy the essential goods of life and provide for their families. Whilst there have been some repo rate cuts since then, they have been too far and few.
Pegging the repo rate at excessive levels inflicts often unbearable pain upon workers, especially when the key factors in South Africa’s inflation are administered prices not consumer driven, e.g. the fuel price hikes based upon international oil price fluctuations and Eskom’s unsustainable dependence upon double digit tariff hikes to compensate for its massive financial leakages, in particular the millions who do not pay for electricity consumed.
The 25 basis points repo rate cut will reduce the debt burden upon millions of workers, enabling them to spend money stimulating economic growth and thus sustaining and creating jobs. As we head towards the festive season when the retail and hospitality sectors seek to cover their costs and where millions of workers are employed, the economy needs an injection of stimulus to weather a difficult year for the nation.
With inflation consistently falling and currently at 3.6% there is space to provide further relief to the nation in the new year. We urge SARB to further lower the repo rate and thus give breathing space to workers, the unemployed and an economy struggling to grow.
COSATU will continue to engage with the leadership of SARB on the need to cushion workers, stimulate economic growth and create jobs whilst managing inflation.
Issued by COSATU
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COSATU’s “40 Women • 40 Years” Exhibition at the People’s Summit – We the 99%
Gertrude Mtsweni, COSATU National Gender Coordinator, 20 November 2025
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)’s “40 Women • 40 Years” exhibition is on display at the People’s Summit – We the 99% – from 20 to 22 November at Constitutional Hill, Johannesburg.
The exhibition honours the COSATU worker leaders, organisers, shop stewards and gender activists whose struggles have shaped the Federation and the country. It forms part of COSATU’s 40th anniversary and sits within the COSATU Women’s Herstories Project – an initiative undertaken by COSATU and the National Labour and Economic Development Institute (NALEDI), with support from the Wits History Workshop, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), and the National Skills Fund (NSF).
The project aims to document, preserve and elevate the contributions of women workers that have too often been minimised or erased within mainstream labour history. By deliberately centring women’s narratives, the Herstories Project challenges this erasure and reclaims women’s rightful place in the story of South Africa’s labour movement.
A central feature of the project has been training young women workers to conduct interviews with veteran organisers, creating powerful intergenerational conversations grounded in feminist research, worker solidarity and collective memory.
This approach ensures that younger women draw strength and direction from the histories of those who came before them, while contributing their own voices to the evolving story of the movement.
Drawing on oral history and popular education, the project is building a living archive of testimonies from women whose struggles shaped union democracy, collective bargaining, gender justice, community organising and campaigns for decent work. Oral histories are essential because they safeguard memory, capture emotion and preserve the lived experience of women whose contributions were not always recorded in formal archives.
The 40 women featured in this first phase represent thousands more. Their profiles mark the beginning of a growing collection that will expand as more interviews are conducted and more stories come to light. COSATU intends to publish a comprehensive book of women’s biographies and to build an online, publicly accessible archive that preserves these narratives for future generations.
The People’s Summit is a platform for economic justice bringing together social movements and progressive organisations representing workers, feminist formations, community struggles, youth movements and broader civil society from across the world. Running parallel to the G20 Leaders’ Summit, the People’s Summit offers a wider space for grassroots organisations to articulate the needs and struggles of the 99%.
By bringing these stories into public spaces such as the People’s Summit, COSATU affirms that women’s struggles are central to the fight for economic justice, democracy and social transformation.
The Herstories Project is both a tribute to the past and an organising tool for the future – inspiring new generations of worker leaders to continue the struggle for equality and dignity for all workers.
Issued by COSATU
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COSATU Western Cape Statement on the death of Ambassador Franklin Sonn
Malvern De Bruyn, COSATU Western Cape Provincial Secretary, 20 November 2025
The Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU) mourns the passing of Ambassador Franklin Sonn. We wish his family, friends and comrades well during this painful period of mourning. Ambassador Sonn represented the best of South Africa’s and its long walk to liberation.
Sonn, born in the remote rural community of Vosburg in the Karoo and grew up in Queenstown. Despite all the adversities put in place for millions of Blacks, Coloured and Indian communities during the dark days of apartheid, Franklin proved that humanity could rise above all changes.
He taught and led a generation of learners at Spes Bona High School in Athlone on the Cape Flats. His talents saw him rise to become the Rector of the Peninsula Technikon (now the Cape Peninsula University of Technology – CPUT).
Working with his beloved comrade and neighbour, the late Rector and Professor Jakes Gerwel at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) to not only liberate themselves from the shackles of apartheid and transform these institutions into bastions of a non-racial South Africa. They provided a safe haven for students protesting against the brutalities of the apartheid regime. Today CPUT and UWC have successfully evolved from historically disadvantaged institutions into internationally recognized centres of excellence.
At the height of the States of Emergency, Professors Sonn and Gerwel, stood side by side with the United Democratic Front and the entire liberation movement led by the African National Congress in defiance of the apartheid regime. Theirs was a calm, dignified and principled stance that did not cower in front of the most savage forms of state suppression.
Professor Sonn dedicated his life to building a democratic South Africa and did not hesitate when called upon by President Nelson Mandela to
represent South Africa as its first Ambassador to the United States, a task he performed with distinction.
2025 has seen South Africa’s constitutionally mandated transformation journey subjected to bombastic attacks from unashamed right wing fringe juveniles, trolling in racist nostalgia. Ambassador Sonn’s life lessons, humility and proud embracing of a non-racial democracy; provide a powerful counterweight to such attempts to denigrate our nation. Sonn embodies the very best of our nascent democracy.
South Africa is a better place due to the life, struggles, sacrifices of Ambassador Sonn. The nation owes a debt of gratitude to this humble giant and his family for sharing this quiet son with the nation.
Hamba kahle, qawe lama qawe. Rus in vrede kameraad.
Issued by COSATU.
International-Solidarity
SAMWU wishes government well on hosting G20, commits to intensifying the fight for workers
Mpho Tladinyane, SAMWU Gauteng Provincial Secretary, 20 November 2025
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) in Gauteng proudly notes and appreciates the significant progress registered by our dedicated members and their leadership in the City of Johannesburg and the City of Tshwane. This progress is marked by the signing of the Politically Facilitated Agreement in Johannesburg and the anticipated payment of the hard-fought 3.5% salary increase in Tshwane. This victory is a testament to the power of organized labour and the necessity of political resolve.
We acknowledge the crucial role played by the Gauteng Provincial Government, led by Premier Panyaza Lesufi, in ensuring that these critical worker issues were decisively addressed. SAMWU pledges to continue supporting the Premier in his vital endeavour to realise municipalities that are stable, accountable, and capable of delivering essential services to all citizens of Gauteng.
Having secured these important domestic gains, SAMWU extends its full support and best wishes to our government for the successful hosting of the upcoming G20 Summit. Our dedicated members across Mogale City, Ekurhuleni, the City of Tshwane, and Johannesburg have been tirelessly ensuring that our Province is impeccably prepared to host world leaders.
We sincerely hope and trust that the declaration emerging from this global assembly will not overlook the urgent needs of the local communities but will cover aspects that specifically seek to address the economic and social issues of the working class and the poor, ensuring that global progress translates into local upliftment.
Post the finalisation of issues in Tshwane and Johannesburg, SAMWU Provincial Office Bearers met with the Provincial Government and secured a firm commitment to extend interventions to other struggling municipalities. These meetings are scheduled to convene in the next two weeks with Ekuthuleni, West Rand Municipalities, and Sedibeng.
This intervention is critical and will focus on key systemic issues including building the capacity of municipalities to deliver services efficiently, addressing the costly and adversarial utilisation of external attorneys in disciplinary hearings, ensuring the proper grading and categorization of municipalities in the West Rand for fair resource allocation, defending the integrity of collective bargaining, and finalizing outstanding issues pertaining to the Metro Police in Ekurhuleni.
Finally, SAMWU calls on all workers to be acutely aware of the forces that actively work against their interests. We have unequivocally noted the anti-worker stance of the Democratic Alliance (DA) on the hard-won gains registered by our members. Workers are reminded that it was the DA-led administrations which specifically stopped the payment of the 3.5% in Tshwane and deliberately frustrated the implementation of the Politically Facilitated Agreement in Johannesburg.
For the last five years, the DA in these metros has consistently and systematically frustrated all outcomes of collective bargaining that benefit the working class. SAMWU remains committed to vigorously defending all gains secured by our members against political elites that seeks to undermine labour rights and dignity.
Issued by SAMWU Gauteng Province
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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