Taking COSATU Today Forward, 31 October 2025 #Cosatu@40 #Cosatu40thAnniversary

[Norman Mampane]

 

COSATU TODAY #Cosatu’s National Organising Team visits Dobsonville Stadium for an inspection loco… #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

‘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

31 October 2025

“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”

Organize at every workplace and demand respect for labour rights Now!

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Contents                      

• Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!

• COSATU to host lectures in the lead up to 40^th anniversary

• South Africa
• COSATU commends government on the revival of the local train manufacturing industry
• International-Workers’ Solidarity!
• Curbing violations by Chinese multinationals in African critical minerals boom

Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics  

COSATU to host lectures in the lead up to 40^th 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 40^th 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 40^th 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

South Africa

COSATU commends government on the revival of the local train manufacturing industry

Matthew Parks, COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator, 30 October 2025

 

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) commends government led by the African National Congress on the revival of the local train manufacturing industry with the historic achievement of the 300^th passenger train produced in Nigel this week.  This is a welcome revival of a local industry that had literally died during the decade of state capture and corruption. 

 

We are confident that the target of producing 600 passenger trains locally by 2035 will not only be met but can be exceeded.  The announcement by the Minister for Transport, Ms. Barbara Creecy, of plans to expand passenger rail from Musina to Polokwane, Pretoria and Joburg, and similarly connecting Joburg to Mbombela as well as a high-speed train to eThekwini; will provide a lasting demand for locally produced passenger trains. 

 

The successful revival of this industry will attract additional demand across the African continent, especially from neighbouring states. 

 

The expansion of passenger rail will ease congestion on our roads and the unaffordable costs of road maintenance, accidents and fatalities.  It will be a massive boost to domestic and regional trade and tourism. 

 

We are particularly pleased that more than 60% of these trains’ components have been locally produced.  This has helped create thousands of badly needed jobs and provided workers with invaluable skills.  As demand for these trains increases, it will be critical that government with industry partners increase the percentage of locally produced components. 

 

The disastrous experiences of Transnet being held hostage by dodgy foreign suppliers for parts needed to maintain and repair its freight railway stock was an important lesson on the need for South Africa to develop and nurture its own domestic industrial capacity to produce such components. 

 

Plans by the Passenger Rail Authority (PRASA) to utilise space next to train stations to support local businesses is critical.  This will create thousands of jobs but it will also reduce travelling time for workers buying household goods.  It will help ensure local communities feel a sense of ownership of passenger rail and thus have a stake in protecting its infrastructure from vandalism and theft by syndicates and gangs.

 

COSATU is pleased by progress made by PRASA in stabilising and rebuilding its passenger rail network in our cities, including the renovation of train stations, railway lines and fencing as well as signaling which are key to not only ensuring its revival, improving safety and enabling trains to move at higher speeds but also to winning back millions of passengers.

 

It is key that the Department of Transport and PRASA work closely with workers and Organised Labour in its efforts to rebuilding passenger rail and ensuring that working-class communities have access to affordable, reliable and safe, world class train services. 

 

Issued by COSATU

International-Solidarity   

Curbing violations by Chinese multinationals in African critical minerals boom

31 October, 2025

As the world races towards net zero, Africa’s vast reserves of cobalt, lithium and copper, which are vital for electric-vehicle batteries and renewable-energy technologies, have huge potential to industrialize the continent and boost manufacturing. Yet in the extraction of the critical minerals, Chinese multinationals, are engaging in unfair labour practices, paying low wages, and destroying the environment.

Controlling 85-90 per cent of rare-earth refining, China has poured billions of dollars into Sub-Saharan African mines via its Belt and Road Initiative, often bartering infrastructure for raw resources. In return, the minerals feed vertical supply chains for China’s factories. About US$4.5 billion has been invested in lithium mining.

In response to the violations, IndustriALL Global Union affiliates in Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zambia, and Zimbabwe, are adopting human rights due diligence (HRDD) as one of the strategies to stop workers and human rights violations. Unions have also raised concerns over environmental degradation during the mining of critical minerals by Chinese multinationals.

The violations are on the rights to join trade unions, on collective bargaining, health and safety, discrimination, racism, gender-based violence and harassment, precarious working conditions, and living wages. There is also weak enforcement of national labour laws and international standards by governments while corruption is common. There have been cases of physical assaults of workers by Chinese supervisors in Zimbabwe and elsewhere, as well as environmental degradation and water pollution.

A battery-supply-chain roundtable in the DRC, which alone supplies over 70 per cent of global cobalt, urged unions to launch an HRDD body to spotlight abuses and push the state into protective action. At China Molybdenum’s Tenke Fungurume mine - part of the Sino-Congolese ventures - the unions welcomed an impending audit by the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance as a first for Chinese firms on the continent. In Zimbabwe, the Diamond and Allied Minerals Workers Union battles intimidation at Sinomine’s Arcadia and Bikita lithium mines.

The Mine Workers Union of Botswana said that MMG’s Khoemacau copper mine imported Chinese labour to quash a strike over poor working conditions. Zambia’s February disaster at Sino-Metals Leach, a subsidiary of China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group, underscores the perils of negligence after a tailings dam burst unleashed 1.5m tonnes of acidic sludge laced with cyanide, arsenic and heavy metals into the Mwambashi and Kafue rivers. The 100km toxic sludge killed fish and livestock, withered maize and groundnuts, and poisoned water for 700,000 Kitwe residents, triggering fishing bans and supply cut-offs. Short-term illnesses like headaches and diarrhoea were reported while long term health risks will include organ failure and birth defects. The Mineworkers Union of Zambia is now campaigning for community redress and communities are taking Sino-Metals to court.

“HRDD in Chinese multinationals mines is vital because it is an inclusive strategy which safeguards workers and communities, enforces government accountability and prescribes remedies,”

said Glen Mpufane, IndustriALL director for mining and diamonds.

HRDD in Chinese multinational mines is one of the issues that will be discussed at the global mining conference in Sydney, Australia on 2 November.

______________________________

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

 

 

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