Taking COSATU Today Forward, 12 January 2026 #HappyNewYear2026
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY #COSATU launching #Back2School and #Right2Learn Campaigns across all provinces #Cosatu40 #Cosatu congratulates the ANC on its 114 years anniversary! #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
12 January 2026
“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- SADTU statement on the adjustment of employer medical subsidy for GEMS members
- SADTU KZN statement on the state of readiness for school re-opening
- COSATU welcomes tentative progress made paying NTI workers' salaries
- South Africa
- COSATU President Zingiswa Losi: Message of Support – ANC 114th Anniversary
- COSATU is deeply concerned by possible motor retail sector job losses
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- COSATU condemns US invasion and military strikes against the territorial integrity and sovereign rights of the people of Venezuela
- NEHAWU calls for the release of Nicolás Maduro | No War for Oil
- TUI-PS&A condemns the US extreme imperialist military aggression on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
SADTU statement on the adjustment of employer medical subsidy for GEMS members
Dr Mugwena Maluleke, SADTU General Secretary, 09 January 2026
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) is outraged that the 4.5% employer medical subsidy adjustment will not take effect in January 2026 but will instead be implemented from 1 February 2026.
The Minister for Public Service and Administration, in terms of section 3(5)(a) and 5(6)(b) of the Public Service Act, 1994, (as amended), has approved the following subsidy adjustments:
• 4,5% for the period 1 January 2026 to 31 March 2026
• Thereafter, an additional 0.5% be implemented from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027.
Meanwhile, SADTU members are bearing the full brunt of the 9,8% medical aid contribution increase which was implemented in January 2026 despite the objection of labour unions at the Public Service Co-ordinating Council (PSCBC). This is happening while the employer’s portion will only be implemented in February 2026.
The employer has, over several years, turned it into a norm not to pay the subsidy concurrently with the annual medical aid increase in January. SADTU is calling for an immediate end to this practice which negatively affects members, particularly during the financially demanding month of January.
At the last National Executive Committee meeting held in December 2025, SADTU resolved to engage the Minister of Public Service and Administration on this matter. SADTU is still actively pursuing this engagement and will continue to explore all available avenues to ensure that the 9,8% increase is reduced.
Further, the Union will explore possibilities of allowing members to join medical aids of their choice while keeping the same subsidy benefit from the employer. In the first place, SADTU reiterates that it never signed the PSCBC resolution in 2006 which led to the establishment of the Government Employee Medical Scheme (GEMS) as a closed medical scheme for public service employees and their dependents.
We believe the moves by some officials in government are deliberate to maintain the argument that private is better than public. GEMS was meant to be a seamless move, testing ground towards achieving a National Health Insurance in our country. This attitude by government works against the very same intention to establish a cheap and reliable health system for all. Healthcare cannot be for profit. We therefore call for the full funding of healthcare to ensure it is not used for profit.
ISSUED BY: SADTU Secretariat
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SADTU KZN statement on the state of readiness for school re-opening
Nomarashiya Caluza, SADTU KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Secretary, 9 January 2026
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) in KwaZulu Natal has been inundated with panic calls from some school principals who are worried by the poor state of readiness for schools reopening. Schools are re-opening on the 14th of January 2026 and are expected to deliver the first lesson in all subjects for all grades in the school.
Unfortunately, principals as they report to their Union indicate that they have not received the necessary requirements like stationery, textbooks as well as all other things like cleaning materials to ensure that schools are thoroughly cleaned to welcome learners and teachers back.
Having listened to the concerns of school principals who called, SADTU KZN decided to conduct a survey with the purpose of gathering tangible information on the state of readiness for each school in the province. This survey required principals to respond to matters such as the availability of LTSM, filling of vacancies, number of learners, cleanliness of the school, security, etc. Based on the information they submitted, they were required to state their view on whether their schools were ready to reopen. If not, they were required to give reasons.
The survey form was released to school principals in the evening on the 6th of January 2026. So far 247 school principals participated in the survey and 54% report that their schools are not ready while 46% report to be ready though some in this cohort talk about partial readiness. Based on further analysis of the school readiness survey data, the major challenges facing schools are as follows:
• Whilst 60.1% of participating schools in Umlazi reported to be ready, high level of unreadiness were found in Umkhanyakude (69.6%), Ugu (69.4%), Ilembe (68.6%). In these three districts more than two-thirds of schools indicated unreadiness.
• Through the findings of the survey, failure to pay the basic financial allocations is the reason schools are not ready for re-opening. For example, 72.4% of schools report that they did not receive their allocation (norms and standards).
• Further to this, 56.7% schools indicate that they do not have the Learning and Teaching Support Materials (LTSM) as those schools that rely on central procurement are still waiting for deliveries from DOE. These include stationery, textbooks, and workbooks.
• Section 21 (C) did not receive their basic financial allocation in Oct/Nov 2025; they could not put orders for the LTSM as there was no indication as to when the Department was planning to pay them.
With this information at hand, SADTU is planning to engage the HOD and the management of the Department so that at least these schools are told how they are expected to function without these necessities. It is unfortunate that the failure of the department on its on Constitutional obligation has become a common occurrence. Even in 2025 schools encountered the same situation and the Union intervened through engaging the employer which made a commitment to service providers. However, those commitments were never met leading to some principals by threatened by providers who wanted their monies which the DOE was failing to pay without explanation after delivery of LTSM to Section 21 (c) schools.
Looking at the school readiness survey findings, all schools are affected. This means those that rely on central procurement and the ones that procure on their own are affected. It is important not to forget why schools are in this dilemma. As said above, the issue of financial problems is not new but at least there has been no challenges with delivery of LTSM to schools of central procurement. Schools are in this mess because of decisions that are taken without due diligence. SADTU warned about the implication of the decision of the Provincial Treasury to impose PFMA Section 18 which dictates that the Department of Education in KZN cannot do any procurement without the approval of Department of Finance. That decision prevented the placing of orders by schools/KZNDOE which normally happens in May. It was only in October 2025 that a greenlight was given but ONLY for the procurement of stationery (not textbooks) for Section 20 schools by the MEC for Finance. Under normal circumstances, orders are initiated in May so that deliveries to schools are done from October.
Further to this is the non-payment of norms and standards to Section 21 schools. All this suggests that schools will have to wait for the Department of Finance to decide whether it reconsiders its decision on the procurement of textbooks.
In future it will be important for this super department of Finance to understand the implications of the decisions they take particularly if those decisions are about other departments.
Way forward
SADTU in KwaZulu Natal has requested a meeting with the department. The purpose of the meeting is to present and discuss the challenges faced by schools as they are expected to re-open and function next week. The said meeting will take place on the 10th of January 2026. After this meeting, the Union will have a meeting with its members who are school principals to give feedback on discussions with the employer.
ISSUED BY: SADTU KZN Provincial Secretariat
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COSATU welcomes tentative progress made paying NTI workers' salaries
Matthew Parks, COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator, 07 January 2026
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) welcomes tentative progress made paying North West Transport Investments (NTI) workers’ salaries. COSATU and its affiliate, the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (SATAWU), have held numerous meetings with NTI’s management and Business Rescue Practioners with the support of the Premier of the North West, Mr. Lazarus Mokgosi and the Minister for Transport, Ms. Barbara Creecy.
We appreciate the Minister and Premier’s interventions to ensure that these long-suffering workers were paid for November and December, albeit late. Some of these workers are reported not to have been paid for up to 14 months. Further engagements have taken place over the festive period with commitments for workers to be paid for over the next three months and for work to be done on settling outstanding salaries owed to workers as well as their third-party deductions, including taxes, pension and medical aid funds.
COSATU will continue to actively monitor this dire situation with SATAWU and the workers. It is critical that NTI honour its obligations to workers in full.
We are deeply concerned by reports that some of the busses of NTI have been impounded. This is an urgent matter that NTI must resolve. We expect the North West Provincial Government to provide the necessary support and accountability in this regard.
NTI and the North West and Gauteng Provincial Governments with the support of the National Department of Transport, must ensure that a coherent turnaround plan is put in place to enable NTI to fulfill its contractual obligations to its employees as well as to the working-class communities it has committed to service.
Given the allegations of serious corruption and malfeasance surrounding the NTI, COSATU urges the Presidency to task the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) to investigate any criminal activity that has occurred at the NTI and to ensure the culprits are dealt with by the South African Police Service and the National Prosecuting Authority.
Issued by COSATU
COSATU President Zingiswa Losi: Message of Support – ANC 114th Anniversary
Zingiswa Losi, COSATU President, January 10, 2026
Chairperson Gwede Mantashe, President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa,
Leadership of the ANC, SACP, COSATU and SANCO, comrades and friends,
COSATU along with millions of workers celebrates the 114th anniversary of our beloved movement, the African National Congress.
Whilst at times you may hear our words of anger when mistakes are made, do not doubt that the ANC belongs to the working class of South Africa. It is the product of generations of struggles by workers, and we will defend it to the end.
We have come far from the dark days of apartheid when Black people and workers had no rights and were treated little better than slaves, and over the past two terms under the leadership of President Ramaphosa as we end the cancer of state capture and corruption.
Whilst we applaud the many victories workers have won through the Alliance since 1994, we cannot rest when 4 out of 10 South Africans cannot find jobs, when poverty and inequality remain a lived reality for the working class from Christiana to Mussina.
2025 saw green shoots with the ending of loadshedding, the turnaround at Transnet and Metro Rail and South Africa exiting grey listing. More must be done to ensure electricity becomes affordable to save smelter jobs from the North West to Mpumalanga.
We expect the Budget to be tabled soon at Parliament to ensure our schools from Taung to Mthatha have teachers, that our clinics from Mahikeng to KwaMashu have nurses and our police stations from Brits to Athlone have the weapons they need to defeat crime.
We need government to do more to invest in the economy, to fix our roads, our water, ports and rail to attract the investment we need to create decent jobs for all our people, be it the mine worker in Orkney or Welkom or the farm worker in Zeerust or Warrenton.
We must raise sharply the plight of municipal workers who go months on end not paid or communities who witness the collapse of basic services, from Ditsobotla to Ngaka Modiri Molema. As we head towards the local elections, we need to see our municipalities fixed.
2025 and even 2026 have reminded the world of the importance of international solidarity. We must strengthen the bonds that unite us across the world to defend peace and ensure that global conflicts are resolved at the negotiating table not on the battlefield.
It is fitting that we are gathered in the North West, birthplace of Isithwalandwe Seaparankoe Ahmed Kathrada, Moses Kotane, and the Pahad family, a province of giants. We owe it to these giants and to all our people, in particular the working class, to ensure that the Alliance is reconfigured and united, on the ground, fixing the state, growing the economy and creating jobs.
This must include us resolving the outstanding matter of the modalities of the Alliance contesting the 2026 local elections. The 2026 local elections demand that we be united to ensure an overwhelming victory for the movement and our people.
Leadership of the ANC and our Alliance Partners, rest assured that the Federation of JB Marks, Elijah Barayi and Ray Alexander is with you on this journey of renewal.
We dare not fail our people.
Thank you.
Matla!
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COSATU is deeply concerned by possible motor retail sector job losses
Matthew Parks, COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator, 08 January 2026
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is deeply concerned by reports of possible job losses and salary cuts to hundreds of workers in the in the motor retail sector. South Africa with an already painfully high unemployment rate of 42.4% cannot afford to lose a single job nor condemn any family to absolute poverty and despair.
With the rising cost of living and with most workers drowning in debt and having to support on average seven relatives, we cannot afford to see workers’ wages cut.
The Federation is extremely worried that Motus, a key motor vehicle retailer, may retrench hundreds and slash the wages and benefits of even more. We welcome initial reports of tentative progress in preliminary engagements between the employer and the unions.
We urge the employer to return to the negotiating table and engage with workers and their unions in good faith to find progressive solutions and fair alternatives to retrenchments and salary cuts.
Whilst we sympathise with and share industry’s concerns about the very real threat posed to local businesses and jobs by cheap Chinese imports, what is needed are progressive long-term solutions that protect workers and their families.
These need to be engaged upon in the sectoral master plan between government, business and labour. They should include measures to protect locally produced vehicles from cheap imports being dumped into South Africa, the reskilling of at-risk workers and engagements with Chinese, Indian and other car manufacturing companies to set up local factories to manufacture and not just assemble new cars, the review and enhancement of sectoral support, as well as to expand export opportunities.
COSATU will continue to closely monitor this deeply distressing situation and offer its full support to workers in this sector and their unions; the Motor Industry Staff Association (MISA), the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA).
This is a battle that workers and the local motor manufacturing industry simply cannot afford to lose.
Issued by COSATU
International-Solidarity
Bongani Masuku, COSATU International Secretary, January 4, 2026
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) joins millions of people around the world in expressing shock and disbelief at the United States (US)’ attack on the sovereignty of Venezuela. An operation led by the US Special forces commissioned by the Donald Trump Presidency, struck Venezuela and resulted in the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
The US attack on the territorial integrity of Venezuela is a direct assault on the rights and sovereignty of all people, particularly in the Global South. The US is repeating the dark chapter of its cold war aggression in Chile, Nicaragua, Grenada, Vietnam and on our own continent in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Mozambique in particular.
These outrageous acts of imperialist aggression must never be tolerated or allowed to continue without consequences. We call for accountability and action for any crimes against humanity.
The blatant violation of international law, multilateralism and the principle of equality of states calls for decisive responses from the international community. From our own experience as Africans, we know what global bullying and colonial occupation means, and we support the global call for solidarity with the people and workers of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
The Federation supports the progressive and principled call by South Africa’s government through the Department of International Relations and Cooperation for the United Nations’ Security Council to be convened urgently to resolve this crisis and ensure that sovereignty and the fundamental rights of the people of Venezuela to determine their own path is respected by all parties.
It is sacrosanct that this is done but that equally all nations, in particular the world’s superpowers, respect the role of the United Nations and the importance of resolving conflicts through multilateralism.
Embarking upon military action, including invading and occupying other countries inevitably results in unmitigated conflict, violence, deaths, refugees and economic devastation. This is a price that the people of Venezuela should not be made to pay.
Those who doubt this lesson need look no further than what happened in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, amongst other long-suffering nations.
COSATU affirms its support for the peace-loving people of Venezuela, and in particular the working class.
Issued by COSATU
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NEHAWU calls for the release of Nicolás Maduro | No War for Oil
Zola Saphetha, NEHAWU General Secretary, January 04, 2026
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] unequivocally condemns the United States’ illegal invasion of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and the First Lady Cilia Flores.
We reject all attempts to undermine Venezuela’s sovereignty, seize control of its oil industry, and impose foreign rule under the false pretences of democracy promotion and combating narco-terrorism.
This year marks 30 years since the US invasion of Panama and the kidnapping of its President, Manuel Noriega. That act of aggression, carried out in blatant violation of international law, resulted in mass civilian casualties and the destruction of a sovereign state’s political order. That invasion stands as a warning to the peoples of the Global South: imperialism has not changed its methods, only its justifications.
Venezuela is now the victim of the same plot. The ‘New Monroe Doctrine’ seeks to reassert US domination over Latin America and the Caribbean, reducing sovereign nations to zones of control and their natural resources, particularly oil, to imperialist assets. NEHAWU rejects this doctrine in its entirety.
We further reject the outrageous and unlawful claims made by the US President that the US would now “govern” Venezuela. These statements amount to an open declaration of colonialism and a denial of Venezuela’s right to self-determination.
NEHAWU draws clear parallels with the invasion of Iraq, which was sold to the world as “democracy promotion” but resulted in occupation, destruction, mass death, and the plunder of that country's oil industry. Venezuela today is being subjected to the same script: lies, coercion, sanctions, destabilisation, and direct military invasion.
NEHAWU stands in resolute solidarity with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, its elected government, and its legitimate President, Nicolás Maduro. We affirm the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their own political, economic, and social future free from sanctions, armed attacks, and foreign interference.
As South Africans, we understand the decisive role of international solidarity. Our liberation from Apartheid was strengthened by global mass movements, sanctions campaigns, and the Free Mandela Campaign. We therefore recognise solidarity not as symbolism, but as responsibility.
In this spirit, NEHAWU commits itself fully to the struggle to Free Maduro and to defend Venezuela against imperialist aggression.
We therefore demand:
• The unconditional release of President Nicolás Maduro
• An immediate end to all armed attacks against Venezuela
We reject:
• The “New Monroe Doctrine” and all forms of imperialist domination
• War for oil, profit, and geopolitical control
NEHAWU will campaign, mobilise, demonstrate, protest, and participate directly in the international movement to free Nicolás Maduro and to defend the sovereignty of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
An injury to one is an injury to all.
END
Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat.
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TUI-PS&A condemns the US extreme imperialist military aggression on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
04 January 2026
“Workers of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your chains”
The World Federation of Trade Unions’ Trade Union International for Public Service and Allied (WFTU TUI-PS&A), expresses its total rejections of the attacks on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and condemns US military agression agianst the Venezuelan territory and the population which took place on Saturday, 03 January 2026 targeting the city of Carcas and other surrounding areas.
This savage attack that has also cost the lives of innocent civilians represents the United State’s desperate greed for Venezulan energy and other strategic rersoiurces.
We reject the United State’s justification that its brutal attack was to restore peace and democracy in Venezuela and instead we concider this barbaric action as yet another attempt to try and bring into submission countries like Venezuela and others that have decided on their independent political and economic developmental path that is free from external control from the neo-colonial constrains placed upon them by the US and its allies from the West.
This imperialist aggression is a continuous agenda by US to effect regime change in whatever means possible, including promoting its genocidal war economy strategies with an attendant capitalist economic and technological dimension in its futile attempts to contain its geopolitical rivals and discipline those that stray from its orbit of influence as it tries to boost its waning economic position and declining hegemony.
We call for International Solidarity amongst the workers, the working class and all revolutionary organisations, international community and peace loving people of the world and further make an urgent call for International response agianst this criminal attack and the state terrorism by the US..
We call for resistance and unity among all the peoples of Veneuela, Latin America, the Caribbean and the World. In these difficult times, we express our solidarity with Venezuelan people.
Workers of all countries, UNITE!
Issued by Zola Saphetha, General Secretary TUI-PS&A
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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