Taking COSATU Today Forward, 27 July 2026
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY COSATU Call Center Contacts: 010 002 2590 This week, #Cosatu convenes an International Policy Review Workshop at Boksburg… #Internationalism #GreenJobs #NationaActionAgainstCostOfLiving Campaign continues… #ClassWar #Cosatu40 #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
27 July 2026
“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”
Organize at every workplace and demand respect for labour rights Now!
Defend Jobs Now!
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- COSATU Eastern Cape supports NEHAWU views on the fire incident at Botha Sigcau building
- COSATU remains deeply concerned by the Department of Employment and Labour's capacity to enforce compliance with our labour laws and boost public employment
- South Africa
- COSATU General Secretary, Solly Phetoe: Address: SACCAWU Special National Executive Committee, “Consolidating Working Class Unity and Power for Total Emancipation”
- SADTU Condemns attempts to undermine accountability at the Public Investment Corporation (PIC)
- SAMWU condemns National Treasury as municipal workers are denied salaries
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- Women’s Centre visit to Autoliv in Nador
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics #ClassWar
COSATU Eastern Cape supports NEHAWU views on the fire incident at Botha Sigcau building
Mkhawuleli Maleki, COSATU Eastern Cape Provincial Secretary, 26 July 2026
Congress Of South African Trade Unions in the Eastern Cape regretfully notes the burning of the Botha Sigcau building in Mthatha recently.
The Botha Sigcau building has been housing several government departments since the advent of democracy after inheritance from the then Transkei government. The impact of the fire has dire consequences on both the workers and the communities that were receiving services from that centre. There has been numerous health and safety concerns raised by workers about condition of the building. There have been instances of registered non-compliance to Occupational Health and Safety brought to the management of respective departments occupying the building by unions.
The multi-stakeholder Provincial Task Team proposed by NEHAWU would help a great deal in addressing inclusivity and transparency in dealing with investigation as well finding suitable and accessible alternative offices to accommodate workers and community that has been receiving the much-needed services from departments that operated from the Botha Sigcau Building. Compliance with health and Safety Regulations must be one of the central factors in finding alternative temporary offices.
NEHAWU, our affiliate continues to be our ears and eyes in that space. COSATU rallies behind its affiliates in ensuring that every workplace is a conducive environment for every worker to work in.
The federation expresses sympathy with workers and the community of O. R. Tambo District for the inconvenience they are experiencing and losses that have been sustained subsequent to the fire outbreak at Botha Sigcau Building.
Issued by COSATU Eastern Cape
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COSATU remains deeply concerned by the Department of Employment and Labour's capacity to enforce compliance with our labour laws and boost public employment
Matthew Parks, COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator, 24 July 2026
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) remains deeply concerned by the Department of Employment and Labour’s capacity to enforce compliance with our labour laws and tackle unemployment.
The Federation notes the Department’s Annual Performance Report on various targets achieved by its Public Employment Services, Inspection and Enforcement Services, and Labour Policy and Industrial Relations Directorate. We commend the Department’s positive ramping up of workplace inspections. These are key to ensuring that all workers, in particular, the most vulnerable and unorganised, are fully protected and able to exercise their hard-won rights without fear of victimisation.
We are, however, deeply concerned by the reality that millions; particularly farm, domestic, construction, cleaning, security and gig platform workers continuously see their labour rights violated with impunity by rogue employers with few, if any consequences for them. It is estimated that up to 45% of eligible employers are in violation of the National Minimum Wage Act alone.
We are extremely disappointed that the Department’s commitment to employing 20 000 contract labour inspectors through the Public Employment Programme from March 2025, has not materialised with less than 20% of the target having been met and reports indicating that many of these workers are not actively deployed or reporting for duty.
The increase in unemployment in the first Quarter of 2026 with an additional 300 000 unemployed was largely due to the failure to roll out the 200 000 teaching assistants to be funded through the Unemployment Insurance Fund due to bureaucratic ineptitude.
In spite of COSATU’s constant pleas to the Department over many years, the Occupational Health and Safety Amendment Bill which will legislate important measures to protect the health and lives of workers, has yet to be tabled at Cabinet let alone Parliament, despite it having left Nedlac in 2016, a decade ago!
Millions of workers expect the Department to help ensure that their rights to decent work are protected at all times. Millions of unemployed South Africans look to the Department to help ease the suffocating crisis of a 43.7% unemployment rate. It is critical that the Department work closely with COSATU and workers to ensure that these hopes and fears are addressed.
An overhauled, fully capacitated Department is key to this.
Issued by COSATU
South Africa #ClassSolidarity
COSATU General Secretary, Solly Phetoe: Address
SACCAWU Special National Executive Committee
“Consolidating Working Class Unity and Power for Total
Emancipation”
Solly Phetoe, COSATU General Secretary, 25 July 2026
Comrades, Chairperson, NEC Members of SACCAWU, Shop Stewards, Leaders,
I bring you militant revolutionary greetings from the 1.5 million workers of COSATU.
Greetings from farm workers in Limpopo, miners in the North West, teachers in the
Eastern Cape, and retail workers in Cape Town who stand on their feet 10 hours a day for poverty wages.
We meet at a time of war. Not a war with guns, but a war on the working class. A war for profits. A war to break our unions. A war to casualise our future.
This Special NEC is called under the correct theme: “Consolidating Working Class Unity and Power for Total Emancipation.”
Let me be clear: Total emancipation means nothing less than economic freedom. It means a living wage. It means permanent jobs. It means dignity. It means the wealth of this country in the hands of the people.
SACCAWU has always been at the frontline of that fight. From the strikes of the 80s, to taking on retail giants today. COSATU stands with you, shoulder to shoulder.
Socio-Economic Challenges Facing the Working Class in South
Africa
Comrades, let us speak truth. South Africa is bleeding. And it is workers who are bleeding the most.
Slow economic growth: For 10 years our GDP has crawled below 1%. Capital is sitting on billions, but they refuse to invest. They prefer speculation, dividends, and sending money offshore.
Unemployment: 43.7% expanded unemployment. Over 12 million people without work.
For every 3 young people, 2 have no job. This is not unemployment. This is a social crisis.
Poverty and Inequality: South Africa remains the most unequal country on earth. The richest 10% own 71% of wealth. 27 million people live below the poverty line. While the bosses eat steak, our people eat hope.
Crime and Corruption: Corruption is not just in government. It is in procurement, in tenders, in the looting of municipalities. And crime is a direct result of poverty. You cannot have 60% youth unemployment and expect peace.
Struggling Public and Municipal Services: Clinics have no medicine. Schools have no books. Municipalities are bankrupt. Electricity cuts. Water cuts. And they tell us to pay more for less.
Rising cost of living: Food inflation. Fuel. Transport. Rent. A basket of food that cost R500 five years ago now costs R850. Wages have not moved. Workers are subsidising the crisis with their stomachs.
Global uncertainty: Wars, climate crisis, interest rate hikes from the US Federal Reserve.
Capitalism is in crisis globally, and they export that crisis to us.
Comrades, this is not mismanagement.
This is class war. The ruling class is choosing profits over people.
Challenges Facing Workers in the Retail Sector
And SACCAWU comrades, you are at the coalface.
The retail sector employs over 1 million workers. It is the biggest private sector employer.
But it is also the biggest site of exploitation.
Casualisation: Permanent jobs are being replaced with 3-month contracts, “temporary” workers who work for 10 years. No benefits. No security.
Outsourcing: Cleaning, security, shelf-packing. All outsourced to labour brokers so the big brands can say “not our workers.”
Wage suppression: At Pick ‘n Pay, Shoprite, Spar – workers earn R4,500 to R6,500. That is below a living wage. While CEOs take home R40 million a year.
Undermining collective bargaining: They refuse to bargain centrally. They push plant-level agreements to divide us. They use lockouts and intimidation.
Retrenchments: Automation of tills. Self-checkouts. “Click and Collect.”
Thousands of jobs gone, with no retraining, no consultation.
Automation: They want robots to pack shelves and apps to deliver groceries. They want to replace human beings with algorithms.
Comrades, Pick ‘n Pay is not just a shop. It is a symbol. If we break the power of retail capital, we break the back of low-wage exploitation in this country.
SACCAWU must lead that fight. Militantly.
On the ground. In every store.
Challenges Facing Workers Across the World
This is not only a South African fight.
Across the world, workers are under attack:
In the US, Amazon workers are fighting union-busting.
In the UK, nurses and rail workers are on strike for wages.
In Brazil, retail workers face the same casualisation.
In Palestine, workers face occupation and apartheid.
The same corporations operate globally. The same IMF and World Bank impose austerity.
The same billionaires got richer during COVID.
But across the world, workers are also fighting back. General strikes in France. Mass protests in Argentina. We are not alone.
Our struggle is international. An injury to one is an injury to all.
The Need for a Strong, United, Militant on the Ground SACCAWU
Comrades, what do we need now?
We need a SACCAWU that is on the shop floor every day. Not just in boardrooms.
We need a union that organises, that mobilises, that strikes when necessary. A union that members can see, can touch, can call at 2am when a manager is abusing them.
We need shop stewards who are leaders in their communities. Who link wage struggles to service delivery struggles. Who link the store to the street.
Weakness invites attack. Unity invites victory.
COSATU is behind you. We will put resources. We will put organisers. We will put our political weight behind SACCAWU’s campaigns.
Need to Organise Workers across Retail, Hospitality, and New
Forms of Work
The bosses are changing. So must we.
We can no longer only organise the Pick ‘n Pay checkout. We must organise:
Uber Eats and Mr D drivers – who are called “independent contractors” but work like slaves Call centres – where young workers are monitored by software and paid peanuts
SMMEs and spaza shops – where exploitation is worst and there is no union B&Bs, hotels, tourism – where seasonal work and tips replace wages Warehouses and logistics – the new backbone of retail.
If we don’t organise them, capital will use them to undercut our members.
Organising the informal, the gig, the outsourced is not charity. It is survival. It is how we build working class power.
Challenges facing the Labour Movement in South Africa
Comrades, we must be honest about ourselves.
We are divided. Three federations. Too many small unions. Employers use this to play us against each other.
We have lost members to unemployment and casualisation.
We have a crisis of leadership in some unions due to corruption and careerism.
Our task: Rebuild unity. Rebuild shop floor power. Rebuild COSATU as the fighting
federation.
Challenges Facing the Labour Movement across the World
Globally, union density is falling. 8% of workers in the private sector are unionised
worldwide.
The gig economy is designed to destroy unions. Trade agreements are designed to protect corporations, not workers.
Right-wing governments are undermining the right to strikes. But there is also resurgence. Workers are rejecting neoliberalism.
Our lesson: Militancy works. Compromise without power gets us nothing.
Challenges Facing the Tripartite Alliance from a Working Class
Perspective
Comrades, let us speak plainly about the Alliance.
The ANC, SACP and COSATU were born in struggle but today the Alliance is under siege.
From a working-class perspective: Workers are poorer, but the policies are pro-business.
Unemployment rises, but we talk about “investor confidence.”
SOEs are facing massive debts but we bail out banks. Corruption goes unpunished, while workers pay for it through VAT and fuel levies.
The working class feels betrayed. And if the Alliance does not deliver, the working class will look elsewhere. And the far-right and populists are waiting.
We are not in the Alliance to clap. We are in the Alliance to fight for a pro-worker program
Need for the Tripartite Alliance to Unite ahead of November Local Government Elections
Comrades, the 4th of November local government elections are around the corner, yet we have not begun campaigning whilst the opposition is on the ground.
If the Alliance goes into November divided, we will lose. And if we lose, the DA, Action SA, and the FF+ will run our towns. And they will privatize everything.
The Alliance must agree on a pro-poor manifesto: creating decent work, fixing municipal services and dealing with corruption.
COSATU will mobilize our members. SACCAWU must mobilize retail workers in every ward and workplace to support the Alliance at the ballot box.
Preparations for COSATU’S National Congress in September
In September, we go to COSATU’s National Congress.
This Congress must be about rebuilding unity in the Labour movement, the Theme of the congress: "Building A Militant, Revolutionary Labour Movement, Strengthening Anti-Imperialist Working Class Unity, To Defend Jobs And Advance Socialism,’’
Adopting a militant program of action: National strike against poverty, against job losses
Electing leadership that will fight, not manage decline
Taking a clear position:
No to austerity.
Yes to a National Health Insurance.
Yes to a Basic Income Grant.
Yes to public
ownership of energy.
SACCAWU must come to that Congress organized and with progressive resolutions.
Conclusion
Comrades, let me close where I started: Total Emancipation.
Total emancipation will not be given to us. It will be taken. Through struggle. Through unity.
Through power.
The bosses are organised. The billionaires are organised. The IMF is organised.
Workers must be more organised.
SACCAWU, COSATU is with you. 1 million retail and hospitality workers need you.
An injury to one is an injury to all!
Thank you, Comrades.
Amandla!
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SADTU Condemns attempts to undermine accountability at the Public Investment Corporation (PIC)
Nkosana Dolopi, SADTU Deputy General Secretary,25 July 2026
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) expresses its profound concern and disappointment at the statement issued by the Minister of Finance, Mr Enoch Godongwana, regarding recent developments at the Public Investment Corporation (PIC).
As a representative of thousands of public servants whose pension savings are invested through the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), SADTU rejects any notion that accountability can be subordinated to the status, position, or perceived importance of any executive, regardless of rank.
The Minister’s intervention raises serious questions about governance, accountability and the rights of workers whose deferred wages constitute the funds entrusted to the PIC.
The central question is simple: Is the Minister suggesting that some executives are untouchable and should be shielded from the governance processes that apply to ordinary employees?
Across South Africa, precautionary suspensions are routinely applied where serious allegations, whistleblower disclosures or governance concerns require independent investigation. A precautionary suspension is not a finding of guilt and is not punitive. It is a governance mechanism designed to protect the integrity of an investigation, safeguard whistleblowers, preserve evidence and prevent intimidation, interference or retaliation.
If precautionary suspension is acceptable for ordinary workers, why should it suddenly become unacceptable when allegations concern a chief executive officer?
The Board had a fiduciary and governance responsibility to independently determine the facts surrounding allegations brought to its attention. Good governance demands that allegations be investigated impartially and without fear, favour or prejudice.
Workers are repeatedly told that they must trust experts, corporate leaders and financial executives to manage their pension investments. Yet when legitimate governance processes are applied to those occupying powerful positions, workers are expected to accept that accountability must be sacrificed in the name of stability. This is a dangerous precedent.
The elevation of certain executives to a position where normal governance standards do not apply poses a far greater threat to workers’ pension savings than any precautionary suspension ever could.
For too long, workers have been subjected to a narrative that questions the professionalism and judgment of elected worker representatives while elevating corporate and business interests as inherently superior. Workers are not mere spectators in the management of their pension funds. They are the rightful owners of these savings and have every right to demand transparency, accountability and prudent governance.
SADTU believes that workers must rise and defend their hard-earned pension savings before it is too late. The history of our country has taught painfulness about what happens when governance failures, political interference and the concentration of power are allowed to undermine accountability in public institutions.
The whistle blower allegations that gave rise to these developments must be investigated independently, professionally and transparently. Any attempt to suppress, dismiss or sweep these allegations under the carpet would be betrayal of the workers whose money is entrusted to the PIC.
SADTU warns against any effort to create a culture in which powerful executives are treated as untouchable or exempt from the governance standards applied to ordinary employees. Such a culture creates fertile ground for abuse of power and threatens the integrity of institutions entrusted with managing workers’ savings.
Workers have sacrificed throughout their working lives to build these pension savings. These funds are deferred wages belonging to workers and not politicians, executives or private interests.
We must never again allow circumstances that create opportunities for the capture, manipulation or misuse of institutions entrusted with workers’ savings. The whistle blower allegations that have emerged must be subjected to a thorough, independent, transparent and fearless investigation.
Workers must reject the dangerous notion that any executive is too important, too powerful or too connected to be subjected to normal governance processes. Accountability cannot be selective. The same standards applied to ordinary workers must apply equally to those occupying the highest positions of authority.
SADTU calls on workers to unite in defence of their pension savings and to demand greater accountability, transparency and worker oversight in the management of their deferred wages. The owners of the money must never be reduced to spectators while decisions affecting their retirement security are taken on their behalf.
The time has come for workers to take a firm stand in defence of the GEPF and the PIC. Silence and complacency are not options. Workers must organise, mobilise and ensure that their voices are heard before it is too late.
No politician is bigger than the workers and their unions.
No individual is bigger than the institution. No executive is above accountability. No threat to workers’ savings must go unchallenged.
.
ISSUEDBY: SADTU Secretariat
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SAMWU condemns National Treasury as municipal workers are denied salaries
Dumisane Magagula, SAMWU General Secretary, 24 July 2026
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) condemns the deepening salary crisis confronting municipal workers following National Treasury’s reckless and irrational decision to withhold equitable share allocations from selected municipalities.
When National Treasury announced the withholding of the July 2026 equitable share, SAMWU warned that the decision would have serious and entirely foreseeable consequences. We cautioned that municipalities would be unable to pay workers’ salaries, pension and medical aid contributions, honour third-party deductions, pay service providers and sustain the delivery of essential public services.
National Treasury nevertheless assured the country that its decision would have no impact on service delivery. That assurance has now been exposed as dangerously detached from the lived realities of municipalities, workers and communities.
Today was supposed to be a day on which municipal workers received not only their salaries, but also their scheduled salary increases. Instead, thousands of workers have been left without their salaries and without the increases that were due to improve their already strained household incomes.
Workers had planned their lives and financial commitments around receiving these salaries and increases. They now face the double injustice of being denied both the wages they have already earned and the salary adjustments they were entitled to receive.
The evidence before SAMWU demonstrates that this crisis is no longer confined to one municipality or one province.
In the Free State, at least five municipalities have formally communicated their inability to pay salaries or confirmed further delays:
- Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality;
- Mantsopa Local Municipality;
- Mafube Local Municipality;
- Mohokare Local Municipality; and
- Masilonyana Local Municipality.
In several of these municipalities, workers have not received salaries dating back to June 2026. SAMWU has also received reports that workers at Kopanong Local Municipality have not been paid, despite the municipality having issued no formal communication explaining the situation to employees.
In the Northern Cape, workers at Thembelihle, Renosterberg and !Kheis municipalities have experienced delayed salary payments, while workers at Kareeberg Local Municipality have been informed that they will only receive payment on Monday.
In KwaZulu-Natal, workers at iMpendle Local Municipality are also affected by delayed or non-payment of salaries.
In the North West, workers at Tswaing Local Municipality remain affected, with outstanding June and July salaries delayed while the municipality awaits the balance of its equitable share allocation.
In Limpopo, Mopani District Municipality managed to pay workers despite not receiving its equitable share. However, the municipality’s ability to pay salaries next month is now in serious doubt. This demonstrates that even municipalities that have temporarily shielded workers from the immediate consequences are being pushed towards a financial cliff.
This crisis must be understood in its proper context. Some municipalities were already experiencing serious cash-flow and revenue-collection challenges. National Treasury’s withholding of the equitable share has not corrected these problems. It has worsened them, removed an essential financial lifeline and increased the likelihood that more workers will go unpaid in the coming weeks.
The equitable share is not a favour or a discretionary gift from National Treasury. It is a constitutionally recognised allocation intended to enable municipalities to fulfil their developmental and service-delivery obligations.
Municipalities cannot be deprived of these resources and still be expected to operate as though nothing has happened. Behind every unpaid salary is a worker and a family being pushed deeper into poverty.
Municipal workers have bonds and rent to pay. They must buy food, pay school fees and transport costs, purchase electricity, maintain insurance policies and provide for their children and other dependants. Their financial obligations do not disappear simply because National Treasury has decided to withhold municipal funding.
The salary increases that workers were due to receive today were not luxuries. They were meant to assist workers in coping with the rising cost of food, transport, electricity, housing and other necessities. Denying workers both their salaries and their increases compounds the hardship imposed upon their families.
Workers who have rendered their labour are now expected to return home empty-handed and explain why there is no food on the table, why children cannot travel to school, why electricity cannot be purchased and why debit orders cannot be honoured.
SAMWU calls on the Minister of Finance and the National Treasury officials responsible for this decision to search their consciences. The Minister and Treasury officials have received their salaries and any adjustments due to them. Their children have food to eat, transport to school and warm homes in which to sleep. Their bonds, pension contributions, medical aid payments and other financial commitments continue to be honoured.
Yet, through decisions taken from the comfort of their offices, they have relegated municipal workers and their families to hunger, debt, humiliation and poverty.
What conscience permits public officials to receive their full salaries while implementing decisions that deny other workers the wages they have already earned?
What kind of fiscal discipline punishes refuse collectors, water workers, electricians, general workers and administrative employees for failures committed by municipal managers, senior officials and political office-bearers?
Municipal workers did not adopt unfunded budgets. They did not authorise irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. They did not fail to implement consequence management. They did not create the financial crisis confronting local government.
Yet workers and poor communities have been selected to carry the burden. This is not fiscal discipline. It is collective punishment.
Public services are delivered by workers. Water does not flow because of Treasury circulars. Refuse is not collected through spreadsheets. Electricity networks are not maintained through austerity measures. Roads, sanitation systems and water infrastructure are maintained by workers whose labour sustains communities every day.
Workers cannot be expected to subsidise the state through unpaid labour. A municipality that cannot pay its workforce cannot credibly be expected to maintain uninterrupted service delivery.
National Treasury’s decision is creating the very conditions for the further collapse of local government. It is worsening municipal debt, threatening third-party payments, exposing workers to bank charges and adverse credit records, and destabilising municipalities that were already financially vulnerable.
The present crisis confirms the correctness of the issues raised by SAMWU during its National Day of Action on 9 July 2026. Municipal workers marched because National Treasury has become a recurring obstacle to the proper functioning, funding and transformation of local government.
SAMWU warned that Treasury’s austerity programme, the chronic underfunding of municipalities and its continued interference in local government would ultimately destroy public services and impoverish workers. The salary crisis now spreading across the country is the foreseeable consequence of a policy against which the Union repeatedly warned.
If National Treasury genuinely intended to assist dysfunctional municipalities, it could have worked with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and the relevant provincial governments to implement targeted interventions under section 139 of the Constitution.
Such interventions could have addressed failures in governance, financial management and accountability without depriving innocent workers of their salaries, salary increases and dignity, and without denying communities essential public services.
Instead, National Treasury selected the most destructive option available: financially strangling entire municipalities and leaving workers and communities to absorb the consequences.
SAMWU therefore demands:
- The immediate release of all outstanding equitable share allocations to affected municipalities.
- The immediate payment of all outstanding June and July salaries.
- The payment of the salary increases due to municipal workers without further delay.
- The immediate payment of pension, medical aid, bargaining council contributions and all other third-party deductions.
- Protection and compensation for workers who incur bank charges, penalties, adverse credit consequences and other financial losses because of delayed salaries.
- Urgent intervention by the President, Cabinet, COGTA and the relevant provincial governments.
- Personal accountability for municipal officials and political office-bearers responsible for financial misconduct, rather than the collective punishment of workers and communities.
National government must urgently rein in National Treasury before this manufactured crisis spreads to more municipalities and brings public services to a complete standstill.
The Union places the Minister of Finance and National Treasury on notice: every day that workers remain unpaid deepens their anger and frustration. Government cannot expect labour peace while workers who have performed their duties are denied their salaries and salary increases, and their families are forced into poverty.
Municipal workers are not expendable.
Their children are no less deserving of food, education, warmth and dignity than the children of ministers and senior government officials.
Issued by SAMWU Secretariat
Internationalism-Solidarity
Women’s Centre visit to Autoliv in Nador
24 July, 2026
On Wednesday 22 July 2026, the Women's Centre in Tunisia and IndustriALL organized a field visit and training day at Autoliv's site in Nador, Zaghouan
Governorate. The centre operates under the auspices of Fédération Générale du Textile, de l'Habillement, Chaussure et Cuir (FGTHCC-UGTT) and IndustriALL.
The training was delivered for Autoliv workers and members of the FGTHCC-UGTT women’s committee. The event focused on combatting violence against women in all its forms. It also covered ways to prevent violence. Moreover, it discussed mechanisms of briefing,
legal support and social support for working women. The importance of raising awareness of women’s rights was also emphasized. Additionally, the event highlighted enhancing their participation in trade union work.
The visit provided a valuable opportunity to engage with working women directly. It allowed them to hear their aspirations and concerns. This helped develop programmes and activities that address their needs and support their position within the workplace.
The visit also aimed to enhance direct communication with female employees. Furthermore, it allowed for a close examination of their working conditions. It helped identify their main concerns and difficulties within the institution. As a result, this will
help to support female employees and defend their professional and social rights.
IndustriALL assistant general secretary, Christine Olivier, said:
“We are proud of the important work the Women’s Centre is doing to support women workers, strengthen their voice and advance their rights in the workplace.”
Autoliv is an American-Swedish automotive safety supplier headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden and incorporated in Delaware, United States as Autoliv, Inc. It is the world’s largest automotive safety system supplier. The company produces systems including seat
belts, frontal air bags, side-impact air bags, air bag inflators and steering wheels. The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance is the company’s largest customer at 10 per cent of 2023 revenue. Additionally, Stellantis accounts for 10 per cent and Volkswagen
9 per cent.
At 34 per cent of 2023 revenue, the Americas was Autoliv’s largest geographic region. Europe followed at 27 per cent, China at 20 per cent, and rest of world at 19 per cent. Autoliv operates in 25 countries and 14 Tech Centers worldwide. The company has a global
workforce of 70,000 workers.
Autoliv has two sites in Tunisia, in Fahs and Nador, with a total of approximately 4,000 employees. The vast majority of these workers are organized in FGTHCC-UGTT.
The Women’s Centre opened in Tunis to support female workers in Tunisia’s textile and garment industry. It is run under the auspices of FGTHCC-UGTT and IndustriALL and sponsored by online retailer ASOS. The centre supports female workers around gender-based
violence and health and safety. It also provides training and campaigning for women-related matters, especially ratification of ILO Convention 190 (C190).
______________________________
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