Taking COSATU Today Forward Special Bulletin, 30 July 2026
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY COSATU Call Center Contacts: 010 002 2590 #Cosatu wraps its 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 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
30 July 2026
“Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism”
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- NEHAWU KZN to submit memorandum of demands to National Health Laboratory Service at Prince Mshiyeni Laboratory
- South Africa
- COSATU notes the appointment of Deputy Minister Mohai as the Chairperson of the PIC
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- African mining unions launch network to defend workers’ rights
Workers’
Parliament-Back2Basics #ClassWar
NEHAWU KZN to submit memorandum of demands to National Health Laboratory Service at Prince Mshiyeni Laboratory
Ayanda Zulu, NEHAWU KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Secretary, July 30, 2026
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] in KwaZulu-Natal will on 31 July 2026 submit a Memorandum of Demands to the National Health Laboratory Service [NHLS] at Prince Mshiyeni Laboratory.
The submission marks the beginning of a broader and more sustained campaign by NEHAWU against what the union regards as the escalating assault on the rights, dignity and livelihoods of workers across various NHLS laboratories in the province. This campaign follows a resolution of the recently held Provincial Executive Committee [PEC] meeting, which resolved that the union must intensify its organisational and workplace interventions in defence of NHLS workers.
NEHAWU is deeply concerned about the growing number of dismissals at NHLS and the manner in which disciplinary processes are being utilised against workers and recognised shop stewards. The alarming rate at which employees are being subjected to disciplinary action and dismissal raises serious questions about the state of labour relations within the institution and the commitment of NHLS management to fair, constructive and meaningful engagement with organised labour.
The union is particularly concerned that, despite repeated attempts to engage management and resolve workplace challenges through established labour-relations structures, many issues affecting employees remain unresolved. NEHAWU, will therefore not remain passive while workers are subjected to what it considers to be intimidation, unfair treatment, arbitrary disciplinary action and attacks on their organisational rights.
The memorandum at Prince Mshiyeni Laboratory is intended to place these concerns formally before NHLS management and to demand urgent intervention on matters affecting workers at the institution. It is also part of NEHAWU’s broader campaign to expose and challenge practices that undermine workers’ rights and weaken collective organization within the workplace.
Our program is planned as follows:
• Date: 31 July 2026
• Venue: NHLS Prince Mshiyeni Hospital
• Time: 12h00
The union will continue to utilise every appropriate avenue available to protect its members and recognised shop stewards and to demand accountability from the employer. The union remains relentless and uncompromising in its defence of workers’ rights, dignity and organisational freedoms. We will not be intimidated, silenced or threatened by NHLS management or any individual when exercising our legitimate responsibility to represent and defend our members.
END
Issued by NEHAWU KwaZulu-Natal Secretariat Office
South Africa #ClassSolidarity
COSATU notes the appointment of Deputy Minister Mohai as the Chairperson of the PIC
Matthew Parks, COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator, 30 July 2026
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) notes the appointment of the Deputy Minister in the Presidency, Mr. Seiso Mohai, as the Chairperson of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) as well as other Board members.
Deputy Minister Mohai, a humble and seasoned public servant, will provide badly needed authority and stability to the PIC, the largest investment fund in South Africa and the continent. Mr. Mohai brings decades of leadership, tertiary qualifications and most importantly, a record of standing up to state capture and corruption, irrespective of the personal cost to himself.
Deputy Minister Mohai played an instrumental role in ensuring the 5th Parliament adopted the PIC Amendment Act in 2019, against massive covert and overt resistance from many vested and powerful state capture interests. The PIC Amendment Act acting upon demands from COSATU, workers, pensioners, and the recommendations of the Judge Lex Mpati Commission of Enquiry into the PIC; introduced some of the most comprehensive anti-corruption and transparency legislative amendments.
It is critical that the remaining appointments to the PIC Board, in particular those selected by the depositors and workers, be expedited to provide stability to the PIC and most importantly to put in place the necessary oversight to ensure that workers and pensioners’ hard-earned wages are protected at all times.
COSATU offers its support to the new Board, including the soon to be confirmed depositor and worker representatives. We will equally insist that they move with speed to strengthen governance, oversight, transparency and accountability measures at the PIC, in particular complying in full with the PIC Act’s requirements for all investments, listed and unlisted, be publicly disclosed fully on its website and submitted to Parliament, Treasury and the depositors annually. Non-compliance with this fundamental legal requirement can no longer be tolerated.
The Federation will similarly insist that the PIC continue all investigations instituted by the previous Board into alleged corruption and state capture. We urge the President, Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa, to task the Special Investigations Unit, the Auditor-General and the Hawks to institute a comprehensive investigation of all PIC investments to ensure the cancer of corruption and state capture is fully exorcised from the PIC.
COSATU notes the various discussions taking place in the public discourse about the next phase of the PIC’s legislative reforms. The PIC invests more than R3.6 trillion worth of public servants’ pensions and workers’ unemployment and occupational injuries and diseases’ funds. The Federation will insist that any proposed legislative amendments strengthen the 2019 Amendment Act’s landmark anti-corruption, transparency, accountability and developmental provisions. We will never allow these historic, progressive and anti-corruption provisions to be reversed or watered down.
The Federation will ramp up its efforts to ensure that the PIC not only protects workers and pensioners’ monies, but also uses these to benefit workers, pensioners and the working class at large.
The days of some PIC officials, tenderpreneurs and politicians treating the PIC as their personal slush fund must now end and those who have looted be charged, prosecuted, convicted, imprisoned and their assets attached.
Issued by COSATU
Internationalism-Solidarity
African mining unions launch network to defend workers’ rights
30 July, 2026
African mining unions have launched the African mining network (AMNet) to coordinate regional action on the sector. The network will focus on mine workers'
rights, precarious work, health and safety, critical minerals, supply-chain accountability and a Just Transition across the continent.
On 27 July, more than 50 delegates from 12 African countries agreed during an online meeting to build a common platform for mining unions. Trade unions in mining still organize mainly within national borders. Mining companies, by contrast, operate across borders
with ease.
AMNet priorities
According to discussions in the meeting, AMNet will build union power through regional and global organizing including union-to-union solidarity and commodity-based company networks. It will also defend workers against precarious work, promote freedom of association,
collective bargaining and living wages. The network will confront casualisation, subcontracting and migrant-labour exploitation. Further, it will advance a Just Transition in coal and critical mineral regions through reskilling, social protection and worker
participation.
Further, it will hold capital accountable through due diligence frameworks and coordinated campaigns against multinationals that violate workers and human rights. AMNet will carry this mandate through research, organizing and policy advocacy. The network will
engage with governments, the African Union, regional economic communities and multilateral development banks.
Participants identified precarious contracts, weak health and safety enforcement and the growing footprint of Chinese mining firms as challenges no single IndustriALL Global Union affiliate can tackle alone. They also highlighted the increasing demand for critical
minerals caused by the global energy transition including copper, cobalt, lithium, platinum group metals and rare earth elements.
The Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia dominate global cobalt production, while South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Ghana anchor platinum, lithium, diamond and gold value chains. Additionally, the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea has the largest
high grade iron ore project globally. Yet pressure to extract quickly rather than beneficiate, create decent jobs and tax fairly is sacrificing workers’ rights and risking Africa’s lock-in to low-value extraction while decarbonization gains accrue elsewhere.
Precarious work, critical minerals and mine safety
The meeting stated that Africa supplies the raw materials for global decarbonization but remains largely confined to extraction, with limited industrial upgrading and weak links to domestic transformation. This enclave model creates mineral wealth with few
spillovers into jobs or diversification. Subcontracting, labour broking and informalization have further eroded standard employment relationships and weakened collective bargaining, while artisanal and small-scale mining remains largely informal.
Health and safety risks remain severe, especially in underground and poorly regulated operations. Ratification and enforcement of the ILO Safety and Health in Mines Convention (C176) are uneven, leaving African mineworkers exposed to fatalities, injuries, and
occupational disease.
The meeting heard that multinational corporations still dominate production and value distribution. Voluntary ESG and human rights due diligence frameworks have had limited impact, particularly where enforcement is weak and binding accountability is absent.
Multilateral development banks financing mining infrastructure and green-transition reforms have adopted Just Transition language, but their investment-friendly approaches sometimes violate workers’ rights where labour flexibility is treated as a condition
for capital.
These concerns echoed IndustriALL’s 2025 Sydney global mining conference, which called for stronger organizing across multinationals, sharper Just Transition frameworks, better safety and firmer supply-chain accountability.
Leadership structure and regional organizing
The proposed AMNet leadership includes two co-chairs and a secretary. It also includes Francophone and North Africa representatives and a representative for women and youth, with thematic subcommittees to follow.
Speakers argued that the network needs leaders who are able to engage governments and multinationals directly. Delegates also agreed to organize around focused themes, rather than try to cover every issue at once.
“Africa could control a significant share of global platinum supply if the continent organized to capture the value, for example, in South Africa and Zimbabwe’s platinum resources rather than simply exporting the ore,”
said Mpho Phakedi, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers.
Platinum and diamond supply-chain accountability
Participants agreed that the network success will be case based. The first is Impala Platinum’s supply chain, which runs from mines in Zimbabwe and South Africa to Volkswagen factories in Germany. Unions plan to use that chain as leverage, working with the
Human Rights Due Diligence Competence Centre and German supply-chain law to seek remedy where violations are found.
The second is diamonds. An August meeting in Botswana will examine the global diamond sector, with producers such as De Beers invited, as affiliates build a collective union response to market volatility affecting cutters and miners. On health and safety, affiliates
continue collecting country-level data to give the network’s arguments an evidence base.
“This is an important network which must be a platform for building trade union power: defending workers’ rights, building union strength, holding capital accountable and shaping a Just Transition that works for Africa’s mineworkers,”
said Kemal Ozkan, IndustriALL assistant general secretary.
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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