Taking COSATU Today Forward, 19 July 2022
Norman Mampane
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#2022YearofWorkersParliament #DENOSA Gauteng leading a march from COSATU House, tomorrow at 09h00 #SACTWU holds its Central Committee in Cape Town #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
Tuesday, 19 July 2022
‘Deepen
the Back to Basics Campaign, Consolidate the Struggle for the NDR and Advance the Struggle for Socialism’
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- COSATU Western Cape holds a Media Briefing tomorrow: Strike Action on 04 August 2022
- South Africa
- SATAWU extends its condolences to the Duarte family
- NUM congratulates the newly SACP collective leadership elected at the 15th National Congress
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- Workers’ demands reflected in the UN HLPF Ministerial Declaration: Now it’s time to act
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
COSATU Western Cape holds a Media Briefing tomorrow: Strike Action on 04 August 2022
Malvern De Bruyn, COSATU Western Cape Provincial Secretary, 19 July 2022
COSATU Western Cape is inviting Journalist and Media Houses to a Media Briefing to outline Western Cape`s announcement and readiness for the strike action on Thursday, 04 August 2022.
The details are as follows
Date: Wednesday, 20th July 2022
Time: 12h00
Venue: COSATU Western Cape Office Boardroom
1st Floor Saltriver Road
Community House
Saltriver
Issued by COSATU Western Cape
For more information contact:
COSATU Provincial Secretary
Email: mal...@cosatu.org.za
Tel: 021 448 0046
Cell: 060 977 9027
South Africa
SATAWU extends its condolences to the Duarte family
Jack Mazibuko, SATAWU General Secretary, 18th July 2022
The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) sends its deepest and heartfelt condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of the late African National Congress (ANC) Deputy General Secretary Cde Jessie Duarte who passed away yesterday. Comrade Duarte died at the age of 68 years
Comrade Jessie was an apartheid activist who fought against the apartheid Government. She dedicated her life to the struggle, to make sure that the lives of the poor and the working class improve. Comrade Jessie held different positions not only in the ANC but in the Trade Unions as well and in South African Government. She played a very important role when she mobilised domestic workers and she participated in the strike Committee for the National Union of Mine Workers. The former DSG of the ANC also played a huge role in the re-establishment of the SACP.
Comrade Jessie passed away at a time when the country needs her the most. It is indeed a great loss both in Politics and in South African Government. Comrade DSG Duarte believed in women empowerment especially young black women, an equal society, a free Gender Based Violence South Africa, no-racial and non-sexist society.
SATAWU wishes to send its heartfelt and deepest condolences once again to the ANC, Duarte and Dangor families. They are in our prayers during this difficult time. Comrade Jessie will be dearly missed by all of us.
Issued by SATAWU
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NUM congratulates the newly SACP collective leadership elected at the 15th National Congress
William Mabapa, NUM General Secretary, 18 July 2022
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) wish to forward its congratulatory message to the newly elected South African Communist Party (SACP) leadership, led by Comrade Solly Mapaila who was elected unopposed as the General Secretary of the SACP. Comrade Madala Masuku is now the first deputy general secretary and deputy finance minister comrade David Masondo is the second deputy general secretary. Dr Blade Nzimande as national chairperson.
Comrade Nzimande will be deputised by labour Minister comrade Thulas Nxesi. Comrade Joyce Moloi-Moropa returns as national treasurer.
The NUM believes that with these newly elected leaders, the party will continue to play its pivotal role in advancing the interests of the working class and remain strong as a vanguard of the poor workers in the country.
We are certain that the poorest of the poor will be represented at all levels. The capitalist system has not just created record unemployment, but it drives an accumulation strategy that has led to attacks on the working class, including massive cuts in wages
to increase profits.
The state has responded to this depressing situation and gloomy economy with uncalculated and unnecessary arrogance.
In our country like anywhere else in the world, the crisis and the offensive of capital have intensified the exploitation of workers.
Millions of workers live
below the poverty threshold. Capital has coerced workers into low-paying jobs and vulnerable economic sectors, into casualised, contractual jobs.
It is clear for all to see with the unemployment numbers, widening inequality, and poverty level that this system cannot be mitigated by neoliberal shock therapies consisting of bailouts, tax subsidies and other incentives.
We hope the newly elected leadership will intervene in mitigating the situation that the country is faced with.
Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx presented the concept of the vanguard party as solely qualified to politically lead the proletariat in revolution; in Chapter II: "Proletarians and Communists" of The Communist Manifesto (1848), they said: "The Communists, therefore, are, on the one hand, practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat."
International-Solidarity
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Workers’ demands reflected in the UN HLPF Ministerial Declaration: Now it’s time to act
18 July 2022
The Ministerial Declaration of the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) contains many key workers’ demands. But more ambition is needed to rescue the SDGs with a New Social Contract.
This year’s HLPF focused on “building back better” from Covid-19, while moving towards the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Although the Sustainable Development Goal on Inclusive Growth, Productive Employment and Decent Work (SDG 8) was not reviewed at this edition of the Forum, trade unions welcome that the centrality of its targets has been reflected by governments in the HLPF Ministerial Declaration, supporting key workers’ demands for a new social contract centred on SDG 8:
· Governments highlight the “urgent need to create conditions for decent work for all, protect labour rights of all workers and achieve universal social protection”, as well as the need to “ensure just transitions that promote sustainable development and eradication of poverty, and the creation of decent work” with direct reference to the role of the UN Global Accelerator for Jobs and Social Protection of Just Transitions, as requested by the ITUC.
· Trade unions particularly welcome governments recognition of the role of social dialogue in designing policies to guarantee equal access for women to decent work and quality jobs in all sectors and at all levels, including through “ensuring equal pay for work of equal value, (…) ensuring the safety of all women in the world of work, and promoting the right to organise and bargain collectively”. The Declaration also identifies "improved wages, working conditions and social protection” as key to recognising and rewarding women’s disproportionate share of care and domestic work, and calls for gender-responsive social protection policies and care services.
· Trade unions welcome the objective to adopt education and lifelong learning strategies and budgets that ensure gender equality and prioritise skills development and decent employment of young people.
While trade unions are pleased with these important recommendations, they are concerned that the declaration does not reflect the urgency needed to rise to the challenge of achieving the 2030 Agenda.
As the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated: “We are far from powerless. (…) We have the knowledge, the science, the technology and the financial resources to reverse the trajectory.”
Halfway to 2030, trade unions believe in the world’s ability and responsibility to change course.
Trade unions therefore urge governments to come together and build a New Social Contract centred on SDG 8 putting in place job creation plans, labour rights, universal social protection, minimum statutory living wages with collective bargaining, equality and inclusion.
The time to rescue the SDGs is now.
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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