Taking COSATU Today Forward, 28 August 2025 #CosatuCC2025
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY #Cosatu scheduled to convene its ordinary 8th Central Committee in September 2025 #CosatuCC2025 #WorkerControl #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
28 August 2025
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- SADTU is ready to host the 2025 SATO Solidarity Games
- South Africa
- COSATU mourns the death of Tshidi Madia
- SADTU Responds to the Appointment of Penelope Vinjevold as Chairperson of the National Education and Training Council
- SACP extends message of heartfelt condolences to family of journalist Tshidi Madia
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- Pakistan: Three workers killed in gas explosion in coal mine
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
SADTU is ready to host the 2025 SATO Solidarity Games
Nomusa Cembi, SADTU Media Officer, 28 August 2025
It is all systems go for the 2025Southern African Teachers’ Organisation (SAT0) Solidarity Games and Cultural Night set to take place in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal from 29 to 30 August 2025.
Hosted by the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU), South Africa’s largest teacher union, the event will bring together close to2 500educators from teacher unions across the SADC Region to participate in friendly games aimed at strengthening unity, relations, solidary and overall wellness among educators.
Sport is not just an extra curricula activity but an integral part of education as it can provide learners with wider career options. Teachers, therefore, play a critical role in reviving school sports.
SATO member unions include Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (ZIMTA), Zambia’s National Union of Teachers (ZNUT), Namibia National Teachers’ Union (NANTU), Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), Lesotho Association of Teachers (LAT), Botswana Teachers’ Union (BTU), Tanzania Teachers’ Union (TTU), South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU), Sindica to National de Professores (SINPROF), and Organizacao National Professores (ONP)and Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM)
Over two days, participants will compete in a variety of sporting codes including soccer, netball, volleyball, basketball, lawn tennis, table tennis, athletics, pool, chess, and darts in various venues in Durban.
SATO is working closely with the KwaZulu Natal Sports Confederation and eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality to ensure the success of the Games.
EVENT DETAILS:
DAY 1:Friday, 29August 2025
• Opening ceremony
• Venue: Kings Park Athletics Stadium
• Time: 9AM –11AM
Games
• Time:11AM–17HOO
• Kings Park Athletics Stadium: athletics
• Sharks Outspan Grounds: male soccer
• Hoy Park: ladies’ soccer, volleyball, basketball, and netball
• George Campbell High School: chess and table tennis
• Westridge Tennis Stadium: lawn tennis
• Lounge Silverglen (Chatsworth): darts and pool
DAY 2:Saturday, 30 August 2025
• Time: 8:30am –14H30
Games:
• Hoy Park: ladies’ soccer, basketball, volleyball, and netball
• George Campbell High School: chess and table tennis
• Westridge Tennis Stadium: lawn tennis
• Lounge Silverglen (Chatsworth): darts and pool
Cultural Night/Gala Dinner(closed session)
• ICC Exhibition Centre
• Time: 19H30
MEDIA ATTENDANCE:
All media are invited to attend and cover the sporting events.
ISSUED BY: SADTU Secretariat
CONTACT: Media Officer, Nomusa Cembi: 082719 5157
COSATU mourns the death of Tshidi Madia
Zanele Sabela, COSATU National Spokesperson, 28 August 2025
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) joins millions of South Africans in mourning the passing of political journalist and editor extraordinaire, Tshidi Madia.
Tshidi will be remembered for her insightful reportage; she had a way of looking beyond the obvious and unveiling what lay beneath the surface. She seemed to always have the inside story because she had cultivated relationships with sources based on trust.
In addition to her superior journalist instinct and skill, her disarming manner was an effective weapon in her arsenal, she used it to develop a rapport with political actors.
Her fierce loyalty to her country was laid bare in the interview following the South African delegation’s visit to the White House. She displayed remarkable patriotism, stood firm on the principles of true journalism and dismantled the lie of the so called South African genocide on a global stage, giving audiences an opportunity to judge for themselves based on facts and not myths.
We will miss her easy laugh and rich voice over the airwaves.
Condolences to her family, her EWN colleagues, the political fraternity and the nation at large.
Issued by COSATU
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SADTU Responds to the Appointment of Penelope Vinjevold as Chairperson of the National Education and Training Council
Dr. Mugwena Maluleke, SADTU General Secretary, 28 August 2025
The South African Democratic Teachers ’Union (SADTU) observes with grave concern the announcement by Minister Siviwe Gwarube of the appointment of Penelope Vinjevold as Chairperson of the National Education and Training Council (NETC), a body set to advise on national education policy at a time of unprecedented contestation over the trajectory and meaning of transformation within South Africa’s education system.
While the revitalisation of the NETC, dormant since its establishment under the National Education Policy Act (NEPA), was presented as a milestone in strengthening policy architecture, SADTU contends that this appointment signals an alarming reaffirmation of the supremacist paradigms and interests that have historically privileged colonial and Western-centric educational models at the expense of authentic transformation and decolonisation.
Education Reform Under Siege
This appointment comes against the backdrop of overwhelming evidence of ongoing resistance and in some quarters, deliberate sabotage, of transformative and decolonial objectives in both school and higher education. Despite constitutional and policy commitments to equity, social justice, and the dismantling of apartheid legacies, the South African education system is still marked by acute race, class, spatial, and epistemic divides. The very foundations of our democratic society were built on the understanding that education must serve as the primary driver of social transformation, a principle entrenched in the Constitution and the legislative framework underpinning education policy from NEPA to the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Act.
However, with every step forward, from campaigns for a decolonised curriculum to the hard- won gains of the #FeesMustFall and broader transformation movements, SADTU has encountered entrenched pushback from the beneficiaries of colonialism and neoliberalism, who have repeatedly mobilised institutional, political, and legal mechanisms to defend their privileges. The appointment of individuals with deep roots and investment in these very paradigms to advisory and leadership positions represents a calculated attempt to arrest and reverse the democratic gains for which generations have fought and, in too many cases, died.
The NETC Mandate and Its Potential for (Mis)Direction
The National Education and Training Council, established under NEPA and formally activated in terms of the 2009 regulations, exists to serve as a high-level, independent advisory structure to the Minister of Basic Education, guiding the development of policy on resourcing, curriculum, teacher professionalism, assessment, and inclusive education. Minister Gwarube has described the new NETC as a “deliberate effort to bring together a wide spectrum of expertise in education policy, curriculum development and delivery, pedagogy and education management and governance,” with members serving not as representatives of constituent bodies, but as supposed “experts” in their personal capacity.
SADTU has consistently argued that such bodies, if not rooted in democratic representation, social justice, and a clear decolonial mandate, risk becoming echo chambers for elite interests and professional gatekeepers, rather than engines for systemic transformation. Recent history in South Africa demonstrates that even “diverse” boards and councils can be captured or dominated by perspectives that rationalise, normalise, and ultimately perpetuate the status quo of “white tone,” prestige, and exclusion.
Policy advisory positions must not serve as revolving doors for those who have presided over or defended inequity but must foreground the voices, experiences, and wisdom of the marginalised majority, the working class, rural poor, and those whose communities still bear the scars of apartheid and colonialism.
Penelope Vinjevold- A Profile Marked by the Entrenchment of Colonial Interests
It is in this context that SADTU must unequivocally challenge the decision to place Penelope Vinjevold at the helm of the NETC. Penelope Vinjevold’s record, whilst presented by her supporters as one steeped in “expertise” in curriculum development and administration, is, in fact, marked by steadfast support for policy directions and institutional cultures that have repeatedly privileged whiteness, exclusion, and the aesthetic and operational maintenance of “Model C” and former white school norms.
As a senior bureaucrat, Vinjevold presided over both the national and provincial systems at moments when the logic of neoliberalism and marketisation was being cemented in the
education sector, the very period in which former white schools, under the guise of “multiculturalism,” expanded the practice of gatekeeping through fees, language policies, and covert selection mechanisms. Rather than challenging these injustices, Vinjevold’s leadership, by both action and omission, reinforced the position of elite schools at the apex of the education pyramid, while the overwhelming majority of black and working class students were resigned to underfunded, overcrowded, and often unsafe learning environments.
Her much-lauded involvement in curriculum revision processes and “systemic reform” has conspicuously failed to confront the deep epistemological privileging of Western knowledge systems and the marginalisation of African languages, histories, and epistemologies.
Indeed, the curricula championed during her tenure did little to disrupt the status of English and Afrikaans as dominant mediums and instead deepened the barriers for children in rural and township communities.
Further, her public statements and approach to policy development have reflected a technocratic, managerial ethos, prioritising standardisation and compliance over transformation, inclusion, or epistemic justice. The record is clear, at every critical juncture, where choice had to be made between advancing the transformative agenda or holding the line for established (white, Western, and elite) interests, Vinjevold has chosen the latter. This is not a record of transformation; it is a record of anti-transformation.
White Supremacy, “White Tone,” and the Ongoing Battle for Epistemic Justice
To the South African people, it is essential that we call things by their names. The continued dominance of “white tone” in education, where educational prestige, standards of excellence, and cultural capital are coded in whiteness and Western modernity, must be recognised as a direct extension of both colonialism and apartheid’s social engineering. Despite the end of legal apartheid, the machinery of exclusion continues through language policies, school fees, hidden curriculum, and cultural requirements that systematically disadvantage the black majority, immigrants, and the poor.
Mark Hunter’s analysis of race, gender, and “white tone” in education demonstrates that South African schooling has reorganised itself after 1994 to maintain the symbolic and material dominance of former white spaces, the “multicultural” turn serves to mask rather than resolve exclusion, by rendering whiteness as both aspiration and symbol of merit. Much of this is enforced not only through explicit regulations but through a culture of quiet gatekeeping: feeder zones, early registration, legacy admissions, and language tests, all serving to insulate the privileged, preserve status, and reproduce epistemic injustice.
SADTU holds that the roots of this injustice are not only racial or economic but are also profoundly epistemic. The imposed dominance of Eurocentric knowledge systems, the valorisation of English and Afrikaans, the ongoing marginalisation of African languages, and the erasure of indigenous and black experience from the classroom constitute a systematic “epistemicide.” This, following the arguments of de Sousa Santos, Ndlovu, Gatsheni, and South African decolonial thinkers demands a relentless disruption, not superficial reform.
Unwavering in the Pursuit of Social and Epistemic Justice
Since its inception in 1990, SADTU has been a bulwark against conservative, colonial, and exclusionary forces within education. We have repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of racially segregated teacher organisations and school departments, uniting teachers, and education workers around a vision of non-racialism, working-class mobilisation, and transformative social justice. Our Constitution and 2030 Vision are explicit; SADTU exists to eradicate all forms of discrimination in education, defend human dignity, and ensure that education is meaningfully accessible, inclusive, and decolonial.
SADTU’s founding aims and objectives include
• Uniting teachers and educationalists for a non-racial, non-sexist, just, and democratic education system.
• Eradicating racism, sexism, class-based discrimination, and all forms of exclusion.
• Challenging the apartheid and colonial legacy in education and fighting for a decolonial curriculum and institutional culture.
• Mobilising teachers as agents of transformation, with a commitment to epistemic, racial, and class-based justice.
Our 2030 Vision and successive National Congress resolutions reaffirm these principles, calling for transformative action at all levels, through policy advocacy, collective bargaining,
organising, community mobilisation, and the pursuit of curriculum decolonisation and epistemic justice.
We have led and supported the adoption of anti-discrimination policies, the championing of African languages, gender equality, research on educational change, and consistent opposition to any administrative or political regression.
A Warning Against Derailment and Co-Option
SADTU is not duped by the rhetoric of “diversity,” “expertise,” or technocratic innovation so often used to sanitise the real content of power relations within our education system. We have studied how successive versions of “consultative bodies,” statutory committees, and advisory councils have been used by colonial and neocolonial power to capture transformation, water down its content, stifle grassroots participation, and present cosmetic adjustments as meaningful change.
We thus issue a clear, unequivocal warning that any attempt to use the NETC, or any similar body, to advance the narrow, self-reproducing interests of the privileged minority will be fiercely opposed by SADTU’s more than 270,000 strong membership, by the communities we serve, and by every ally within civil society, labour, and progressive politics.
The struggle for transformation will not be pathologised, reduced to managerial questions of efficiency, or hived off into “task teams” divorced from their social and historical context.
We have seen the tactics of derailment before, co-option of black faces into white-centred spaces, token representation, and individual advancement at the cost of collective liberation.
We refuse any “compromises” that leave the structures, content, and culture of education unchanged. Superficial reforms cannot substitute for the radical reconstitution of curriculum, pedagogy, and resource distribution in the interests of the oppressed majority.
Towards an Inclusive, Decolonial, and Equitable Education System
SADTU draws on its historic mission and the principles of transformative constitutionalism to set out the following minimum programme for truly inclusive, decolonised, and equitable
education-
1. The dismantling of all mechanisms of “white tone,” racial and class-based gatekeeping, and the various direct and indirect exclusions from admission to resourcing, to assessment.
2. The elevation and full integration of African indigenous knowledge systems, languages, histories, and pedagogies in curricula at all levels, and rejected is any curriculum which,
whilst revised in form, simply repackages South Africa’s multicultural diversity within a Eurocentric framework of “acceptable difference”.
3. The prioritisation of epistemic justice as the core of educational transformation and not only the demographic change in staffing and student populations, but the radical transformation of institutional cultures, governance models, and pedagogical practices to foreground the lived realities and aspirations of the black and working-class majority.
4. Vigorous implementation of the BELA Act and related transformative legislation, against the regressive opposition of reactionary and racist minorities, especially measures on language policy, school admissions, and accountability for all forms of exclusion.
5. Full and meaningful participation of teachers, communities, and students in governance, policy advisory, and curriculum reform bodies with no tolerance for technocratic substitution or the rationalisation of anti-democratic expertise.
6. Defence of equitable funding, teacher professionalism, and workers ’rights and opposing all forms of austerity, outsourcing, and privatisation that deepen inequalities and undermine
transformation.
Our commitments are not mere slogans but foundational imperatives for the soul of our nation and the future of all its children. These are not only the position of SADTU but reflect a broad coalition of trade unions, civil society movements, and international partners, including COSATU, Equal Education, and others.
A Call to Action and Solidarity
SADTU rejects and denounces the appointment of Penelope Vinjevold as NETC chair as a betrayal of South Africa’s constitutional commitment to redress, equity, and decolonisation. We urge all our members, allies, and the wider public to remain vigilant, to engage actively in pressing for curriculum and policy transformation, and to resist all forms of white supremacist, colonial, and neoliberal retrenchment.
We call on the Minister of Basic Education, the Department, and Parliament to realign the NETC with a truly transformative mandate rooted in representation, democracy, and justice and not in the tired logic of technocracy or elite consensus.
SADTU will continue to advocate, organise, and, if necessary, mobilise in defence of inclusive, decolonial, and equitable public education.
The struggle is not over, and the forces arrayed against transformation remain powerful, resourceful, and determined. But in the words of our founding declaration, “Unity,
organisation, and struggle should be the watchwords of this organisation.”
The South African Democratic Teachers ’Union renews, today and always, its sacred commitment to the liberation of the African child, to the advancement of all who have been marginalised, and to the radical demolition of all structures, policies, and mindsets that uphold colonial domination in any form.
We shall not be moved.
ISSUED BY: SADTU Secretariat
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SACP extends message of heartfelt condolences to family of journalist Tshidi Madia
Mbulelo Mandlana, Head of Media, Communications and Information, 28 August 2025
The South African Communist Party (SACP) extends its deepest message of heartfelt condolences to the family of journalist Tshidi Madia.
The SACP also conveys its message of condolences to her colleagues at Eyewitness News, the entire media fraternity as well as all proponents of democratic voices across our country.
Tshidi Madia spent her entire journalistic life probing the quality of our democracy while at the same time inspiring other media personnel and the masses of our country to continuously hold our leaders to account. While the enemies of informative scrutiny opposed her, the masses of our country cherish her bravery to hold even the powerful to account – for the betterment of the people.
In paying tribute to Tshidi Madia, the SACP reiterates its call for the qualitative transformation of the media in our country, and this includes the conscious dismantling of the media oligopolies which continue to hinder the diversity of views in the media spectrum. The SACP further calls for the building of a genuine people’s media, the majority of whom are working-class and poor. The issues afflicting the masses of our people should always be the centre of all discourse in our media platforms, to replace the current neo-liberal voices in our media spaces with the working-class voice which represents the dominant voice within our population.
The SACP will continue to organise the working class and all those who cherish the value of a truly free media to dismantle the concentration of ownership and control of the means of intellectual production on the few but extremely powerful monopolies dominating information generation and distribution on all media platforms. The Party will continuously fight for the equitable distribution of media resources, development programmes and a deliberate effort to engender a culture of democratic debate and information exchange based on accurate data and fairness.
ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY,
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA.
Media, Communications & Information Department | MCID
International-Solidarity
Pakistan: Three workers killed in gas explosion in coal mine
28 August, 2025
A powerful gas explosion killed three mine workers yesterday in northwest Balochistan. The blast, caused by methane gas accumulation, blocked the entrance and suffocated the workers trapped inside. The tragedy highlights the ongoing failure to ensure safe working conditions in the region’s coal mines.
Coal mines in Pakistan are infamous for hazardous working conditions causing hundreds of workers to lose their lives every year. According to reports, shared by IndustriALL affiliates in coal mining sector in Pakistan, at least 53 accidents have occurred from January to July this year, in which over a hundred workers have been killed and at least 190 left injured. The exact figures are probably much higher due to under-reporting of such incidents.
According to news reports, earlier this month youth in Shangla district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa organized a large protest rally against the growing number of accidents in coal mines due to unsafe mining practices and presence of many illegal mines. Coal mines in the country largely operate without adequate safety mechanisms, including personal protective equipment and access to immediate medical care in case of accidents.
Coal mine owners and operators do not provide any training to workers on safe mining practices and often there are no safety personnel present at the mining sites. Mine workers in these areas engage in long hours of unsafe work while receiving poverty wages. They are also not covered under any social security schemes.
IndustriALL affiliates have been making concerted efforts to get coal mine workers enrolled into social security schemes. With the support of IndustriALL, affiliated unions also conduct extensive workshops on safe mining practices along with advocating with government authorities for the ratification of ILO Convention 176.
IndustriALL South-Asia regional secretary, Ashutosh Bhattacharya, says:
“It is about time that the government of Pakistan along with coal mine owners take full responsibility of these incidents in coal mining areas which can be easily prevented by strictly implementing safe mining practices and ensuring a safe workplace for mine workers. We call on the government to immediately take steps to ratify ILO C-176 and prevent workers from losing their lives.”
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Unions push for safer, organized artisanal gold mining in Zimbabwe
26 August, 2025
In Zimbabwe, where artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) accounts for over half of the country’s gold production, unions are stepping up to improve health, safety and organization for informal miners.
IndustriALL Global Union affiliates in Zambia and Zimbabwe, the Mine Workers Union of Zambia (MUZ) and the Zimbabwe Diamonds and Allied Minerals Workers Union (ZDAMWU), have committed to supporting these efforts.
Artisanal miners, who often rely on basic tools and minimal mechanization, face severe risks. Many lack proper personal protective equipment, exposing them to toxic substances like mercury, which harms lungs, skin and eyes while polluting the air, water and soil.
Poorly ventilated pits increase the risk of lung diseases like silicosis and pneumonia. Deep shafts, some reaching 40 meters, are prone to collapses and flooding, often resulting in injuries or deaths. Miners also lack adequate training on safety protocols, worsening these dangers.
On 20-21 August a delegation from IndustriALL Sub-Saharan Africa regional office, MUZ and ZDAMWU, visited artisanal mines in
Mazowe, at the former Mettalon-owned Jumbo Mine and in Penhalonga near Mutare. The delegation, which included Zambia’s Luapula Mineral Miners Association representing over 200 small-scale mines which has signed a memorandum of understanding with MUZ, observed
hazardous practices, such as miners descending shafts using ropes and communicating through plastic pipes. Further, women miners were processing gold using mercury with bare hands.
At a meeting in Mutare on August 22, artisanal miners requested financial support to mechanize operations and guidance on improving safety. Government officials, including representatives from the Office of the President and Cabinet, endorsed formalizing the
ASM sector, urging miners to organize and improve wages and conditions. The Ministry of Mines and Minerals said that it provides loans and information to registered miners, while the Ministry of Labour emphasized support for better working conditions, contracts
and wages. The National Social Security Authority highlighted its health and safety training programmes.
Other organizations, including the Centre for National Resources and Governance and the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions, also participated.
Union leaders stressed cooperation with ASM associations to improve safety and decent work.
George S. Mumba, MUZ general secretary said: “ASM associations must work with trade unions to improve working conditions and health and safety.”
“We are calling for a national plan on responsible mining practices and standards that include ASM,”
added Justice Chinhema, ZDAMWU general secretary.
IndustriALL Sub-Saharan regional secretary, Paule-France Ndessomin, said:
“We continue to call for the formalization of ASM as most unemployed youth are earning a living in informal mining and for
the protection of women who are exposed to hazardous chemicals and face gender-based violence and harassment.”
These efforts align with the International Labour Organization’s Recommendation 204 on the transition from informal to the formal economy and the African Mining Vision, which advocate for formalizing ASM. While Zambia has ratified International Labour Organization
Convention 176 on safety and health in mines, Zimbabwe is yet to do so.
The cooperation between MUZ, ZDAMWU and ASM associations is backed by Union to Union under IndustriALL’s Union Building Project, promoting cross-border learning and stronger organization for Zimbabwe’s artisanal miners.
Zimbabwe’s more than 500 000 ASM extract gold, lithium, diamonds and platinum group metals and other minerals that include chrome, cobalt, copper, iron ore, tin, and gemstones.
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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