Taking COSATU Today Forward, 15 May 2026
Norman Mampane
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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
15 May 2026
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- POPCRU rejects the backdoor militarisation of the Department of Correctional Services
- South Africa
- Minister of Employment and Labour reacts to the Stats SA Q1: 2026 Quarterly Labour Force Survey
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- Hormuz crisis exposes energy skills gap
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics #ClassWar
POPCRU rejects the backdoor militarisation of the Department of Correctional Services
Richard Mamabolo, POPCRU National Spokesperson, 15 May 2026
The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) unequivocally rejects the reckless and unilateral attempts by the Minister of Correctional Services, Pieter Groenewald, to reintroduce rank insignia and advance the backdoor militarisation of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) without proper consultation with organised labour.
This dangerous regression represents not only an attack on the democratic transformation of correctional services, but also a direct violation of established collective bargaining agreements and labour relations prescripts governing the public service. POPCRU places it on record that at no stage was the union consulted through recognised collective bargaining structures, despite the clear obligations imposed on the employer through signed agreements and labour legislation.
POPCRU further reminds the employer and the Ministry that, in terms of Section 16 of the Labour Relations Act (LRA), organised labour is entitled to all relevant information necessary to facilitate meaningful engagement and effective collective bargaining on matters affecting employees. The unilateral pronouncements regarding the reintroduction of rank insignia within DCS therefore constitute a direct affront not only to existing collective agreements, but also to the spirit and prescripts of the Labour Relations Act itself.
Meaningful engagement cannot occur in the absence of full disclosure, proper consultation processes, and adequate opportunity for labour to engage its membership structures. POPCRU maintains that this matter must immediately be referred back to the Departmental Bargaining Chamber for proper engagement with recognised labour representatives. Any attempt to bypass collective bargaining institutions and impose decisions through administrative directives or media announcements will only deepen tensions within the Department and further undermine labour relations stability.
Labour must be afforded sufficient opportunity to consult with its members across all levels of the Department before any policy position of this magnitude is considered for implementation. Workers cannot simply be confronted with predetermined outcomes on matters that fundamentally affect workplace identity, organisational structure, career pathing, conditions of service, and the future character of correctional services in a democratic South Africa.
Furthermore, POPCRU wishes to place on record that the issue of insignia cannot be divorced from the broader structural challenges confronting the Department, particularly the current salary structure within DCS, which remains in serious disarray and requires urgent and comprehensive overhaul. It is fundamentally irrational and irresponsible for the employer to prioritise cosmetic militaristic changes while longstanding issues relating to salary disparities, post provisioning, career progression, occupational classification, grading inconsistencies, and deteriorating conditions of service remain unresolved.
If the employer seeks to engage on matters relating to rank structures and insignia, such discussions must be intrinsically linked to a broader, transparent, and properly negotiated review of the organisational and salary architecture within DCS. Workers cannot be expected to wear ranks that are not supported by a coherent, fair, and properly negotiated remuneration and progression framework.
POPCRU therefore reiterates its demand for the immediate suspension of any unilateral implementation process and calls for the matter to be formally tabled before the Departmental Bargaining Chamber, accompanied by full disclosure of all relevant information in compliance with Section 16 of the Labour Relations Act, to enable meaningful consultation and engagement with organised labour and workers themselves.
The unilateral reintroduction of rank insignia is procedurally flawed, substantively misguided, and politically dangerous.
POPCRU has painful historical experience with this failed experiment. Around 2005, similar attempts were made to militarise the Department through the introduction of rank structures, military-style command systems, and symbols intended to impose fear and rigid authoritarianism within correctional centres. Those measures did not improve rehabilitation, security, professionalism, or governance within DCS. Instead, they deepened divisions in the workplace, created confusion regarding conditions of service, promoted authoritarian management tendencies, and undermined the democratic ethos envisioned in the post-apartheid correctional system.
The democratic transition deliberately moved away from the apartheid-era prison system precisely because prisons had become militarised instruments of repression rather than centres of rehabilitation and social reintegration. The White Paper on Corrections envisioned a correctional system grounded in human rights, rehabilitation, development, and constitutionalism — not one obsessed with cosmetic military symbolism and command structures.
Correctional officials are not soldiers. The constitutional mandate of DCS is fundamentally different from that of the military. The role of correctional officials is centred on rehabilitation, safe custody, human development, offender reintegration, and the maintenance of humane correctional environments. Attempting to impose military culture within such an environment fundamentally misunderstands the correctional mandate and risks reproducing a punitive, fear-driven institutional culture incompatible with constitutional democracy.
POPCRU is deeply concerned that this move forms part of a broader ideological project aimed at centralising authority, weakening worker participation, suppressing dissent, and creating a climate of fear within the Department under the guise of discipline and uniformity. Rank insignia do not resolve the real crises facing correctional services.
The Department today faces severe overcrowding, dangerous understaffing, deteriorating infrastructure, escalating inmate populations, widespread psychological trauma among officials, rising violence, gang activity, and deepening budgetary constraints. These are the material conditions confronting workers daily. Officials continue to work under immense pressure, often without adequate personnel, resources, equipment, or psychosocial support. The Minister cannot substitute meaningful transformation with ceremonial militaristic symbolism.
Workers do not need badges and insignia to earn dignity. They need safe working conditions, adequate staffing, fair career progression, proper training, functional infrastructure, and a government willing to invest seriously in correctional services.
POPCRU further rejects any attempt to bypass collective bargaining institutions through media pronouncements and executive directives designed to impose unilateral decisions on workers. Such conduct undermines labour peace and erodes trust within the Department.
As POPCRU, we reaffirm our long-standing position that the transformation of correctional services must remain rooted in democratic accountability, worker participation, rehabilitation, and constitutional governance — not militarisation.
We therefore demand the immediate withdrawal of any plans relating to the implementation of rank insignia and call upon the Minister to subject any proposed changes affecting workers to proper consultation processes within the relevant bargaining structures.
POPCRU remains ready to defend the rights, dignity, and democratic gains of correctional officials against any attempt to reverse transformation through authoritarian and militaristic measures.
Issued by POPCRU
South Africa #ClassSolidarity
Minister of Employment and Labour reacts to the Stats SA Q1: 2026 Quarterly Labour Force Survey
13 May 2026
The Minister of Employment and Labour, Ms. Nomakhosazana Meth, has noted the release of the Quarter 1 of 2026, Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) results by the Statistician General, Mr. Risenga Maluleke on 12 May 2026. The Stats SA QLFS paints a sobering picture of the state of the labour market in our country. The Department notes with concern, the increase in the official unemployment rate to 32,7%, up from 31,4% in the previous quarter, as well as the continued vulnerability of young people, women, and work seekers in historically disadvantaged communities.
The Department acknowledges the difficult socio-economic realities confronting millions of South Africans who continue to search for sustainable employment opportunities amid the slow economic growth, global uncertainty and structural constraints in key sectors of the economy.
We remain firmly committed to implementing coordinated interventions aimed at stimulating economic growth, protecting existing jobs and creating new employment opportunities across all sectors. In this regard the DEL continues to intensify the implementation of LAP, public employment support initiatives, workplace training opportunities, and strengthened partnerships with business, labour and civil society.
The DEL is particularly concerned about the persistent high levels of youth unemployment. The Stats SA data indicates that unemployment among young people aged 15-24 remains alarmingly high, exceeding 60%, while millions of young South Africans remain outside employment, education and training. This reality requires urgent and collective action from all social partners.
“We call on the private sector to work collaboratively with government in expanding investment, supporting localisation, accelerating skills absorption, and opening pathways for youth employment and entrepreneurship," says Minister Meth.
The Department hereby restates that unemployment is not merely an economic statistic, but a social challenge affecting all and the future aspirations of young people. We therefore remain committed to building an economy that creates opportunities, reduces inequality and restores hope to the people of South Africa.
The Department has several programmes to help stimulate job creation. This includes the Labour Activation Programme (LAP) and enhancing the coordination of employment interventions, such as supporting the Presidential Youth Employment Initiatives (PYEI). Employment and Labour Entities, Productivity SA and the Unemployment Insurance Fund have partnered on a Business Turnaround and Recovery Programme with a total budget value of just over R165 million. The objective of this programme is to prevent job losses.
Minister Meth re-iterates that the Department of Employment and Labour will continue to work closely with entities to expand labour market interventions, support skills development, strengthen inspections and enforcement services, and ensure greater access to employment services for work seekers.
“While the latest QLFS figures are deeply concerning, we remain resolute in advancing economic reforms and employment focused interventions that will place South Africa on a sustainable path towards growth, dignity and decent work for all," says Minister Meth.
ENDS//
Media enquiries:
Ms. Thobeka Magcai, Ministry Spokesperson. Email: Thobeka...@Labour.gov.za 072 737 2205.
Issued by: MINISTRY OF EMPLOYMENT AND LABOUR
International-Solidarity
Hormuz crisis exposes energy skills gap
13 May, 2026
The military attacks carried out by the United States and Israel against Iran, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz that followed, have sent energy prices surging and triggered fuel shortages, rationing and inflationary pressure across the global economy. Governments are now making some of the most consequential energy decisions in decades, fast and without workers.
The European Commission has already fast-tracked its AccelerateEU package, bringing forward electrification targets and grid investment plans. Across Asia, governments are rushing to expand solar, wind and battery capacity. These are not transition plans developed through social dialogue. They are emergency responses to a supply shock, and the workers who will build and operate the new system are not at the table.
That is not a new problem. It is an old one, moving faster.
The IEA’s April Oil Market Report sets out the scale of what has already happened. Global oil supply fell by 10.1 million barrels per day in March, the largest disruption in the history of the global oil market. Petrochemical plants across Asia have cut operating rates by between 10 and 30 per cent, threatening supply chains in manufacturing, textiles, construction and packaging. Governments across four continents, from Argentina to Ethiopia, from Pakistan to the Philippines, have introduced emergency measures to reduce fuel consumption. And the IEA is unambiguous about what restoring the energy system requires. The IEA’s own April Oil Market Report lists “the mobilisation of skilled labour and contractors” as a precondition for supply recovery, alongside political stability and the reopening of the strait itself.
Workers already knew the energy system was fragile. They knew the transition was coming and that too little was being done to shape it around their needs. What the Hormuz crisis has changed is the speed. Decisions that were supposed to take years are being made in weeks.
What IndustriALL president said and why it matters now
When IndustriALL president, Christiane Benner visited IndustriALL’s Geneva headquarters in March, she was direct about what Just Transition actually requires.
“To find common ground, our union needs one thing above all else: clarity on what decarbonization actually means for individual workplaces.” That means jointly analyzing which locations will be significantly affected, what skills will be needed and where jobs are at risk or new ones will be created. “Such a shared framework of facts lays the groundwork so that employees do not feel steamrolled.”
The Hormuz crisis has not changed that argument. It has made the consequences of ignoring it visible to everyone. Industry observers have warned that the world is going to get the energy transition forced on it in a very painful way, very quickly. That is precisely what IndustriALL and many other global unions have spent years trying to prevent.
The question is no longer whether the transition happens. It is whether workers help shape what replaces the system that just failed, or have that decision made for them by governments and employers responding to a crisis with no plan for labour.
The scale of the skills gap
The IEA’s World Energy Employment 2025 report put numbers to what workers on the ground already know. The energy sector now employs 76 million people worldwide, up more than 5 million since 2019 and has accounted for 2.4 per cent of all net new jobs created globally over the past five years. Energy employment grew at 2.2 per cent in 2024, nearly double the economy-wide rate.
But inside that growth story is a crisis in the making. Out of 700 energy-related companies, unions and training institutions participating in the IEA’s Energy Employment Survey, more than half reported critical hiring bottlenecks already threatening energy infrastructure delivery. To prevent that gap widening further by 2030, the number of qualified new entrants into the energy sector would need to rise by 40 per cent, requiring an additional US$2.6 billion per year in training investment globally. That is less than 0.1 per cent of world education spending.
The Hormuz crisis has not created that gap. It has exposed it. Rebuilding energy supply chains, in whatever direction governments now choose, will require the workers, the skills and the training institutions that barely exist. Knowing where they are, and where they are not, is the starting point.
Why unions cannot sit out the IEA survey
That is what makes the IEA Employment and Skills Survey, closing 15 May, more urgent than it has ever been.
Diana Junquera Curiel, IndustriALL’s director for Just Transition and industrial policy, is direct about what is at stake:
“the Hormuz crisis has done in weeks what we have been arguing for years: it has made the connection between energy security and workers impossible to ignore. The data from this survey is how we turn that moment into leverage, in every negotiation, every policy discussion, every conversation with governments and employers about what rebuilding actually requires. Without union voices in it, those arguments are weaker. It is that simple.”
Christiane Benner has been clear on what makes a Just Transition work in practice. It is not grand policy commitments. It is concrete tools: collectively bargained training programmes, transformation funds that workers help design and binding employment prospects that give people a reason to trust the process.
Source:
IEA labour and Employment survey 2025
Those demands only carry weight when they are backed by credible, internationally recognized data. The IEA Labour Employment Survey , gathering responses from workers and their representatives across 65 countries, asked what makes a job decent. The answers were unambiguous: fair pay (90 per cent), employment security (73 per cent) and a safe working environment (71 per cent). These are the fundamentals that collective bargaining delivers. Yet the same survey found that only 35 per cent of workers classified clean energy jobs as quality jobs with both good conditions and good pay. That gap, between what workers say a decent job requires and what the energy transition is currently offering, is precisely what unions exist to close. Those priorities, recorded in a report read by governments and employers worldwide, put workers’ demands on the table in rooms where unions are not always present.
The 2026 survey can do the same. But only if affiliates show up.
Fill in the survey before 15 May
The IEA Employment and Skills Survey 2026 closes on 15 May 2026. It covers employment trends, skills needs and training capacity across the energy sector.
Every response from a union, a worker representative or a training institution makes the final report harder to ignore. It makes the skills gap harder to dismiss. It makes the case for collectively bargained training easier to win.
The energy shock has arrived. The question now is whether workers’ experience is counted in what comes next, or whether governments and employers rebuild the system without them, again.
You will find the link to all of the surveys here
______________________________
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