COSATU President Zingiswa Losi: Address to NEHAWU Political School

President of NEHAWU and 1^st Deputy President of COSATU, cde. Mike Shingange,

Leadership of NEHAWU and the Federation,

Leadership of our Alliance Partners; the ANC, SACP and SANCO,

Most importantly the delegates of our glorious militant NEHAWU,

Good afternoon comrades,

Thank you for inviting COSATU to be part of this important school. There can be no more important moment than now for introspection, critique and most crucially determination on the way forward. Not only for NEHAWU and its membership but indeed for the working class and the liberation movement as a whole.

Ours is not merely a union movement to negotiate the improvement of the conditions of service at the workplace but in fact to transform the material conditions of the working class as a whole, to challenge the failures of capital and to set the course for the building of a socialist society.

Amilcar Cabral wisely reminded us that workers want to improve their living conditions so that may uplift their families and ensure that their children live better lives than themselves.

The purveyors of neo-liberalism never cease to remind us of Francis Fukuyama's statement of the end of history with the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, time has proven the fallacy of such notions as the crises of capitalism multiply and voters across the world have come out in their masses time and again to defy and reject austerity budget cuts, privatisation, neo-liberalism and the hollowing out of the state.

Latin America from Bolivia to Nicaragua has rejected this false notion of the supremacy of capital, as have the voters of Greece and Spain, of Senegal and Namibia, of East Timor and Nepal, and indeed here across South Africa.

The neo-liberal political parties are silent about the failures of capitalism to end a crushing unemployment rate of 42% and a youth unemployment rate of 59%, entrenched levels of poverty and inequality. They are silent upon the failures of privatisation to roll out essential services to the historically marginalised and to build an inclusive economy that uplifts the poor and the marginalised.

They are silent upon the successes of the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, who all odds have lifted millions of people from the most dire forms of poverty and hunger, given dignity to their people, created a developmental state geared towards the needs of their masses and who are today able to stand on their own two feet and withstand any neo-colonial pressures from the West.

The crisis facing the working class in South Africa is a crisis of capitalism.

The convening of this historic school could never be more appropriate than a mere few weeks after for the first time since 1994, the liberation movement failed to achieve an outright majority nationally and in Gauteng as well as the painful losses of KZN, the Northern and Western Cape.

If we to rebuild and replenish the movement and to set ourselves back on the path towards a majority, then we must correctly analyse the material factors that led us to this unprecedented crisis for the Alliance and the forces of the left.

Yes, we are in this crisis because of the decade of state capture and corruption. But we are also at this juncture because of the failures of pursuing neo-liberal macro and micro-economic theories, of imposing reckless austerity budget cuts across the state, of decapitating key organs of power, of allowing a parasitic bourgeoisie to treat government as its personal means of accumulation.

This is what has led us to a stagnating economy that has deindustrialized, shed thousands of manufacturing jobs, created ghost towns and reduced us to an importer of cheap goods from overseas.

If we are to turn the economy around, then we need to rebuild and capacitate the state. We need to decisively shift resources to investing in and uplifting working-class communities. The state's macro and micro-economic policies, including the Reserve Bank, must be geared towards growing the economy and creating decent jobs.

We must not allow ourselves to be dictated to by the World Bank or the IMF, nor by their right-wing political parties who have never won the confidence of the masses. We should not repeat neo-liberal policies imposed by the West across the continent, which they themselves have abandoned in America and Europe.

It is critical that we as the Alliance assert our ideological clarity as the forces of the left, to defend the gains of the National Democratic Revolution and the democratic breakthrough of 1994.

Equally we must diagnose and identify our failures from GEAR to our fiscal policies and excise this from the path set for the 7^th administration. We can no longer afford to believe that repeating the mistakes of the past will yield different results for the future.

Our task as the Left Axis of COSATU and the SACP, must be to buttress the ANC as a movement of the left that is multi-class yet biased towards the working class and the rural poor.

We must not be ashamed about building the foundations for a socialist society, from delivering the National Health Insurance to Comprehensive Social Security, from free education to subsidised public transport and housing, from the state controlling key levers of economic development from rail to electricity.

The state must be cleansed of corruption and decapacitation to empower the working class and not to hand over the tools of emancipation to a wealthy elite.

If we are to win back the faith of the masses, to ensure that they are mobilised to come out in their numbers in support of the ANC and SACP at the 2026 local elections, then we must ensure a radical departure from the failures of the past.

Equally we must build the left popular front as had been done successfully during the UDF and MDM. We must engage and win over progressive civil society from churches to mosques, from student formations to NGOs, from civics to cooperatives.

We must avoid the dangers of being inwardly focused and seek to enlist progressive forces. Failure to do so, risks these spaces being occupied by pseudo and populist formations, many of whom are little more than aspirant fascists and tenderpreneurs whose objective is the liquidation of the democratic movement.

It is critical that we actively contest the political terrain internationally, from WFTU to ITUC, from the ILO to SATUCC, from the BRICs to the L20.

The challenges facing workers across the world may vary but the principles remain the same. Workers from Palestine to Western Sahara, from Cuba to Venezuela, from eSwatini to Zimbabwe, are looking to us as COSATU to give them that same solidarity which played such a crucial role in our own liberation.

We have done well to expose the apartheid regime in Israel and the hypocrisy of global capitalism. As we chart the terrain of the political landscape post May 29, we must ensure as the Federation, that the victories we have won on the international front are defended and intensified under the GNU.

We can only achieve the tasks we will set ourselves at this school, if we strengthen the Federation and Affiliates as the political detachment of the working class.

We must be united not only in spirit, but also in practise and ideological clarity. It is the working class who pay the price when we are divided.

We must ensure our machinery is well oiled, our leaders are on the ground, our organisers and shop stewards are trained, our members are serviced and defended, workers are recruited and mobilised. We cannot be a movement of t-shirts and calendars.

We must live the call of Elijah Barayi and unite the working class, build one union, one industry, one federation, one country. It is only the employer who is the victor when workers are divided.

We must claim our victories from the NHI to the Minimum Wage, from the Two-Pot Pension Reforms to the formalisation of Community Health Workers, to recruit and mobilise workers, to build momentum and to consolidate.

We must ensure that the voice of workers is not only heard in the SACP and the ANC but that it sets the political trajectory and that government at all levels, is held accountable for the implementation of the ANC's elections manifesto. Deployees who fail to deliver must be held accountable and recalled where necessary.

Comrade leadership, allow me to conclude here by wishing you well over the next few days. We look forward to hearing the important outcomes of this historic school at the next CEC of COSATU and most importantly to working side by side with you to ensure their full implementation.

Thank you. Amandla!

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