COSATU General Secretary Solly Phetoe Address: SAMWU CEC

Comrade President

National Office Bearers

CEC delegates

Leaders of the Alliance, SACP, ANC

Leadership of our militant SAMWU,

Thank you for inviting COSATU to join you for this important CEC in these turbulent times.

Your theme of "advancing the interest of municipal workers by going back to basics" could not be more appropriate given the very real and daunting challenges facing the trade union movement and the working class.

Before we engage on the political challenges facing the liberation movement, allow me to thank each one of you for your tireless efforts over the course of the past six months from crisscrossing Mpumalanga and KZN, to filling Mbombela and Moses Mabhida stadiums for the January 8^th and Manifesto launches, to more recently filling Athlone Stadium for Workers' Day and FNB for the Siyanqoba Rally.

Indeed, this was our hardest fought election campaign since the 1994 elections. Whilst we are all disappointed and pained that for the first time since the democratic breakthrough, we did not achieve an outright 51% majority, we nonetheless applaud your tireless efforts to mobilise workers and the working class to come out in their numbers in defence of our ally, the African National Congress, and the Alliance on election day.

Many doubted workers would come out in their thousands for May Day, yet we defied our critics when we filled stadiums across all nine provinces on Workers' Day. This shows a COSATU that is alive and that leads. It shows a SAMWU that is on the ground with municipal workers from Cape Town to Musina.

None of us should be surprised that voters did not give us a majority on election day. Voters are right to be angry and to hold us accountable after a decade of state capture and corruption, slow economic growth and record unemployment, entrenched poverty and inequality, loadshedding and cable theft, struggling public and municipal services and a political leadership that is all too often out of touch with society.

The recent election of comrade Zizi Kodwa to Parliament whilst he is on trial for corruption, is a shocking reminder of how out of touch our comrades are.

As much as we are disappointed that we did not reach 51%, we should be proud that despite the massive odds against us, we ensured that the ANC remained the largest party nationally and provincially, including with outright majorities in five out of nine provinces.

COSATU has had some engagements with the ANC and the Alliance on the establishment of the Government of National Unity (GNU). Whilst the Alliance Secretariat and the Alliance Political Council met to discuss the various options and modalities for the composition of the 7^th administration, we have been disappointed in how the ANC moved very far ahead of the Alliance and failed to always keep us abreast of discussions.

We had preferred an ANC-led minority government, with an opposition, taking leadership in Parliament given how toxic and hostile the opposition parties are to the Alliance.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has a history of opposing workers' rights, labour laws and transformation, and for harbouring racists. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has brought violence and anarchy to Parliament and been deeply implicated in the VBS looting where SAMWU shop stewards were assassinated. The MK Party is led by the very people who brought us state capture and corruption and are now trumpeting ugly tribalism.

The ANC has established a GNU with the DA and nine other parties from the PAC to the FF Plus. The results of the elections and the GNU modalities have meant that the ANC is now sharing power including key portfolios in Cabinet with the DA such as Basic Education, Agriculture and Public Works or Land Reform with the PAC or COGTA and DPSA with the IFP.

This will have real implications for workers in those sectors and the movement. It is even worse now because many municipalities are in real trouble, and we have local elections in 2026.

These challenges require us to adapt and to ensure we defend workers in these dangerous times for the working class.

SAMWU has a key role to play in these difficult times.

We have seen the Auditor-General's reports that paint a horror story on the state of local government with many municipalities failing to provide basic services or pay staff.

We celebrate our victory against the Municipal Structures Amendment Act at the Labour Court and look forward to its ratification by the Constitutional Court. Yet we must remain vigilant throughout but must commend SAMWU for leading us in this historic fight.

We must ramp up our campaigns and engagements to support the three dozen municipalities who continuously struggle and fail to pay staff their salaries and third-party deductions.

Simultaneously, we must also work on plans to ensure these municipalities can be rescued and placed upon a path to financial recovery as bailouts are not sustainable. Again, we commend SAMWU for its leadership in these struggles.

Our communities are aggrieved by the deteriorating quality of municipal services they receive, particularly in townships. We must ask how we can assist in resolving this crisis as SAMWU and COSATU.

If we don't, we will continue to see companies close and retrench workers as we saw in Lichtenburg and Frankfort, plunging those communities into absolute poverty.

One of the major reasons for the crises facing local government is the cancer of corruption facing municipalities. We need to take up tackling corruption as a major campaign for the Federation. This includes engaging our members who are supply chain officials to blow the whistle on corruption.

We are pleased that this NEC is highlighting the crisis of water. South Africa is a water scarce country. We are witnessing this increasingly from Cape Town to Gauteng. Key to resolving this is to invest in our water infrastructure, fix leaks, train plumbers and conserve and recycle water. Here we once again need SAMWU to lead us.

As we navigate these difficult times, we must invest more in our engines as the trade union movement. This means that we must be united. We must stop the culture of purges and factions.

It means we must be on the ground servicing members and addressing workers' grievances, defending collective bargaining and improving the wages and workings conditions of workers.

It requires us to train and empower workers, members, shop stewards, organisers and leaders to ensure that they are able to exercise all their labour rights.

We should not simply pass progressive labour laws like the Occupational Health and Safety Act or the National Minimum Wage Act and then fail to ensure employers abide by them at all times. We must report those employers who break the law to the Department of Employment and Labour.

These challenges require us to reconfigure the Alliance, including our relationship with both the ANC and the SACP. The Alliance must be biased towards the working class and provide political direction to government at all levels.

If we do these, and fix the state, deliver quality public and municipal services, ensure we enforce all our labour and other laws, tackle crime and corruption, grow the economy and create decent work, reduce poverty and inequality; then we will be on the path to renewal, recovery and a better life for all.

What we cannot afford to do is to continue business as usual. That will set us on a path to outright defeat and chaos in the 2026 local elections. That is something workers cannot afford.

Leadership, allow me to end here. These are difficult times that require us to be united, to work and deliver. I am confident that SAMWU and COSATU will rise to the occasion. We cannot afford to fail workers.

Thank you. Matla!

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