COSATU Message of Support delivered by COSATU President Zingiswa Losi: ANC 113th Anniversary Celebrations (11/01/25)

Comrades Programme Director, Gwede Mantashe and President Cyril Ramaphosa,

Leaders and members of the ANC, SACP, COSATU, SANCO and the entire Alliance,

Workers and our people across South Africa,

We are honoured to join these celebrations, to remember our many liberation struggle veterans including Joe Slovo, Oscar Mpetha, Dulcie September, Dullah Omar; to feel the pain of our people from Khayelitsha to Beaufort West, and to rededicate ourselves to their liberation from unemployment, poverty and inequality, crime and corruption.

Some ask why is COSATU in Alliance with the ANC and the SACP? It is this Alliance that led the struggle to defeat apartheid and liberate our people from the most brutal forms of oppression. Soon we will celebrate 31 years of freedom and democracy.

Others ask what has this meant for workers? Today workers' right to organise, to collective bargaining and to strike are protected by the Constitution.

It is the struggle led by the ANC that today ensures 60% of government's budget is invested in working class communities, from social grants for 27 million to NSFAS, public housing, healthcare, transport and no fee schools.

Parents are now guaranteed paid maternity and parental leave. Not long-ago farmworkers in De Doorns and domestic workers in Constantia were paid as little as R6 an hour, today 6 million workers are protected by the National Minimum Wage of R27.58.

During COVID-19, COSATU working with government led by the ANC ensured more than R65 billion was released from the UIF to help 6 million workers feed their families. On 1 September 2024, the Two Pot Pension Reforms came into effect releasing more than R40 billion to over 2 million struggling workers. In May, President Ramaphosa signed the NHI Act into law laying the foundation for universal healthcare.

Yet all too often employers break our laws and abuse workers, from the construction workers who died in George to the Hout Bay fisherman who drowned at sea and taxi drivers forced to work long hours.

Whilst we celebrate our victories, we cannot rest when gangs are rampant in Manenberg and Tafelsig, schools are overcrowded in Crossroads and Eastridge, filth is overflowing on the streets of Mfuleni and Phillipi. We dare not rest when four out of 10 South Africans cannot find work and we remain the world's most unequal society.

Workers are looking to us to deliver a better life for all. This requires a well-oiled state to ensure effective policing, efficient hospitals, safe schools, maintained roads and that we do not have sewerage in our streets, including here in Langa, Paarl and Atlantis.

It requires an ANC and an Alliance that is united, on the ground, with the people, leading government and ensuring it delivers for workers and the poor. We are confident the ANC is on the path of renewal, that the state is being cleansed and rebuilt, and the economy will turn the corner. We must accelerate these efforts, create decent jobs and improve the lives of the working class. We dare not fail.

Thank you. Amandla!

Kind Regards

Zanele Sabela

Cosatu Spokesperson
Mobile: 079 287 5788

Email: zaneles@cosatu.org.za

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