Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi has cautioned workers against turning their backs on the ANC, saying socioeconomic gains the party has presided over would be reversed if it were voted out of power.
Losi is a known ally of President Cyril Ramaphosa who made similar remarks in Mbombela this week when he said the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, which funds about 1.3-million students a year, and social grants may be scrapped should the ANC lose power in the 2024 national and provincial elections.
Cosatu and the SACP are part of the ANC-led alliance and have always campaigned and supported it during elections since 1994.
Addressing Cosatu’s meeting at Rob Ferreira Hospital in Mbombela, Mpumalanga on Friday, Losi said: “If we abandon the ANC and state power, who do we think will occupy our space that we fought so hard to take? It will not be persons who have the interests of workers at heart.”
The ANC is dogged by a trust deficit, infighting, governance challenges and declining electoral support that has seen it lose local councils to opposition parties. Independent surveys suggest the party’s electoral support could dip below the 50% mark in the upcoming election.
At its national congress in Midrand in September 2022, Cosatu’s largest affiliates including Nehawu, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, the SA Municipal Workers Union and the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA, called for the labour federation to immediately dump the ANC and support the SACP in the 2024 elections.
The four unions, accounting for more than 600,000 of Cosatu’s estimated membership of 1.6-million, had accused the governing party of undermining workers and failing to implement alliance programmes.
Workers were also angry at the government for refusing to implement the final part of a three-year wage agreement signed in the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council in 2018. The Constitutional Court ruled in 2022 the government could back out of the deal because the unions were “unjustifiably enriched” from the “impugned collective agreement”. Differences between the alliance partners remain unresolved.
At the gathering on Friday, Losi said the ANC was not perfect and had made “serious mistakes” over the years. “Ours is not to be sentimental or emotional. Our mandate is to defend rights of workers and working class,” said Losi, who has previously stated the ANC remained the best vehicle to address worker challenges.
“We dare not abandon where we are coming from and our gains, more so when challenges facing workers are great. We have much more to do, it requires all of us to support each other and be on the ground; we don’t have a moment to spare.”
Losi called on the workers who came from different Cosatu unions to mobilise to fill up Mbombela Stadium, where the ANC is set to hold its January 8 celebrations on Saturday. She also appealed to Cosatu members to vote for the ANC during the upcoming election by filling the ballot boxes “in the colours of green, black, and gold [ANC colours]”.
She commended the ANC for implementing the national minimum wage, the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act, and progress made on the National Health Insurance Bill and the two-pot pension system.
Losi, however, was not oblivious to socioeconomic challenges dogging the country, and singled out the unemployment crisis, logistics nightmare at Transnet and Prasa, poor local government sector, and crime and corruption. Much more needed to be done to address these challenges because “society, correctly, expects more from us”.
It was critical to not only encourage workers to attend the ANC’s 112th anniversary celebrations on Saturday, but to also “defend the ANC in the ballot box” at the polls.
Regarding the final part of the 2018 wage agreement the government refused to implement, Losi said: “There is a need for ANC to heal the wounds of the 2018 public service wage deal. You can’t walk away from that. The fact is you owe us, you are sitting with our money. Leave what the courts are saying. There is a need for ANC government to acknowledge its debt to us and state how they will pay us. We want the money.”
Several speakers from the floor spoke in favour of government implementing the last year of the three-year wage deal of 2018. Some called on the ANC to “pronounce on this matter on Saturday”. “If you don’t there will be problems [because] elections won’t take place [on Saturday],” said one.
On the reconfigured alliance, Losi called on the ANC to play its part, saying Cosatu supported ANC programmes such as the January 8 but the governing party did not do the same in supporting Cosatu programmes including May Day.
ANC national executive committee member, Polly Boshielo, said the issue of the reconfigured alliance was always on the table of every ANC discussion: “It’s hot outside, there’s a Moonshot Pact, but we have our alliance and we should be able to win the elections decisively.”
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