Cosatu president Sidumo Dlamini reflects on the past 25 years in his address at the anniversary celebrations.
On 1 December 2010, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) celebrated its 25th birthday, commemorating a quarter of a century of struggle for workers and national liberation.
In 1985, when Cosatu was launched in Durban, Cyril Ramaphosa declared, “A giant has arisen!” He was right, and that giant has grown from 130 000 members to 2 million today.
While still barely toddling, the young giant launched itself into titanic battles against employers and the apartheid regime. In his speech at the launch, founding President Elijah Barayi gave PW Botha six months to do away with passes. Botha succumbed, and the hated pass laws that had humiliated millions for decades were scrapped.
Countless other battles followed. We were in the vanguard of the campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela. We fought against the bantustans, the black authority stooges, the tri-cameral parliament and apartheid laws.
Today we remember all the workers’ battles, such as the 1946 mineworkers’ strike led by JB Marks, leader of the African Mineworkers Union, that rocked the mine bosses and the apartheid state.
Our history is rooted in the militant traditions of our predecessors. We are the children of the Corrobrick workers whose strike spread like wildfire from Durban to every corner of our country in 1973.
We remember the militant traditions of the OK Bazaars strike of 1987 that lasted for over six months and showed that women’s place is at the forefront of our militant unions.
We celebrate the 1987 railway strike led by SARHWU (today SATAWU) when the regime unleashed violence and killed workers. Who could ever forget the 1987 mineworkers’ strike involving over 300 000 workers who, for 21 days, stood toe-to-toe with the brutal private army of the Chamber of Mines?
We remember the sacrifices and tenacity of our members, who sacrificed not only their wages and jobs but also their lives. The very first Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) member to be hanged by the regime was leading unionist Vuyisile Mini, and the first person to die in detention was another, Looksmart Ngudle.
We salute the tremendous role played by our predecessors in SACTU, which would have been 55 years old this year, including John Nkadimeng, Steven Dlamini, Moses Kotane, JB Marks, Ray Simons, Oscar Mpetha, Rita Ndzanga and Gana Makhabeni.
We remember the unsung heroes without whom nothing would have been possible. We remember the shop stewards and the commanders on the ground who have remained the backbone of our movement.
We remember Jabulile Ndlovu, the NUMSA shop steward brutally killed by warlords in KwaZulu-Natal; MAWU shop steward Phenenus Sibiya and the other four passengers of the car set alight by the warlords on the way to the Cosatu launch from Phophomeni; Selby Mayise of the NUM; and Sam Ntambane, killed when he led a march to a police station on the day Chris Hani was assassinated.
We remember Sam Ntuli, the Numsa organiser killed by an apartheid sniper, Bheki Mlangeni, the Cosatu lawyer killed by a bomb, and all our people who were killed by the enemy, in particular in KwaZulu-Natal, throughout the 1980s and here in Gauteng in the 1990s in a war engineered by the third force that killed thousands.
We remember the heroes of the 1986 Kinross Mine disaster, all the other thousands of mineworkers who have perished underground, all our members who died at work and or were maimed by asbestos and the dangerous chemicals we are exposed to at work, and those killed by AIDS, and we rededicate ourselves to a struggle to defeat this epidemic.
We celebrate the unbreakable worker/youth alliance seen in the 1976 student uprisings and the body punches that brought the apartheid monster to its knees during the 1980s and 1990s.
This history is more than enough proof that ours was never a sectarian struggle only for higher wages and better conditions of work for labour, but a struggle to advance the interests of the working class as a whole and liberate human beings from all the evils of apartheid and capitalism.
As we turn 25, we know that the fallen heroes who participated in the 1973 strikes, the fearless students of the 1976 revolt, the thousands of MK soldiers whose bones are still buried in foreign lands and those who dedicated their efforts in building organs of people’s power would raise their fists in pride when they look at the formidable organ that COSATU is today.