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Cosatu’s planned strike this week over the state of the economy, poor governance, and the falling living standards of workers is effectively a march against itself as it is a member of the Tripartite Alliance, and its own leaders sit in the South African Cabinet and Parliament. 

Cosatu is, to a large extent, responsible for the current state of the economy and the falling standards of living of workers because it repeatedly empowers the ANC to govern South Africa through its unholy alliance and by actively campaigning for the ANC in elections. 

How then can it march against the very ANC government it empowers and actively supports, with former and current Cosatu members such as Cyril Ramaphosa, Ebrahim Patel, Sdumo Dlamini and Thulas Nxesi all occupying key positions in government and Cabinet? 

ActionSA has long maintained that Cosatu is one of the key obstacles to achieving South Africa’s prosperity: not only is it actively supporting the ANC government, but its unions such as SADTU are holding our basic education system at ransom and its advocation for draconian labour laws are crippling business, particularly SMMEs.  

For South Africa to prosper, South African workers need to distance themselves from the ANC government and actively hold it accountable for poor service delivery, load shedding and economic decline. 

Our draconian labour laws need to be reformed to make it easier for South African businesses to expand employment opportunities and give more South Africans the opportunity to join the labour market. It is simply unacceptable that many people have never enjoyed the benefits of employment because entities such as Cosatu and the ANC have stood in their way. 

ActionSA, a political party which values economic prosperity, will work tirelessly with all sectors of society to remove the ANC from power, ignite job creation and fix South Africa. Only then can meaningful change be achieved. 

Issued by ActionSA President Herman Mashaba