The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) welcomes the decision by the KwaZulu-Natal Premier, Thami Ntuli, to insource services at all new health facilities to be built in the province. The workers’ indefatigable struggles against outsourcing have paid off, though the path to wholly and finally eradicating this exploitative system remains long and arduous.
SAFTU will seek a follow-up meeting with the Premier to raise the need to reemploy/reinstate the 6200 workers dismissed by previous administrations led by the ANC. As many will remember, many workers were brutalised and shot at, and three of them died in the process. These workers have immensely suffered since 2016, when they were dismissed. This is their victory, and when the fruits of their sweat are harvested, they should not be left behind.
This sensible move by the premier has already been implemented at the newly built Dr Pixley Ka Isaka Seme Memorial Hospital in KwaMashu, Durban, where insourcing has been extended to security guards, cleaners, and kitchen workers. The decision directly responds to a memorandum of demands handed to the premier by the workers’ group, Iphupho Labasebenzi, late last year. The memorandum called for an end to outsourcing and its attendant exploitative practices. It also demanded timeous payment of workers’ salaries, which private companies contracted by the government had been delaying, and raised concerns about the lack of accountability in outsourced service provision.
SAFTU affiliates in the public sector—the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (NUPSAW), the Municipal and Allied Trade Union of South Africa (MATUSA), and the Democratic Municipal and Allied Workers Union of South Africa (DEMAWUSA)—have long been at the forefront of the struggle for insourcing. This victory belongs as much to the workers as it does to SAFTU’s affiliates, who have tirelessly championed this cause.
For years, SAFTU has consistently campaigned for the state to be de-tenderised. Our demands for insourcing are not new. Since our founding, we have mobilised against outsourcing, arguing that it undermines job security, entrenches precarious work, and violates workers’ rights. SAFTU has repeatedly exposed how the tender system, justified initially as a means to create a black capitalist class through BEE, has instead facilitated widespread exploitation. Outsourcing has allowed companies to maximise profits at the expense of workers by offering poverty wages, enforcing long hours, operating with skeletal staffing levels, and disregarding basic labour protections.
Through our campaigns, we have demanded:
- The immediate insourcing of all security, cleaning, catering, and general workers in the public sector.
- An end to exploitative labour brokering and short-term contracts that strip workers of benefits and job security.
- Full compliance with labour laws in government contracts, ensuring fair wages, pensions, and benefits for all workers.
- Establishing a permanent workforce in all state institutions, municipalities, hospitals, and public schools.
- A rejection of neoliberal austerity measures that push for privatisation and outsourcing at the expense of workers and service delivery.
Side by side with the sorry state in which workers find themselves, tenderpreneurs enrich themselves—often through corrupt means—while delivering subpar services. The persistence of outsourcing has not only worsened labour conditions but has also undermined service delivery and state capacity.
Though workers have expressed reservations about some details and implications of the premier’s decision, its significance must not be understated. It demonstrates that when workers unite and fight, they can force governments to listen and act. This victory reminds us that collective action remains the most potent weapon against capitalist exploitation and neoliberal austerity.
SAFTU, consistent with its longstanding demand for insourcing workers in both the public and private sectors, calls on all other government departments across all provinces to follow suit. The state must be de-tenderised, and workers must be employed in permanent, secure jobs with benefits. This is the only way to rebuild the state’s capacity to deliver public services while efficiently curbing rampant corruption among tenderpreneurs.
Our call is clear: insource all workers now! Secure work, dignity, and justice for all!
