The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) extends its heartfelt gratitude to all workers, unions, community organisations, social movements, and progressive political forces who participated in the May Day 2025 marches and rallies across the country. Your presence, discipline, and militancy ensured that the flame of worker internationalism — first lit by the Chicago martyrs of 1886 — continues to burn bright.
By marching and gathering in your thousands, you reaffirmed that May Day is not a holiday — it is a day of struggle. You helped awaken the consciousness of others, reminding millions that the rights and protections workers enjoy today were not gifts from benevolent employers or politicians, but won through bitter sacrifice by generations of heroes and heroines — in the factories, on the farms, in the streets, and in the underground.
From the Chicago martyrs who fought for the 8-hour workday, to the brave workers of 1973 in Durban whose strikes shook the apartheid state and forced it to establish the Wiehahn Commission that ultimately led to the formal recognition of Black workers in 1979 — these struggles are our inheritance and our responsibility to defend.
The marches of 1 May 2025 pricked the conscience of a nation. They reminded us that under capitalism, no worker gain is ever permanent. The bourgeoisie and their representatives in Parliament are constantly scheming — lobbying to reverse the constitutional and labour rights we have won, and roll back the clock to a time when workers could be fired at will, without any procedure, without any rights, and without a voice.
We salute the many formations that stood in unity with SAFTU and helped mobilise for May Day 2025:
- CWAWO (Casual Workers Advice Office)
- Simunye Workers Forum
- The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement
- The Anti-Austerity Coalition
- Movements of the Unemployed
- Housing Crisis Committees
- Abahlali baseMjondolo
- And importantly, the various left and working-class political parties who joined forces with us on the day — your solidarity in the face of capitalist attacks strengthens the broader front for transformation and economic justice.
However, May Day must not end with celebration. We must now use it as the launchpad of a concerted, united campaign by the working class to:
- Defend all hard-won workers’ rights;
- Stop the austerity programme strangling our public services;
- Fight against mass retrenchments and catastrophic unemployment;
- Struggle for food security, land redistribution, and an end to the hunger crisis;
- And build working-class power capable of transforming South Africa.
\We say to the bosses, the billionaires, and their friends in high office:
Power concedes nothing without a struggle!
A Statement was issued on behalf of SAFTU by General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
For more details, contact the National Spokesperson at:
Newton Masuku
066 168 2157
Newtonm@saftu.org.za
