On Monday (19 May 2026) SAFTU convened a meeting of its Political and Ideological Commission (PIC), bringing together the Presidents and General Secretaries of affiliated unions together with provincial leadership from across the country to discuss the worsening crisis confronting the working class and the invitation extended by the South African Communist Party (SACP) to participate in the proposed “Conference of the Left.”
The PIC engaged in extensive political discussion on:
• the deepening crisis of global capitalism and imperialism;
• worsening austerity, unemployment, inequality and poverty;
• the rise of xenophobic and right-wing mobilisation;
• the fragmentation of progressive forces;
• and the strategic tasks confronting the working class in South Africa.
The PIC reaffirmed SAFTU’s founding resolutions adopted at the federation’s Inaugural Congress, including:
• the need for independent working-class organisation;
• socialism and anti-capitalism;
• democratic worker control and internal democracy;
• militant trade unionism;
• anti-imperialism, internationalism and Pan Africanism;
• opposition to racism, sexism, xenophobia, patriarchy and chauvinism;
• and the unification of workplace and community struggles.
The PIC further reaffirmed the resolutions of the 2018 Working Class Summit involving more than 147 organisations and over 1 000 delegates, which resolved that:
• capitalism remains the root cause of working-class misery;
• working-class organisation must be democratic and built from below;
• workplace and community struggles must be united;
• and xenophobia, patriarchy and racism must be consistently opposed.
• a need for an workers party whose principles and programmes must be developed through a democratic discussion from below.
The meeting also reaffirmed resolutions of the 2022 SAFTU National Congress which warned against that directed the federation to focus on external issues and close the chapter of internal divisions.
The PIC further revisited the historical political rupture between NUMSA, COSATU and the SACP beginning in 2013. The meeting reaffirmed the political significance of the 2013 NUMSA 2013 Special National Congress resolutions, which concluded that the SACP leadership had become embedded within the capitalist state and had ceased functioning as an independent vanguard of the working class.
The PIC also revisited the 2014 open letter by Comrade Zwelinzima Vavi, which warned that the SACP had become defenders of neoliberalism, corruption, labour broking, privatisation and anti-working-class governance while using revolutionary rhetoric to shield capitalist accumulation and political patronage.
The PIC concluded that many of the contradictions identified during that period remain unresolved and have in fact deepened.
After extensive political discussion, the PIC resolved that SAFTU will not honour the invitation from the SACP to participate in the proposed “Conference of the Left” in its current form.
This decision is based on the following fundamental considerations:
- The SACP itself can no longer credibly claim to represent a genuine left alternative when measured against the historic principles of working-class struggle, socialism and anti-capitalism. For more than 30 years it has acted as a political shield and junior partner to successive ANC-led governments that implemented neoliberalism, austerity, privatisation, labour market attacks and anti-working-class policies. It defended and justified programmes that entrenched mass unemployment, deep inequality, poverty, hunger and collapsing public services.
The social catastrophe confronting the working class today is inseparable from the class project the SACP helped sustain within the ANC-led alliance. The SACP has still to acknowledge and take responsibility for its role in crisis the working class and the country finds itself in today. - Some of the formations invited to this gathering, including the MKP, cannot be characterised as left formations. Their politics and conduct stand in direct contradiction to the values of non-racialism, working-class unity, democratic accountability, internationalism and socialist transformation.
The normalisation of corruption, ethnic chauvinism, xenophobia and reactionary populism cannot be disguised as radical politics or working-class militancy.
- The inclusion of chambers of commerce and business formations in a supposed “Conference of the Left” further exposes the political confusion underpinning this initiative. Capital and labour do not share the same class interests.
- SAFTU will not sit at the same table with right-wing forces, champions of neoliberalism, austerity, privatisation, corruption, xenophobia, ethnic chauvinism, patriarchy, misogyny and narrow nationalism in order to craft a programme allegedly aimed at liberating the working class from a crisis created precisely by these forces.
The PIC further expressed concern regarding attempts to collapse distinctions between:
• socialist politics;
• neoliberal nationalism;
• right-wing populism;
• corruption;
• xenophobia;
• and capitalist class interests.
The working class requires an independent, militant and socialist alternative rooted in class struggle not another attempt to recycle and rehabilitate political forces that have presided over the betrayal of the aspirations of workers and the poor.
The PIC also expressed profound solidarity with thousands of working-class families, farmworkers, rural communities and poor households devastated by the catastrophic floods in the Western Cape. Entire communities have been cut off from food supplies, electricity, roads, schools and basic services. Homes have been destroyed, livelihoods wiped out and many families displaced under extremely traumatic conditions.
The PIC noted with grave concern reports of:
• communities stranded without access to food and emergency assistance;
• destruction of schools and public infrastructure;
• severe damage to farms and agricultural production;
• destruction of crops and harvests;
• threats to jobs in agriculture and related sectors;
• and the growing dangers posed to food security and rural livelihoods.
The federation warned that climate disasters are increasingly exposing the brutal inequalities facing workers and poor communities who are forced to live and work in unsafe and underdeveloped conditions while government preparedness and disaster response remain inadequate.
SAFTU calls on:
• the Western Cape Provincial Government;
• national government;
• municipalities;
• Agri Western Cape;
• disaster management authorities;
• organised agriculture;
• trade unions;
• community organisations;
• faith-based organisations;
• and broader civil society
to urgently intensify relief, recovery and rebuilding interventions for affected communities.
The federation further calls for direct engagement with SAFTU-affiliated unions in the province in order to address the immediate crisis confronting farmworkers, farm dwellers and vulnerable communities.
SAFTU condemns political opportunism by formations attempting to exploit the suffering of flood victims for narrow political gain instead of addressing the structural causes of poverty, unsafe living conditions, environmental destruction and climate injustice.
The PIC reaffirmed that climate justice is a working-class issue and that workers and poor communities are increasingly paying the price for an ecological crisis created by profit-driven capitalist development.
The PIC resolved that SAFTU should:
• request a bilateral engagement with the SACP leadership;
• continue rebuilding independent working-class unity from below;
• intensify socialist political education;
• strengthen workplace and community struggles;
• and continue mobilising against austerity, unemployment, privatisation, corruption, xenophobia and inequality.
A statement was issued on behalf of SAFTU by the General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi.
For media inquiries, contact:
National Spokesperson
Newton Masuku
newtonm@saftu.org.za
0661682157
Media Officer
Asive Dyani
0719019564
