40th COSATU Anniversary
“The working class is revolutionary or it is nothing.” – Karl Marx –
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), a federation of various labour unions, was established on 1 December 1985 in Durban. It was among the fastest growing labour federations in the world. This year COSATU celebrates 40 years as a trade union and 35 years in the Tripartite Alliance with the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). The alliance remains stable despite the SACP’s disagreement with the ANC’s inability to reconfigure the alliance, as well as the engagement with the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Government of National Unity (GNU), which the SACP views as the class enemy of the national democratic revolution. The SACP emphasised its resolution at its last congress to go it alone in the next elections.
On 30 Nov 1985, 33 unions met at the University of Natal for talks on forming a federation of trade unions. This followed four years of unity talks between competing unions and federations that were opposed to apartheid and were “committed to a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa”. COSATU was officially established on 1 December 1985. Among the founding unions were the affiliates of the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU), the small National Federation of Workers, and some independent unions, notably the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Elijah Barayi was the organisat
