09/10/2026
Zwelinzima Vavi, SAFTU General Secretary Keynote Address: Launch of the NUPSAW Parliament Branch – 09 October 2026
Comrades, workers and guests,
Welcome to the home of independent, worker-controlled, democratic and campaigning unionism. Welcome to NUPSAW and SAFTU.
This branch in Parliament carries an important message: public servants are workers, and Parliament is a workplace where workers must organise, speak and defend their interests. Your labour keeps public institutions functioning and helps deliver services on which millions depend. You are part of the working class and your strength lies in standing together.
We meet while public services are under severe strain. Communities face failing water systems, unreliable electricity, broken roads, uncollected refuse, overcrowded hospitals and understaffed schools. Workers are blamed, while those who mismanage institutions, loot public resources and weaken the state escape accountability. Public servants are often the last line of defence for communities, expected to work with vacant posts, inadequate resources and unsafe conditions.
We must defend workers and the communities they serve. There is no real choice between the two. Workers and communities are both harmed by corruption, austerity, privatisation and the weakening of public institutions.
But we must also confront how unions themselves can be captured. SAFTU was born from hard lessons in our movement. COSATU was built through the courage and militancy of workers. But when its independence and working-class character came under pressure, conflict became unavoidable. NUMSA was expelled, and I was removed as General Secretary. SAFTU was founded because workers needed a federation that would remain independent, democratic, militant and answerable to its members.
The values around which we must build NUPSAW come from South Africa’s long tradition of worker organisation and struggle. They were forged in the Durban strikes and the wave of worker action that followed. Those struggles helped win historic advances: the institutionalisation of trade union power through the Wiehahn Commission, bargaining councils, democracy in 1994, workers’ rights in the Constitution, the transformation of the apartheid labour market and the creation of the SETA system.
These gains were not gifts from above. They were won through organisation, solidarity, courage and collective action. They show what workers can achieve when unions are independent, democratic, militant and rooted in the workplace.
They also teach us that leadership must be measured by service, sacrifice and integrity. We remember Luthuli, Tambo and Sisulu for their humility, discipline and selflessness. We remember Mandela for sacrifice and reconciliation; Chris Hani for courage and honesty; Ruth First, Dulcie September, Victoria Mxenge and Solomon Mahlangu for their supreme commitment to justice and freedom.
We draw inspiration from Charlotte Maxeke, Lilian Ngoyi, Albertina Sisulu, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Florence Matomela. We remember Steve Biko’s insistence on dignity and consciousness. We remember Thomas Sankara’s rejection of luxury and corruption, and Amílcar Cabral’s warning that leaders must remain rooted among the people.
We also draw deeply from Frantz Fanon. Fanon taught that colonialism controls not only land, labour and institutions, but also the minds of the oppressed. Liberation therefore requires more than changing political office. It requires dignity, confidence, consciousness and collective power.
Fanon warned against replacing one elite with another while exploitation and inequality remain. That lesson speaks directly to transformation. Transformation cannot mean changing the faces at the top while workers remain poor, public institutions deteriorate and communities continue to suffer.
Leaders must never become separated from those they represent or turn movements into vehicles for personal advancement. The people must remain active participants in their own liberation. Liberation must overcome racism, class exploitation, patriarchy, tribalism, xenophobia and every form of domination. It must enable ordinary people to become makers of history.
These leaders were not perfect, and we do not turn them into idols. We honour the values they represented: modesty instead of arrogance, selflessness instead of enrichment, honesty instead of manipulation, ubuntu instead of contempt, consciousness instead of passivity and sacrifice instead of abandonment of the people.
Today, many of the rights won through struggle are under threat. Rights on paper mean little if workers lack unions capable of defending them. Weak unions become paper tigers: they may have constitutions, offices and recognition, but lack the organisation and militancy needed to confront employers, government and political power. NUPSAW must ensure that workers’ rights are actively defended.
Capture is not only about who holds office. It is also about what unions become. We have seen transformation create a new leadership class while unions become ladders for leaders seeking top management positions. Some former worker heroes end up presiding over institutions in decline, while workers and communities continue to suffer.
That is not the transformation workers fought for. If people at the top change but workers remain powerless, public institutions keep failing and old economic relations remain intact, then transformation has been betrayed. The organisation built by workers becomes a vehicle for advancing a few, while members and the public are left behind.
We must reject the politics of the big man and the cult of personality. When leaders cannot be questioned, critics are purged and loyalty to individuals replaces loyalty to workers, democracy is suffocated. We must fight this culture in SAFTU and in every union we build.
Our movement must be guided by ubuntu: the understanding that our humanity is bound together. A genuine leader listens, shares burdens, admits mistakes, protects the vulnerable and uses authority to empower others. That is the standard we must demand from every office-bearer.
What must we mobilise workers behind? Independence from employers and political power. Worker control, so members shape their union and hold leaders accountable. Democracy, where disagreement is heard and leadership is a responsibility, not a throne. Militancy and solidarity, so workers act together. Honesty and integrity, so union resources are never used for personal advancement. Political consciousness, so workers understand the forces shaping their lives. And public service, because decent work and quality services belong together.
These are the values around which NUPSAW must be built. We reject sweetheart unionism, business unionism and bureaucratisation. We reject unions that serve officials instead of members.
Our model is servant leadership. Union leaders are servants of workers, not their masters. The examples of our historic leaders and the countless unnamed workers who built our movement remind us that leadership is a responsibility to the people, never a personal possession. The power of a union comes from organised workers, not from the status, wealth or connections of its leaders.
Let this branch be a centre of organisation, accountability, political education and resistance. Listen to members. Take up their grievances. Defend decent wages, safe workplaces, filled posts and quality public services. Turn workers’ rights from promises on paper into realities in every institution.
To every worker who is not yet a member: join NUPSAW. Help build a union that belongs to you, gives you a voice and is prepared to fight alongside you.
The strength of NUPSAW and SAFTU will be measured by the confidence, organisation and power workers build together—not by the power leaders keep for themselves.
Let us build leaders who are modest, selfless, honest, willing to sacrifice, rooted among workers and guided by ubuntu.
Long live NUPSAW! Long live SAFTU!
Long live independent, militant and worker-controlled unionism!
Long live worker democracy, solidarity and struggle!
Long live servant leadership!
Long live the unity of workers and communities!
