BL Premium reports that Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi warned on Tuesday that the newly elected leaders of the ANC must not take their alliance partners for granted.

She urged them to listen to their partners and help solve workers’ issues in order to win the labour federation’s support ahead of the national elections in 2024. Cosatu’s voice in the alliance is important as the federation, with a membership of about 1.6-million, has traditionally since 1994 campaigned for the ANC during elections. Workers are still angry at the state after it backed out of implementing the last leg of a three-year wage deal signed in 2018. Further straining relations between the partners was the recent decision by acting public service and administration minister Thulas Nxesi to unilaterally implement a final, revised 3% wage offer for public servants. In an interview on the sidelines of the ANC’s five-day congress, Losi said they had raised the issue of the reconfiguration of the alliance at the party’s national executive committee meetings and in the alliance. “You cannot take the alliance partners for granted. We hope [the issue of the reconfiguration] of the alliance was not just included in the president’s speech. We are hopeful that we are going to have an alliance meeting after this conference and table the issues that we are sent by workers to table, and we are hopeful that we are going to have a leadership that is listening and acting on those issues,” Losi said. She added that slogans alone would not change the ANC’s dwindling electoral fortunes. Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said Cosatu looked forward to “robust engagements with the ANC and the SACP on the radical reconfiguration of the alliance.”

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)

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