The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] congratulates South African Communist Party [SACP] and other organisations of the working class for hosting a historic and successful Conference of the Left which ended yesterday 31st May 2026.
The conference was held under the theme “Building a Left Movement for Working-Class and Popular Power”. Indeed, the conference was characterised by robust and frank discussions on how to rebuild the organised power of the working class and the poor. As NEHAWU, we are inspired by the qualitative outcomes of the conference as enshrined in the Declaration for Working-Class and Popular Power.
We proudly declare that the conference has indeed invigorated the Socialist-Axis to fight against imperialism and the barbaric system of capitalist exploitation and oppression. The Socialist-Axis emerges from the conference more determined and resolute to provide an alternative system to capitalism.
NEHAWU as a union that follows the line of a militant class-oriented trade union movement rooted in struggles of the working people of the world, we welcome the conference’s affirmation of progressive internationalism, radical Pan-Africanism and the struggle for peace as strategic principles of the Left.
We welcome the conference’s stand against war, militarism, occupation, sanctions, regime-change operations and imperialist aggression. Furthermore, we welcome the solidarity expressed by the conference with the oppressed masses of the world, including the peoples of Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Western Sahara and the Sahel. The Conference expressed unwavering solidarity with Cuba and called for a South African Cuba Solidarity and Anti-Blockade Bill.
The conference was convened at a time when our National Democratic Revolution is at a point of derailment. Hence, as NEHAWU, we fully agree with the conference’s analysis that South Africa is in a deep structural crisis rooted in capitalism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, monopoly power, patriarchy, racism, austerity, unemployment, hunger, inequality, social violence, ecological destruction and the unfinished transformation of society after 1994. This, therefore requires the Socialist-Axis to provide strategic and tactical working class leadership to help the class to map the way out of this disconcerting socio-economic and political conjuncture.
We welcome the Conference declaration that the Left must move from critique to the construction of a credible alternative economic plan for South Africa. This plan must include fiscal policy, monetary policy, industrial policy, trade policy, public investment, ownership and control of strategic sectors, developmental finance, democratic planning, and the allocation of resources towards employment, production, public services and social ownership.
We also welcome the pronouncement for the nationalisation of the South African Reserve Bank and a fundamental review of its mandate, ownership, governance and accountability. Monetary policy must serve employment, industrialisation, developmental finance, public investment, transformation and the needs of the working class and poor.
As a health union, we fully support the declaration to defend a fully funded National Health Insurance system against private capitalist capture. NHI must not become a mechanism for funding the privatisation of healthcare or subsidising private providers at public expense. It must form part of the wider struggle for redistribution, public provision, equality, social rights and the decommodification of healthcare.
We welcome the adopted first-phase Programme of Action organised around eight clusters which include; Economic transformation, work and livelihoods, Cost of living, public services and social protection, Land, restitution, redistribution and local democratic economies, Public health, NHI and social reproduction, Social violence, community safety and working-class unity, Climate justice, energy sovereignty and the just transition, Internationalism, Pan-Africanism, peace and anti-imperialist solidarity and Review of the 1996 Constitution, state power and democratic transformation.
This conference must serve as a turning moment for the Socialist Axis to rebuild a powerful left movement for our class and popular power.
Lastly, our 13th National Congress on the 26 – 29 June 2026 will take an advantage of receiving a detailed report about the conference of the left for proper analysis so as to draw a deliberate role and program NEHAWU must play and develop in the practical implementation of critical core of the declaration as its responsibility of the political tasks, as part of the most organised contingent of the working class, for itself and the preparations of COSATU 15th National Congress scheduled in September 2026 and in a broader working class revolution.
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Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat.
Zola Saphetha (General Secretary) at 082 558 5968; December Mavuso (Deputy General Secretary) at 082 558 5969; Lwazi Nkolonzi (NEHAWU National Spokesperson) at 081 558 2335 or email: lwazin@nehawu.org.za