The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU) has issued a urgent call for action to shield South African workers from the negative economic fallout of recent US tariff hikes, citing imminent job losses and a weakening public service.
The declaration came from NEHAWU President Mike Shingange during his address at the union’s three-day National Organising, Servicing and Collective Bargaining Conference, which opened in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg. This is the union’s first such conference since 2013, a period Shingange noted has seen dramatic and damaging changes in the labour landscape.
President Shingange outlined a multi-faceted assault on workers, including widespread retrenchments, government austerity measures, and a systematic undermining of collective bargaining. He argued that these forces have combined to weaken the public sector and strip away worker protections.
“The way the economy is restructuring… there’s a lot of informalization and there’s a lot of attempt to amend the labor relations dispensations to strip off the protections of the workers,” Shingange stated. “It needs the unions in our day to adapt and make sure that they defend their members.”
Adding to these domestic challenges, Shingange pointed a finger at international “geopolitics” and specifically at the trade policies of the United States. He stated that the “tariffs and the trade wars of big capital” are directly impacting workers, destabilizing economies, and costing jobs.
“We are meeting in a context where the tariffs… is affecting the workers, the economic situations of every country and jobs get lost,” he said. Shingange provided specific examples, noting that by the end of the month, 66 workers at a local institution are set to lose their jobs, with learning centres in other provinces also preparing for retrenchments.
He framed these job losses as a human crisis, emphasizing that those affected are “family men and women… breadwinners” who will soon “join the queues of unemployment.” In a direct condemnation of US President Donald Trump, Shingange called for a strategy to fight back against “this madness of power hungry Trump” to protect South Africa’s economic stability and social justice.
The conference also tackled a critical internal issue: a growing trust deficit between workers and their unions. Shingange stressed that the union’s legitimacy hinges on this trust, which is built on demonstrating genuine concern for members’ plights. “The moment we lose that trust is the moment our organization will be in trouble,” he warned.
Beyond immediate economic pressures, NEHAWU broadened its critique to a national level, questioning the government’s commitment to implementing long-promised reforms like the National Health Insurance (NHI) and free, quality education. Echoing a sentiment from the conference, Shingange declared, “We are not suffering as South Africans from not talking. We talk a lot. We are suffering from not implementing.”
Delegates at the conference are expected to review NEHAWU’s national bargaining strategy and work towards improved coordination to better protect workers across all sectors. The union also plans to launch a major recruitment drive to strengthen its ranks in the face of these mounting challenges.