President Joseph Mathunjwa, General Secretary Jeff Mphahlele, members of the AMCU National Executive, and dear members of AMCU, it is a great honour on behalf of the Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC) to extend our warmest greetings and deepest solidarity to the leadership and delegates of this AMCU National Congress.
The road we have travelled together has been long, difficult, and defined by courage. From the heroic uprising of Marikana—where workers stood firm in the face of brutal repression—to the five-month strike in defence of the R12 500 living wage demand, AMCU’s rock drill operators set a new standard for militancy, unity, and working-class dignity. As we recall Marikana, we must also insist that there is unfinished business: the bosses of Sibanye Stillwater (formerly Lonmin) and the state must still be held accountable for the murder of our comrades. We will not rest until there is full justice for Marikana. AIDC is proud to have marched beside you in these historic struggles, supporting workers who refused to bow to exploitation and who inspired millions across South Africa and beyond.
We also salute AMCU for breaking new ground by demanding real wage increases in Rand amounts, rather than accepting timid percentage-based increases that entrench poverty-level wages. This bold approach has provided leadership to the entire trade union movement and demonstrated that workers need not accept the logic of austerity or corporate affordability narratives. AMCU’s insistence on meaningful increases has uplifted the living standards of thousands of mineworkers and set a benchmark for principle and militancy.
Equally groundbreaking has been AMCU’s role in exposing the role of capital in illicit financial flows, profit shifting, and base erosion—a direct attack on the working class through wage suppression. Together, we exposed these practices at Lonmin and Barplats, and now the spotlight is rightly on Samancor, where billions of rands have been shifted out of the country. The Samancor case is critically important. This is not only tax evasion—it is wage evasion, robbing workers of the wage increases necessary for a dignified life. We must escalate mass pressure on the Samancor bosses, especially while this case is being heard in the High Court, and ensure they are held accountable for this corporate theft.
Over the years, AMCU and AIDC have deepened their collaboration in challenging the government’s neoliberal economic policies, which continue to entrench unemployment, inequality, and poverty. Together, we have ensured that AMCU’s voice is heard internationally—not only as a democratic and independent union, but as a union confronting the climate crisis with clarity and courage. AMCU has earned recognition for its progressive positions on the need for a genuine just transition—one that protects workers, transforms the economy, and secures a sustainable and dignified future for all.
Our joint critique of the government’s Just Transition Partnership and Investment Plan, labelling it accurately as green structural adjustment, based on austerity, privatisation and wage reduction, remains vital. It is urgent that this Congress reassert these positions, ensuring that the working class does not become the victim of climate policy shaped by foreign lenders and domestic elites.
At this moment, we face yet another threat: the government’s new economic policy, GAIN, which represents a naked assault on the rights of workers and the poor. It is essential that AMCU takes a decisive and militant stance to confront this reactionary policy and mobilise workers, communities, and progressive forces against it.
Comrades, under the leadership of Joseph Mathunjwa and the NEC, AMCU has transformed the lives of mineworkers—raising expectations, raising standards, and raising the banner of militant, democratic unionism. For this, we salute you.
AIDC stands ready to deepen our collaboration. The challenges ahead demand unity, clarity, and bold action. Together, we must build a powerful movement of workers and the poor—one capable not only of rejecting the government of the bosses, but of rallying the oppressed and exploited of South Africa behind a new programme of real transformation and emancipation.
A programme through which we overcome mass unemployment, end inequality, and secure the right of all our people to live in dignity—through the re-industrialisation of our country, centred on the redistribution of wealth and the restoration of our people to their stolen land.
Forward ever, backward never.
An injury to one is an injury to all.
We join you in saying:
OUR AMCU | OUR LAND | OUR ECONOMY | OUR POWER | OUR WAY
Amandla!
