Cosatu’s Mike Shingange: The man who cares about your job

For newly elected Cosatu president Mike Shingange, trade unionism is not just a career – it is the bloodstream of his life: every chapter of his struggle has been tied to the workers’ cause from boyhood.

Now, at the helm of SA’s largest federation with 1.6 million members, Shingange has reached the pinnacle of labour leadership. His bold pledge to immediately implement Cosatu’s congress resolutions and declaration has sparked the question: who is this militant left leader?

Shingange was born in Mafarana village, Tzaneen, Limpopo.

From cutting sugar cane to leading trade union

Unlike many socialist leaders who trace their lineage to working-class hardship, Shingange is guarded about his family background. The only public marker of his modest upbringing is his childhood labour on Mpumalanga farms.

As a boy, he cut sugar cane during school holidays and weekends to supplement his parents’ meagre income – a practice he now condemns as exploitative child labour. But those experiences planted the seeds of his lifelong militancy.

He joined the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) in 1995 and quickly distinguished himself as what he called an “activist shop steward” in the public health sector.

That same year he was elected Giyani branch chair, a position he held until 1998 before moving to Polokwane.

Nehawu’s records show his steady rise: secretary of Groothoek Hospital branch (1999-2001), chair until 2002, then acting secretary and chairperson. He later led Van Velden Hospital’s Tzaneen branch.

By 2006, he was regional deputy chair of the Lowveld and in 2008, provincial deputy chair of Limpopo. It culminated in his election as provincial chair, a role he held until 2014, and then first deputy president until 2017.

His influence extended beyond Nehawu: he was re-elected as Cosatu’s first deputy president in 2022, sits on the central committee of the South African Communist Party and was elected vice-president of the World Federation of Trade Unions in March 2023.

Inspired by Cosatu’s militancy

Shingange often recalls how, as a schoolboy, Cosatu’s militancy inspired him.

His early jobs in Johannesburg, taken to pay school fees, reinforced his awareness of exploitation and sharpened his resolve.

“We drafted those laws on the street; we drafted them on the picket lines,” he once said of the Labour Relations Act and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act.

For him, these victories were proof that struggle could yield progress.

By November 2021, he had risen to Nehawu national president, while also serving as Cosatu’s first deputy president. His re-election in 2023 came with a vow to make the federation the “home of the workers”. Now, elevated to president, that promise is his mandate.

He has pledged to prioritise Cosatu’s resolutions, leading direct talks with industry captains and bargaining councils across both public and private sectors.

His immediate focus is halting the relentless job bloodbath, particularly in the motor industry, where cheap imports from China have driven local firms to cut costs at the expense of workers’ livelihoods.

Job shedding, he insists, is Cosatu’s most urgent battle.