“We Built This Nation. Don’t Let Them Die Waiting.”
Comrades, elders, fellow young workers,
Happy Workers’ Day!
Today we fill the streets with song because workers built this country. The mines you see, the roads you drive, the hospitals that stand — all of it was raised by hands that clocked in before sunrise and clocked out after dark.
But today I will not just celebrate. I will speak for the ones who can’t stand here with us.
I speak for the medically retired.
These are the men and women who gave their bodies to the job. The miner whose lungs gave out at 45. The machine operator whose back collapsed after 30 years. The young mother who lost her arm in a factory accident. They were told: “Go home. You’ve served.”
Then the second injury happened — silence.
Comrades, what is Workers’ Day if a worker retires sick and then struggles to get medical help?
We see it every day:
1. Claims that take years. Files lost.
Doctors who never call back. Compensation that arrives after the funeral.
2. Clinics too far, too expensive.
A man with black lung forced to choose between bus fare to town and buying maize-meal.
3. Pensions that can’t buy pills.
You worked underground, but your medical aid died the day your contract did.
This is not honor. This is abandonment. And as youth, we say: _enough!
Why does this matter on Workers’ Day?
Because Workers’ Day started with blood. In 1886, workers died demanding 8 hours for work, 8 for rest, 8 for what we will. They didn’t die so that the next generation could die waiting in a clinic queue.
A union is judged by how it treats its wounded. A country is judged by how it treats those who broke themselves building it. Right now, we are failing that test.
So as Youth President, I make 3 commitments on behalf of my generation:
1. We will remember.
No more medically retired workers left off the agenda. At every meeting, we say their names. We visit their homes. We learn their cases.
2. We will fight
. For faster compensation. For company clinics that stay open after retirement. For government to treat occupational disease like the emergency it is. If you get sick because of work, your treatment should not depend on charity.
3. We will prepare
. Because one day it will be us. If we don’t fix this system now, we’ll inherit the same pain. The youth refuse to walk into shafts knowing we’ll be discarded when our bodies fail.
To our medically retired comrades:
We see your scars. We hear you coughing at night. You are not forgotten. You are not “ex-workers.” You are the foundation. And foundations should never be allowed to crack.
To employers and government:
You counted every gram they mined. You timed every shift. Now count the days they wait for an X-ray. You measured their output — now measure your duty. Workers’ Day is not a PR event. It’s an invoice. And it’s overdue.
To my fellow youth:
The best way to honor past fighters is to join today’s fight. Volunteer to help an elder file papers. Raise your voice when a widow is denied care. Because solidarity isn’t just for marches — it’s for hospital benches too.
Comrades, Workers’ Day means _all_ workers. The young, the old, the strong, and the broken. If one of us is sick and alone, then the chain of solidarity is already broken.
So let’s mend it. Today.
Amandla! To the workers!
Amandla! To the medically retired!
Pasi With delays, with neglect, with empty promises!
Shinga mushandi shinga — until every worker, retired or active, can see a doctor without fear.
Happy Workers’ Day. And may next year, we celebrate with fewer funerals and more healing.
Thank you.
Aldious Suntile