South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has criticised recent protests across the country, accusing organisers of diverting public attention away from the nation’s systemic failures.
Two marches took place in Gauteng this week. The March and March Movement led an anti-illegal migration demonstration demanding the removal of undocumented foreigners.
On Wednesday, Vavi joined the Communication Workers Union and post office employees march in Pretoria. Their march focused on the challenges at the Post Office (SAPO), such as retrenchments and low salaries.
Speaking on the sidelines of the protest, Vavi dismissed the campaign against undocumented migrants as “dishonest”.
“This issue of illegal migrants is a dishonest campaign,” Vavi said. “Their target is not illegal migrants; their target is all migrants. This is xenophobia in its purest form, and all progressive people must reject it.”
Today (29.04.26), three unions marched on the offices of the Minister of Communications. Their message was clear: the South African Post Office is being destroyed, not by accident, but through sustained neglect, corruption, privatisation and commercialisation.
In 1994, the Post… pic.twitter.com/63nSQ5bD0s
— Zwelinzima Vavi (@Zwelinzima1) April 29, 2026
Vavi argued that such movements redirect the frustrations of the working class toward vulnerable groups rather than the “real enemy”.
“It is a diversion in the sense that, instead of those people reinforcing our march against job losses in the post office — which have absolutely nothing to do with migration — they are focusing elsewhere,” Vavi said. “The collapse of the post office is due to the government’s wrong policy choices, commercialisation, privatisation, corruption and neglect.”
Vavi accused organisers of using migrants as scapegoats for the country’s broader failures.
“Instead of directing justified anger at those who have abandoned their historic mission, a dangerous narrative is being promoted. It diverts attention away from the architects of this collapse,” he said. “It frames the migration crisis as if it is responsible for mass unemployment and the degrading poverty that makes South Africa one of the most unequal societies in the world.”
He highlighted that the protests have racial and ethnic undertones, noting that demonstrators often ignore white-owned companies to target black migrants. He referenced recent anti-migrant protests in KwaZulu-Natal that turned violent.
“In the process, they beat up people from Limpopo, accusing them of being migrants. They don’t care whether those people are here legally or illegally. Anyone who cannot speak a particular language from a particular province gets beaten up. We cannot associate ourselves with that.”
Vavi called for worker unity to address the imminent collapse of public services. He emphasised that the loss of SAPO would affect rural communities that rely on its services.
“That is the real enemy,” Vavi emphasised. “The real enemy is that we have millions of people unemployed in this economy, and that has nothing to do with migration. It has everything to do with the wrong policy choices pursued by the government.”
While Vavi acknowledged the challenges posed by illegal immigration and crime, he warned against generalisations.
“Yes, there is migration, and there are intolerable acts of criminality, including those committed by migrants. We must isolate and arrest those individuals. But we cannot generalise and say all Xhosas are a problem, all Zulus are a problem, or all migrants — whether they are here legally or illegally — are the problem.”
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