Zingiswa Phyllis Losi (born 2 October 1975) is a South African politician and trade unionist who is currently serving as the president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) since September 2018. She was formerly Cosatu's second deputy president from 2009 to 2018. She is a member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and a former member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress (ANC).
Born in the Eastern Cape, Losi became politically active as a youth activist in the Congress of South African Students and ANC Youth League. Her first job was as a technician in the South African National Defence Force, where she served from 1996 to 1999. Between 2001 and 2014, she worked for the Ford Motor Company in Port Elizabeth, and she joined the trade union movement in 2002 as a shop steward for the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa), a large Cosatu affiliate. She served three terms as Cosatu's second deputy president, beginning at the federation's 10th national congress in September 2009.
Although she was elected to her Cosatu office as a representative of Numsa, she soon fell out with her union over her closeness with Cosatu president S'dumo Dlamini, who was a supporter of President Jacob Zuma and whose primary rival, Zwelinzima Vavi, was allied with Numsa. Losi was suspended from Numsa in September 2013, pending a disciplinary hearing, and in March 2014 she announced that she had left Ford and Numsa to work for the South African Police Service and serve as a shop steward for another Cosatu affiliate, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru).
On 20 September 2018, Losi was elected unopposed to succeed Dlamini, becoming Cosatu's first woman president. Her election was backed by an impressive coalition of Cosatu affiliates, including the National Union of Mineworkers and National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union. She was re-elected to a second four-year term in September 2022. She has been a member of the SACP Central Committee since July 2017 and served on the ANC National Executive Committee from December 2017 to December 2022.
Early life and education
Losi was born on 2 October 1975 in KwaZakhele in the former Cape Province, though her family moved to nearby New Brighton, outside Port Elizabeth, when she was a year old. She was one of nine children born to Graham Mzwandile Losi, who was a general assistant at a hospital and later a debt collector at a furniture shop, and Vuyiswa Esther Losi, who was a domestic worker and later a general assistant at a hospital. She has a twin sister named Zamela.
In New Brighton, she attended Phendla Lower Primary School and Phillip Nikiwe High School before matriculating at Ithembelihle Senior Secondary School. Her family was political – two of her elder siblings went into exile with the anti-apartheid movement in 1985 and 1986 – and she was active in the Congress of South African Students as a teenager. After matriculating, she enrolled at the University of South Africa to study economics in 1995, but she dropped out later the same year and returned home to study teaching at the Algoa College of Education.
Early career and unionism
In 1996, Losi left her studies to join the South African National Defence Force as a technical assistant to aviation artisans; her posts included a stint at the South African Air Force base in Bloemfontein. She served in the military for three years, leaving in 1999, and the following year she relocated to Port Elizabeth, where she was a casual worker in JET clothing stores – as well as an active member of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League in the Nelson Mandela Bay region – until 2001, when she was employed at Ford Motor Company. She worked for Ford until 2014, first as an operator in the engine components and assembly division and later as a quality inspector, and she joined the trade union movement in 2002 when she was elected as a shop steward for the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa).
Cosatu deputy president: 2009–2018
In September 2009, Losi attended the 10th national congress of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), South Africa's largest trade union federation, to which Numsa was affiliated. At the congress, held in Midrand, she was nominated and elected to succeed Violet Seboni, who had recently died, as second deputy president of Cosatu. She won the position in a vote against Boitumelo Louise Thipe of the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers' Union (Saccawu).