By Amy Musgrave
Labour federations and President Cryil Ramaphosa are mourning the passing of former labour minister and high commissioner to Canada, Membathisi Shepard Mdladlana, who was 72.
A teacher by training and a former school principal, Mdladlana became a MP in South Africa’s first democratic Parliament in 1994. Four years later, he was appointed labour minister by Nelson Mandela and was retained in this role by former president Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma.
Mdladlana’s predecessor Tito Mbowen died last week and will be honoured in a special state funeral on Saturday.
“We have recently been visited by a succession of departures of veterans of our liberation struggle and pioneers of the dawn of our democracy,” Ramaphosa said in a statement.
“Membathisi Mdladlana was one such pioneer who was a first generation Member of Parliament who had been prepared for this role during an extended period of leadership in the South Western African Teachers Association, the Peninsula African Teachers Association and the Cape African Teachers Union before becoming a founding member and chairperson of the South African Democratic Teachers Union.”
SA Federation of Trade Union general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi described by Mdladlana as the “labour laws enforcer”’ and one of the most honest servants of the working class.
“He was an embodiment of uBuntu, which expressed solidarity, selflessness, sacrifices, including the willingness to put his own life on the line for the common good of the masses.
“Comrade Sheppey, as the earlier generation fondly called him, was not those typical self-serving chest-beating career politicians who only do anything if personal glory and self-gratification await,” Vavi said in a statement.
He said Mdladlana became a victim of what could only be referred to as the “moment of madness” where only loyalty to a faction was regarded as vital to deploy comrades to important positions. He was removed as the minister and posted as an ambassador to Burundi
Cosatu Parliamentary co-ordinator Matthew Parks said Mdladlana played a pivotal role in uniting teachers across race and geography.
He was amongst the contingent of Cosatu deployees to the first Parliament in 1994 where he played an important role in crafting the Constitution.
“Despite being a minister, Mdladlana never lost his activist spirit. He was intolerant of corruption and entitlement. Being the principal that he was, he was stickler for rules and punctuality,” Parks said in a statement.
“He resisted the temptations of populism and sought to always be honest with the public. He nurtured generations of activists in the Cape, in the underground and after 1994.
This was a man of the cloth with a salty sense of humour. A strict disciplinarian yet with a big heart. His laugh was loud and infectious.” Parks said the passing of Mdladlana, Mboweni and former public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan was not only sad for the end of these distinguished sons of the nation, but also a generation that risked much and only sought to serve, and who did so with integrity and not a flicker of scandal.
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