Thulas Nxesi

Thembelani Waltermade "Thulas" Nxesi (born 9 June 1959) is a South African politician and former trade unionist who was the Minister of Employment and Labour from May 2019 to June 2024. A representative of the African National Congress (ANC), he has been a member of cabinet since October 2011 and the Deputy National Chairperson of the South African Communist Party (SACP) since July 2012.

A teacher by profession, Nxesi rose to prominence as the General Secretary of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union from 1995 to 2009. He was also the President of Education International between 2004 and 2009. He entered the National Assembly at the 2009 general election, and in 2010 he was appointed as Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform in the government of President Jacob Zuma. The following year, Zuma promoted him to the cabinet, first as Minister of Public Works from 2011 to 2017 and then as Minister of Sport and Recreation from 2017 to 2018. Under Zuma's successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, Nxesi returned briefly to the Ministry of Public Works in 2018 before he was appointed to his current position in 2019. He was also Acting Minister of Public Service and Administration from April 2022 to March 2023. Nxesi was ranked too low on the ANC's national list to be re-elected to Parliament at the 2024 general election.

Nxesi was a member of the ANC National Executive Committee from 2012 to 2017, and he was elected to his third five-year term as SACP Deputy National Chairperson in July 2022.

Nxesi was born on 1 January 1959 in Matatiele in the former Cape Province. Schooled at the height of apartheid, he was politically active from a young age as a student activist in the Azanian Students' Organisation and its successor, the South African National Student Congress; he was expelled from school on several occasions for his political activities. He graduated from the University of Fort Hare with a Bachelor of Arts in 1983, and he later completed a Bachelor of Education at Witwatersrand University and a higher diploma in education at the University of South Africa.

In 1985, he took up a teaching job at Ikusasa Senior Secondary School in Tembisa in the former Transvaal. He headed the school's social studies department until 1990. During that period, he was a founding member and ultimately secretary of the National Education Union of South Africa, which was later merged into the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu).

In 1990, Nxesi was elected as Assistant General Secretary of the newly formed Sadtu, and he was elected as General Secretary in 1995. During his tenure in the secretariat, which lasted until 2009, Sadtu became one of the largest affiliates of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). In addition, from 2004 to 2009, Nxesi was the President of Education International, a global federation of teachers' unions.

In the 2009 general election, Nxesi won election to a seat in the National Assembly, the lower house of the South African Parliament; he stood as a candidate for the African National Congress (ANC), Cosatu's Tripartite Alliance partner. He was one of three unionists – the others being Alina Rantsolase and Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya – who represented the ANC by way of the Tripartite Alliance. In the aftermath of the election, the ANC announced that it would nominate Nxesi to chair Parliament's Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation.

Nxesi joined the executive in a cabinet reshuffle announced by President Jacob Zuma on 31 October 2010. He was appointed as Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, serving under Minister Gugile Nkwinti. Sadtu welcomed Zuma's announcement.