The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) has joined the chorus of organisations and other movements opposed to bending the country’s regulations in order to accommodate Elon Musk’s Starlink and allow it to operate in the country.

The General Secretary of the labour federation, Zwelinzima Vavi says while they do not support B-BBEE, which he says they regard as an elite enrichment scheme that has failed the black working class.

However, South African laws must not be formulated, shaped or amended by an external imperial force in the interest of its billionaire class.

“We categorically reject the idea of bending South African law to accommodate a foreign billionaire’s empire — even if those laws are themselves flawed. The responsibility and the power to change flawed laws is the prerogative of the South African working class and no external force must usurp that power.

“To do otherwise would be to open the floodgates to corporate imperialism, stripping South Africa of its ability to regulate critical infrastructure in the national interest,” Vavi said

He added that Starlink is “digital colonialism disguised as connectivity.”

As such, he said Starlink is not a neutral internet service, but part of a broader U.S. imperial project to control global digital infrastructure.

“It offers no local investment, no jobs, no industrial capacity, and no accountability. It extracts profits from South Africans while avoiding our regulations and contributing nothing to our developmental goals. It represents a form of digital apartheid, where the privileged few access foreign-owned tech while our rural and working-class communities remain underserved by public infrastructure.”

Opposition to Starlink grew after the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Solly Malatsi, announced that an “alternative” compliance mechanism, such as local partnerships or skills investments, might be introduced in place of the existing 30% local ownership requirement for foreign telecom licensees.