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.
[1] 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.
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.
[4] She won the position in a vote against Boitumelo Louise Thipe of the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers' Union (Saccawu).
[6][7] During this period, she was also a member of a seven-member ministerial committee, under the chairmanship of Malegapuru Makgoba, that was established by Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande in January 2013 to oversee racial and gender transformation in South African universities.
[9] Ahead of her speech, Swazi police fired stun grenades and tear gas into the crowd and arrested Losi and a Cosatu colleague; they were questioned and deported back to South Africa.
Losi's own union, Numsa, backed Vavi when he was suspended from the Cosatu secretariat in 2013, but she was nonetheless viewed as closely allied to Dlamini; by September 2013 the Mail & Guardian reported that Vavi's supporters were planning to remove Dlamini, Losi, and deputy general-secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali from their Cosatu offices on the grounds that they were "lackeys of ANC leaders".
Losi professed to be unconcerned by the rumours, denying that she and Dlamini were overly close to the Zuma-led ANC and saying that, "I will not be disturbed by people making noise in the periphery".
[20] To become eligible for that position, she joined the civil secretariat of the South African Police Service in Pretoria, where she was a deputy director as of 2018.
[23] Jim also called on the Public Protector to investigate Losi's employment by the police, alleging that it come about "in a totally unprocedural manner".
[24] The Food and Allied Workers' Union (Fawu) likewise attempted to challenge Losi's right to attend meetings as deputy president.
[25] Indeed, the Mail & Guardian reported, based on a leaked document, that Fawu and seven other pro-Numsa "rebel" affiliates had budgeted R500,000 in legal costs to fund a continued challenge against Losi's right to hold the deputy presidency.
"[17] By mid-2018, as the next Cosatu national congress approached and Zuma's influence waned, the Mail & Guardian reported that there was increasing support within the federation for a campaign for Losi to succeed Dlamini as president.
[35] Cosatu's affiliates subsequently held talks aimed at negotiating Dlamini's departure and ensuring an uncontested set of elections.
[38] She said that her priorities would include recruiting new members, working towards Numsa's return to the federation, and addressing sexism and sexual harassment.
[40] In September 2022, Losi was re-elected unopposed for a second term as Cosatu president at the 14th national congress at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand.
[47] She later said that the birth of her first daughter, during her un-unionised military service, sparked her interest in worker representation, when her manager attempted to prevent her from living with her infant in single quarters.