Aug-Sept 2014 K.indd

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AUG/SEPT 2014 • www.cosatu.org.za

“Our ability to provide practical solutions to the challenges confronting the working class in general and our members in particular is derived from our ability to lign and strike a balance between our political responsibility to the transformation of our country and service to our members at the workplace”

coherent and uniting resolutions and programmes as a practical expression of “how” the challenges confronting our country should be resolved. It is this coherence in answering the question “how” which makes us to claim that we are an organisation. It is for this reason that we will refuse to have any organisation or individual impose policies that do not direct COSATU in accordance with its founding principles. That is why we have a strict constitution that says once we detect deviation from policy we should engage with such deviation with the intent to correct it. Even the response on the notions and forms of power; manifestations of violence and the corresponding organisational responses; challenges and changes and what is asked of all our organisations, should proceed from an honest interpretation of what our organisations stand for. When we respond we should do so based on our principled stance. In this regard various COSATU congresses adopted various resolutions which converged to construct what is considered as the COSATU’s Gender Policy which opens by the words articulated by Thomas Sankara that “Woman’s fate is bound up with that of the exploited male. This is a fact.

into broadly based industrial unions. It is on the basis of these tasks and founding principles that as COSATU we have invited all those who identify with this commitment to join us and the workers whom we represent, as comrades in the struggle ahead. It concludes by saying that our struggle is inspired by the universal slogan of working class solidarity: “An injury to one is an injury to all”. Our ability to provide practical solutions to the challenges confronting the working class in general and our members in particular is derived from our ability to align and strike a balance between our political responsibility to the transformation of our country and service to our members at the workplace. The day we stop to strike this balance, we will cease to be COSATU. We must never bow to the pressures of changing from what we are and we must never cease to unleash activities which are in line with the character of COSATU, the day we change those activities we will automatically change our character, as Lenin put it “the activities of any organisation determine its character”. In simple terms COSATU’s existence is also about answering the question “how” and the answer to this question is found in its democratic processes which produce

bare in the text and spirit of COSATU’s constitution and surely the af fi liates’ constitution. The COSATU constitution says among others, we exist to fi ght for worker rights by securing social and economic justice for all workers; understanding how the economy of the country affects workers and formulating clear policies on how the economy should be restructured in the interests of the working class. We are an organisation founded on the principle of worker control based on an understanding that workers must control the structures and committees of the federation in order for it to continue to serve the interests of the members. It is adherence to this principle which has kept this federation vibrant and dynamic, and maintained close links with the shop fl oor. We sincerely believe that workers must be equipped for the task to become their own liberators. COSATU exists to build solidarity by encouraging all workers to join progressive and democratic trade unions; to strive for a united working class movement regardless of race, colour, creed or sex; to encourage industrial unions by forming broadly based industrial unions in all industries where none exist and assisting unions operating in the same industry to merge

Gender Agenda