https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:8cc9954c-847d-4280-a535-31368e7844a0

Revolutionary greetings leadership...

 

We have established the group with the purpose of keeping yourselves informed about the developments within SATAWU that may be detrimental to the future of our beloved organization. We had taken a conscientious decision to SAVE SATAWU whilst there's time by using the legal avenues that are available when one finds themselves suffocated by the internal dynamics of politics of the stomach.

 

BACKGROUND 

 

SATAWU went to a national congress in 2018 after being compelled by the 2017 court order to do so, this was based on the fact that the then leadership was not complying with the SATAWU Constitution and had total disregard of accountability on the finances, our subscriptions, which led to mismanagement of funds resulting into: 

 

1) Late payments of staff members salaries and office rentals

 

2) None payment of COSATU affiliation fees and 

 

3) None compliance to statutory obligations such as, submission of audited financial statements to the Department of Employment and Labour through the office of the Registrar and also filing the tax returns to SARS for exemption purposes since we are a non-profit organization according to the legislations.

 

4) Unfairly dismissing staff members and the expelling of shopstewards who upheld the SATAWU CONSTITUTION and demanded accountability and transparency in the administration of the organization. 

 

 

Fast forward to 2022, the current National Office Bearers had failed to comply with the SATAWU CONSTITUTION by not calling the structural meetings like the Central Executive Committee, CEC ( This is the highest decision structure between National congresses), Finance Committee, FINCOM, which makes budgets and allocates funds for union activities on a quarterly basis per year. 

 

The NOBs basically micromanaged the organization until there was a complaint filed in June 2022 with the DoEL, the Registrar regarding these anomalies in the running of the organization and this compelled the NOBs to call the first CEC since their election in 2018 whilst the SATAWU CONSTITUTION expects them to call at least 3 of these meetings per year. It was after this Sep'22 CEC that the agenda of the NOBs became clear and apparent in that not only did they worsen the administration of the organization and continued to perpetuate the failures, as listed above, of the previous NOBs: 

 

1)They have unilaterally increased the salaries of the Secretariat office, i.e, the General Secretary and his deputy, and also their allowances for rentals and those for the worker leaders in the NOBC.

 

2) They established investment arms on behalf of the organization and appointed themselves as directors without the approval of the CEC.

 

3) During the current NOBs tenure the membership dropped from 101 458 as per the 2018 National Congress report to 60 000 due their ineffective leadership.

 

THE EXPULSIONS

 

As you may be aware that in December 2023, two months after their term of office expired instead of convening a National Congress as per Constitutional mandate, they convened a CEC after a second complaint was sent to the DoEL, the Registrar in September 2023 which forced them to act. In the 'so called' CEC they resolved the expel more than 22 shopstewards who demanded accountability and compliance of the SATAWU CONSTITUTION since structural meetings like the PECs were not being held and these would have been platform for us to ventilate our dissatisfactions on the status of the organization.

 

CONCLUSION 

 

It is upon ourselves, the membership and shopstewards of SATAWU to stand against none compliance of the constitution and none accountability of the dictatorship of the current NOBs and complicit conduct of the Provincial Office Bearers and the CEC in the degeneration of the democratic centralism were mandates are taken from the bottom up. The membership has been ignored and sidelined on their rightful demands for SATAWU to be accountable and transparent in the administration of the organization. With the current leadership, the old is dying and the new is struggling to be born, a SATAWU that puts the working class struggle first. It is important to understand that at the current trajectory, the intention by the NOBs is to dissolve SATAWU in order for them to escape accountability and they are using our legal action as a scapegoat and reason for the dilemma the organization finds itself in. This must be rejected with the contempt it deserves. Ours is for SATAWU to go to the National Congress and renew its mandate. 

 

Members must embark on protest action against the current NOBs by means membership withholding/withdrawal petitions sent to their respective companies to stop the subscriptions from reaching the looters at the National office and also by mobilizing and petitioning the Head office to call a Special CEC to reserve the expulsions and also call the National Congress. It can't be business as usual for the NOBs to continue unabated on their destructive path in the organisation. 

 

SAVE SATAWU