COSATU president Sdumo Dlamini, said yesterday the union federation would waste no time in rolling out this year's programmes to consolidate its support base.
COSATU president Sdumo Dlamini, said yesterday the union federation would waste no time in rolling out this year's programmes to consolidate its support base.
Dlamini said meetings had been scheduled with the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP alliance to start talking about a national economic policy that they hoped would replace the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) policy.
"As from February we will be addressing challenges relating to the economic policy," Dlamini said.
"We need to shift from Gear to a more worker-friendly economic policy which is geared to benefit those who produce and work."
He said there would be campaigns for political education at shop-floor level aimed at explaining the union's ideology in a way that workers can easily understand.
"A lot of people entering the job market were very young when we voted for the first time in 1994," he said. "Workers were highly politicised then. The workers of today have just graduated from universities and do not even understand why they should join unions when they are employed.
"The only time it matters to them is when they get in trouble.
"We do not need to wait for them to get into that situation."
Dlamini said they would engage in vigorous campaigns to increase their membership.
"Our target is to reach four million members by 2015, from the present two million.
"This has been a target from 2003 and has been difficult to achieve.
"With more effort and hard work we hope we will reach it."
Dlamini said that these programmes were resolutions taken at Cosatu's 10th national congress that was held last year.
Cosatu spells out its vision for the new year
COSATU president Sdumo Dlamini, said yesterday the union federation would waste no time in rolling out this year's programmes to consolidate its support base.
COSATU president Sdumo Dlamini, said yesterday the union federation would waste no time in rolling out this year's programmes to consolidate its support base.
Dlamini said meetings had been scheduled with the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP alliance to start talking about a national economic policy that they hoped would replace the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) policy.
"As from February we will be addressing challenges relating to the economic policy," Dlamini said.
"We need to shift from Gear to a more worker-friendly economic policy which is geared to benefit those who produce and work."
He said there would be campaigns for political education at shop-floor level aimed at explaining the union's ideology in a way that workers can easily understand.
"A lot of people entering the job market were very young when we voted for the first time in 1994," he said. "Workers were highly politicised then. The workers of today have just graduated from universities and do not even understand why they should join unions when they are employed.
"The only time it matters to them is when they get in trouble.
"We do not need to wait for them to get into that situation."
Dlamini said they would engage in vigorous campaigns to increase their membership.
"Our target is to reach four million members by 2015, from the present two million.
"This has been a target from 2003 and has been difficult to achieve.
"With more effort and hard work we hope we will reach it."
Dlamini said that these programmes were resolutions taken at Cosatu's 10th national congress that was held last year.