SASFU on Public Sector Unions 07-06-07

South African Security Forces Union
Soldiers advancing working class power

Media Release, 6 June 2007

SASFU on Public Sector unions' strikes

The South African Security Forces Union declares that despite the challenges ahead of us, we are also public servants of an excluded category because of our geographical political positioning. However we are a COSATU affiliate within the context of the laws prevailing in our country.

This is not hearsay but a resolution by soldiers in our Congress held in April 2006, endorsed by the COSATU CEC of February 2007. We will remain an affiliate of COSATU until the working class agenda runs in the blood and jugular veins of each worker in this universe.

It is therefore a duty for all our learned friends within various sectors that seem not to understand that soldiers are workers too. We need them to comprehend that the material conditions of the needy and the dispossessed are not a fleeting illusion but a reality the affects us as soldiers and members of the South African community.

As SASFU we say there can never be any peaceful co-existence between a worker and an employer, and there can never be a similarity between 12%, 6%, or 6,5%. Workers create the wealth of this country; support those who sell their labour power in creating this wealth and developing this country to be a world class country to be reckoned.

Soldiers are there to protect these gains and to protect this government; our government and therefore one cannot do without the other. It is in this regard that SASFU is not only unconditionally supporting the public sector unions' strikes but it is part of the strike within our jurisdictional legal framework.

Once more we declare to all soldiers that have conscience to heed this call, that this COSATU strike is not an act of greed or a trail to destabilise any peaceful motion that may have been circulating around. It is a reiteration of what people designed during the Congress of the People in 1955, that the people shall share in the country's wealth and that no government shall claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people.

The COSATU strike, in particular the public sector unions' strike, is a legally protected strike. Anything against this strike is illegal

We therefore call on all our members:

* Not to be used as replacement labour as this will cause a reactionary blow against the honest plight of the working class.
* Not to act in an antisocial way, that will be in conflict with laws of our beautiful country.
* But to engage in protest marches, picketing and any other way of protest within the context of the laws as prescribed in the constitution and other law documents of this country.
* That provinces should support this strike desperately and unconditionally because it is our conscious duty to pay solidarity amongst ourselves as workers.

We also call on the department of defence to implement all resolutions that will come out of this engagement within the context of our situation as Defence Act personnel.

Contact:
J T N Hlatshwayo
SASFU Deputy General Secretary
Mobile: 083 501 4464
Fax: 011 730 3150
E-mail: <mailto:0835014...@mtnloaded.co.za> 0835014...@mtnloaded.co.za

header.htm
4K Download