Electing a Shop Steward! Much institutional leadership is inherent due the existence of a constitutional provision in section 23 and the labour relations act as amended, however many un-schooled management think it is favour. In many times the election of shop stewards has its goose-bumps as it is not a simple task to undertake.
Divorcing of sentiments such as ‘i’, ‘me-first’ attitude will always distinguish a narrow shop steward from the rest-a revolutionary oriented shop steward. Anyone who have ever thought of mastering all these skills in one? In many instances a Shop Steward will assume the following roles in no order of preference depending on the prevailing circumstances; Shop Steward as a collective leader; Shop Steward as a campaigner; Shop Steward as a Worker’s Advocate; Shop Steward as Communicator; Shop Steward as an Organizer; Shop Steward as a Political Activist; Shop Steward as a Unifier; Shop Steward as recruiter; Shop Steward as a life-long Learner and a Marxist-Leninist Scholar; Shop Steward as a negotiator; Shop Steward as a Educator Why not trying whilst Branch Congresses are prepared, to infuse in yourself a culture of self-cultivation? Lobbying obviously follows but unfortunately some canvass on petty issues and some folks thinking that there is ‘money’ out there. But to tell the honest fact, money is allocated for programmes and nothing else. And failure to account may lead to many resigning and/or being black-listed for corruption. Once you are elected as a Shop Steward, obviously you assume sort of ‘public office’; a servant of the people. And such revolutionary responsibility is characterized by practicing as a leader. Many shop stewards will tell they were elected unprepared and not knowing where to start. Some were elected because they made the loudest noise and some were elected because they liked deliberations in meetings. Many comrades will tell their different experiences and reasons why workers at any given time elect a shop steward.....However, to be elected is not a favour but a constitutional imperative to have such resources. ‘Here, no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. People teach each other, mediated by the world, by the cognizable objects which in banking education are "owned" by the teacher........ In the midst of the discussion, a peasant who by banking standards was completely ignorant said: "Now I see that without man there is no world." When the educator responded: "Lets say, for the sake of argument, that all the men on earth were to die, but that the earth itself remained, together with trees, birds, animals, rivers, seas, the stars. . . wouldn't all this be a world?" "Oh no," the peasant replied emphatically. "There would be no one to say: ‘This is a world'." The peasant wished to express the idea that there would be lack¬ing the consciousness of the world which necessarily implies the world of consciousness. I cannot exist without a non-I. In turn, the not-I depends on that existence. The world which brings conscious¬ness into existence becomes the world of that consciousness......[Pedagogue of the Oppressed, Paul Freire] So, therefore the platform will be used to unlock the ‘unknowing sentiments’ that are there amongst the servants of workers, but not as the panacea of solutions to all limitations.....It will serve as a way of sharing how to defeat uneasiness in functioning to deliver a what we call a ‘workers cup’-winning a case in favour of a worker and saving jobs in the process.... Qualities of a good shop steward are always written as post-election exercise or in many instances it is placed as a precondition before elections depending on how various formations operate. It’s like the document of the oldest liberation movement-Through the eye of a needle! It cannot be thumb-sucked that we will get to elect a ready-made shop steward but we must elect a person whose interest as a life-long learner are clear. So, self-cultivation becomes the overarching radar to inculcate virtues of a worker’s servant. A Shop Steward must on the first moment grasp the essence of progressive reduction in the rate of exploitation of workers, a progressive increase in collective forms of ownership of the means of production and the a progressive reduction in the rate of inequalities, unemployment and poverty. Pardon the repetition on the word ‘progressive’-it is made as an emphasis deliberately to display a revolutionary character of Trade Unions elsewhere... A Shop Steward without understanding of politics of the economy is like an empty shell because your ‘working power’ is to crush these discriminations based on capitalistic tendencies....[power relations]... Critical consciousness is brought about not through an individual or intellectual effort, but through collective struggle and praxis (see Praxis). Any Shop Steward believing all will be manna from heaven in doing his/her work is blind to the realities of understanding the concept of contradictions; there is peace-war, building-destroying etc... Based on the writings of Hegel, a very concept implies its negation; that is, in conceiving anything (thesis), we must be able to imagine its opposite (antithesis). Change occurs as this tension leads to a new conception of reality (synthesis). It should be noted that Marx, is contrast to some liberatory educators, postulated that such tensions and contradictions were embedded in concrete culture (thus, dialectic materialism) and not merely found in contradictions between the existential world and our thoughts about the world. Workers have nothing to lose but the chains that bind them...... _________________ Shop Steward; to be a strategist is supreme! As a Shop Steward it is candid to match management pound by pound on any labour relations developments, financials and management trends to wield influence and worker’s power at the workplace. If not, workers will always believe in all ‘crap’ attributable to management. This includes mastering the art of strategizing on any matter. A well-mixture of theory and practice is a revolutionary precision worth to be nurtured within and amongst all and sundry….. A Shop Steward must be well-packaged in the ability to reason..... Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions and beliefs.[1] Reason or "reasoning" is associated with thinking, cognition, and intellect. Reason, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking comes from one idea to a related idea. For example, it is the means by which rational beings understand themselves to think about cause and effect, truth and falsehood, and what is good or bad. ‘There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. For how should our faculty of knowledge be awakened into action did not objects affecting our senses partly of themselves produce representations, partly arouse the activity of our understanding to compare these representations, and, by combining or separating them, work up the raw material of the sensible impressions into that knowledge of objects which is entitled experience? In the order of time, therefore, we have no knowledge antecedent to experience, and with experience all our knowledge begins. But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience. For it may well be that even our empirical knowledge is made up of what we receive through impressions and of what our own faculty of knowledge (sensible impressions serving merely as the occasion) supplies from itself. If our faculty of knowledge makes any such addition, it may be that we are not in a position to distinguish it from the raw material, until with long practice of attention we have become skilled in separating it. This, then, is a question which at least calls for closer examination, and does not allow of any off-hand answer: whether there is any knowledge that is thus independent of experience and even of all impressions of the senses’.[ Immanuel Kant, 1787; Critique of Pure Reason] A Shop Steward must wear a ‘project oriented thinking skills’ as in many instances campaigns will be according to the SMART approach. And therefore what a project is becomes a grounding principle. A project is “a unique endeavour to produce a set of deliverables within clearly specified time, cost and quality constraints”. Hence, the clue to the study of the laws of history of society must not be sought in men's minds, in the views and ideas of society, but in the mode of production practiced by society in any given historical period; it must be sought in the economic life of society. Hence, the prime task of historical science is to study and disclose the laws of production, the laws of development of the productive forces and of the relations of production, the laws of economic development of society. Hence, if the party of the proletariat is to be a real party, it must above all acquire knowledge of the laws of development of production, of the laws of economic development of society. And understanding the theory of campaigning from a premise of historical science is imperative to deliver on many interest and aspirations of the toiling class and other related substantive matters in relation to timeframes associated with launching disputes and/or appeals. “The great basic thought”, Engels writes, “that the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which the things, apparently stable, are no less than their mind images in our heads, the concepts, go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away . . . this great fundamental thought has, especially since the time of Hegel, so thoroughly permeated ordinary consciousness that, in its generality, it is now scarcely ever contradicted’. For dialectical philosophy nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and in everything; nothing can endure before it, except the uninterrupted process of becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendancy from the lower to the higher. And dialectical philosophy, itself, is nothing more than the mere reflection of this process in the thinking brain.” Shop Steward must understand that there are three types of campaigns; politically oriented campaigns, ideological oriented campaigns and lastly service oriented campaigns. Becoming an astute strategist starts with mastering theoretical approach to processes and events. And therefore questions which need answers is what can you campaign for and why should we campaign? Understanding the theory of campaigns Stages of campaigning Define Plan and program Action and communicate Evaluate Planning Define Formulate objectives Identify stakeholders Formulate messages Campaigns Objectives Identify Legitimacy Participation Penetration Distribution "Theory becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses." (Marx and Engels, Vol. I, p. 406.) ‘Hence, in order to be able to influence the conditions of material life of society and to accelerate their development and their improvement, the party of the proletariat must rely upon such a social theory, such a social idea as correctly reflects the needs of development of the material life of society, and which is therefore capable of setting into motion broad masses of the people and of mobilizing them and organizing them into a great army of the proletarian party, prepared to smash the reactionary forces and to clear the way for the advanced forces of society’. Leadership within workers is earned amongst on the ability to display both ideological and practical leadership. Such pedigree comes through three forms of education; non-formal, formal and informal. It is important for any Shop Steward to utilize any given moment to fine-tune his/her skills, abilities and/or attitudinal posture to command respect amongst workers and managers alike. It take a lot of time…being honest, if you don’t know what to say, being professional on interactions, being available at all cost, writing your communiqué to members, with no grammatical, speaking clearly, pitching your voice in membership meetings, and dressing presentably are some of the steeping stones towards winning confidence of the workers. So therefore, these quotes amongst from critique of pre-reason should unlock some of unreason ability amongst all and sundry. ‘Misled by such a proof of the power of reason, the demand for the extension of knowledge recognises no limits. The light dove, cleaving the air in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its flight would be still easier in empty space. It was thus that Plato left the world of the senses, as setting too narrow limits to the understanding, and ventured out beyond it on the wings of the ideas, in the empty space of the pure understanding’. [Critique of Pre Reason]. As Shop Stewards, we must be change driven on the basis that, ‘Marxists must recognise that change is not controllable or direct-able but emerges from the complexity of society. It is up to the politicians, the Marxists, to interpret and understand these changes. We are not the directors but the detectors of change’. "Economic production and the structure of society of every historical epoch necessarily arising therefrom constitute the foundation for the political and intellectual history of that epoch; ... consequently (ever since the dissolution of the primeval communal ownership of land) all history has been a history of class struggles, of struggles between exploited and exploiting, between dominated and dominating classes at various stages of social development; ... this struggle, however, has now reached a stage where the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppresses it (the bourgeoisie), without at the same time for ever freeing the whole of society from exploitation, oppression and class struggles...." (Engels' Preface to the German Edition of the Manifesto.) Changing the complexity of the workplace must become the preoccupation of any aspirant shop steward, taking advantage of section 12 of the LRA as amended .In terms of section 12,subsection [2] ‘a representative trade union is entitled to hold meetings with employees outside their working hours at the employer’s premises’. Such meetings must be thoroughly pre-planned to entrench the hegemonic power of the toiling classes in all workplaces, with due consideration to avoid un-planned disruptions. Worker’s Power is not a flyweight matter…it demands serious balance between theory and practice! -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. 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