Local+Dual+Power,Johannesburg+Labour-Urban+Federation

Johannesburg
=Labour-Urban Federation=


 * (Fifth Draft)**

To: (Organisation)

We, the undersigned, hereby invite your organisation to send a delegation to the founding conference of the Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation.

The conference will take place…(date, time and venue).

__Preamble__
The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation is intended to be a working-class led organisation dedicated to making a happy life possible for everyone in Johannesburg, as opposed to their historical existence as mere sojourners in the city.

The organised working class has the understanding and the capability to lead this movement. But it will have to win its leading role in democratic practice. We fully expect that it will do so.

The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation exists to federate all kinds of organisations that have a common interest, together with working-class organisations, under a simple democratic constitution, to agitate for a transformed and better life for the people of Johannesburg in the following main areas:

__Accommodation__
Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation does not speak of “housing”. The Federation regards the nuclear dwelling, in the absence a proper social fabric, to be an abomination. The imposition of isolation upon households is an injustice which is contrary to the good nature of urbanism as it can and should be. The unmitigated nuclear household is a prison of drudgery for women and a millstone around the neck of men.


 * The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation seeks justice**


 * For those who are homeless
 * For those who live in shacks, whether “informal settlement” or backyard
 * For those who rent from private landlords
 * For those who live in “RDP” houses
 * For those who rent from the state
 * For those who live in bonded accommodation

The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation is opposed to the use of building regulations as a pretext for evicting people from their dwellings without the provision of alternative accommodation. The Federation honours those who took this cause to court and is determined to defend the ruling that eviction of people on to the streets without the provision of suitable alternative accommodation is unconscionable, unconstitutional, and illegal.

The Federation opposes the use of “conservation” to mask conservatism and obstruct transformation of the city. The Federation supports, in principle, both the densification of residential areas and the expansion of urban public space.

__Transport__
The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation seeks the dismantling of the apartheid city legacy through cheap and reliable integrated mass public transport from townships into cities.

The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation rejects the “Gautrain” project outright. The Federation demands the immediate and complete cancellation of this scandalous and ill-conceived waste of public money, and the redirection of funds to the provision of the cheap mass public transport that we really need, namely the kind that will transform the lives of people living in presently isolated and ill-served apartheid dormitory townships far from opportunities and services.

The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation believes that this must be done by investment in both a multiplication and a full extension of bus and train services to the whole of Johannesburg and to all parts of the adjacent Gauteng conurbation.

__Financial Services__
The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation is aware that the urban population of Johannesburg is not only oppressed by its physical circumstances, but also by its financial structures. The Federation will campaign for


 * A full and complete amnesty for people currently black-listed by credit bureaus, and the control of these bureaus in future so that the present situation of an unjust economic blight imposed upon millions of people can never be allowed to recur.
 * Full recovery with interest and benefits of all insurance and pension contributions whether completed or not.
 * The introduction of an affordable bond structure. An end to unjust and precipitate seizure and sale of domestic property. A humane policy of assistance and rectification with suitable institutional capacity, supported by the local state.
 * A progressive, transformative land policy for the city with the aim of providing a place of security for all who need it, and space for economic activity for all who can use it.

__Jobs and Poverty__
The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation supports the Jobs and Poverty Campaign of COSATU and the general aim of full socialisation of the whole available population in well-paid, meaningful and secure employment.

__Crime is Counter-Revolutionary__
The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation is hostile to those elements who have lost all class-consciousness and descended to the level of lumpen-proletariat. Such people are a menace, not only to the individuals they prey upon, but also to the polity as a whole. They threaten the development of social consciousness and social action. We answer their challenge with iron determination. We call upon the youth in particular to solve this problem, which is mostly found among the youth.

__Health__
Health is a local service even if administered at Provincial or National level. The people must organise where they find the problems, and are not bound to create institutions that mimic those of government in any way. The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation will concern itself with all matters of health from preventive to hospital and chronic. It will take up issues of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. It will be led by the immediate concerns of the people.

__Education__
Education is also a local concern no matter from where it may be administered.

__Old People__
Can the people of Johannesburg look forward to a peaceful and unworried old age? We don’t think so and we will do something about it.

__Other Concerns__
The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation may concern itself with service delivery of water and electricity; and with small traders in the city. In general it concerns itself with urban matters and not other causes, which a properly led through other and fraternal structures.

__Limits__
The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation will not and cannot subordinate any of its member organisations to its will. It will arrive at its decisions democratically and if necessary by majority vote, but will never be able to compel obedience. Its principle will be: Unity in Action.

The Federation will confine its concern to the way in which urban life conditions the people of Johannesburg. It will not seek to usurp the functions of its member organisations. Therefore it will never become a trade union, a political party, an NGO, or a church. It takes people as members of an urban polity called Johannesburg, hears their voice as such, and responds in turn as an urban entity.

Geographically the Federation shall be limited to those organisations with a substantial constituency within the boundaries of the Johannesburg Metro who positively affiliate to the Federation.

//(Invitation signed by)//

__Draft Constitution__
1. The Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation (“The Federation”) is intended to be a working-class-led organisation dedicated to making a happy life possible for everyone in Johannesburg, as opposed to their historical existence as mere sojourners in the city.

2. Membership of the Federation shall be confined to organisations with a substantial constituency within the boundaries of the Johannesburg Metro who positively affiliate to the Federation.

3. The principal aim of this constitution is unity in action.

Scope
4. The Federation does not substitute for or usurp the functions of its members. All member organisations retain their complete independence while being members of the Federation.

5. The Federation’s main areas of specific concern are Accommodation, Transport, and Financial Services, with the latter including questions of land use.

6. The Federation supports the general aim of full socialisation of the entire available population in well-paid, meaningful and secure employment

Structure
7. Conferences scheduled on an annual cycle will elect six office bearers (Secretary and Deputy Secretary, Minute Secretary [together “the secretariat”], Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson, and Treasurer) and a committee of up to 100 in total (The Committee of 100).

8. Annual conferences shall be designed to be short and not to be dominated by ceremony or by excessive numbers of guest speakers. The principal business of annual conferences is the securing of the leadership succession, in a transparent, democratic and thorough process.

9. Monthly general meetings shall be held according to a schedule issued to all member organisations, by e-mail or otherwise, not less than one month in advance. Minutes shall be circulated by e-mail or otherwise to all member organisations not less than one week after all general meetings.

10. General meetings shall be open to all members, and at the discretion of the chair, members of the public. The chair has the power to separate elected Committee members from other members and the general if and when a vote is called for.

11. The primary responsibility of all the office bearers is the maintenance of the secretariat and its communications, and the keeping of the register of members, which shall be accessible to all members.

12. The Committee of 100 shall have the power to form sub-committees. These sub-committees may prepare proposals for adoption at general meetings.

13. Notice of motions shall be given not less than three weeks in advance of general meetings. Agendas of meetings shall be circulated in advance to all members, by e-mail or otherwise, not less than one week prior to general meetings.

14. Thus there will normally be two standard communications to members each month: the Agenda one week before and the Minutes one week after the general meetings.

Procedure
15. Written guidelines shall be adopted and amended if necessary from time to time as to procedure of meetings and rules of debate. The fundamental principle shall be that the chair is the servant of the meeting and not the boss. Decisions may be adopted by declaration of the chair or if called for or deemed desirable by the chair, by simple majority vote. Minutes shall be kept of decisions taken.

16. These guidelines are to be made available to member organisations on demand.

Discipline
17. The Federation does not have any power to bind or coerce its members to any course of action. Therefore the only disciplinary offence possible is the attempt to so bind member organisations. Member organisations may only be expelled for falsely holding themselves out as representing the whole body, in actions that the Federation has not agreed to. If necessary, such expulsion shall be done by simple majority at a general meeting.

Funds and Assets
18. The Federation takes power to hold assets including cash and a bank account, under the stewardship of the Treasurer reporting to the Committee of 100.

Dissolution and Reversion
19. Dissolution of the Federation shall be by simple majority vote of a special meeting called for the purpose after at least one month’s notice has been given to members of the intention to move such a motion. Any assets remaining after the Federation is wound up shall be donated to the poor of the city in a manner agreed at such a meeting.

//__Notes on Programme of Action of the Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation.__//

In General:
 * To have a banner
 * To have a web site
 * To have a database of contacts
 * To collect from each member organisation its programme, so that a unified source of information on all union branch meetings and other meetings of the affiliates is compiles and available.
 * To collect information of events (e.g. Constitution Hill, Wits, UJ, and other public seminars, lectures, workshops &c) to make sure that these are attended by workers and not dominated by the bourgeoisie.
 * To develop a land database and a resource bank of information on land holdings and land use.
 * To organise working-class led mass public gatherings of a social and cultural kind.
 * To form sub-committees to give leadership in the Federation’s main specific areas of concern.
 * To gain recognition and representation in all relevant fora including the Integrated Development Plan process and the local devleopment summits.

Specifically
 * //__Accommodation__//**
 * To compile a database of lawyers and advice agencies for referral of tenant and bond-crisis cases of eviction or threat of eviction.
 * To develop a best-practice model for tenants’ organisation for their defense against such threats.

//__Transport__//
 * To mobilise all organisations behind the campaign of COSATU’s Gauteng Region.

//__Financial Services and Land__//
 * To mobilise all organisations behind the Alliance “Know Your Neighbourhood” campaign.
 * To organise Pickets, rallies, marches and other manifestations against credit-bureau blacklisting.
 * To organise suitable campaigns in support of the Financial Sector Charter Council.

//__Jobs and Poverty__//
 * To organise popular support for COSATU’s Jobs and Poverty Campaign, in line with COSATU’s organised event schedule.

//__Crime__//
 * To make the campaign against crime a mass popular campaign in the spirit of the Paris Commune.

//__Health__//
 * 2007 Red October Campaign continuation

__Subscribers (potential)__

Preliminary meeting:
 * **Labour** || **Urban** ||
 * SACP Johannesburg Central || Inner City Forum ||
 * SACP Johannesburg District ||  ||

Potential (invitees)
 * **Labour** || **Urban** ||
 * COSATU Johannesburg Local || ANC Johannesburg Region ||
 * COSATU Affiliate Locals || ANC branches ||
 * SACP Branches || SACC ||
 * Socialist Forums || All religious denominations ||
 * Young Communist League || SANGOCO ||
 * Union Branches || NGOs ||
 * || CBOs ||
 * || Tenants’ defensive associations against evictions ||
 * || ANC Womens’ League ||
 * || ANC Youth league ||
 * || COSAS ||
 * || SASCO ||
 * || SANCO ||
 * || CPFs ||
 * || Inner City Youth Forum ||
 * || Ward Committees ||
 * || SGBs ||
 * || PAC ||
 * || APF ||
 * || Azapo ||
 * || IFP ||
 * || SOPA ||
 * || Cultural organisations ||
 * || &c., as broad as possible ||
 * || DA ||
 * || TAC ||
 * || SECC ||
 * || Khanyisa ||
 * || Black Sash ||