| | Like your commentator Bob Fine, we read with considerable interest the keynote address of FOSATU General Secretary Joe Foster (reprinted in ROAPE 24). Any discussion of strategic and tactical questions of the trade union movement by a leading official of a militant South African trade union federation would in itself be of interest. What makes Foster's speech doubly significant is that he goes much further than most considerations of trade union strategy to pose questions of the role of the working class in the liberation struggle, and its need to establish, through independent organisation, the proletarian leadership of the broader struggle. Foster further emphasises the need for clear political direction at all levels of working class struggle. These are certainly crucial questions to be debated within workers' organisations and the national liberation movement if the struggle against apartheid is to create conditions for a transition to socialism. |
