If you join Kawu, you will be able to elect shop stewards as your representatives at your workplace.

Your shop steward will represent you in disciplinary enquiries and appeals, advise you on work related issues; take your mandate on issues, negotiate with management on your behalf.

Your shop stewards must attend Local Shop Steward meetings at the nearest Kawu office. These structures bring together shop stewards from all workplaces in that area together. Here shop stewards can get advice from other shop stewards and full-time Kawu officials, on how to deal with workplace related issues.

As a member you should try your best to attend Local General Meetings. They give you, the member, the chance to find out what the Union is doing, and to have your say on what you think the Union is doing right or wrong.

Kawu’s structures are like a tree

It states exactly how our union structures work. The power is from the roots to the stem and then to the leaves, not the other way around.

There is no part of the tree which can survive on its own. The one needs the other to live. All structures of the union link with each other. In the roots is where the power lies.

That’s where the factories are and where the shop stewards are elected. When going up the stem, you get the regions. The leaves, flowers and the fruits (the national structures) consume the power from the bottom and deliver the flow of information downwards.