The Constitution Of The "Coordinating Committee to Form Workers' Organization"

Chapter One: Name and Definition

Article One

The name of this organization is the "Coordinating Committee to Form Workers' Organization" and hereinafter in this Constitution it will briefly be called the "Coordinating Committee".

Article Two

The Coordinating Committee comprises of an organized group of labour activists who struggle for realization of the goal stipulated in the Article Three.

Chapter Two: Goal

Article Three

The goal of the Coordinating Committee is to prepare grounds and preconditions for the formation of the Anti-Capitalist Cross Country Organization of the Working Class of Iran by the way of the following means:

a)                  preparing the grounds and creating the culture and mindset of taking part in organizing activities among workers through different means such as agitation, propaganda, helping to spread economic, cultural, artistic and athletic organizations of the workers, supporting workers’ activities and protests such as strikes, worker control initiatives and the like.

b)                  helping to form workers’ organizations in industrial and service sectors and linking and coordinating these activities by the way of learning from each others’ experiences and gains.

c)                  preparing the grounds for transition from underground form of the current activities of the worker activists to open activities in order to mobilize mass of workers around the formation of the cross country workers’ organization by various ways including through creation of an environment appropriate for the presence of influential and well-trusted worker activists in the open arena of the class struggle.

d)                  calling for the establishment of the Founding Committee of the Anti-Capitalist Cross Country Organization of the Working Class of Iran which will be responsible for preparing a general assembly to pass the foundational documents and elect the organizational bodies of this organization. This Founding Committee will consist of a group of a vast number of influential and well-trusted worker activists who, after all the preconditions of the above organization being met, will be elected in a vast meeting in which the entire members of the Coordinating Committee across the country will take part.

Chapter Three: Membership, the Rights and Duties of the Members

Article Four

Every worker or worker activist who consciously approves the following documents and in practice struggles for the goal mentioned therein and is referred by two members of the Coordinating Committee will become a member of the Committee:

a)                  The statement of the Coordinating Committee by the name of “Let Us Form the Workers' Organization with Our Own Power!”

b)                  The identity document of the Coordinating Committee named “On the Coordinating Committee to Form Workers' Organization”

c)                  The Constitution of the Coordinating Committee

Article Five

All the members of the Coordinating Committee can take part in its Ordinary and Emergency meetings, play role in all of its decision making processes, elect and be elected. All the members will enjoy equal right to vote.

Note:Under the current circumstances, the members of the Coordinating Committee in the provinces other than Tehran will send their delegates to the Committee’s meetings. These delegates will have voting rights equal to the number of the members who elected them.

Article Six

Every member of the Committee who is fired from work or detained in the course of the struggle for the Committee’s goal, has the right to be defended by the Committee. This defense should include attempts to return the fired member back to work or to free him/her from the detention by various ways including mobilizing workers for support, gaining the support of the world labour organizations, submitting complaints to the domestic and international legal institutions, retaining lawyers and also providing assistance to her/his family.

Article Seven

Every worker or worker activist who accepts to become a member of the Coordinating Committee is thereby making a commitment to fight for its goal, respect its Constitution, be accountable to the responsibilities and practical duties that are bestowed to her/him.

Article Eight

All the members of the Committee are duty bound to participate regularly in its meetings.

Note:If a member does not take part in the three consecutive monthly meetings without justified excuse, she/he will be warned first by writing by the person in charge of the Recruiting Commission, and if the member does not take part in the meetings for a maximum of two months after receipt of the warning, that member will be expelled from the Coordinating Committee. Readmission of that individual as a member is possible only by the approval of two thirds of the members in an Ordinary Meeting.

Article Nine

All members of the Coordinating Committee are duty bound to pay their monthly membership dues to the person in charge of the Financial Affairs Commission and receive receipts for those payments.

Note:If a member does not pay her/his membership dues for three consecutive months, she/he will be warned in writing first by the Financial Affairs Commission, and if she/he does not pay the overdue membership dues for the maximum of two months after the receipt of the warning, that member will be expelled from the Coordinating Committee. Readmission of that individual as a member is possible only by the approval of two thirds of the members in an Ordinary Meeting.

Article Ten

If two third of the members of the Coordinating Committee find a member disqualified as a member, that member will be considered resigned. That resigned member will reserve her/his right to defend herself/himself in the highest body of the Coordinating Committee.

Chapter Four:Organizational Divisions

Article Eleven

The highest organizational body of the Coordinating Committee is the General Meeting of the members that is held in two ways, Ordinary and Emergency.

Article Twelve

The Powers of the Ordinary Meetings which are held monthly are as follows:

a)                  Passing the Constitution

b)                  Setting the policies of the Committee

c)                  Electing a body called the Executive Body of the Coordinating Committee

d)                  Electing one member as the Spoke Person of the Committee

e)                  Electing sub-bodies by the name of Commissions led by members for certain ad hoc activities

f)                   Looking after the members’ reports and making decisions in that regard

g)                  Deliberation and making decisions with respect to all items on the agenda

h)                  Determining a paper for publication of statements, declarations and articles of the Committee

i)                    Setting the amount of the monthly membership dues

j)                    Evaluating and passing the Committee’s financial balance sheet

Article Thirteen

The decision making process on the issues posed in the Ordinary Meeting is carried out by the passing of two third of its present members.

Article Fourteen

The responsibilities of the Executive Body of the Coordinating Committee are as follows:

 a) Implementing the ratifications of the Ordinary Meetings

 b) Supervising all activities of the Committee between two consecutive Ordinary

 Meetings

 c) Making decisions on the issues related to the labour movement

 d) Inviting the members to hold Ordinary and Emergency Meetings

 e) Facilitating the Ordinary and Emergency Meetings

 f ) Submitting reports to the Ordinary and Emergency Meetings

 g) Informing all the members of the passed decisions of the Ordinary and Emergency

 Meetings that have to be implemented

Article Fifteen

The decision making on the issues posed in the meetings of the Executive Body of the Coordinating Committee is carried out by the passing of two third of its present members.

Article Sixteen

The duty of the Spoke Person of the Coordinating Committee is to announce to the public the policies of the Committee in the framework of the Foundational Documents and the ratifications of the Ordinary and Emergency Meetings.

Article Seventeen

The duty of the Commissions of the sub-bodies of the Ordinary Meeting- such as Commissions for Communications, Propaganda and Publication, Organization, Education, Financial Affairs, etc.- is to carry out the responsibilities that are set by the Ordinary Meeting for the persons in charge of those Commissions. The persons in charge of these Commissions are duty bound to report their activities to the Ordinary Meeting monthly.

Article Eighteen

With the invitation of the Executive Body of the Coordinating Committee or with the request of two third of the members of the Committee, the Emergency Meetings of the Committee can be formed at any time.

Article Nineteen

The Powers of the Emergency Meeting are as follows:

a)                  Amending and/or changing the Constitution

b)                  Individual or collective removal of the members of the Executive Body of the Coordinating Committee.

c)                  Changing the amount of the monthly membership dues

d)                  Dissolving the Committee and executing the transaction of its properties.

Article Twenty

The decision making on the issues posed in the Emergency Meetings is carried out by their passage by two third of its present members.

Chapter Five: Financial Affairs

Article Twenty one

To cover the expenses of the Coordinating Committee, the Ordinary Meeting will set up a Fund for collecting its financial sources, that is membership dues and the donations of the members or other individuals. The membership dues and voluntary and gratuitous donations are handed over to the person in charge of the Financial Affairs Commission in the monthly meetings in the presence of the members and in return for receipts stamped by the seal of the Commission. The Financial Affairs Commission is duty bound to deposit these funds to a bank account opened in the name of two members such that any withdrawals will be possible only if both account holders sign them. The person in charge of the Financial Affairs Commission is duty bound to report the state of the Fund to the monthly meetings.

Article Twenty Two

All the members have the right to inspect the accounting book of the Committee, and the person in charge of the Financial Affairs Commission is duty bound to make such accounting book available to the requesting members. At the same time, the Ordinary Meeting of the Coordinating Committee will elect one member as a Financial Inspector who will be responsible for financial inspection. The Financial Inspector is duty bound to report the result of her/his inspection to the Ordinary Meeting.

Chapter Six:Dissolution

Article Twenty Three

With the establishment of the Founding Body of the Anti-Capitalist Cross Country Organization of the Working Class of Iran, the Coordinating Committee will be dissolved and all of its properties will be transferred to this Body.

Article Twenty Four

If for any reasons the Coordinating Committee dissolves prior to the formation of the Founding Body of the Anti-Capitalist Cross Country Organization, at the discretion of two thirds of the members its properties will be devoted to the goals similar to those of the Coordinating Committee.

Chapter Seven:Date of Enactment

Article Twenty Five

This Constitution in seven chapters, twenty five articles and three notes was enacted in the Ordinary Meeting of the Coordinating Committee on 5 August 2005 and signed by all the members of the Coordinating Committee.

Translated by Hassan Varash