Trade unions need to take their leadership skills to local communities in order to uplift them, Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday.
"We need to begin to take responsibility," he said at the Congress of SA Trade Unions' 11th congress in Midrand.
"Part of what we need is leadership that we see in shop steward councils, on the factory floors, being transferred into the communities. We [must] understand that we have a responsibility as leadership in society."
He said South Africans needed to stop "outsourcing" its social responsibility.
"We cannot outsource our responsibility as citizens to those sitting in Parliament... or public servants. Let's create the country that we think we are capable of living in," Manuel said
"We must ask that question repeatedly, not [about] the fact that freedom happened in this country, but [on] what we have done with that freedom."
Manuel was presenting the National Development Plan to delegates on the third day of the conference.
