6 ORGANIZE OR STARVE

A Worker's Lament

From five in the morning,
My lean body is crushed against the jostling crowd.
For Pittance, 1 make my way among the passengers,
Swaying coaches make my heart to jerk in fear,
That 1 may not my little ones see any more
Yet for food and rent I must work.

'SEBENZA' (work) The whole day long;
The foremen and the Induna scream
They shout because the boss explained: 'productivity.'
Pale lips; hunger exposes my empty stomach,
Starch water only my stomach has breakfasted.
Hunger takes away pride from a man's self respect.
But the burning heart for revenge vows:
'KAHLE'(wait), a day will come; me boss, you boy.

The listless sun leaves to the night,
To blanket the light.
Thousands of pattering feet homeward drag
And leave the Shops to the watchman.
Again I join the jostling crowd,
Fifteen miles homeward journey to travel.
Crammed like Jeppe Station victims,
I stand on a bench to save myself
Being crushed to death.

M. Rammitloa
taken from Spark, 7 February 1963

In an early document entitled, 'SACTU and Organizing the Unorganized', the new non-racial trade union coordinating body committed itself to organizing workers in the metal and transport industries. This decision reflected a recognition of the necessity to bring the principles and structures of trade unionism to the vast majority of South Africa's workers, the exploited African working class.

The majority of the unorganized workers were labouring in the agricultural fields (700,000), the mines (500,000), the railways and docks (150,000) and the metal industry (150,000), as well as tens of thousands of workers in domestic service, commercial, distributive and service trades, building and construction and numerous other secondary manufacturing industries. At this early stage in SACTU's development (around 1955-56), mining and agriculture were considered of such great magnitude and complexity that organizing in those areas would be beyond the resources of the organization at the time. It was therefore proposed and resolved that the main effort be directed towards the organizing of metal, transport and dock workers. However, it was not until 1958 that special National Organizing Committees (NOCs) were established for these industries; prior to that time Local Committees were directed to focus attention on these sectors.

The 1959 SACTU Conference extended the NOC structures to include the mining and agricultural workers. One year later the principle of forming General Workers Unions as a transitional form of organization leading to new industrial unions was endorsed by SACTU delegates. The purpose of the first section of this chapter is to review the difficulties encountered and progress achieved by the four NOCs and the GWUs in different geographical regions.

NOC: Transport

Under the general category of transport there were three areas of concentration - the railways, the docks and public transport (buses in particular). Of these, SACTU considered the railways the most important sector to organize.

By 1962, Black workers made up almost 50 per cent of the 218,000 workers employed by the South African Railway and Harbour Administration. Of these 108,000 Black workers, 99,800 were Africans, 7,600 Coloureds and 600 Indians. As the railways and harbours administration was directly owned and controlled by the Apartheid regime, SACTU's efforts in organizing transport workers to improve working conditions and gain higher wages led to a direct confrontation with the architects of modern-day White supremacy. A special corps of railway police watched over the workers and one of their most important tasks was to track down trade union organizers. The fate of one of SACTU's key organizers is described as follows:

When they went to pay the fine for the organizer of the Railway Workers Union, to get him out of gaol, they did not recognize him as he had been so badly assaulted. The assault had taken place when two Railway policemen had arrested him for trespassing on mine property'. His face had been beaten to a pulp. ¹

The average wage for African workers in 1962 was approximately £8 0s. 0d. per month, including all allowances. At that time, too, almost half of the African labour force - 43,467 - were listed as casuals. These casual workers would be engaged for a specific construction job but were often kept on afterwards, sometimes remaining 'casuals' for years. In this way they were daily paid and subject to dismissal on only 24 hours notice. They also had no leave or pension privileges, nor were they granted marriage allowances. Labourers other than those engaged for construction jobs were hired on a temporary basis and could become permanent after five years.

Temporary and permanent employees did receive fifteen days paid leave a year, but if they left before the current year was completed they did not receive any pro-rata leave pay. A worker with interrupted service did not receive any leave pay. Permanent employees were given marriage allowances and could qualify for a pension at the age of 60. However, all of these benefits were awarded as privileges and many workers found that on dismissal they could not make claims for benefits to which they regarded themselves entitled.

Railway workers in most areas of the country suffered under the additional burden of the compound system. Housed in dirty, ill-lit, cold and crowded rooms, the workers had no freedom of movement and numerous restrictions were placed on their ability to hold meetings and carry on discussions. Food was provided but was of poor quality. As soon as a railway worker lost his job, for whatever reason, he was evicted from the compound and no alternative accommodation was provided for him.

Another source of resentment was the Administration's policy of transferring workers from one department to another and from city to city, making it impossible for the maintenance of any semblance of family life. If a worker had a house in one city, upon transfer there was little chance of getting another in the new location; the worker would be forced into the compounds and the family left to fend for itself.

The treatment of African railway workers by White foremen was particularly degrading. Archie Sibeko recalls many of these racist overseers lining up African workers and ordering them to go to the former's White homes in the plush suburbs to perform domestic labour.

Equally deplorable were some of the jobs given to Africans while working for SAR & H. Louis Mkize, later involved in the formation of the African Chemical Workers Union in Durban, once worked as a 1 spanner boy'. This job entailed holding the tools for the White workers for the slave wage of only £6 12s. 6d. per month.

More than any other group of workers in the major sectors of the South African economy. railway workers were subject to constant harassment and victimization if they were involved in trade union activity. In an article on the railwaymen in Workers Unity, 1962, Lawrence Ndzanga elaborated:

As soon as a worker is known as a shop steward or active member of the SAR & HWU (in all centres) he is immediately transferred to a remote area. His wages are reduced and in this way attempts are made to punish him for his trade union activity and immobilize him for future activity. But the majority of workers so transferred bring the message of trade unionism with them. ²

Despite these obstacles, the African workers had been organized in their union, the SAR & H (Non-European) WU since its formation back in 1944. Throughout the SACTU years further attempts were made to improve the lot of these workers and bring more into the union. The well~established SAR & HWU in the Transvaal, under the able leadership of Lawrence Ndzanga, affiliated to SACTU in 1955. By 1960, there were four branches of the union with a total affiliated membership of 4,677 workers from Durban, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, and Johannesburg.

Initial struggles in the SACTU years centred around efforts to end the senseless suspensions of workers from their jobs. There were many cases of workers against whom the Administration had complaints being suspended, sometimes for several months. Often their passes had not been signed off. and they could not take other work. With SACTU assistance, legal action reduced the frequency of suspensions and victimization of railway workers.

Each area of the country posed different problems of organizing, making it one of the most difficult industries to penetrate. Nevertheless, with strong leadership, many important struggles were waged and won through the SACTU years. Among the many activists who dedicated themselves to workers on the railways, the following deserve special mention: Lawrence Ndzanga in the Transvaal, assisted by his wife Rita (More), Caleb Mayekiso and Alven Bennie in Port Elizabeth, and Greenwood Ngotyana and later Archie Sibeko in Cape Town. In Durban, popular leader Philemon Tsele organized railway workers in the 1940s. Under the guidance of Natal SACTU LC Chairman, Moses Mabhida, these workers combined into a powerful union between 1956 and 1960; after Mabhida fled South Africa in 1960, Curnick Ndlovu. carried on this valuable work.

Archie Sibeko has talked of some of the ways in which organizers were able to contact workers and assist them clandestinely. Sibeko had himself worked on the railways in the early 1950s before becoming a full-time functionary for SACTU.

When I left the railways I still had my uniform which continued to do a lot of good work for me! ... Outsiders are not allowed in, so to organize the workers was very difficult. We had to trespass all the time. Because of my overalls, I could go straight through the guard box without any problem, straight to the workers ... then we'd lie down, cat, talk.... Because of my uniform, I could also go inside the Head Office and fetch railway forms for complaints ... I would take about a hundred (they would give them to me easily) and then I would sit down with workers and later draw up a list of demands to submit.... Many complaints were solved this way. The system was discovered by Lawrence Ndzanga, who informed us that you can do a lot of good work using the Railways itself. ³

Sibeko was also greatly assisted in his work by fellow-Congressite Ben Turok. As a member of the Provincial Council, he could take up pass cases and other matters with the Langa location township officials and so Sibeko continuously brought Turok many of the workers' complaints. In this way, other problems such as family dislocations, hostel accommodation and acquiring permits to seek work were taken up and the needs of the workers properly served.

Ndzanga is remembered as a very shrewd organizer and became a legend amongst railway workers in the Transvaal. Armed with the same tactics he later passed on to others, Ndzanga penetrated the formidable barrier put in place by the R & H Administration against SACTU activists. Leon Levy, SACTU President, recalls that he was 'an all-rounded individual who tried desperately hard to organize railway workers and as a result there were always railway workers coming to the office to register complaints. He put his whole life into it and achieved some modicum of success.' ⁴ As veteran organizer in the industry, Ndzanga became coordinator of the NOC (Railways) for SACTU nationally.

The Transport NOC was established in May 1958, in an attempt to build a solid national union and coordinate the campaign throughout the country. By 1959, several thousand leaflets, incorporating the ,1 -a Day demand, had been issued and funds collected to engage organizers in the Transvaal, the Western and Eastern Cape areas. The NOC prepared a memorandum on railway wage rates and working conditions and this was submitted to the Minister of Transport and other MPS; on occasion such memos led to questions being raised in Parliament about the workers' plight.

The Railways Administration stepped up its anti-union activities, trying every possible means to prevent African workers from joining their union. Hundreds of workers were dismissed and some who found work outside the railways were victimized as the Special Branch forced the new employers to dismiss them. The refusal of the Administration to reinstate workers who had successfully won appeals at the appeal board was another source of irritation. In other cases, workers were transferred from urban to remote rural depots, sometimes merely for carrying leaflets in their pockets. Officials of the union were commonly arrested for trespassing on Railway property.

Abusive practices by the Administration against the workers intensified. One of these included the demotion of employees from their normal work to 'punishment' work at lower rates of pay. This occurred when workers quarrelled with Superintendents and were reported to Inspectors who then assigned them lower-paying jobs. Workers in turn demanded representation to eliminate the discretionary powers given to the individual Superintendents.

During the 1961 Stay-At-Home, compound workers in mines, docks and railways were taken to work under armed escort, with military units standing by. With the exception of Port Elizabeth, docks, railways and mines functioned normally. On 6 December 196 1, the office of the SAR & H (N-E) WU was raided and individual membership cards were confiscated. After that, workers whose cards were taken were threatened with dismissal by railway officials if they did not immediately resign from the Union, and more workers were again assigned jobs at lower rates of pay. Subsequently, SACTU sent a letter of protest to the Minister of Transport asking whether this intimidation was sanctioned by his office. The ILO was also informed and international trade union bodies responded in great numbers.

Despite these attempts to crush the unity of workers, the Transport NOC continued to function and voice the demands of the unorganized workers. A joint meeting of railway organizers from all areas convened in late 1962 and decided to publicize the demands of the Black workers at the same time as the reactionary White union was doing the same on behalf of the minority White workers. The latter had already rejected all suggestions by the progressive union for a joint campaign. The essential demands of the Black workers as put forward by the committee were: (a) R2.00 a day; (b) permanent, not casual labour after three months; (c) unemployment insurance, sick leave, improved Workmen's Compensation and treatment; (d) full trade union rights and (e) three weeks annual leave. In compliance with the overall attempt to create national unions, the SAR & H (N-E) WU became a national body in September 1962.

During 1963 and 1964, every railway union official was either detained or banned. Union offices were under constant surveillance and workers were threatened upon entry, leading SACTU to state:

This is surely a measure of the strength of these unions that this intimidating action is used against the workers, who still join and support their unions. Hundreds of cases of railway workers illegally dismissed or victimized have been taken up with success by our Unions and workers have been reinstated.

Yet the victimization continued to intensify and the losses to the trade union movement were great indeed:

Caleb Mayekiso, Secretary of the P.E. branch of the Union, was banned in 1963, detained under the 90-day law, sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1964 and for a further 3 years upon completion of the first term. He was again detained in 1969, but before being charged this very healthy person died in jail of 'natural causes'.

Curnick Ndlovu, Secretary of the Durban branch, received a 20-year sentence in 1964 for 'sabotage'.

Lawrence Ndzanga, National Secretary of the Union and SACTU-NEC member was banned in 1963 and forced to resign from trade union activities, then detained again in 1968. During the recent 1976 Soweto uprisings, Ndzanga was taken into detention once more, but this time he was brutally murdered by the Apartheid regime.

The repression, incarceration and murder of these SACTU working class leaders testifies to the progress being made in organizing the unorganized workers as part of the larger struggle against class exploitation and national oppression.

Dockworkers were also included in the terms of reference of the Transport NOC. Previous to 1955, unions of dockworkers existed in various port cities, particularly in the Cape. Though dockworkers were predominantly migrant workers and were also housed in compounds, their employers were private stevedoring companies and not the state as in the case of railway workers. For this reason, SACTU decided to organize separate unions for dockworkers.

J. Ngulube represented 500 workers from the Cape Town Stevedoring and Dockworkers Union at the Inaugural Conference of SACTU in March 1955. SACTU's original document on organizing the unorganized made reference to the 'stable organization' and 'fine tradition' of unions in the Cape Town docks. Ngulube and Simon Makheta became the main organizers amongst dockworkers during the SACTU years. In 1956, after an intensive organizing campaign amongst Port Elizabeth dockworkers by Alven Bennie and Vuyisile Mini, the PE Stevedoring and Dock Workers Union affiliated to SACTU. It was these workers who carried out a prolonged strike in 1957-58 which eventually required the combined forces of the bosses and the state to crush. This particular struggle and that of the Durban dockworkers are documented in Chapter 8 where we discuss conditions and strikes in the industry.

Although SACTU failed to organize a large, national union of dockworkers, local leaders were always actively assisting these workers to improve their conditions. The difficulty again involved penetrating the prison-like compounds to make contact with workers. Furthermore, whenever a work stoppage was threatened, the state quickly moved in to protect this strategic industry with whatever degree of force necessary. The absence of sustained union organization should in no way detract from the persistent and militant class consciousness that spontaneously erupted in pitched battle on the waterfront and provided an inspiration to other Black workers in secondary manufacturing industry.

The organizers were similarly victimized, particularly after the liberation movement turned to sabotage activities against government installations in the early 1960s. In 1963, while working in the Port Elizabeth SACTU LC, Vuyisile Mini was arrested along with two other ANC militants, Wilson Khayinga and Zinakile M1aba. All three were charged with committing acts of sabotage and complicity in the death of a police informer in January of that year. Held in solitary confinement under the 90-day law, these three men were finally sentenced to death in March 1964; they were hanged in Pretoria Central Prison on 6 November 1964. The three liberation fighters walked defiantly to their death singing one of the many freedom songs composed by Mini, a musician and poet of exceptional quality.

In addition to railway and dockworkers, the Transport NOC concerned itself with employees who worked for local bus companies in the various industrial centres. These workers were organized in two areas as a result of SACTU initiatives, in Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth. Chapter 8 details the struggles of the Bay Transport Co. workers and the assistance given to these Port Elizabeth workers.

In Johannesburg, the first attempt to organize in this sector of the transport industry began in October 1955. John Parker recalls,

It was in this magazine, New Age, that 1 saw a page making an appeal to join SACTU. 1 came across it and with a few friends, thought that this could be our weapon to form a union. We went to the Market Street (SACTU) office and requested advice, intending to organize workers to affiliate to SACTU. ⁵

Armed with advice from SACTU, these men began to organize their fellow PUTCO workers on a clandestine basis, knowing they would be dismissed if discovered by the employers. By sending letters to other employees at their home addresses and also receiving replies in their residential locality, they succeeded in mobilizing a major section of the workers. When they felt strong enough, they sent a delegation of three to ask the bosses for wage increases. Although increases were promised, the three were promptly fired. The mass response by the remainder of the workers shocked the bosses who had to quickly retreat, reinstating the three leaders immediately. Other grievances of the workers regarding obligatory overtime work and the lack of benefits from the so-called Welfare Committee' set up to cater for the families of workers were then raised with the employers.

Although the Transport Workers Union (Transvaal) began on a firm footing, the Committee of the Union eventually succumbed to the persuasion of the employers in exchange for a few minor reforms. Those who stood strong for full trade union rights and refused to betray the real interests of the workers were singled out for persecution. McKenzie Mvubelo, husband of Lucy Mvubelo (Garment Workers Union of African Women) was one of these stalwarts; his 'reward' for standing by the workers was a vicious personal assault carried out by thugs while he was distributing leaflets. This obvious act of political vengeance left Mvubelo with severe injuries and paralysis.

The Union had managed to unite workers from all PUTCO departments - drivers, conductors, those in the workshops, maintenance, servicing and the yards. In March 1956, the Union affiliated to SACTU with a membership strength of 400 and before its collapse the Union had expanded to other depots and other bus companies. The original struggle began at the Wynberg depot and spread to the Kliptown depot and Van ZyI's bus service. From the SACTU Head Office, General Secretary Leslie Massina devoted much time to the organization of the bus workers in the Johannesburg area.

Workers at Van Zyl Bus Co. carried out a strike against the Company after they had refused to discuss the workers' grievances. Boycotting the Native Labour Act machinery, the workers stood firm in their actions. As a result, twenty-one workers were arrested and eventually sentenced to a fine of £25 each or five weeks (reduced to , 15 or three weeks, suspended for three years); 45 additional workers were given the latter sentence as well.

The victimization against members of this Union had the effect of weakening its internal strength and crushing it eventually. Nevertheless, it remains as one of the many examples of a valiant attempt by industrial workers to form their own union with the assistance of SACTU.

This then is a record of attempts to organize transport workers in South Africa under the NOC formed by SACTU. On a national scale, SACTU extorts met with the greatest results in the railways sector, but in all sectors of the industry workers gained considerable improvements as a result of SACTUs campaign and their own determination to improve their lot as exploited workers. This work was all the more remarkable when one considers that the campaign lacked trained personnel, had limited financial resources with which to hire sufficient organizers and had to contend with the repression meted out by the employers and the state.

NOC: Metals

The NOC for metals was established in June 1958 to coordinate the organization of workers in this crucial South African industry. It was not the first Committee set up specifically for the purpose of organizing metal workers, however. In May 1953 a small Non-European Metal Workers Joint Committee, consisting of African and progressive White trade unionists, was formed for this task. The Joint Committee was formed by the Southern Transvaal LC of the old SAT & LC, the Transvaal CNETU and two small African engineering unions, the Transvaal Non-European Iron, Steel and Metal Workers Union (hereafter TA. IS & MWU) and the African Motor Industry Workers Union with a combined membership of approximately 300 workers. The potential membership of these unions would have been approximately 100,000 workers, the largest of whom had only recently come into this rapidly expanding industry and were for the most part ignorant of trade unionism. In spite of the banning orders imposed on Committee members during this period, the fact that the Native Labour Act was being implemented for the first time, the limited financial resources and personnel to tackle this industry, the Committee managed to increase its membership fivefold to 1,500 workers by 1954.

In that year one of the few progressive White trade unionists in the engineering industry and a person who was to a large extent responsible for the setting up of this new Committee, Vic Syvret, represented the interests of all metal workers at a WI`TU conference in Europe. At this conference he exposed the conditions faced by these workers in South Africa. Wages were low, workers were forced to work long shifts, the work was heavy and exhausting and they often laboured in very hot temperatures. At that time, the majority of African workers were classed as labourers and basic wages were set at  £2 2s. 6d. per week, including COLA. After two consecutive years with the same employer they would receive  £2 6s. 4d. A small percentage of African workers were classified as Operatives and received wages ranging from  2 14s. 8d. to £4 5s. 0d.; however, most of the Operatives were Coloured and Indian workers.

White workers' wage rates varied from £10 0s. 0d. to £13 9s. 0d. per week for higher-rated operators, although the actual average wage amounted to nearly £15 0s. 0d. In comparison, very few Black workers were paid a higher rate than the prescribed minimum. The 46-hour week prevailed for all workers regardless of colour, but whereas White workers were granted three weeks paid holiday with a holiday bonus of  £32 10s. 0d. (and four weeks after working 12 consecutive years with the same employer), Black workers were allowed only two weeks holiday and no bonus. While Sunday yielded double-time pay, general overtime rates differed for each racial category, with Whites receiving time and a half pay for the first six hours and thereafter double time until the usual starting time of the next shift; Black workers were paid time and a third until the next normal shift. As well, White workers were paid an extra 10 per cent for night shift work with no extra pay granted to Black workers. Various incentive bonuses existed for Whites only.

The Motor Industry Agreement in force was based on the same racist principles as the Engineering Agreement; the highest wages and the best conditions for White workers and correspondingly, the lowest wages and worst conditions for African labourers. For example, a juvenile labourer under 18 years of aged earned from  £1 4s. 9d. to  £1 10s. 9d. per week, including COLA. A labourer over the age of 18 received from £1 15s. 0d. to £2 16s. 7d., also including COLA. The basic earnings of White journeymen on the other hand were ,12 3s. 5d. but the actual average pay was £14 to   £15 per week. White workers had a Sick Benefit Fund from which they received numerous benefits including sickness and accident pay while off. work. Africans were allowed six days sick leave with full pay during any period of 52 consecutive weeks, but were excluded from the Sick Fund.

At the time of SACTU's formation, the TA IS & MWU was the only viable trade union for African metal workers. However, by July 1956 new unions had been formed in both Port Elizabeth and Cape Town with SACTU LC assistance in each area. The Transvaal union supported a number of strikes throughout 1955; between April and September of that year workers at African Lamps, Thermo Welding, African Pressing and Diecasting, Wickmans and Phoenix Foundry engaged in strike action against their conditions of exploitation. At Prima Steel in Benoni also, improvements had been won as a result of the militant actions taken by these East Rand workers.

During the strike at African Lamps, Industria, the Union organizer Nimrod Sejake was arrested and charged with illegally striking along with another 78 workers. Sejake was fined  £10 for inciting an illegal strike and the other workers later won an appeal against their fines of  £3 each. The workers also won a Id. per hour increase from their bosses.

Sejake himself had been recruited by the veteran J. B. Marks and given the gigantic task of organizing iron and steel workers prior to 1955. He became one of SACTU's most militant organizers, rousing the low-paid Black metal workers to take frequent strike action. Graham Morodi, a clothing worker at the time, assisted Sejake on the weekends. He recalls Sejake's style of work:

We said to him that he shouldn't only use strikes because nearly every week there were strikes. We said you should have some negotiations first ... the employers might agree to the demands.... But Sejake was more militant than US.⁶

Vic Syvret spent a great deal of time assisting Sejake in organizing Black metal workers for SACTU even though he was then employed in the office of the registered union for White artisans, the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). He had previously lost a leg in an accident when working as an engineer. Eventually he gave up his job with the AEU to organize African metal workers on a full-time basis. To the credit of the AEU officials, they agreed to continue to pay him a small allowance so that he could do this work. During his working years, Syvret consistently set aside between one-third and one-half of his monthly salary to distribute to SACTU and other progressive organizations, although both he and his wife were in poor health. When he left South Africa for a life in exile in the German Democratic Republic in 1960, Vic continued to perform international solidarity work for SACTU and the ANC until his recent death.

In October 1955, the Executive of the Transvaal IS & MWU requested that SACTU's first National Organizer, John Nkadimeng, be permitted to work full-time for their Union. Sejake was the only organizer, left after the resignation of the Secretary and the Union Executive thought that Nkadimeng was the strong person needed to assist Sejake in this most difficult industry. As this was one of the strategic industries to be organized by SACTU, permission was granted. The Union continued to advance with the assistance of the Joint Metal Workers Committee, but it was still agreed that a nation-wide attack on the entire industry was a requisite for improving the conditions of African metal workers as a whole. Much of Nkadimeng's time as an organizer was spent in trying to obtain compensation for workers who suffered severe burns and other injuries in their jobs.

In Port Elizabeth, the African Iron, Steel and Metal WU was formed by the Local Committee in September 1955. Wilton Mkwayi undertook the main responsibility for organizing metal workers in the Eastern Cape. As discussed elsewhere, the Port Elizabeth LC had a solid corps of organizers and thus Mkwayi received assistance from others in this task.

In Cape Town, a Metal Workers Union affiliated to SACTU in early 1956, with an initial membership of 370 workers. An early victory for workers at Lystra zip factory gave the MWU momentum in its recruitment of additional members. Workers at this factory went on strike after the Labour Department had neglected to call a Conciliation Board as promised.

Archie Sibeko, Secretary of the SACTU LC in the Western Cape, and Ben Turok, Secretary of the new MWU, approached the workers jointly at the factories, although by this time Turok had been banned and had to 'hide around the corner' while Sibeko contacted and discussed the local situation with the workers. At the zip factory, Sibeko addressed a large group of militant Coloured women and though the employers pleaded for the women to return to work, they were ignored. The police were summoned and were astonished to find that women workers were so intent on listening to an African man, a 'Kaffir' to them. Sibeko was arrested along with Turok who was discovered nearby and both were taken to the police station for about an hour. On their release at about 4.30 p.m., Sibeko was intending to return to his home not far away, but the police were adamant that he be driven back to the factory. They begrudgingly told him that 'those women are still there and won't go to work until they see your face'. Sibeko comments:

It was a great victory, not only for these Coloured workers but for the whole area (of Paarden Eiland). We were working in this area all the time and with something like this, the news spreads immediately that the workers have won. ⁷

In fact, these workers had been influenced in their actions by the success of a previous strike at Boston Bag Co. in the same industrial area (described below). Skilful organizing was being systematically carried out by SACTU activists who saw the importance of organizing workers in the townships before attempting to do so at the factory where victimization was a threat. By visiting the workers in the evenings and on weekends, they could gradually win them over and in this way build up the strength of the Union away from the scrutiny of the bosses., sometimes over 50 per cent of the workforce was organized in this manner before approaching workers inside the factories.

The Metal Workers Union was subsequently able to penetrate the larger factories such as Stewart and Lloyds and proceeded to organize workers into a viable structure. Although frustrated by problems of discontinuity among organizing personnel, the membership strength of the MWU climbed to over one thousand members at one time. The Union had difficulty maintaining a constant membership, however, and was seldom recognized by the metal employers. Turok also says that it could not get a proper base amongst Coloured workers in the factories because of the largely unskilled and shifting labour force. There were exceptions regarding union recognition by the bosses, especially when Turok (a White) went to put forward the workers' case; conversely, the employers would not deal with 'his boy' (Sibeko) when he came by himself. Following the arrest of Ben Turok for High Treason in December 1956, his wife Mary replaced Ben as Secretary and in this way the Union maintained continuity.

As in the case of transport, the metal industry was considered vitally important to SACTU's overall aims and objectives. In the document entitled 'Organizing the Unorganized' (referred to above), the task was clearly set out. A programme of organization to be coordinated with the Joint Committee included the immediate establishment of contact with the main undertakings such as the Iron and Steel Corporation (ISCOR) and Vander Bijl, the rapid training of active workers, the establishment of shop-stewards or factory committees, and the drafting of national demands. Also to be included were demands concerning working conditions regarding accidents and safety, assaults, unsanitary workplaces, excessive overtime and the withholding of pay.

By 1957, the Unions existed in the Transvaal (with Sejake as Secretary), Western Cape (Turok), Eastern Cape (Mkwayi) and in Natal (Billy Nair). A first step was taken towards the formation of a national union with the creation of a 'Committee of United Metal Workers Unions'. It was, however, only after the NOC was created in 1958 that the national organizing of metal workers really got off. the ground. Riddled with the usual problems of lack of personnel and finances, the campaign gained strength after the 1959 Conference when SACTU leaders re-pledged their active support.

Research carried out by MWU and published in the May 1959 issue of Workers Unity revealed the position of South Africa's exploited African metal workers in comparison with Australian workers doing the same work. The latter earned as much as four to five times more than their South African counterparts. In particular, figures showed that while the Australian labourer earned nearly 90 per cent of the wages received by the Australian journeyman, the South African labourer earned only 20 per cent.

Paying these wages, the Australian capitalists make large profits and keep their factories going. How much greater must be the profits of the South African bosses who pay so little to the unskilled workers? ⁸

In fact the profits of those Apartheid bosses amounted to a total of just less than ,50 million in 1954.

It is just because of their greed for more and more profits every year, that the bosses force down the conditions of the workers. So a small group of exploiters is able to oppress hundreds of thousands of workers.⁹

Who were these bosses? Fourteen of the largest engineering firms, including Union Steel Corporation, Thomas Barlow and Sons, Ltd, and Dorman Long (Africa) Ltd, controlled between them enormous sums of capital and employed thousands of workers. They also worked closely with the state-controlled enterprises like ISCOR and Dunswart. The employers were, as usual, themselves well-organized in the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation (SEIFSA), making it imperative that the Black workers be organized in the class struggle.

The state monopoly ISCOR was established in 1928 with the express purpose of creating an iron and steel industry in South Africa to meet the needs of the mining magnates and of other industries, including the state-owned railways. The gross exploitation of the workers by ISCOR allowed the Corporation to sell its products to the other monopolies at a price which protected the profits of the latter, while simultaneously assuring maximum surplus value for itself. Highly dangerous working conditions existed at ISCOR and many workers suffered burns and other serious injuries often resulting in death. The workers were 'bound hand and foot' to ISCOR, but when disabled they were sacked and rejected. In 196 1, according to a report given in Workers Unity, 85 per cent of the African workers at ISCOR were receiving  £3 10s. 0d. (R7) per week and the highest wage an African worker could expect to earn was £4 7s. 0d. (R8.70).

These wages, although still far below the breadline, represented an increase over previous poverty wages and came as a direct result of SACTU pressure and the MWU demand for a minimum wage of , 1 -a Day. In 1960, workers in the industry won an increase of 6d. per hour on the basic wage, bringing it up to £3 10s. 9d. per week.

MWUs in all provinces had been active at the local level organizing metal workers' rallies and publicizing conditions in the industry. The strongest union by 1961 was in the Transvaal, with branches in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Boksburg, Benoni, Germiston, Kempton Park, Krugersdorp and Vereeniging. Richard Takalo was the Union Secretary at this time, having replaced Gilbert H1alukwana. Other SACTU activists such as George Monare were recruited to assist in the work whenever time was available. The Union's major efforts in the early 1960s were directed towards organizing the highly exploited workers at the ISCOR and Vander BijI plants. The state operation was much more difficult to tackle than the private plants due to the restrictive compound life forced upon the employees. Meetings were impossible in the compounds as security guards patrolled these vast enclosures night and day. In the private operations, SACTU organizers found it much easier to meet the workers during lunch hour and after work and address them inside factory gates. The tactics used to penetrate ISCOR included mobilizing people from the townships to distribute leaflets and form factory committees from within.

The NOC appointed a full-time organizer to work amongst the 7,000 steel workers in Pretoria in March 196 1. As well, the Committee planned to cooperate with the Transport NOC to open a joint office in Pretoria. Special assistance was given the Port Elizabeth branch to organize workers at General Motors, Ford and other assembly plants. All of these efforts bore fruit during the February 7th campaign in 1962 as workers in this industry responded in the greatest numbers. Over 350 new union members were recruited during this period.

After these successes, SACTU called upon all its members to embark upon a three months' intensive campaign in the iron and steel and metallurgical industries. The Chairman of SACTU's MC asked every affiliated Union and all volunteers to 'think, eat, sleep and dream of the Metal industry'. There were two issues in particular that were to be the focal point of the campaign - higher wages and skilled training for Black workers.

No Blacks were allowed to become apprentices even though thousands of these workers performed semi-skilled and skilled jobs without adequate training and guaranteed opportunities for advancement. Black workers in every part of the country were required to do skilled work at less than skilled rates of pay. Therefore a major demand in the ensuing campaign was for the right of all Black workers to undergo training and to be eligible for apprentice programmes.

By 1962, the NOC had prepared an excellent memorandum to be distributed to all LCs and MWUs and then upon approval submitted to the Industrial Council for the Industry. The demands were as follows: for a new Agreement in the industry which would lay down the minimum wage of 25 cents per hour (inclusive of COLA) in all divisions; for a Medical Benefit Fund, made up of contributions of both workers and employers on the basis of 1 cent per hour per employee; for a maximum working week of 40 hours throughout the industry; for two additional public holidays (May Day and Easter) on full pay for all employees; for annual leave of three consecutive weeks; for a special height allowance to be paid to workers involved in jobs at excessive heights; for a holiday bonus of   £45; for equal pay for men and women and the removal of all discrimination in wages, that is, the rate for the job; and for the establishment of a Death Benefit Fund. This memorandum was jointly submitted by the Metal Workers Unions of the Transvaal, Natal and the Cape.

On 27 and 28 October, the MWU held their first National Conference in Johannesburg for the purpose of discussing these demands and how best to proceed with their organizing campaign on a national basis. During the following year, 927 new members were added to the Transvaal branch of the Union alone.

In March 1963, the Toy and Plastic Workers Union merged with the MWU (Transvaal) to form a broader base in the struggle for higher wages; the umbrella structure retained the name of the MWU. Throughout the SACTU years it had been the intention to form a National Union of Metal Workers and at each successive conference of the Transvaal branch this was proposed and endorsed. A final attempt was made during 1963 and 1964 following a decision taken at the November Annual Conference of the Transvaal branch.

However, state repression against the Union leaders was mounting. Richard Takalo had been banned by the time of the Conference. In the Report presented to SACTU's Ninth Annual National Conference in 1964, it was reported that every single organizer of metal workers from every province had been detained or banned and removed from trade union activity. In addition, the Transvaal branch had to contend with the union-busting tactics of the government and against the splitting tactics of TUCSA, which despite SACTU's protests, formed a splinter Sheet Metal Workers Union. Despite these setbacks, workers continued in their struggle, fighting for the demands set out in the SACTU-MWU memorandum even though they had been robbed of their militant working class leaders. As for the TUCSA Union, it never really got off. the ground as workers recognized that it had been created only to cause confusion.

NOC:.Mining

I am a mine worker, employed in one of the richest mines on the Rand. I earn 2/5d a shift (and board), and I have to live in this compound with 40 other workers. This concrete bunk has been my home for the last 5 'monthly tickets' (about 30 weeks). My family is in the Transkei, and my children are starving. I once had a few cattle and a very small piece of land, but the Government has taken most of this away from me. After one more 'ticket' I shall go back to my family. But soon I shall have to come back here or go to work on a farm, so that my family and I might live. ¹⁰

The NOC for the mining industry was formed by SACTU in 1961, although organizing work on the mines had been carried on sporadically since 1955. If the criterion of judgment is the creation of a properly functioning trade union, then it should be said at the outset that such a goal was never achieved. On the other hand, the failure itself reflects the conditions of exploitation in the South African mining industry more so than SACTU's inability to effectively organize this crucial sector of the African labour force.

As we have mentioned in previous chapters, the entire South African labour policy towards African workers - consisting of migrant labour, the compound system and gross exploitation - has its historical base in the mining industry. South Africa's industrial capitalist development owes its very existence to the exploitation of the rich natural resources found beneath the soil of Apartheid. Most notably gold and coal, but also diamonds, asbestos, manganese and iron have been the major source of accumulated wealth through the decades; almost 50 per cent of the annual value of foreign exchange has been earned through the export of these minerals.

The foundation of the amazing accumulation of profits in this industry is the callous and inhuman treatment of African mine workers. Unlike the normal course of capitalist history, conditions have deteriorated rather than improved over the years. Whereas the ratio of White to Black wages on the gold mines was 11. 7: 1 in 1911, it had increased only slightly to 12.7: 1 at the time of the African Mine Workers Strike in 1946. In successive five-year periods beginning in 195 1, the ratio increased from 14.7: 1 to 15. 5 : 1 to 17.0: 1 to 17.6: 1 in 1966. By 1969, the White workers' annual cash earnings were 20.1 times more than those of Black wage earners. The dramatic escalation in the rate of exploitation is thus closely associated with the history of capitalist development under the Nationalist regime since 1948.

The 1946 strike led to more concerted efforts by the Chamber of Mines to prevent the organization of African miners. Despite, or more correctly, because of this strike, the Chamber was obliged to argue:

The Gold Mining Industry considers that trade unionism as practised by Europeans is still beyond the understanding of the tribal Native; nor can he know how to employ it as a means of promoting his advancement. He has no tradition in that respect and has no experience or proper appreciation of the responsibilities arising from collective representation. No proper conduct of a trade union is possible unless the workers have that tradition and such a sense of responsibility.... The introduction of trade unionism among tribal Natives at their present stage of development would lead to abuses and irresponsible actions.... A trade union is outside the comprehension of all but a few of the educated Natives of the urban type; it would not only be useless but detrimental to the ordinary mine Native in his present stage of development. ¹¹

A summary review of subsequent difficulties encountered in organizing these workers puts SACTU's efforts in perspective.

African miners were (and are) contract labourers, recruited from the entire sub-continent and from reserves within South Africa by the Chamber's recruiting agency, the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA). Contracts varied in length from six to twelve to eighteen months, and while under the total social control of the bosses African workers were 'housed' in fenced-in concentration camp-like compounds. Recruitment propaganda of 'free accommodation' translated in reality to concrete bunks for forty to fifty men per compound, while costs for coal and firewood were deducted from the starvation wages. It was company policy that African workers as migrants were not allowed to live with their families, unlike the White miners who lived in decent, subsidized housing. The company lure of 'free food' became the daily rations of 'mealie pap' (maize porridge) with some gravy, a mug of tea, two to three pounds of neck meat per week, some vegetables and nuts, but no milk or butter. Again, this diet had to be supplemented by purchases from the Company stores. Weekend 'tshwala' rations (traditional African beer) kept the workers duped in an attempt to dampen political consciousness and collective action. The usual miners' diseases - phthisis, silicosis, tuberculosis, etc. - hit African workers the hardest and their compensation was pitiful when compared with that available to White miners suffering from similar occupational handicaps. In 1962, an estimated 200 Africans were sent home weekly to die in the reserves or their foreign homelands after having contracted these diseases. Details of compensation for African dependants are reported in Chapters 4 and 9.

Company policy has been to intentionally promote internal cleavages within this heterogeneous African workforce. By housing workers according to ethnic and national backgrounds, the seething discontent tends to be channelled into inter-ethnic or national violence. Yet beneath this superficial explanation was the common working class protest of all Black miners, regardless of origin. Malawians, Mozambicans, Namibians as 'foreigners' and Sotho, Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu South Africans share one experience in common - they are all expected to call the White man 'baas' (boss). This cements their unity and common objectives. As the 'home of the industrial colour-bar', the South African mining industry has not only ensured that racial and class exploitation function compatibly, but also that these ground rules distinguish South African labour policy in other industries.

SACTU, like progressive trade unionists in previous decades, realized that success in organizing African workers in general ultimately depended on organizing successfully the mine and farm workers. Although capitalist supervision of workers has been the most efficient in these industries, the structure of mining, unlike agriculture, carries with it the contradiction that hundreds of thousands of workers are combined in social production on the mine property. Divide-and rule has thus always been in dynamic tension with its opposite: class consciousness and class struggle. The latter expresses itself only when conditions allow for such unity of all workers.

In the immediate aftermath of the 1946 strike, the understandable despair following the defeat of the strike and the virtual collapse of the African Mine Workers Union made the conditions of organizing especially problematic. Without a trade union, or some form of workers' organization, wages and working conditions were not likely to improve in what J. B. Marks called,'the immoral economic backbone of the country'.

SACTU focussed its campaign to re-organize African mine workers around the poverty wages which had only slightly improved after 1946. In 1955, it was reported that the gold mines paid 35,000 White workers £50 million per year and 273,000 African miners only £22 million annually. Of the profits, £23 million (larger than the entire African wage bill) was paid out to shareholders who lived all over the world and thus benefited from the sweat and blood of the African proletariat; another £17 million went into the government revenues. The Transvaal and Orange Free State gold mines had increased their working profits from £26.3 million in 1946 to £44.3 million in 1955.

The 1959 minimum and average wages for African miners were as follows:

Despite formal and conventional colour-bars, Africans were performing skilled work in various mining sectors. In the Natal coalfields, for example, Africans and Indians operating coal cutting machines earned only £7 0s. 0d. per month, whereas unskilled White workers because of their skin colour received £2 9s. 2d. per shift. As SACTU stressed in its propaganda materials: 'It is not the work but the pay that is unskilled. Colour, not competency explains the difference in the wage rates.¹² Furthermore, the surplus pool of African labour recruited by the WNLA served as a further factor to depress Black wages. In 1959, of the 432,234 African workers recruited, only 182,561 were South African in nationality.

In the early SACTU years between 1955 and 1960, contact was intermittent with mine workers. Banned ex-Chairman of the AMWU, J. B. Marks, P. J. Simelane (who organized miners in the Eastern Rand), Segwale (West Rand) and Leon Levy (SACTU President) seem to have been at the forefront of SACTU initiatives, which consisted primarily of propaganda leaflets distributed clandestinely in the compounds. In 196 1, to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the 1946 strike, SACTU renewed its emphasis on organizing mine workers. NEC minutes of February 196 1, report that an NOC had been formed to coordinate the work. The 1960 Clydesdale disaster provided the immediate background against which the NOC planned its campaign.

Focusing on the low wages, which were far below the ,1-a-Day demand, and concentrating geographically on the Transvaal gold mines, the NOC strategy consisted of recruiting volunteers and co-opting leaders of affiliated unions to distribute leaflets near the mining compounds on weekends. The ANC mobilized a considerable volunteer force to assist in this highly dangerous work. Leaders from affiliated unions who actively participated in the campaign included, among others, Uriah Maleka (furniture), John Gaetsewe (laundry), Graham Morodi (LC Organizer), George Monare (clothing), Richard Takalo (metals), Dlamini (Transvaal GWU),¹³ J. B. Marks (banned) and Eli Weinberg (banned). By November 1961, one full-time official and one organizer, Brown Ndavernavota, had been assigned to the Mining NOC. During this campaign these organizers were frequently detained, and Phyllis Altman, Assistant General Secretary, had to sit by the telephone in the SACTU office taking details of which police stations were holding the various SACTU organizers.

These organizers and volunteers met constant harassment whenever they neared mine company property. Ndavemavota was imprisoned for three months and because he was not South African was eventually deported to Malawi. Despite these frequent detentions for trespassing the NOC managed to distribute hundreds of thousands of leaflets to African mine workers; this was accomplished in large part as a result of Congress supporters who worked in the mines and smuggled the leaflets into the compounds. The only reported attempt to hold a large mass meeting occurred on 19 August 196 1, fifteen years after the 1946 strike, but the meeting met with mixed results. Although intimidation before the meeting prevented a large turnout, and although a police ring was placed around the hall during the meeting, SACTU documents reveal that individual memberships increased. These members were signed up whenever they were able to get out of the compounds and visit the SACTU office. Total paid up members amounted to only 100 workers by November 1961. Beyond this, however, letters from mine workers often kept Head Office aware of the specific grievances and demands emanating from the point of production; these demands were then taken up with the companies concerned.

Head Office encouraged Natal and OFS to launch similar campaigns amongst coal and diamond workers respectively. Although a minimum amount of contact was achieved by the Durban LC with coal miners in Northern Natal, the diamond mines of the OFS became the second most active area outside of the Transvaal. The Kimberley LC, although situated in the Northern Cape, took up the cause of the badly exploited diamond workers who worked for mining magnate Harry Oppenheimer and his De Beers conglomerate. These miners were not allowed to leave their fenced-in areas from the beginning to the expiration of contracts. Following a mine disaster at Odendaalsrus in May 1962, it was decided that an organizer would be sent to the OFS to assess the entire situation in both gold and diamond mining. In addition to the usual complaints, deductions from wages for boots, bad food, excessively low wages and extremely poor working conditions were highlighted by scattered committees of workers contacted. These conditions had led to violence between workers and mine police at a Virginia, OFS mine and a mass trial of 12 workers was held in a Ventersberg prison in 1959.

The Kimberley GWU intervened on behalf of the diamond miners in 1962. African miners were receiving only £3 every two weeks, had no annual leave and no sick pay. Calling for wage increases and 14 days annual leave, the GWU memorandum of demands forced Oppenheimer to concede only minimal increments, and not before documents and leaflets were seized by police from the Union office. Miners who had joined the GWU were also given five minutes to quit the Union or otherwise lose their job. This is the same Oppenheimer who parades himself in international circles as a 'liberal', anti-Apartheid politician in South Africa. As for the White workers, when SACTU sent its paper Workers Unity to the registered SA Diamond Workers Union, it received the following reply: 'As we are not interested in your literary dregs, kindly remove us from your mailing list. ¹⁴

Head Office assisted in these regional efforts by sending all , 1 -a-Day memoranda to the Chamber of Mines, but no acknowledgement was ever received. Correspondence with the National Union of Mineworkers (UK) called for British workers to pressure the parent mining companies to allow trade unionism among African workers in South Africa. Finally, SACTU submitted regular reports to ILO Conferences highlighting the deplorable and repressive conditions resulting from the migrant labour system. Aside from their educational value, none of these initiatives led to material improvements for the workers themselves.

Leon Levy, SACTU President during the 1950s, described the main problem in organizing miners as the lack of full-time organizers and resources to commit to the task. There was an attempt to re-assess the strategy in late 1961, as many observers felt that effective organization of mine workers must begin prior to recruitment, that is, on the reserves. Although Levy concedes, 'perhaps we did not do as much as we should have ... and perhaps we even lacked imagination to some extent,' he goes on to say that to devote the time and energy necessary to organize the mining industry would have left nothing for all the other work.¹⁵ However, these efforts were not to go unrewarded as within ten years African mine workers would once again raise the banner of militancy in the early 1970s.

NOC: Agriculture

Farm Labour. Those are the words which tell a tale of human misery. They have become words of scandal, words which express the worst features of capitalist exploitation in South Africa. ¹⁶

The exploitation of African farm workers became a national scandal in the 1950s. Combining the worst features of capitalism and Apartheid, the profit motive of White agricultural capital led to barbarous conditions for Africans who were herded into the fields to produce cheap commodities for export - wines, fruit and sugar.¹⁷ The Nationalists, more so than governments before them, established policies that assured the White farmers a guaranteed supply of forced cheap, Black labour. In 1959, the Director of Prisons proudly admitted:

The Department of Prisons has become the focal point for the farmer, from the Limpopo (River) to the Cape. They all want labour from us, but we cannot supply it all, but we are doing everything in our power to meet the emergency. ¹⁸

By 196 1, farm labour accounted for over one-third of the economically active African population; 86 per cent of all farm workers were Africans. In actual numbers, 1,441,470 Africans laboured on White farms as registered/contracted employees (731,424), casual/seasonal employees (583,475), and domestic servants (126,570). When dependants of African farm workers are considered, almost 3.5 million lived on the White farms in 1960. Coloured and Asian workers accounted for another 14 per cent of the workforce (239,356).

Farm workers are in many ways even more grossly exploited than mine workers, as the following chart of average annual earnings by economic sector shows:

Average Annual Earnings (in Rand)

The 1962 agricultural census revealed that the average income in cash and kind for African farm workers - including the wages of women and children - ranged between £2 (R4) and £3 (R6) per month. These are the years during which SACTU was calling for a   £1-a-Day minimum wage for all workers as necessary for survival.

Thousands of African farm workers were killed either through starvation or abuse. They had no recognized legal rights once employed on the farms. Covered only by the archaic Masters and Servants Acts, Africans were subject to the whims and whips of the White master, who assessed fines and inflicted physical punishment for desertion or 'disobedience'. This was most commonly done through a hierarchical system of 'boss-boys' (indunas) who themselves survived only by beating, maiming and killing the productive workers. It was not uncommon for workers to labour 14 hours a day, with the wives and children of male workers forced to work at lower rates of pay to assist the latter in meeting contractual obligations. Education and health facilities were, and still are, virtually non-existent in relation to demand.

A large percentage of the African workforce on the farms has always been convict or forced labour. Dating back to the 1880s, when prisoners were hired out to wine-farmers by the Cape Government, the system was expanded throughout this century. By 1957-58, nearly 200,000 convicts were hired to White farmers a year, at a slave wage of 9d. a day.

Since 1947, long term prisoners have also been integrated into the farm labour scheme. Selected farmers are permitted to build jails on their land, to Government specification, and the Department of Prisons supplies guards. By 1963, there were 25 farm jails, 10 in the Transvaal, one in the Orange Free State, 14 in the Cape, housing more than 9,000 long-term convicts.¹⁹

By the early 1950s, an even more comprehensive programme of forced labour recruitment was sanctioned by the Apartheid system. The millions of Africans detained or arrested for petty offences (pass laws) were given the 'option' of paying a fine (or serving a jail sentence) or volunteering' for work on the farms. Poverty often forced Africans to literally give their lives in lieu of an inability to pay £1 or £2 fines. In 19 5 7 alone, one and a quarter million Africans were brought before the courts for violations of petty offences, giving one a good sense of the potential farm labour recruits obtainable from this system. By 1953, an estimated 32,582 workers had been captured in this manner.

Government complicity in this pattern of exploitation was total and unconcealed. White farmers would simply advise authorities regarding their labour needs and the bureaucracy administering the lives of Africans would respond accordingly. The farmer became the surrogate policeman, jailer, and often executioner. In addition to government recruiting schemes, private agents roamed the countryside purchasing for £5 or abducting children from peasant families unable to feed their families. Thus, although the farmers were not slave-owners in the legal sense, they reproduced the conditions of slavery for one-third of the African population in the mid-twentieth century. Changes since the 1950s have not lessened the suffering but only refined the system in order 'to regulate the supply of labour with a view to correlating it with the demand'. This has entailed reducing the number of non-contract squatters and replacing them with annual contract migrants.

Space prevents an exhaustive documentation of the human suffering endured by agricultural workers and their families. Chapter 10 describes this in part as background to the Congress Alliance potato boycott of 1959. At this point, only one typical case will be mentioned. In response to the 'volunteer' system, a Johannesburg attorney, Mr Joel Carlson, successfully brought habeas corpus actions to free many so called 'volunteer' farm workers in the Transvaal and Orange Free State. Evidence proved beyond doubt that these offenders of petty Apartheid laws had in fact been given no option but were merely picked up off. the streets and sold to White farmers through the Pass Office for six to twelve month contract periods. Some of the captives had been productively employed in urban jobs at the time of their abduction. The evidence in the court also vividly portrayed the conditions on the farms: toes being chopped off. to make escape impossible; deliberate under feeding of workers to force expenditure of meagre wages in farm stores; and the infamous 'tot' system whereby juvenile labourers in vineyards were paid a portion of their wages in wine - resulting in a high incidence of alcohol-related diseases among children. Many court cases, however, did not lead to verdicts favourable to the workers, as government bureaucrats provided testimony on behalf of the White farmers. In fact, the government indirectly admitted its lack of concern for the fate of African farm workers by the fact that in 1959 there was only one Inspector to oversee the 100,000 farms in South Africa.

Against these realities, the effective organization of farm workers has always been an almost impossible task. Unlike mine workers, the production of farm workers is not highly socialized; that is, workers are not concentrated at clearly defined points of production but are instead scattered on large and small farms throughout the Republic. Nevertheless, one of SACTU's most impressive achievements in the basic industries was the formation of the Farm, Plantation and Allied Workers Union (FPAWU) in 196 1. Although organizing work was done in the Cape and Natal, the Union had its base in the Eastern and Northern Transvaal. The potential for building a national Union was severely affected by the period of repression in the early 1960s.

Until the late 1950s, organizing of Transvaal farm workers was performed largely by one person, Gert Sibande, Transvaal ANC President. Banned from residing in urban areas, Sibande utilized his rural base and spent his entire life assisting ANC units in the political mobilization of rural workers and peasants. Specific workers' complaints would be passed on to SACTU, who took these up as legal cases, demands for government reforms or memoranda sent to the ILO Conferences. Following the 1959 SACTU Conference decision to form NOCs in the basic industries, however, an agricultural NOC was formed in 1960 in the Transvaal. Working closely with Sibande, known in the movement as 'The Lion of the East', this particular NOC brought in SACTU leaders who themselves had been born and raised in peasant families in rural Transvaal. Thoroughly urbanized and proletarianized themselves, they were none the less able to return to the countryside of their youth and utilize the network of social relations to political and trade union advantage. Among those SACTU organizers were Uriah Maleka, Graham Morodi, John Nkadimeng and Efijah Mampuru.

The initial work involved education amongst farm workers about the purpose of trade unions, especially as many had no previous contact with anything but political organizations - e.g. the ANC. Fear and intimidation had to be overcome. White farmers told their workers that these organizers were 'Communists out to steal your money'. They also made it a practice of evicting African workers seen talking with known Congress leaders. Even the distribution of leaflets was a hazardous venture, although occasionally leaflets could be stuck in fence-holes to be picked up by workers when out of sight of the 'boss-boys'.

Prior to the formation of the Union, the agricultural NOC drafted a memorandum of demands that was submitted to the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU), a White farmers' society. The TAU Conference of March 1961 had included on its agenda a discussion item: 'The farm worker as a human being.' SACTU pointed out the increasing disparity between urban and rural wages and in turn demanded: hourly wage rates and a special additional allowance for food purchases; overtime pay beyond the 46-hour week; one month annual leave and the same holidays as given to urban workers; workmen's compensation and sick pay; the right to organize and negotiate wage and working conditions; more hospitals, dispensaries and doctors in the rural areas; improved housing; and the abolition of the Master and Servants Acts. 'These are the minimum and human demands of farm workers throughout South Africa today,' concluded the memorandum. The TAU Conference politely refused to seriously consider these demands, arguing that holidays and hours of work were the prerogative of individual farms and that all other issues raised were matters for government legislation.

On 8 October 1961 the Inaugural meeting of the 17PAWU convened in Johannesburg, with representation from Morgenzon, Bethal, Kinross, Trichardt, Amersfoort, and Standerton in the Transvaal, and one delegate from the Cape. Prior to electing a Chairman, Secretary and working committee of eleven, the delegates discussed their common conditions of exploitation. Husbands were often the only paid workers of entire families forced to labour on the farms, and three cases of farmers deliberately running down workers on the roads were cited. Over 100 delegates (previously registered with the Agricultural Division, Transvaal General Workers Union) resolved to form the FPAWU and demanded, in addition to the above, £1-a-Day for workers receiving only a cash wage. For those receiving cash and land, the demand was for £5 0s. 0d. per month, plus five morgen of fertile land to plough with implements provided by the farmer. Other demands included a period of three months notice prior to eviction, no employment of juvenile labour and compulsory education for children of school age and an immediate Wage Board investigation.

These resolutions were submitted to the TAU, all relevant government ministries, the press and the international trade unions in agriculture. The National Union of Agricultural Workers (UK) responded with useful materials regarding rural organizing strategies and drafting of a constitution. By December 1961 district committees were established to collect research information regarding housing, transport, education and health facilities in the Eastern and Northern Transvaal.

The 1962 SACTU Conference welcomed the FPAWU as the first organized affiliate representing African farm workers. Only at the Durban 1959 Conference had rural people attended SACTU meetings in such large numbers. Delegate after delegate addressed the SACTU leaders and workers, describing in detail the conditions of subjugation they experienced on the farms. One worker spoke of wives and children being taken into custody for not having 'permits' in their possession, while another talked of the constant torture inflicted on workers who objected when forced to eat soil, dress in and sleep on potato sacks. Conference reiterated the FPAWU demands and called on all affiliated unions to contribute 50c per month to an organizing fund for farm workers.

Following the creation of the Union, Uriah Maleka handed over the organizer position to Efijah Mampuru. Mampuru ' was a veteran of rural struggles from earlier years. He had been one of the leaders of an organization known as 'Sebatakgomo', a political front for ANC work in the rural areas in the early 1950s. The word 'Sebatakgom   has no direct translation into English, but its origin and meaning are derived from anti-colonialist wars fought by the African people. Whenever the people were about to be attacked, leaders would shout the battle cry: 'Sebatakgomo' as a warning and a call for mobilization. In the early 1950s, this organization raised the consciousness of the peasantry against Apartheid legislation, bureaucracy and complicity of the tribal chiefs in the exploitation of the people. Mampuru had since returned to work in the clothing industry from which he was co-opted to become FPAWU organizer in 1961.

Mampuru and Sibande, with a corps of assistants divided the Eastern, Northern and Southern Transvaal into regions. Mampuru soon gained the reputation as one of SACTU's best organizers; the tales spread by White farmers about him being a 'dangerous' person and a 'Communist' only enhanced his credibility with the people. Leon Levy recalls that Efijah would return from the rural areas with a long list of new members, £1-a-Day slips filled in and membership dues.²⁰ Mampuru himself tells many fascinating stories of his organizing exploits. For example, on one occasion he was held in detention for seven weeks, during which time the police tried to convince him that SACTU had been banned; he countered by telling the police that he read New Age regularly and knew that this was not the case. Despite many detentions of this length, Mampuru managed to sign up over 400 members during his first three weeks as an organizer. Another 886 members were added in a further six-week period. His success led Cape farm organizers to request that he work there for a short time, but he was banned before this could be arranged. ²¹

By September 1962 the FPAW1J's First Annual General Meeting recognized the limitations of the Union's resources. Most of the time had been spent defending individual farm workers against eviction and brutalization. The Union lacked enough full-time organizers and no one was available to continue the research necessary to effectively canvass the entire industry. All of these problems were made worse by limited finances and lack of transport. Nevertheless, the Union continued to bring the plight of farm workers to national and international attention. The 1962 Conference highlighted the contradiction between mass starvation and poverty-induced disease in the African community and the callous destruction of food - for example, the dumping of dairy surpluses into the sea - by the Apartheid regime. For all of these limitations, the FPAWU was regarded by many SACTU leaders as. a well-organized Union with a dedicated cadre of activists and Executive members.

On one occasion, the Witwatersrand LC was informed through Mampuru that the FPAWU leaders wished to come to Johannesburg to meet with their fellow trade unionists in the city. Leaving the remote rural areas well before dawn, 110 persons walked over seventy miles to attend the meeting. Much to the amazement of SACTU leaders, who had expected perhaps ten delegates at the most, the farm workers proceeded to give the most harrowing reports of their conditions of exploitation. In turn, the SACTU LC answered the many questions posed by the workers about how to form strong trade unions. One year later, the political situation had deteriorated to such an extent that the Johannesburg comrades feared that another visit from the FPAWU members would lead to their arrest. Consequently, the local Trades Hall was booked for a public meeting while simultaneously a small church hall on the outskirts of the city was to be the actual venue of the meeting. The police, realizing that they had been tricked, began to indiscriminately interrogate and beat up a number of workers and members of the Transvaal Indian Congress in an effort to discover the location of the meeting. The farm workers were never found, but this was the last year that FPAWU members were able to make contact with SACTU in Johannesburg.

Although the 17PAWU never had organizational form in other provinces, similar efforts were sustained in the Cape and Natal. The Northern Cape LC kept the FPAWU informed of local conditions. At Smithsdrift, a special grazing camp had been built and if African workers' cattle grazed outside certain limits, the workers were arrested and fined £5. African widows were not allowed to keep cattle, yet they were required to pay a levy of 10s. per month. Also dairy workers whose job it was to milk cows were in the ambiguous position of not being covered by the Dairy Industrial Council but rather by the Masters and Servants Act. A loose organization of farm workers around Kimberley formed in the early 1960s, but there is no record of any sustained organization in the Northern Cape. In the Western Cape, the Food and Canning Workers Union assisted farm workers whenever possible; this was re-emphasized at the 1962 FCWU Conference. In the Eastern Cape, the ANC and SACTU Local Committee combined to assist workers on the orange and pineapple farms around Bathurst and Grahamstown. These efforts grew out of the successful potato boycott campaign in the Port Elizabeth area in 1959.

In Natal, most farm workers were associated with the sugar industry, which has been generally discussed in a previous chapter. The same conditions of work obtained in Natal as on the farms in other provinces. African workers' resistance on the cane fields was occasionally reflected by cane fires set just before the harvesting season, but of course such random acts of violence only increased the repression by the sugar barons.

Export earnings from sugar averaged above 15 million Rand in 19 5 9 and 1960, with Huletts Corporation taking the largest share of profits which totalled R7.5 million for the seven largest companies in 1962. Despite the success in organizing the milling workers in the late 1930s, the field workers remained largely unorganized in the 1950s. The Durban LC began to place greater emphasis on the rural workers after the 1959 Conference, with SACTU leaders making trips up and down the Natal coast as Ponnen, Naidoo, Naicker and Shanley had done two decades before.

At a Durban Conference of Plantation workers in June 1962 the main SACTU speaker outlined the history of the sugar industry in Natal as a tale of pillage and enslavement of the Zulu people and merciless forced labour imposed on the indentured Indian labourers brought into South Africa in the second half of the nineteenth century. The speaker concluded,

the sugar industry, therefore, is built on slave labour - it is built on the sweat and blood of the Non-White peoples, particularly the Africans .... ²²

These conditions were expanded upon in more general terms at another Rural and Industrial Workers Conference held in Durban in December 1962:

The lives of the people are riddled with diseases: hunger and starvation are stock in trade for the African people. Children die before they are born; and our young people die before they reach the age of maturity - in fact childbirth has become a more bitter agony than death itself. Even where birth succeeds, children grow to be men - men who are sold like asses and livestock for the pleasure of the South African farmers. Let it be clear that those children we bear and bring forth are our children and not mere instruments of pleasure and convenience and it is for them that we shall ever struggle until freedom is achieved. The centuries old pass system still acts as a sluice which channels the labour of our people to where the masters want it.

Through these conferences, SACTU Natal worked to bring the urban proletariat and the rural workers and peasants into one united force. Working committees of rural labourers were organized throughout Natal by Stephen Dlamini, Memory Vakalisa and Eric Mtshali, among others. Although these committees were never as stable or as well organized as the FPAWU in the Transvaal, they were part of the militant tradition established by SACTU in Natal during these years.

General Workers Unions (G WU)

In 1960, the SACTU Fifth Annual Conference passed a resolution endorsing the formation of General Workers Unions. This decision appeared to be a clear departure from the policy of SACTU, and indeed progressive trade union coordinating bodies going back to the 1930s, which was to organize unions exclusively along industrial lines. In other words, for the first time since the ICU of the 1920s there was an encouragement to form GWUs that cut across different sectors of the economy. The explanation for this apparent reversal of policy, however, speaks to the strength and not the weakness of SACTU as a coordinating body. The resolution itself provides that explanation:

This Fifth Annual National Conference ... records with pride that the campaign to recruit 20,000 more trade unionists into the Trade Union movement has produced significant results, and takes pleasure in welcoming the new recruits into our ranks.

Conference appreciates the fact that the organizing of many thousands of workers in so short a space of time with the limited personnel available, rendered it impossible for Local Committees to form new trade unions for unorganized workers immediately and therefore fully endorses the establishment of General Workers' Unions, formed for the purpose of temporarily accommodating these workers.

With this aim in view Conference considers it undesirable to form Executive Committees of such unions and therefore instructs all Local Committees to maintain these general unions under their direct supervision and to allocate members of general unions to industrial unions as soon as practicable. Regular general meetings of the General Workers >Unions must be held, and there must be systematic contact with members of such unions.²³

None the less, many delegates questioned the wisdom of this resolution during the discussion preceding its adoption. The most commonly voiced reservation was that members of such amorphous unions might remain there indefinitely. If this were to happen, it would be next to impossible to fight for improvements in wages and working conditions, let alone conduct successful strike action against the particular capitalists in each industrial sector represented. No one, including those who supported GWUs, wanted to return to the unworkable structures of the ICU. Both Durban and Kimberley delegates from GWUs already in existence stressed that these were transitional structures, organizational nuclei for the creation of new, well-organized industrial unions. In Kimberley, for example, members had different symbols on their membership cards to identify their respective industrial sectors, whereas Durban cards specified the trade or occupation to which individual members belonged. Despite these assurances, an amendment calling for the provision that workers would be allocated to existing or new unions within one month was moved; it was defeated in that the original resolution stipulated that GWUs would only 'temporarily accommodate' workers.

Subsequent MC minutes reveal continued reluctance to endorse GWUs. In October 1960, the MC stressed that GWUs were to be administered by SACTU LCs and not by elected Executive Committees. A positive note was recorded, however, when it was suggested that LCs should form GWUs in association with the house to-house campaigns being conducted in the African townships. The case of the Kimberley GWU, which had emerged independently in 1955, and thus had its own elected Executive would have to be dealt with separately as a special case. In December 1960, the MC asked the Wits LC to withdraw membership cards of certain unions not functioning effectively, implicitly suggesting their acceptance of GWUs as an interim step towards the creation of stable unions.

By April 1961, the MC had issued a special circular to the Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Witwatersrand LCs - those areas without GWUs - instructing them to form GWUs and to collect a subscription fee of 4s. per member per month. Of this total, 3s. would go towards the union to be created, another 11d. would cover the LC's administrative costs and the remaining Id. would go for SACTU affiliation fees. The circular emphasized that GWUs should be widely publicized among unorganized workers as a means of increasing SACTU's overall membership. One year later, the General Secretary reported to the 1962 Conference that all LCs had formed GWUs but re-emphasized the necessity of creating separate industrial unions as soon as possible.

The strength and importance of GWUs in the overall SACTU work varied considerably from area to area, and according to the assessment of this strategy by leaders in each area. In the Transvaal and the Western Cape, GWUs emerged in the early 1960s although in both cases they were relatively weak. The heavily industrialized Transvaal with its tradition of industrial unionism mitigated against the GWU as a major priority; similarly, in the Western Cape, with a relatively small number of African workers as compared with the total Black working class population, the LC believed that it was preferable and manageable to continue organizing along industrial lines in secondary manufacturing industry.

Conversely, but for different reasons in each area, Kimberley, Port Elizabeth and Durban formed very effective GWUs during the decade 1955-64, and many victories were scored on behalf of unorganized workers as a result of this strategy. The purpose of this section is to review the scope and success of GWUs within the overall SACTU plan to organize the unorganized.

The Kimberley G WU was formed by J. Mampies independently of any SACTU LC in 1955. When it was first allowed to directly affiliate to SACTU in 1960, the Union had 700 members in railway, municipal, commercial and distributive, hospital, garage, domestic, engineering, building and meat industries and undertakings. Diamond miners and furniture workers were included in the 1963 membership listing. For nine years, the Kimberley GWU maintained close contact with SACTU Head Office, distributed SACTU propaganda materials, undertook SACTU campaigns and more or less functioned as a LC in the remote area of the Northern Cape Province.

The first contact between Kimberley organizers and Head Office came back in 1955, when Mampies wrote a letter requesting information about organizing the unorganized African workers in 'the City of Diamonds, the birthplace of (White) South African trade unionism'. Despite severe restrictions, which included being allowed by the local authorities to hold only one meeting per month, the GWU mobilized 700 workers for the SACTU National Workers' Conference which preceded the 1958 Stay-At-Home. The first visit from a SACTU national organizer did not occur until 1959, when a member of the Transport NOC travelled to Kimberley to respond to a threat of mass dismissals of railway workers. Shortly after that visit, J. Mampies, the Organizing Secretary, and other executive members of the GWU were detained for up to five months during the State of Emergency in 1960.

The Kimberley City Council maintained a 'permanent State of Emergency' directed against the GWU. The right of Union members to assemble was totally denied in the early 1960s, especially as the focal point of the Union's attack was the poverty wages paid by the Council to its African municipal employees. Whenever demands were presented to employers, the Special Branch and uniformed police were called in and Union officials arrested. In 1962, the entire seven-person Executive was arrested for holding an 'illegal' meeting on the Schmidtsdrift Reserve where an attempt was being made to organize farm workers. At the Second Kimberley GWU Annual Conference (after affiliation to SACTU), eighteen police cars and vans ringed the hall and police inside interrupted the proceedings with tape recorders and intimidation; the original venue had been closed to the unions at the last moment but the workers' determination won out as the Conference convened six hours later and continued throughout the night. Delegates representing towns and villages throughout the Northern Cape stressed the national struggle against low wages, high rents and pass laws. By 1963, most GWU leaders, including Aaron Mosata, President, had been banned and removed from positions in the trade union movement.

Although details of the Kimberley GWU struggles are lacking, it is clear from the records that do exist that this Union persevered through the dedication of workers in remote areas to be a part of the national campaigns led by SACTU and the Congress Alliance. The different industrial sectors within the GWU were never stable or strong enough to form separate unions affiliated to SACTU. Yet, none the less, the Kimberley case gives one example of how GWUs can unite unorganized workers around local and national issues.

In the industrial centres of Durban and Port Elizabeth, GWUs served a different purpose. Both Natal and particularly the Eastern Cape experienced rapid industrial development following the Second World War, with South African and increasingly foreign multinationals flocking to low wage areas to maximize profits. As workers experienced intolerable conditions in these circumstances, their organization into trade unions became an imperative. Yet stable, industrial unions to accommodate these African workers could not be built overnight, and in this context GWUs played the role of interim structures for thousands of unorganized workers.

In Durban, Billy Nair of the LC announced as early as September 1955, that a Durban GWU had been formed and was open to unorganized workers in all industries and undertakings. Although this was done without the official sanction of the SACTU NEC or MC, it should be pointed out that the LC regarded the GWU as a base from which new, industrial unions would subsequently emerge. The Natal GWU actually developed out of crises being faced by workers drawn into new industrial low-wage areas like Pinetown and Hammarsdale, where wage determinations and Industrial Council agreements did not apply. These local and often desperate conditions led the LC to form a Pinetown GWU in late 1956. Stephen Dlamini was quoted in New Age articles stressing that the LC was being flooded with requests for organizers in these new industrial areas. Out of the funds collected from the GWU members the LC could partially subsidize the costs of sending organizers to Pinetown.

Between 1959 and 1960, as we discuss below, Durban SACTU membership increased by over 5,000 members. Most of these workers were initially enrolled by industrial sector in the GWU; by 1962, the GWU membership had declined to a more manageable, although still unwieldy, total of 2,000 workers still to be allocated to existing or new unions. This GWU catered for a wide range of workers from chemical, transport, stevedoring and garage industries in Durban itself, and in Pinetown, garment, road and power station workers were added to the rolls. Moses Mabhida recalls the GWU strategy of the late 1950s and considers it 'very appropriate'. He adds, 'In our minds we were organizing unorganized workers, and (this) was the only way to start.²⁴

The Durban GWU not only signed up these thousands of unorganized workers but, more importantly, took up their concrete demands with the local employers. In 1959, thirty-three workers in a skin and hides firm on the Durban wharf were dismissed for failing to report for work on a public holiday. As members of the GWU they turned to SACTU for advice, but at that moment the Department of Labour advised the employer to refuse to discuss the matter with all SACTU leaders. The employer, however, soon became dissatisfied with his newly-hired scab labour and agreed to open talks with SACTU that eventually led to all workers, including the so-called 'agitator,' getting their jobs back. Another spontaneous strike by 180 abattoir workers for £1 -a-Day took place in July of that year. Fearful of a meat shortage in the city, the Durban municipality that employed these workers agreed to wage increases after being confronted by the SACTU LC. In these and other cases the Durban GWU served as the only organization to which an otherwise divided and badly exploited workforce could turn.

In the Durban area, veteran trade unionists like Stephen Dlamini, Memory Vakalisa and Moses Mabhida trained younger workers to recruit GWU members in their respective factories and places of employment. Among the latter were Soloman Mbanjwa, O. Chiya, Elias Mbele, Louis Mkize, Eric Mtshali (Pinetown) and Mate Mfusi (Ladysmith). Through the determined work of these and other organizers, ten new industrial unions emerged out of the GWU in the early 1960s.

The Durban GWU, therefore, fulfilled its major function as an 'interim measure' on the road to industrial unionism. There were, however, undeniable problems associated with an amorphous structure catering for so many workers. At the 1960 SACTU Annual Conference, one Transvaal delegate congratulated the Durban comrades for their increase in overall membership but hastened to add that the failure to systematically collect affiliation fees would soon create problems for the LC. George Ponnen, banned adviser to SACTU in the 1950s, recalls some of these problems:

Unless an appropriate machinery was created to administer the affairs of the General Workers' Union, the whole project might be a failure in the sense that thousands of workers would be enrolled as members for various industries and trades and effective attention would not be given to their complaints.²⁵

In the Eastern Cape, the Port Elizabeth ~symbolized the potential inherent in this strategy of organizing the unorganized African working masses; it was a significant factor in making the Eastern Cape the most militant SACTU-Congress Alliance area in South Africa. Led by Vuyisile Mini, Alven Bennie, Don Nangu, Paulos Ternba and veteran trade unionists such as Caleb Mayekiso (TWIU) in the more established unions, the GWU responded to the immediate needs of African workers in large manufacturing plants that were part of multinational operations in the automobile and rubber industries.

Unlike Kimberley and Durban, the Port Elizabeth GWU did not emerge until after the 1960 Conference decision to support the formation of such unions. Previous to that, SACTU work in the area had been dominated by the established unions in food and canning and textile industries. Within two years, the GWU had a membership of 674 workers in the tobacco, leather, wine, domestic, baking, commercial and distributive, hospital, rubber, dairy and milling industries. The GWU also served as the base from which workers in SACTU's priority industries - transport and metals - were organized in the area. Although there were only a small number of separate industrial unions created from the GWU, the real importance of the Union's organizing work was in the mass mobilization of workers for the Congress campaigns of the early 1960s. The harmonious working relationship between the 'ex-ANC' members (the ANC had been banned in 1960) and SACTU strengthened a long-standing militant tradition in the Eastern Cape and thus made Port Elizabeth a major target of state repression.

Much of the organizing work was accomplished through house-to house campaigns conducted after working hours. The Congress of the People (1955), numerous Congress Stay-At-Homes and the 1959 SACTU Conference added momentum to the GWU work that was financed by bazaars, concerts and the contributions of rank-and-file workers. At first the GWU and the LC itself used the offices of the TWIU as their base, but eventually each managed to support its own separate location. The Union was internally divided by industrial sector, with regular meetings of all groupings. Separate unions were temporarily created for leather, dairy and bus workers, but the five month State of Emergency in 1960 interrupted the continuity and functioning of these new unions.

The full-time Organizing Secretary of the GWU was Alven Bennie, who organized workers in a wide range of industries and undertakings. Bennie had been asked by SACTU Executive members Leslie Massina and Mark Shope as early as 1956 to begin organizing the unorganized. As Alven put it, 'I was a paid organizer without any pay.'²⁶ While Bennie concentrated attention on dockworkers, Vuyisile Mini focussed on metals and Paulos Temba (TWIU) organized domestic servants and distributive workers. Despite the difficulty of organizing domestics, the GWU had over 50 workers enrolled as members and with the assistance from comrades in other Congresses managed to organize a number of seafront hotels. Paulos Temba attributes much of the success of the GWU in this and other industries to the ability of the LC to call meetings of large numbers of workers and thus ensure that workers approached their bosses in unity and with strength instead of going to them as solitary individuals."²⁷ The majority of the work was conducted in the Port Elizabeth-New Brighton-Uitenhage area, but it was not uncommon for Bennie and others to travel to East London, Kingwilliamstown and Grahamstown as SACTU-Congress Alliance organizers.

As in Kimberley, the GWU in Port Elizabeth had to regularly contend with a hostile Department of Labour that encouraged employers to have nothing to do with SACTU. In late 1962, African GWU members at a local technical college were replaced by Coloured workers because they refused to accept the principal's insistence on having an African 'boss-boy' serve as an intermediary between himself and the African workers. Retrenched workers with up to 30 years service at the college were taken by SACTU leaders Mayekiso, Bennie and Nangu to the local Labour Inspector who refused to even meet the delegation. Following this defeat, the college made it a practice of hiring convict labour at even less cost.

In sum, the Port Elizabeth GWU's strength rests with its support amongst the masses. More than just a trade union to protect working class interests, it became an institution of and from the people. Along with the registered unions, the SACTU LC formed a cultural club which attracted even the local rugby enthusiasts. Inspired by Vuyisile Mini - singer, dancer, actor as well as liberation fighter - the GWU gained a committed membership that led the struggle during the subsequent years of victimization, life imprisonment and execution of some of the Eastern Cape's greatest leaders.

Although there was substantial reluctance by both Cape Town and Wits LCs to form GWUs, the 1962 SACTU list of affiliated unions records such unions in both areas, each having approximately 400 members. Lacking a complete historical record of the Cape Western Province LC activities, there is little indication of which industries were represented by these workers. However, new industrial unions were formed in Cape Town in the early 1960s, and they will be discussed in the following section. The only information available on the Cape Town GWU is found in an April 1962 edition of New Age, where it was reported that the Union demanded weekly minimum wage rates of R12 (£6) and R9 (£4 10s. 0d.) for urban and rural workers respectively, recognition of African workers as 'employees' under the IC Act, repeal of the Group Areas Act, and a call to employers not to co-operate with Apartheid authorities in removing Africans from the Western Cape.

In the Transvaal, on the other hand, the GWU strategy did lead to significant successes in organizing the unorganized amongst timber, plastic, paint, jewellery, stone crushing and quarrying, mineral water, transport and University of Witwatersrand workers. Wage increases and improvements in working conditions were won in a number of firms covered by the Union in 1961 and 1962. Two new unions - the FPAWU (discussed above) and the Printing Workers Union - emerged from the Transvaal GWU in these years.

Within a month of the decision to form the union, Graham Morodi became full-time organizer. Morodi had previously organized an active SACTU factory committee of tobacco workers at United Tobacco Company (UTC) where he was employed. These workers became members of the Wits GWU and were assisted by SACTU in their struggle against the foreign-owned company and the FOFATUSA controlled and TUCSA-affiliated African Tobacco Workers Union which did little to improve the lot of its members. The factory committee with SACTU support, however, forced the UTC to increase the wages of its African employees. Another active factory committee of biscuit workers employed by the Canadian George Weston conglomerate joined the GWU at approximately the same time. Morodi established harmonious relations with the local management of Weston's biscuit company in Springs, and the workers were even allowed to have union subscriptions deducted at the place of work - a rare occurrence for African workers. This changed abruptly after the Special Branch visited the local management advising them to ignore SACTU representatives. The Weston firm quickly agreed to forsake its workers and instead toed the line of Apartheid. By 1964, the leadership of the factory committee had been victimized and eliminated from the trade union movement.

The Wits GWU engaged itself in struggle against two cases of gross exploitation. In July 1961, 600 chemical workers at Klipfontein Organic Products were arrested for carrying out 'an illegal strike' against low wages (which ranged from £4 10s. 0d. to £7 Is. 6d. per week) and compound life characteristic of the mining and railway industries. SACTU and the GWU came to the defence of these workers by forcing the Department of Bantu Administration, through whom they were employed, to investigate this particular case of Apartheid tyranny. Bail and legal defence were also arranged by SACTU for the two leaders of the strike.

The most successful campaign was waged against the University of Witwatersrand, that 'civilizing institution' that paid its African workforce no more than £8 to £10 per month. In addition to low wages, these workers had been forced under the Group Areas Act to live in distant townships, the closest to the University being nine miles away. Low wages made transport costs difficult to pay, and many workers faced evictions from township housing for rent arrears as a result of their poverty wages. Through a highly-publicized campaign, the SACTU GWU exposed the University as an institution that sponsored cost-of living studies that documented the below-subsistence wages for African workers, yet continued this trend itself by being amongst the lowest paying employers. The GWU demanded a minimum wage of £1 -a-Day for all workers, a 40-hour week, four weeks annual paid leave, better food, and the laundering of protective clothing as part of University services. Although not all these demands were met, wage increases of 15 per cent and a reduction in working hours resulted from this pressure.

These gains went a long way in showing that GWUs, if properly administered, could bring about the organization of unorganized workers and not necessarily reproduce the weaknesses of general unions of past decades. Leon Levy, SACTU President, says that while GWUs were not particularly liked, they were 'a quick way to form lasting unions'.²⁸ Graham Morodi, the GWU Organizer, speaks more positively of GWUs as a good strategy'. He stresses that workers were at all times registered by section and efficient records were kept of tobacco, milling, coal, municipal and transport workers brought under the GWU umbrella. In the Transvaal, this method of work was based on the division of labour whereby Morodi travelled in the field visiting workers wherever they worked and lived, while Shanti Naidoo performed the associated clerical work in the SACTU office.²⁹

Thus, although GWUs developed unevenly in all SACTU areas, it seems fair to conclude that they did mobilize otherwise unorganized workers to participate in both economic and political struggles. The heavy repression of the early 1960s makes it impossible to judge these Unions on the basis of how many new and stable industrial unions were (or could have been) formed. On the other hand, in all cases, the GWUs brought about a much larger and more politicized mass base of support for SACTU and Congress campaigns. In the strict sense of trade unionism, Ronnie Press is probably most accurate when he says that the formation of GWUs should not be regarded as a separate SACTU strategy as the goal continued to be the formation of new industrial unions for Black workers.³⁰ The 1963 SACTU Annual Conference, held during the peak of repression, underscores the importance of GWUs as for the first time in SACTU history there was mention of organized workers in the OFS. The OFS GWU was catering for African workers in mining, commercial and distributive, furniture, municipal and domestic industries and undertakings.

Secondary Industry: The Base of SACTU Strength

Notwithstanding the work of the NOCs and the GWUs, SACTU's greatest achievement was the formation of new unions in secondary manufacturing industries in all four major centres of the country. This was due to the fact that the development of post-war industrial capitalism had ensured a very large, urbanized African proletariat that sullered under the double bind of the cheap labour system of racial capitalism and the entire range of Apartheid legislation directed against Blacks as citizens.

The backbone of SACTU LCs in all areas - Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town and Durban - consisted of branches of at least one, usually two, and in one case all three of the following unions: the Food and Canning WU, the Textile Workers Industrial Union and the Laundry, Cleaning and Dyeing Workers Union (LCDWU). Each of these unions had strong branches of African unregistered unions and in the registered unions (for Coloured, Indian and White workers) a history of progressive leadership. The leaders and members of these unions provided the experience and initiative that paved the way for organizing new, industrial unions after 1955.

The purpose of this section is to pay brief tribute to the organizing work of SACTU comrades in these four LCs. As it is impossible to document every effort in each industry, the goal is to provide the reader with a sense of the spirit and struggle that shaped SACTU unions in various parts of the country. For the newcomer to African trade unionism in South Africa, it is helpful to keep in mind that African trade unions are understandably unstable in the context of capitalist super exploitation and White supremacy. Unions of African workers, lacking the protection offered unions in other capitalist countries, often rise and fall within a short space of time. Once formed, however, African unions never really die and are constantly being revived from the legacy of previous struggles. Just as SACTU revived unions dormant since the early 1940s, so too have unions in the 1970s re-emerged and reorganized around the banner of SACTU planted in the 1950s and 1960s.

Transvaal

As the Johannesburg complex was the centre of South African industry, so too was it the centre of SACTU. The Witwatersrand (Wits) LC, among the first to form after the creation of SACTU in March 1955, consistently accounted for the largest proportion of affiliated unions. At the 1956 Conference, the Wits LC represented ten of the twenty-nine affiliated unions and approximately 15,000 of the 29,514 SACTU members. In 1961, the Wits LC reported seventeen unions, but 1962 documents show that its membership had not increased substantially beyond the 15,000 member level, about 30 per cent of the total. ³¹

With Head Office in Johannesburg, the SACTU structure in the Transvaal became more complicated than in other areas where LCs administered the entire range of SACTU activities. In Johannesburg, the membership of the LC and MC often overlapped, giving greater strength to SACTU work during periods of growth but also causing certain organizational problems during periods of heavy repression. Existing documents clearly reveal a decline in activity in the Wits LC during the first few months following the Treason Trial arrests of December 1956, and a similar lapse during the State of Emergency four years later. In the first instance, the arrests of SACTU officials and veteran leaders forced the co-option of LC leaders into the MC, having the effect of lessening the organizing work amongst the unorganized as compared with the two previous years. In the second case, the mass arrests of 1960 created problems of continuity throughout all levels of SACTU and other groups of the Congress Alliance. Despite these momentary setbacks, however, the Transvaal unions set the pace for other areas of South Africa in the mid to late 1950s.

Among the more established SACTU unions, the laundry workers union distinguished itself as the vanguard on the Rand. Both the registered NULCDW and the unregistered African LC13WU provided a model of non-racial trade unionism. The African union, formed back in 1928, represented the majority of the labour force in the Transvaal laundry industry. Two large companies - Advance and Rand Steam -employed close to 6,000 workers and it was here that SACTU had its base. In addition to the vast network of depots and plants owned by these companies, a number of smaller laundry operations averaging 50-60 employees were also included amongst SACTU members. The union consistently demanded and won wage increases for its 4,000 workers, and on one occasion refused an increase for African workers until all workers received across-the-board pay hikes.

The Laundry Workers Union was instrumental in the development of SACTU both in the Transvaal and nationally. It should be stressed that White workers made up a significant portion of the total Union membership in the laundry industry. The White workers were employed in both the factories and the depots and along with Coloured and Indian workers provided an excellent example of non-racial trade unionism as advanced by SACTU. Because the registered Union had reasonably cordial relations with the management's of the two large firms, it was possible for Leon Levy, Secretary, to enter the factories and collect subscriptions on a weekly basis. Consequently, both branches were able to pay their dues to SACTU on a regular basis, and because of this the laundry union (and the FCWU largely carried SACTU financially for the first two years. In 1957, when the state banned Levy and Leshe Massina (Secretary of the African union and SACTU General Secretary), the bosses took this opportunity to eliminate the stop-order system.

In addition to financial assistance, the laundry unions provided leadership to SACTU as a coordinating body. Every General Secretary since 1955 has come out of the African LCDWU. First, Leslie Massina served in that capacity from 1955 to 1960. He was followed by Mark Shope (Chairman, A-LC13WU), who in turn was replaced at a later date by John Gaetsewe (National Organizer of the Union). Shope's life history is a classic case of an African worker who overcame class and national obstacles to become a leader of his people in both trade union and political spheres. From a herd boy in the Northern Transvaal earning 3s. 6d. per month, he worked as a farm labourer watering orange trees for 5s. per month and next as a gold miner, where he was rescued from a cave-in but lost his hearing for three months. After going to Johannesburg in the early 1940s, his employment in the laundries quickly led Shope to become a dedicated trade unionist and leader of the ANC in the Jabavu township. Throughout this varied proletarian career, Mark put himself through a disciplined self-education which included matriculation and six university courses. Massina, the veteran, Shope and Gaetsewe were but three of the African trade union leaders to emerge following the heavy bannings of the early 1950s.

The African-FCWU and the African-TWIU also provided leadership and momentum to the Wits LC work. In textiles, the registered union was progressive but quite small in comparison with the African union of 1,600 members. The strength of the latter rested with the young, militant African workforce at Amato Textiles, a company in the hessian section of the industry. As discussed in Chapter 8, the Amato plant workers were heavily victimized under the Native Labour Act, as the bosses notoriously dismissed the entire workforce whenever there was a spontaneous walk-out by workers in protest against low wages and poor working conditions. Led by Edmund Cindi and Rufus Makuru, the African union became a symbol of working class militancy throughout the Rand. Although the union suffered greatly after the 1958 Amato strike, a solid corps of SACTU organizers emerged from the textile battles of the mid- 1950s. Unlike the laundry union, however, the textile union was unable to maintain its SACTU subscription payments on a regular basis because so much of the financial resources went for court costs arising from prosecutions under the Native Labour Act. The leadership of the Union was also hit hard by bannings throughout the country; by the late 1950s, no less than 17 officers and organizers had been banned and removed from trade union activity.

The Transvaal branch of the FCWU was also led by the African segment of the Union, in particular African women who made up 60 or 70 per cent of the labour-intensive workforce. Two major companies -the Australian-owned H. Jones operation in Johannesburg and the Afrikaner farmer-controlled Langeberg Ko-operasie Besperk (LKB) plant in nearby Springs - equalled their other operations in the Eastern and Western Cape in exploiting seasonal labour and trying to crush SACTU initiatives. Led by SACTU and ANC militants - Christina Matthews and Mabel Balfour - the Transvaal FCWU won wage increases and arranged for three stop-order arrangements in 1955.

The Union's greatest victory came in 1959, when the entire African workforce of 200 women and 89 men at H. Jones forced management to pay holiday rates. When workers first realized that they had not been paid double time for working during the Christmas season, they walked out en masse and were promptly arrested and kept in jail for two and a half days. After the Union raised the , 10 bail per person, the case went to the courts where defence counsel Joe Slovo pressured management to admit that workers had been paid even less than normal earnings by a company with an average annual profit of , 120,000. The Magistrates ruled that the workers had not carried out an illegal strike but rather, as Slovo argued, had been locked out. The company initially refused to reinstate the 289 workers but relented within a month as the ANC and Congress Alliance threatened to boycott the company's products. As one worker concluded, 'This is not only our victory but the victory of all workers in South Africa who are not permitted to use the weapon of "tools down".'

In 1962, another dispute at National Food Storage developed when the company refused to give holiday pay for Easter work, and once again the FCWU lived up to its reputation of protecting its members by obtaining the extra earnings. In these and other FCWU struggles new leaders came to the fore. Harry Loots, whose first experience in a strike situation came with the 1959 lockout, went on to become Chairman of the Transvaal FCWU and SACTU MC member in 1962; he, along with Marie Mkwanazi and Miriam Monare continued to serve as worker-organizers in the industry.

Other older African unions reinforced the Wits LC in the Johannesburg area. The African Furniture, Mattress and Bedding WU (A-FMBWU), formed in 1934, claimed only 100 members when it first affiliated to SACTU in July 1955. As a result of the SACTU £1-a-Day campaign and heightened political consciousness during the turbulent period of the early 1960s, the membership increased to 850 in 1962. Unlike the African workers in laundry, textile and food and canning, those in the furniture industry had to work with a very hostile and reactionary registered union. The African union was not allowed to present its case before Industrial Council hearings and the registered union and bosses hid behind the law and refused to consider the plight of the African workers. In 1960, the Industrial Council for the industry dissolved following a dispute between employers and the registered union. African workers demanded a share of the thousands of pounds of assets of the IC, a portion of which consisted of their contributions. The demand was ignored and the money divided between the bosses and the non-African workers.

Despite small wage increases won through struggle, the majority of African furniture workers received less than £4 per week while White wages ranged from £8 to £12; Africans were prevented from doing skilled work, received no unemployment benefits and were discriminated against in sick pay and COLA benefits. In one case, the workers walked out for one day demanding higher wages. They were prosecuted for an illegal strike by the Department of Labour, although the employer privately admitted that African wages were far too low and that he would not have taken the workers to court unless pressured to do so by the Apartheid officials. Led by Uriah Maleka, Organizer and SACTU-NEC member, the Union gained a reputation for its militancy in the face of these obstacles.

The SA Clothing Workers Union (SACWU) dated back to 1928 and during its six years of SACTU affiliation maintained an average membership of 1,250 workers. SACWU represented African males, whereas the Garment Workers Union of African Women represented African women in the clothing industry. This sexual division had resulted from the fact that women workers were recognized as 'employees' under the IC Act until 1956, when they were forced to carry passes. At that time, both SACWU and the GWU-AW were affiliates of SACTU but pressure from TUCSA led Lucy Mvubelo break and join FOFATUSA (see Chapter 11). These conflicts left the African workers in the industry hopelessly divided. Despite their different conceptions of the objectives of African trade unionism, the two African unions agreed to merge into a new National Union of Clothing Workers, and by agreement each disaffiliated from its coordinating body for a period of one year. In 1963, members of the NUCW were called on to vote for either SACTU or FOFATUSA reaffiliation. The old conflicts re-emerged as the ballot gave workers the confusing choice of joining SACTU or 'FOFATUSA-TUCSA', the latter being a non-existent body. Although FOFATUSA received the greater number of votes, and despite press coverage that trumpeted this vote in favour of 'non-political trade unionism', pro-SACTU workers refused to accept the vote and continue, to this day, to constitute a solid SACTU faction within the Union. SACWU leaders who played an important role in SACTU included Viola Hashe (SACTU Vice-President) and George Monare, MC member and National Treasurer in the early 1960s.

The primary responsibilities of SACTU LCs in all areas concerned the promotion of SACTU policy and campaigns and the formation of new industrial unions. The combined experience and dedication of leaders from these established unions ensured that this task was successful in the Transvaal. Desperately short of a financial base, the Wits LC and Head Office itself could only maintain full-time organizers at the local and national levels if workers paid their subscriptions on time and in full. Under South African conditions, this was always a most difficult proposition. None the less, the Wits LC did manage to hire two organizers during these years - John Nkadimeng and later Graham Morodi. Through their efforts and those of other SACTU leaders, the following new unions joined the Wits LC between 195 5 and 1963 (see table, p. 223).

In almost every case, these unions emerged as a result of SACTU's £1-a-Day campaign or through related LC assistance provided to workers during strikes, wage negotiations in either Industrial Council or Wage Board hearings or following dismissals. Many of these unions had a lifespan of no more than eighteen months to two years due to an inability of workers to pay dues regularly, victimization of leaders in factories who were then endorsed out of the urban areas and state repression during the early 1960s. In the case of certain unions, SACTU Head Office administered the finances of the unions through a trust account, and in nearly every case Leon Levy and Phyllis Altman and others prepared detailed memoranda to wage hearings on behalf of these African workers. SACTU and only SACTU among coordinating bodies fought for wage increases and improved working conditions for African workers.