14 THE HISTORY UPDATED
When the Ninth Annual Conference of SACTU opened in Johannesburg on 28 March 1964 it had to note that:
Yet the report to the 1964 Conference records page after page of continued SACTU activity in every part of South Africa and in every important field affecting the workers. It reports three new affiliations. It notes new successes in the R2-a-Day campaign. It reports on organizing activities amongst farm workers and notes that demands for the inclusion of these workers under the Workmen's Compensation Act had been acceded to. It reports further action against the use of convict labour in industry and representations made on that point by SACTU to the ILO. The report details activities on behalf of Black railway and harbour workers and efforts to reorganize the dockworkers in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban. It records the 'most striking successes' in the metal and engineering industry, despite the detention, banning and removal from office during the preceding year of 'every single metal workers' organizer from every province'.
It documents numerous cases where SACTU used the press to expose the Johannesburg City Council's continued practice of jailing workers for failure to pay rent arrears. That same Council paid its workers wages of R 14 to R20, far below its own admitted minimum cost of living of R48 per month. The report also refers to the high standard of SACTU memoranda submitted to Wage Board investigations. Ironically, it mentions that Professor Steenkainp, Chairman of the Wage Board, congratulated Marks Rammitloa, of the Shop & Office Workers Union (a SACTU affiliate), on his outstanding presentation of the workers' case; Rammitloa, however, had been banned from trade union work by this time and was compelled to accept employment as a night-watchman.
The report goes on to point out that almost all of SACTU's work had been done on a voluntary basis and that for most of the time SACTU only had one paid employee.
We write this with pride for we have been supported by the workers and we have used their subscriptions for organizers, leaflets and pamphlets and not for staff and magnificent offices. SACTU has been built on the pennies of the workers who support us because we have earned their confidence and their loyalty. 1
Yet, despite this impressive record the organization was unable to sustain its efforts in this form in the next few years. The removal from their elected positions of so many dedicated, experienced organizers and officials of SACTU trade unions as a result of bannings, detentions, imprisonment and murder, had taken its toll. The years 1965 to 1970 found the African trade union movement in South Africa fighting for its very survival against tremendous odds. Nevertheless, SACTU continued to organize, adopting new forms of struggle necessary to face the new situation.
One major aspect of SACTU's post-repression strategy was the systematic development of an External mission. The National Executive Committee's decision in 1960, during the State of Emergency, to send certain of its members abroad had been a carefully considered step. As our history has shown, the Apartheid regime made it impossible for progressive trade unionists to travel freely from South Africa to attend international trade union conferences and to present the case of the exploited majority of South African workers abroad. By the early 1960s, most SACTU officials had been banned and imprisoned, and those still 'free' were refused passports and travel papers.
On the other hand, TUCSA and other trade union coordinating bodies which accepted Apartheid were freely travelling all over the world with the connivance of the racist regime. They clearly acted as emissaries of the government, as reflected in a statement made by J. A. Grobbelaar, Secretary of TUCSA, in a July 1968 newsletter:
The South African trade union and labour movements are urged to support the new 'outward looking' policy initiated by the Prime Minister in a bid to better the country's image abroad, and give aid and advice to workers' organizations in other African states. They are asked to be mindful of the fact that the government of South Africa recently announced a programme of giving economic assistance to African neighbour states....
While TUCSA travelled around the world as defenders of Apartheid policy, SACTU was restricted to presenting the case of the exploited African working class in written memoranda from within the borders of Apartheid. For these reasons, it became a vital necessity for SACTU to establish its own external machinery from which to mobilize international support for the struggle at home.
SACTU NEC members abroad subsequently formed committees in England, Zambia and Tanzania and meetings of the NEC are held annually. The work of these offices and their links with the international trade union movement are discussed in Chapter 15.
The major priority of all SACTU's work remains - as it has been for the past 25 years - the organization of the workers of South Africa into powerful trade unions. For obvious reasons our work inside South Africa since 1964 cannot be documented in detail. As mentioned at the outset, SACTU's complete history can only be told after the day of liberation. However, the various trials of trade unionists and activists throughout the country are indicative of our continued work. The purpose of this chapter is to review the recent upsurge and struggles of the Black working class against Apartheid and to explain SACTU's assessment of these crucial developments.
The past fifteen years have witnessed great advances in the liberation struggle against an increasingly hostile and dangerous Apartheid regime. Popular, anti-imperialist movements in Angola and Mozambique have defeated the Portuguese colonial rule that ruthlessly exploited the peoples of those countries for 500 years. These victories also had the important effect of depriving South Africa, the bastion of White supremacy in Southern Africa, of buffer states to the north that shielded Apartheid from the progressive forces in Africa, including the liberation movements based in the frontline states. In effect, the decade of the 1970s has been a period of greater polarization of the forces of progress and the forces of reaction, with the international community being forced to declare its support for either continued racism and oppression or liberation.
The South African regime has intensified its repression against the people, as it has had to confront both political and economic crises at home and greater isolation abroad. Despite the heavily financed propaganda campaign to sell Apartheid to the world, the reality is that South Africa has become one of the most hated regimes in the world and constitutes a danger to world peace. For the Black masses at home, the mobilization of the people for a final onslaught against Apartheid has developed dramatically as a response to the regime's efforts to divide and rule through Bantustanization and to create a Black middle class to administer oppression and exploitation in its place.
The period from 1965 to the early 1970s were years of re-building and reorganizing after the heavy repression directed against the Congress Alliance in the early 1960s. The African working class had lost some of its most dedicated leaders as many were forced to flee South Africa and others were forced to languish in the prisons of Apartheid. SACTU as a trade union federation was forced to convert its operations to that of underground organizing, and unions affiliated to SACTU were similarly forced by the objective conditions of repression to carry forward the SACTU principles and programme without daring to raise the name of SACTU openly. Yet there can be no doubt that SACTU comrades of preceding years, and many new trade union recruits who recognized the necessity of carrying on the SACTU tradition, worked labouriously amidst great dangers and tremendous difficulties to maintain underground contact with each other and with SACTU leaders outside the country.
As the entire history of African trade unionism has shown, the elimination of the workers' leaders through bannings, detentions, and even murder, never resolves the problems faced by the exploiting class. Black, and particularly African workers, had no alternative but to reorganize their collective strength to do battle with the employers and the Apartheid state. New, independent trade unions of African workers had to be created to struggle for higher wages and improved working conditions, while, simultaneously, underground networks of working class resistance carried forward the struggle at a different level.
It was very clear to the vast majority of African workers that reformist and collaborationist trade union federations such as TUCSA offered nothing but compromise and concession to the ruling class. Its policy of parallelism, i.e. subordination, of African trade unions failed completely to respond to the needs of the African workers.
In contrast, SACTU continued to promote the development of strong, independent unions of Black workers. On the occasion of SACTUs sixteenth birthday in 197 1, General Secretary Mark Shope sent a special radio broadcast to the exploited workers at home. After reiterating the fundamental principles upon which SACTU had been created, he called for intensified efforts to organize African, Indian and Coloured workers and 'work for strong, powerful and united trade unions'. Shope went on to address himself directly to the experience of the Black working class, calling for a revision of the outdated R2-a-Day demand to R4-a~Day as the national minimum wage demand; he concluded by urging workers to demand the release of all political prisoners and detained trade unionists. Again, Mark Shope reflected SACTUs determination to lead the workers' struggle when he addressed the 57th Session of the ILO in June 1972:
Let me put it categorically that we, the Black workers and the people of South Africa, the suppressed silent majority of the country, know that the main burden of liberating ourselves from this fascist terror and violence which has gripped the Black people of South Africa is the historic task of the Black workers and the people of South Africa themselves ... we accept this binding responsibility.
Mass Strikes in the Early 1970s
Regardless of state legislation and repression, African workers throughout this century have demonstrated a consistent determination to organize against their conditions of exploitation. In the late 1960s there was a lull in industrial strife, but by 1973 the Apartheid regime was challenged by the greatest strike wave in the country's history as an estimated 100,000 workers downed tools in factories and workplaces throughout the country.
Before discussing these strikes inside South Africa, we must first pay tribute to the Black workers of Namibia who, beginning in 197 1, carried out a massive general strike against the conditions of exploitation imposed upon them by an illegal Apartheid regime. Between 13 December 1971 and 20 January 1972 approximately 20,000 migrant workers brought the mining industry to a halt and seriously interrupted the communications and transport systems, commercial operations and rural production. The strikes were a direct attack on the system of migrant-contract labour and influx control. While they are generally referred to as the 'Ovarnbo strikes' (because of the involvement of large numbers of Ovambo workers from the north), the strike wave received the full support of the Kavango and Herero as well.
The Namibian strikes were an attack on not only intolerable conditions of work at the point of production but also the entire system of slavery that is characterized by Apartheid rule. The South African authorities immediately sensed the fundamental challenge to the status quo posed by the Namibian workers and sent in South African Defence Force contingents to reinforce armed policemen in late January 1972. Mass arrests of striking workers took place and detainees were kept in 4cages' or concentration camps during the insurrection. On 30 January South African troops opened fire on Ovambo people as they left the Anglican Church mass at Epinga; four were shot dead and four wounded, two of whom later died in what has become known as the 'Bloody Sunday' massacre. Although the strikes were eventually quelled by force, workers did receive small gains in wages and working conditions; they also forced the elimination of the South West Africa Native Labour Association (SWANLA), which had been responsible for administering the contract labour system. The most important effect of the strikes, however, was on the workers themselves. Their collective resistance to Apartheid demonstrated their determination to advance the struggle for national liberation. This mass strike wave also inspired the Black workers in South Africa itself in the early 1970s. 2
Returning to the South African situation, poverty wages were the major catalyst for this expression of advanced class consciousness. Inflation, a product of the general crisis of international capitalism and specifically South Africa's inability to sell its manufactured commodities in international markets, hit Black workers particularly hard. Essential expenditures on food, clothing and transport rose by some 30 per cent between 1972 and 1973 alone. Closely associated with this crisis of South African capitalism was the rapidly increasing rate of Black unemployment and greater disparities in the racially-determined wage system characteristic of Apartheid. While academics and government bureaucrats were frantically trying to adjust the official Poverty Datum Line to these economic realities, the exploited workers themselves asserted their collective role as producers of wealth and took to the streets in what became the first great explosion of the 1970s. It was clearly a time to 'Organize or Starve'.
While it is true that the largest strike actions in 1973 centered around Durban, it is important to mention that strikes in the transport industry, the vital nerve centre of the economy, signaled the beginning of mass action as early as 1970. 10,000 Coloured workers at Gelvandale, Port Elizabeth, staged a peaceful demonstration against fare increases, and the state's response, as at Sharpeville in 1960, was to open fire on the people. Ten persons were wounded in this incident, and at Hammarsdale, Natal, police killed one and injured many more protesters against transport increases.
In the Transvaal, hundreds of PUTCO bus drivers responsible for transporting workers from African townships to the centre of Johannesburg struck for wage increases in June 1972. Massive arrests of over 300 workers and a management threat to dismiss all the drivers only reinforced the workers' militancy. Township residents rushed to the police station following the arrests, and the authorities were soon forced to release the strikers although many were later charged under the Riotous Assemblies Act. PUTCO received an annual government subsidy of R2.5 million but still claimed an inability to pay an increase and an unwillingness to eliminate the system whereby drivers were penalized R5 per week for 28 weeks if an Inspector found a passenger on board without a ticket. As a result of this strike, a transport union was formed in 1972. Working class militancy also exploded on the mines in the early 1970s (see below), and this revival of mine workers' activity must also be seen as a major factor in the entire strike wave that shook the country in these years.
In 1973, Durban textile and metal workers led the mass strikes which swept from one industrial area to another. Factory after factory shut down; as workers returned to work in one plant, another group of workers would walk out elsewhere. At one time between January and the end of March, an estimated 50,000 strikers were directly confronting their bosses at the point of production. In this three month period, more than 160 strikes involved a minimum of 61,4 10 workers.
David Hemson, at the time Research Officer for the Textile Workers Industrial Union (TWIU) and later banned for his participation in the 1973 strikes, has recorded the following crucial information concerning the strikes:
The mass strikes in the Natal province demonstrated the unity of the black divisions between migrant and urban workers, working class across the between different industries, and even between industrial and agricultural workers.... The 'negotiations' took the form of workers shouting demands for between R20-30 and refusing to elect leaders or return to work. Employers and the police responded by threatening mass dismissals and prosecutions and eventually offering some minor wage increases. The workers then shouted down the offer but were forced through necessity eventually to return to work. The momentum of the strike was ultimately broken through the growing presence of the police in army uniforms flown in from other centres, and the lack of strike funds. Despite the relatively small wage increases (between R 1 and R2.50 per week) the consciousness of the workers had advanced considerably beyond the relative caution of the period of repression before the strikes. The overwhelming number of strikes had been successful (in the sense that wage increases had been won and strikers not dismissed) because the strikes were able to take on a mass form.3
The state was obviously shaken by the mass nature of this strike wave. Compared with the 1959 strikes, when 24 per cent of the strikers were prosecuted, only 0.2 per cent of the 98,029 Black strikers were prosecuted in 1973.
Of greater importance, the Black working class eruption brought forward both political and economic demands. Following closely the spirit and principles of SACTU, strikers advanced economic demands that could not be accommodated without a total transformation of Apartheid society itself. Also, striking Black workers demanded the fundamental right to organize independent unions and to receive recognition by employers on the workers' terms. Such rights were obviously a threat to the power of capital; in the British Leyland subsidiary operation, for example, the Chairman of the Metal and Allied Workers Union (MAWU) and other members of the Union were subsequently 'retrenched'.
The state responded with legislative efforts to lessen the independence of and tighten its control over independent African trade unions. The Bantu Labour Relations Regulation Act, No. 70 of 1973,' gave African workers the same status as all other workers with regard to the legality of strike action. As we have pointed out in Chapter 4, the complicated procedures for conducting a 'legal' strike are designed to lesson the spontaneous militancy of the entire South African working class. In the case of the 1973 Act, African workers were still subject to greater penalties for striking 'illegally', not to mention the wide range of security legislation which renders strikes by African workers illegal. The Act also provided for a greater emphasis on industrial relations gimmicks, such as liaison and works committees, designed by status quo ideologists to reduce class conflict.
SACTU immediately exposed the Bantu. Labour Relations Regulation Act as a fraud. John Gaetsewe, then SACTU Representative in Western Europe, issued a memorandum which correctly argued:
In an attempt to prevent a repetition of these industrial actions (the strikes of 1973), the government has now taken measures to make strike action more difficult, while at the same time appearing to permit in theory lawful strikes by Africans.... Thus, the industrial action by African workers which took place earlier this year would still have been outside the law. The net effect of the new measures, therefore, is not to strengthen the hands of African workers, but to strengthen the power of government bureaucrats. Furthermore, the works committees will serve merely to expose African leaders to repression and victimization without giving them the protection of belonging to industry-wide unions. The new measures do more to expose the harshness of the present laws than to remedy them.
SACTU also immediately rose in defence of the bannings imposed on David Hemson, Halton Cheadle (Acting Secretary, A-TWIU) and David Davis (Administrative Secretary, General Factory Workers Benefit Fund) on 1 February 1974. As the TWIU and the A-TW1U were former affiliates to SACTU, the regime clearly singled out workers' leaders carrying forward the SACTU banner. The SACTU statement deserves quotation here:
These three men, like the former militant leaders of this Union (Stephen Dlamini, President of SACTU, who after serving a prison sentence of six and a half years for calling a joint mass meeting of industrial and farm workers in 1959, was banned and banished from Durban; Arnold Selby, former General Secretary of the Union; Don Mateman, former General Secretary of the registered Union; Edmund Cindi, Transvaal Secretary; and many others before them), have now been removed from their trade union activity in South Africa for five years - for no crime but to help organize African workers into unions. One such leader, Caleb Mayekiso, Secretary of the African TWIU in the Eastern Cape province, was permanently silenced. He died only three days after being taken into detention....
By banning these men, the racist regime hopes to suppress the upsurge of the militant African trade union movement in the country, and force the workers to accept the so-called 'Liaison Committees' and 'Works Committees' created by the government. They are stooge committees - replicas of the Bantu Labour Boards set up by the notorious Bantu Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act of 1953. As recently as January 13, 1974, 6,000 African workers assembled at Claremont Football Stadium, reiterated their rejection of these aims and demanded full trade union rights and democratic liberties.
The South African Congress of Trade Unions condemns the banning of the three men, and calls for the immediate lifting of the bans on them. We call on all Black workers of South Africa not to accept this blatant intimidation of the workers, but to press forward the demand for trade union rights and democratic liberties.
The statement concluded with an appeal to international trade union organizations to send protests to the Apartheid regime.
The strike wave that hit Durban in early 1973 continued throughout that year and also into 1974. The Minister of Labour reported in August 1974 that in Natal alone a total of 22 work stoppages occurred between June 1972 and June 1974. In the second half of 1974, a total of 135 strikes involving Africans took place throughout the country. All but ten of these strikes resulted from wage demands, testifying to the increased economic suffering by the African proletariat. In 69 of these strikes, police had intervened and 841 strikers had been charged.
The Apartheid regime and its defenders tried desperately in these years to conceal the realities of suffering by juggling statistics that would mystify the international community. The following table shows clearly the meaningless nature of the government's argument that
Myths of the Apartheid Economy Exposed
| Claimed monthly | household income | |||
| Racial Group | 1962 | 1973 | % Increase | Rand/month |
| Whites | R258 | R519 | 101 | 261 |
| Indians | 91 | 195 | 114 | 104 |
| Coloureds | 60 | 143 | 138 | 83 |
| Africans | 25 | 55 | 120 | 30 |
By 1976, even the relative advantage for African workers had been reversed. As Workers Unity (March 1978) demonstrated:
Average Monthly Income
| 1972 | 1976 | |
| White wages | R324 | R489 |
| African wages | 48 | 106 |
| Wage gap | R276 | R383 |
African wages had risen at a higher rate (120 per cent) than those of White workers (101 per cent' since 1962. (See table opposite.)
In assessing the 1973-74 strikes, it is important to point out that while the strikes were undoubtedly spontaneous, they were not unorganized. Such a large scale interruption of production could occur only if workers had their own underground organization that made decisions and refused to expose individual leaders to a hostile regime. In the context of Apartheid repression, open and legal trade unions cannot act as the vanguard of proletarian action; rather, the underground must play that role, while that underground machinery itself emerges from the close comradeship and class consciousness that emanates from the daily routines of social production.
The strike wave also gave impetus to the formation of new, independent African trade unions in a wide range of industries. These unions have subsequently led the struggle for economic gains and trade union recognition. It is the very existence of and mass support given to these unions by African workers that forced the regime to make changes in the industrial relations legislation (see discussion on the Wiehahn Commission below).
Resurgence of African Mine Workers
The early 1970s also marked the revival of militant workers' struggles in the South African mining industry. Reminiscent of the great 1946 African Mine Workers Strike, these migrant labourers, the overwhelming majority of whom have been recruited from the 'hostage' territories surrounding South Africa, were engaged in some of the most important confrontations between capital and labour in this decade.
Despite the highly publicized wage increases paid to African mine workers, the situation in 1972 was one of Africans holding 70 per cent of the jobs but receiving less than one-third of the industry's wage bill. In aggregate figures, White miners received R370 million (a per capita average of R4,300 per year) whereas African miners received R155 million (a per capita average of only R246 per year). Even the government collected more in taxes from the mining companies (R210 million) than did the African workers whose sweat and blood creates the wealth that is the backbone of the Apartheid economy.
Such gross exploitation can only be maintained through a system of military discipline on the job and physical separation in compound residences. The high wages of White workers often depend on their ability to realize certain levels of production from African 'gangs' whom they supervise. Physical brutality against African miners is a direct consequence of this system, and under these rules of production a high accident rate is inevitable. SACTU reported to the 63rd ILO meetings in 1977, that 'between 1973 and 1975, approximately 3,000 workers lost their lives and 110,169 were injured on the gold, diamond, coal and other mines'.
The strike wave that began in September 1973 at Anglo-American's Western Deep Levels Mine in Carletonville, met with violent retaliation by the state. By 1976, an estimated 178 Black miners had been killed and another 1,043 injured in clashes on the mines. The struggles took the form of mass action that demonstrated the capacity of the most exploited workers to engage in insurrection. Mine administration property was directly attacked, documents destroyed and open pitched battles were carried out against the police. By September 1975 some 60,000 Black mine workers had broken contract with the mining monopolies with full knowledge that such action constituted a 'crime' under the penal code.
The Carletonville massacre resulted from a strike by Black workers following the granting of wage increases to White workers that more than doubled the increases given to Black workers five months earlier. The wage differential under the new rates would be 16: 1. On 11 September, a squad of 22 policemen entered the Number Two shaft of the Western Deep Levels mine and proceeded to baton charge the workers who had assembled there. Volleys of tear gas followed and soon the order to open fire was given: 12 workers were killed, another 26 injured and 37 arrested. A magistrate who conducted an 'inquiry' on the massacre ruled that, 'The Africans died of gunshot inflicted by police in the execution of their duty, and their deaths were not due to any act or omission by any person amounting to an offence.'
The dislocations to production suffered by the mining companies as a result of the strikes led the government to appoint an 'inter departmental Committee of Inquiry into Riots on the Mines' in March 1975. One year later, the Minister of Labour refused to table the Report of the Committee because of the 'sensitive nature' of its contents. This secrecy became understandable when SACTU's organ, Workers Unity, obtained a copy and was the first source to disclose the Inquiry's findings. The Committee concluded that the migrant labour system itself was the single most important cause of the 'riots' on the mines. Furthermore, the mining industry was considered to be 'very vulnerable' in the face of a politically conscious labour force that 'will cooperate to an increasing degree to realize their political ambitions'.
Riddled with racism, the Report develops a 'theory' that 'Southern Bantu tribes' have an 'inclination to become violent'. But, more importantly, the Report ignores its findings and instead calls for an intensification of repression in order to ensure the viability of the migrant labour system. In this respect, both 'soft' and 'hard' measures are advocated as solutions to mine violence. The former pertain to minor changes such as reducing the number of workers per compound, providing certain 'key mine workers' with the privilege of living with their families, encouraging religion and allowing workers to elect their own indunas (boss-boys). There is not even a single mention of trade unions as the Apartheid policy is that African workers are not 'ripe' for their own workers' organizations.
The 'hard' measures reveal the major thrust of the Report's recommendations. Stronger security units equipped with patrol dogs, teargas, batons, and 'where practicable, an armoured vehicle', all of these devices to be used in coordination with the SA police force. Better lighting facilities which cannot be disrupted by the workers are to be installed, electricity instead of coal (because coal has been used as ammunition), special television equipment for identifying 'agitators', and special cells are to be constructed to hold workers until police can be called to the scene - these are but a few of the proposals made to protect the profits of the mining capitalists.' Finally, the Report assumes that the Bureau of State Security, subsequently renamed Department of National Security, and the Security Division of the South African police will actively infiltrate the mines to discover the 1 agitators' before violence erupts. As Workers Unity concluded this important expos~:
For the slave-owners in time past there certainly seemed to be no 'practical alternative' to slavery. So it is for capitalists and their political representatives in South Africa. They can offer no alternative to the continuation of their own crimes. 6
And, as John Gaetsewe, General Secretary, concluded in the SACTU 1978 ILO memorandum, 'it (the secret report) shows unequivocally that for capitalist exploitation in South Africa to be preserved, Apartheid cannot in any fundamental way be changed'.
The Soweto Uprisings, 1976
What began as a peaceful demonstration by African students against the forced imposition of Afrikaans, the language of the oppressor, as a medium of instruction, soon became a national uprising against the entire structure of Apartheid society. The regime, faced with the loss of its peripheral strongholds of Mozambique and Angola within the previous two years and saddled with all the economic contradictions of capitalist crisis, responded in typical reactionary fashion. Within the first few days of the initial demonstrations, the South African police had massacred at least 500 unarmed students. By September, the death toll surpassed 1,000 victims, and the repression continued to intensify. The volleys of Apartheid guns and equipment, much of it produced by Western corporations, echoed around the world. Protests, boycotts, disinvestment campaigns and all other forms of anti-Apartheid activity gained momentum as the international community expressed its solidarity with the struggling masses of South Africa.
The rise of the Black Consciousness Movement, of which the student demonstrations were an expression, represented a new and positive force in African politics. Its leader, Steve Biko, clearly represented and articulated the demands of millions of Africans, particularly the youth, who had come to the same realization as past generations that Apartheid and White domination must be destroyed forever.
To some people both inside but mainly outside South Africa, Biko and Black Consciousness became a potential alternative to the banned ANC and PAC, a 'third force' in the South African revolution. When the Apartheid state ruthlessly murdered Biko in detention and subsequently banned nineteen organizations, including the Christian Institute, in October 1977, the path of non-violence that Biko symbolized was quickly blocked, as it had been to the ANC many years before. Subsequent events have confirmed the simple truth that only through the violent seizure of state power can the liberation of the people from exploitation and oppression be guaranteed. It is also essential to point out that a movement as powerful as Black Consciousness could not emerge in a political vacuum. Many young people who led the Soweto uprising were the sons and daughters of ANC and SACTU veterans; after being forced into exile during and after 1976, large numbers of young comrades have joined the ANC as the only legitimate liberation movement of South Africa. Indeed, even during the uprisings in 1976, it is significant that the traditional demand of the ANC became more and more prominent as the revolt spread throughout the country. AMANDLA! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
The general outline of the Soweto uprising is by now well known and need not be repeated here. What is of importance is the massive response of the Black working class to the call by the students, in many cases their children, to carry out political strikes during 1976. In August and September, over half a million workers staged successful three-day Stay-at-Homes throughout the country. The Stay-At-Home weapon, initiated by the Congress Alliance in the 1950s, developed far beyond previous experience. The first general strike involved an estimated 100,000 Black workers; the second, 132,000; and the third in September mobilized some 500,000 African and Coloured workers in Johannesburg and Cape Town. There is also evidence to show that organized workers gave more support to the political strikes than other workers. This again confirms the interrelationship between economic and political struggle as advanced by SACTU since the mid- 1950s. The question of the relationship between politically conscious, organized workers and mass struggle is obviously one of the many issues that comes to the fore when SACTU analyses the 19 76 workers' response.
Immediately before and during the Soweto uprisings, important and bitter struggles for union recognition were being waged by Black workers. A 12-day strike at Natal Cotton and Woollen Mills in Durban recorded a loss of some 7,200 striker-days, almost 40 per cent of the total striker-days in 1975. Eventually the striking workers were dismissed. In the Transvaal, workers at Heinemann Electric, a US subsidiary, were baton charged in March 1976, after they submitted a petition calling for recognition of MAWU, the Metal and Allied Workers Union. Union organizers were later victimized and found guilty in the courts for inciting the strike .7 Finally, at Pilkington's Armourplate Safety Glass Company, a legal strike was broken by police interference and arbitration through the Department of Labour was rejected. Strike funds were raised by workers on the Rand, and 205 workers held out for an exceptionally long period of ten weeks: In all three cases, workers were relearning the lessons of militant resistance that were a part of the everyday experience of SACTU affiliates in the 1950s and early 1960s.
During the peak of the Soweto uprisings, the SACTU-NEC was meeting in Lusaka, Zambia. From this meeting and from SACTU's office in London, communiques were issued expressing solidarity with the workers and students at home. SACTU memoranda and speeches not only transmitted information about the struggles at home but also pointed the blame in the direction of Western imperialism. As John Gaetsewe stated at an anti-Apartheid rally in London on 27 June 1976:
Let if be known that the children of Soweto carry with them to their graves, bullets on which was written: Made or Produced with the licence from the United States of America, France, Italy or here in England. The police who did the shooting were licenced to kill by foreign investors. This evidence of complicity will be there for future generations to remember.
Lest we forget! It took a world war and the loss of 30 million lives to dispose of the Nazi menace, simply because those who had the power refused to use it in time to stop Nazism from over~running Europe. Let us hope, friends, that the cost of ending Apartheid will not be so great.
Following the workers' Stay-At-Homes in August-September 1976 the regime banned twenty-four trade unionists active in organizing African workers. Other veteran SACTU militants were detained in November, and two - Lawrence Ndzanga and Luke Mazwembe - were killed in detention. Nine working class leaders were tried under the Terrorism Act for reviving SACTU in Natal; they were subjected to torture and electric shocks and humiliated by the Security Police. Five of these persons - Harry Gwala, Anthony Xaba, John Nene, Mathews Meyiwa and Zakhele Mdlalose - were imprisoned for life. The other four defendants - Vuzimuzi Magubane, Cleopas Ndhlovu, Azaria Ndebele and Joseph Nduli - received sentences ranging from 7 to 18 years' imprisonment.' In the case of Gwala, who had previously spent 8 years on Robben Island, the defence council demonstrated that after being released Gwala had been organizing workers into trade unions. During the trial, Mathews Meyiwa, speaking of South African trade unionism said, 'SACTU still lives on in the hearts of Black workers'.
SACTU immediately issued a call to the international labour movement, informing organizations throughout the world of these bannings and detentions and requesting workers from all corners of the globe to step up their solidarity actions against Apartheid. SACTU stated at that time:
Why is it necessary to make special mention of those banning orders when so many hundreds have been killed, so many thousands badly wounded, and when South Africa's jails are filled with political prisoners? Because they reveal the systematic attack which is being conducted by the South African racist regime against the growing Black labour movement.
A similar statement was issued jointly by SACTU and the Secretary General of the Organization of African Trade Union Unity (OATUU), J. D. Akumu, on 9 December 1976.
The South African ruling class learned many decades ago that repression against trade union leaders is insufficient in itself. Repression has always been combined with anti-worker
legislation designed to further divide the working class not only along racial lines but also as a means of intimidating those workers and unions that fall short of being willing to confront the state. From events of the early and mid- 19 70s, the regime fully recognized the inherent danger in allowing independent trade unions of Black, particularly African, workers to develop strong roots in the exploited masses. Consequently, the government set up two Commissions of Inquiry to investigate firstly, the industrial relations system and secondly, influx control and pass laws. The former became commonly known as the Wiehahn Commission and the latter the Riekert Commission. It is to these two Commissions that we now turn.
Wiehahn and Riekert: Ruling Class Strategies
The most important point to keep in mind when considering these Commissions is that they were established in response to a crisis. On the economic front, South African capitalism has been facing its deepest recession since the Second World War; consequently, the imperative for the regime is to find ways of increasing productivity and profitability for South African industry. This dilemma obviously brings us to the second aspect of the crisis - the increasing political resistance by the masses, particularly the Black working class, and the regime's inability to contain this resistance throughout the 1970s. Both the economic and political components of the crisis are magnified by the increasing international opposition to Apartheid.
In order to assure the capitalist class greater productivity and higher profit margins, the government hopes to further develop the process of breaking down skilled jobs and, correspondingly, introducing cheap African labour in semi-skilled operative categories. The accomplishment of this goal necessitates the strict control of African workers and their trade unions, the breaking down of Job Reservation (which has historically protected Whites in privileged jobs) and the tightening up of the pass laws.
The most widely publicized recommendation of the Wiehahn Commission Report is that which calls for the recognition, i.e. registration, of African trade unions. While the propagandists of Apartheid have spent countless millions in promoting this as an end to racial discrimination in the industrial relations field, the facts of the matter speak otherwise. The purpose of encouraging the registration of presently unregistered African unions is simply to be able to control them and to bring them under the dictates of the repressive industrial relations system first introduced in 1924, and significantly amended in 1956 (see Chapter 4). By incorporating these unions of African workers, the government hopes to eliminate their independence and reduce their militancy.
Under the new set-up, only registered unions will be allowed to conclude agreements with employers and to have subscriptions automatically deducted. Yet, the sole decision of eligibility for registered status rests with the Industrial Registrar and its criteria of 'stability' and 'suitability'. In fact, under the legislation, registered unions are prohibited from engaging in political activity. The registration of African unions under the Wiehahn proposals would also serve to reduce the likelihood of presently registered unions de-registering and uniting with unregistered African unions. Finally, the state gives presently registered unions the right to veto applications by African unions to join Industrial Councils; this is another sinister method of preventing these unions from gaining strength in relation to the employers or the White labour aristocracy.
Thus, under these conditions, the legal right of African trade unions to register is a sham designed to weaken and smash the strength, unity and independence of these unions. As SACTU stated in its condemnation of the Wiehahn Commission at the ILO Conference in June 1979:
SACTU has always maintained that recognition must come through the struggle and the strength of the workers vis-a-vis the exploiters - it can never be a concession granted by the oppressors themselves. Legality must not be confused with emancipation.
Secondly, the Wiehahn Recommendations call for the abolition of statutory Job Reservation, except in five specific cases. Again, the historical struggle against JR, led by SACTU since 1956, would appear on first glance to have been won. Such is not the case.
The Mines and Works Act and the Black Building Workers Act, two separate statutes legislating JR fall outside the scope of the Commission and thus will remain in effect. The abolition of statutory JR, while having great propaganda appeal, is largely irrelevant as only some 2 per cent of jobs are covered by such determination& The majority of JR clauses are to be found in agreements between employers and registered unions, and it is certain that the latter will maintain JR classifications by race presently in effect. Future struggles between the capitalist class and the registered unions on this question will be adjudicated by an Industrial Council. For the African workforce, the elimination of statutory colour bars will have no real effect - except perhaps to increase their rate of exploitation.
In line with Wiehahn, the Riekert Commission recommends the tightening up of pass laws, thus further restricting the mobility of African migrant labour. Under Section 10 of the Urban Areas Act, no African can be present in an urban area for more than 72 hours unless he/she has fulfilled certain obligations. Those exempted from these restrictions are generally referred to as 'Section 10 dwellers'. Under the Riekert proposals, these persons will be given the right to move between different urban areas in search of work without registering with the labour bureaux; in addition, they will be given job preference over migrants. There will also be an easing of restrictions on Black businessmen in urban areas.
For the majority without Section 10 rights, however, the pass laws will be more rigorously applied. The goal of the state is to have greater control over the movement of the Black working class. This, in turn, complements the recommendations outlined in Wiehahn.
Therefore, both Wiehahn and Riekert aim at the intensification of state control over African workers and the development of a more streamlined divide-and-rule policy for the entire Black population. To assess these Commissions, and changes in legislation resulting from them, in isolation from the structure and history of Apartheid is to fall into the trap created by the regime itself. Both Commissions presuppose the entire Apartheid system, and only attempt to make that system of oppression and exploitation more efficient. They are bodies set up by the Apartheid regime, staffed by its own supporters, to deal with its own crisis and recommend 'solutions' to crises for which the African working class has no responsibility. Every single piece of industrial relations legislation introduced in South Africa since 1924 has attempted to deal with previous crises by restricting the freedom of the South African working class. These recent examples only reinforce the lessons of history. They also serve to strengthen SACTU's position that the basis of the trade union movement will have to be built underground.
SACTU has called upon the African trade unions to reject the Wiehan Commission and the proposed Conciliation Amendment Bill. African workers have been told:'THIS IS NO NEW DEAL! THERE IS NO NEW ERA FOR BLACK LABOUR!' SACTU further calls upon the workers to make the proposed legislation ineffective by:
- FORMING TRADE UNIONS OF YOUR CHOICE
- ELECTING YOUR OWN LEADERSHIP
- DEMANDING RECOGNITION OF YOUR UNION
- DEMANDING THAT THE EMPLOYERS NEGOTIATE WITH YOUR ELECTED UNION REPRESENTATIVES
- NOT ALLOWING ANYONE TO FORCE INDUSTRIAL COMMITTEES OR UNION UPON YOU.
FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE WORKERS AGAINST CRUEL
HUMILIATION, VICIOUS EXPLOITATION AND BRUTAL
NATIONAL OPPRESSION, MAKE SURE THAT THE PRO-
POSED LEGISLATION IS INEFFECTIVE.
DO NOT APPLY FOR REGISTRATION
From early indications there is every reason to believe that independent African trade unions will boycott this new Act in the same militant spirit as they boycotted the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act in 1953. Both were designed to 'bleed the African unions to death', but neither will succeed in doing so.
The Emergence of FOSATU
Since the early 1960s, when SACTU was forced underground, there has been no coordinating body representing the interests of the majority of Black workers. Although TUCSA has continued to have a small number of African trade unions as affiliates, the most significant being Lucy Mvubelo's National Union of Clothing Workers (NUCW), it has always been evident that independent African trade unions do not consider TUCSA to have the real interests of the most exploited workers as its priority.
In the late 1970s, the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) appeared upon the scene as yet another coordinating body. It is important to briefly put on record SACTU's position with regard to the many new, independent African trade unions that have emerged in the past decade and also its position on the formation of FOSATU. In general, it is part of the work of SACTU to
guide and influence, firmly but carefully, the work of the open trade unions, etc., to which the workers belong, so that the errors of the union leaders and officials may be corrected by the rank and file, and the organizations kept on the right course and strengthened... Our policy is to fight for independent unions and to give these new organizations our support - in as far as they advance the workers' struggle. 9
With regard to FOSATU's emergence as a new trade union coordinating body, the SACTU General Secretary's Annual Report of 1977 argued that it was wrong to create a proliferation of umbrella bodies at a time when the workers of South Africa should be striving for maximum unity. He went on to say:
There are already several coordinating bodies, but only one of these is firmly based on the basic principle of fullest unity of all workers, irrespective of race or colour. This is the South African Congress of Trade Unions, whose members and adherents are very much alive and active despite the terror tactics of the government. There have also been disturbing racial overtones in these attempts to form new bodies. We have nevertheless advised our comrades to maintain friendly contacts with people who are behind these moves, until their motives have become clear.
Subsequent discussion and assessment of the situation has led SACTU to maintain its commitment to be identified as the symbol and organization of solid working class principles. However, it has also been agreed that the expansion of the trade union movement has necessitated the establishment of a legally functioning co-ordinating body. In this respect, S,, CUT has issued the following statement:
It (FOSATU) is severely limited in its area of operation, but it can and will act as a focus of opposition to Apartheid in spite of the actions which will inevitably be taken against it and its leaders by the Apartheid state. Trade unions, trade unionists and trade union federations which do not support the liberation struggle will try to make FOSATU a safety valve with which to turn the workers away from the struggle for national liberation. If they succeed in this the Federation will fail.
The statement goes on to mention that 'FOFATUSA'- the ICI7TU and TUCSA creation in the late 1950s - failed to break the strength of SACTU precisely because it tried to turn workers away from the political struggle. SACTU concludes: 'There is no reason why SACTU and FOSATU should not complement each other in their opposition to Apartheid.'
Obviously an important indication of FOSATU's political position will be whether or not its affiliated unions register under the new industrial relations machinery being established by the regime. Already, however, it is interesting to note that FOSATU has had to do battle with the TUCSA-initiated 'parallel' (subordinate) trade unions of African workers. In late 1979, FOSATU charged that management favoured the 'tame' parallel unions because they 'will not cause employers
difficulties'. FOSATU goes further to correctly argue that TUCSA's effort to organize more parallel unions of African workers is motivated by the fear that if Job Reservation is eliminated the White workers will be undercut in their privileged positions. Arthur Grobbelaar, TUCSA General Secretary, lends support to the accusation when he says,
I don't know if our unions have formed an alliance with management - but if they have, good luck to them. Cooperation with management is the crux of industrial relations. I hope TUCSA unions are co-operating with management. This falls within the ambit of partnership in industry.10
TUCSA
This chapter would not be complete without a brief statement regarding TUCSA's role in the decade of the 1970s. The very fact that FOSATU has emerged is evidence that many African workers in South Africa regard TUCSA as largely irrelevant to their interests and needs. In view of TUCSA's history, as summarized throughout this book, such a conclusion seems most correct.
The 1975 Report of the TUCSA-NEC begins with a gross distortion. The claim that the founding Conference back in 1954 was 'representative of all races' is totally untrue; in fact, as we have seen, the body was specifically formed to exclude African workers following the dissolution of the SAT & LC in October 1954. By 1977, the total African membership of TUCSA-affiliated (unregistered) unions amounted to 26,982 workers; of this number, 23,000 belonged to Mvubelo's NUCW, leaving only 3,982 workers in a body with 155,153 registered union members.
Other aspects of the 1975 Report include information worthy of consideration. It mentions an Amendment to the Constitution providing that affiliation must be on the basis of membership returns submitted to the Registrar of Trade Unions under the IC Act. As African unions are excluded under the terms of that Act, this provision is clearly an act of racial discrimination. On the question of pensions, TUC SA correctly 'appealed' to the government to increase pensions in relation to the rise in the Consumer Price Index, but failed to protest against the inequalities in pensions between Africans, Coloured and Whites. Another TUCSA resolution 'emphasizes (the) belief that banning without trial is an undemocratic and repugnant principle' and instead demands that banned people be 'charged and tried in court'. Implicit in this formulation is TUCSA's acceptance that the Apartheid regime has the right to persecute and harass trade union leaders in the first place.
TUCSA also gave evidence before the Commission of Inquiry into the Mine Disturbances discussed above. No mention was made of the miners' demands for higher wages nor the terrible working conditions they must endure. As for the miners' mass uprising, TUCSA alleges that 'there was apparently no common cause or discernible pattern'. No demand was made by TUCSA for the right of African miners, the most exploited workers, to organize trade unions. This body which wishes to present itself to the outside world as representative of all workers under Apartheid actually had the impudence to suggest that the insurrection was nothing more than 'inter-nation clashes' and to actually recommend ethnic segregation of miners in the compounds. Yet, the Report also admits that 'the growth of black nationalism' cannot be ignored and that 'at times the various national groups amongst the blacks ... submerged their identities to form a common front against either the White management or the South African police'. Truly, none so blind as those who do not wish to see.
Most amazing is reference to a meeting in Geneva between TUC SA Secretary Grobbelaar and a discredited former official of 'FOFATUSA'. The Report comments: 'The degree of co-operation which was achieved between TUCSA and FOFATUSA will still prove to be of great benefit to the members of both organizations.' Are we to expect yet another attempt by the bogus 'FOFATUSA' to create further divisions amongst South African workers? The record of TUCSA has not altered significantly since the period between 1955 and 1964; it is a tale of vacillation, lack of working class principles and outright betrayal of workers' unity. Although formed in the same year, the contrast between SACTU's and TUCSA's twenty-five-year history is a contrast between struggle and opportunism.
SACTU Advances New Fighting Demands
SACTU's principled determination to lead the workers' struggle against class exploitation and Apartheid was again evidenced in May 1977. A well-researched memorandum was submitted at that time to all employers' organizations in South Africa, calling on them to respond to the fundamental grievances and immediate demands of the Black working class. Predictably, the South African regime declared this memorandum a banned document.
In the memorandum, SACTU focussed specific attention on the economic crisis of South African capitalism and its drastic effect on the most exploited African workers. An official inflation rate of 12 per cent had not only led to a decline in the real income of African workers, but had also produced intolerable levels of unemployment. By the end of 1976, at least two million African workers were unable to find work; in early 1978, this figure was rising at the alarming rate of 27,000 per month. The Apartheid regime responded by passing legislation under the Urban Areas Act which made unemployment amongst urban Africans a crime under the law. Any African unemployed for a total of 122 days in any one year is now liable to arrest as an 'idle and undesirable Bantu'. Once arrested, Africans will be 'endorsed out' to the bantustans and may be sentenced to (a) detention in a 'rehabilitation centre', farm colony, or similar institution under the Prisons Act; or (b) ,prescribed labour' at any rural village, settlement or 'rehabilitation scheme 'within ABEND area'. This is the way Apartheid chooses to deal with the victims of its own capitalist crisis.
In the face of these realities, SACTU's memorandum to the employers' organizations outlined fifteen minimum and essential demands on behalf of the South African workers.' ' They are as follows:
SOUTH AFRICAN WORKERS DEMAND:
Black Workers on the Move Again
During 1978 the attention of the world community was alerted to the courageous struggle of 22,000 African people living in Crossroads ,squatter camp' near Cape Town. 'SIYAHLALA' (WE WILL NOT MOVE) became their cry of resistance against the Apartheid policy of forced removals.
Only male migrant workers are permitted to remain in the towns, living in all-male hostels and separated from their families for forty-nine weeks of every year. Women, old people, children and the unemployed are forced out into the barren reserves which offer no viable means of subsistence. The struggle of the people at Crossroads represents the struggle of the oppressed to live and work where they choose without restriction and to live together as families. A viable community had been created at Crossroads - with schools, literary classes, craft groups, sports clubs and self-help projects - and the people were united in their determination to defy the inhuman Apartheid laws.
The regime has used all sorts of tactics to break this unity and force the people out. Despite demolitions, pass raids, police harassment and arrests, the people have stood strong. The women took the lead in mobilizing the residents who collectively challenged the whole system of injustice and oppression. Even after a brutal attack on the morning of 14 September 1978, when one person was shot dead and over 500 persons arrested, the people continued to resist. For twenty-five years, SACTU has campaigned against the forced removals of African workers and their families from the urban areas in the Western Cape, and SACTU once again salutes the people of Crossroads in their determined stand.
Another important strike in the late 1970s continues the militant spirit of Black working class resistance established throughout the decade. Again in the Western Cape, the Food and Canning Workers Union and the African-FCWU have been waging a valiant struggle for a minimum wage of R40 per week and an 8-hour day. For over a year, Coloured and African members of both unions have stood firm against the Fatti's and Moni's management and the state's attempt to divide the workers' unity characteristic of these traditional SACTU unions.
After management broke off negotiations with the unions, claiming that the latter's demands were 'inconsistent with government policy', the registered union prepared to apply for a conciliation board hearing. When five workers who signed the application were sacked, their fellow workers protested; another five workers were dismissed in April 1979. The entire workforce went on strike, demanding the reinstatement of their comrades and the right of their trade unions to represent them in negotiations. When Department of Labour officials tried to split the united workers along racial lines, the workers resisted, saying, 'We are all workers for the same firm.'
One of the strikers, Mzami Maxanti, was arrested because he could not show permission to remain in the Western Cape - this notwithstanding the fact that he had been employed continuously for ten years by the company. Once again the true meaning of the pass laws is made clear. These laws not only provide the bosses with their cheap labour, but also serve as a political weapon to bludgeon the workers into submission, whenever they stand up for their rights.
The self-sacrifice and determination of these workers knows no bounds. At one point in the strike, a striker's child lay ill. The parents, holding to their working class principles, refused to accept alternative employment, although without the income from that employment their child was unable to receive medical attention. The child has since died. At the funeral the parents, together with the other strikers, pledged their support for the struggle, re-dedicating themselves to the cause of the workers. Fatti's and Moni's crime now extends beyond the field of industrial relations; this super-exploiter of Black labour stands guilty of murder.
The Black community in Cape Town came out strongly in support of the workers' demands. Students at local colleges and the University of the Western Cape and the University of Cape Town initiated a boycott of Fatti's and Moni's products. This action received the support of Mr Hassan Howa, President of the South African Council of Sport (SACOS); Howa, in turn, urged all schools affiliated to SACOS to join the boycott. Mrs Helen Joseph, veteran of the women's campaigns in the 1950s and Secretary of the Federation of South African Women, also gave her support to the boycott. Further pledges of assistance came from the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and the Western Cape Traders' Association.
The entire community of the Western Cape and also the international community have responded to the unions' and SACTU's appeal for financial assistance for the 88 workers dismissed by management. Recent developments suggest that the company is trying to bypass the unions and take back workers on a selective basis. Many groups within South Africa have pledged to intensify the boycott activities.
As this and other strikes by increasingly militant African workers occur, as they inevitably will, it is perhaps appropriate to end this brief summary of the post- 1964 workers' struggles by stressing that SACTU has designated 1980 as the 'YEAR OF THE WORKERS' and the 'YEAR OF THE TRADE UNIONS'. The determination of the FCWU and the AFCWU in the Western Cape also testifies to the strength of SACTU over the past twenty-five years. At no point has SACTU turned away from the real needs of the workers - both at the workplace and in the society generally. SACTU has at all times, and will continue, to keep in close touch with the rising tide of the Black working class. Through SACTU's external mission that contact and knowledge of the conditions of the workers has been communicated in every part of the world. The following chapter will discuss SACTU's role in building international solidarity with the exploited workers under Apartheid.
NOTES
SACTU, Report presented to the Ninth Annual National Conference, 28-29 March 1964.
For a detailed account of the Namibian strikes and the general conditions of Namibian workers, see The Workers of Namibia, International Defence and Aid Fund, London, 1979.
David Hemson, 'Trade Unionism and the Struggle for Liberation in South Africa', Capital and Class, no. 6 (Autumn 1978), pp. 20- 1.
This Act replaced the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) of 1953.
Another example of the para-military nature of corporate capital was revealed in 1978, when it became known that General Motors Corporation has 'contingency plans 'in the 'event of civil unrest'. GM plants will be designated as 'key points' and 'will be accorded protection in emergencies by the Citizen Force Commando system made up of plant personnel with military training'.
Workers Unity, no. 9, May 1978.
In October 1979 the state agreed to pay R21,359 to nineteen Black workers and a banned White trade unionist injured during the baton charge at Heinemann Electric; legal costs of more than R 10,000 will also be borne by the state, although there was no admission of liability in the settlement.
Joseph Mdluli did not appear at this trial because he was tortured to death by the Security Police.
Workers Unity, no. 5, September 1977.
Financial Mail, 16 November 1979.
The SACTU Memorandum of Demands was also submitted to the Director-General of the ILO.
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