Jay NAIDOO

Former minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting
Member ANC NEC

Jayaseelan Naidoo's mother Bakkium made the single most important contribution to his politics. Her spirit of sacrifice and equal treatment of all people, without regard for colour, status or religion, influenced him for life. His father Valatham, a court interpreter, read avidly, even at the dinner-table. This got the young Naidoo interested in learning. His family - he is the youngest of eight children - remains central to Naidoo's well being, though his work takes him into millions of lives.

National politics first impacted on him as a child of four when the family was evicted from their Durban home by the Group Areas Act in 1958. Later, in the early '70s while he was still a schoolboy, his brother, a student, took him to SASO meetings to hear Steve Biko and Barney Pityana. Their fearless challenge to white authority impressed him immensely.

His own studies in science at Durban-Westville were interrupted in 1976. Frustrated with student affairs and student-run community projects, Naidoo and fellow SASO activists increasingly focused on wider class issues. After reading a range of Marxist classics and ANC literature, they found themselves at odds with BC positions. They began organising in their communities around social and economic problems. In 1977 SASO was banned and the activists went into hiding.

When Naidoo emerged he turned to teaching, in Durban and then at a primary school in Benoni. But he had realized that only an organised working class could fight apartheid successfully. He returned to Durban, volunteered for FOSATU and spent six months organising sweet-factory workers. It was 1979 and the unions were recruiting with the aim of creating a significant political force. Naidoo had found his organisational home.

In 1981 he negotiated agreements in the sugar industry in Pietermaritzburg. In 1982 he organised in the bakeries in Durban, then in the dairies and once again in the sugar industry up and down the Natal coast. In 1983 unions began acting against apartheid institutions, with Naidoo involved in organising campaigns against the tricameral elections. In 1984 he led the successful Simba boycotts for the reinstatement of more than 400 workers.

Meanwhile trade union activists had been fostering links with all sectors of the oppressed. In November 1984 the alliance of these sectors called for a national stayaway. At the formation of COSATU in 1985, Naidoo was elected general secretary a position he held until 1993 when he resigned to stand for parliament on the ANC/SACP/Cosatu ticket. Naidoo stood as candidate number six on the alliance list for the National Assembly and was duely elected to parliament.

In 1994 Naidoo was appointed Minister without Portfolio in the GNU charged with the responsibility of overseeing the Reconstruction and Development Programme.

He was given the post of Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting in March 1996 till the second democratic elections (June 1999).