He also acknowledged that the political controversies never spilled over into factory structures, saying that ‘debates were held between ourselves who were in the offices, and the students and some of the lecturers’.
Union media also played an important educational role. Publications such as Fosatu Worker News, Umbiko we Mawu, South African Metalworker and Naawu News disseminated information about the unions’ activities countrywide and educated workers on union policies and campaigns, labour laws and international working class struggles. These publications were designed to be accessible to people with low literacy levels and reflected the leadership’s cautious stance on open engagement with liberation and anti-apartheid politics. They did however encourage worker identification with the national working class movement. Both Mawu and Naawu also made effective use of the press to inform the public of workers’ grievances and as a tool to keep members informed, especially during disputes, as well as to win over recruits.
These unions also promoted working class culture as an educative and unifying weapon. Activities included workers’ culture days at the University of the Witwatersrand; the promotion of workers’ choirs and the production of records and audio cassettes for sale; encouragement of workers’ theatre and plays for performance across the country (and, in the case of The Long March, abroad); and the publishing of workers’ writing (booklets and pamphlets which briefed workers and their communities on disputes, boycotts and other struggles). Mawu and Naawu took the task of creating a hegemonic working class movement seriously in the broadest Gramscian sense and, through their efforts, created a powerful feeling of belonging in metalworkers.
Education was directly linked to organisation and organising campaigns which made it hugely relevant to the aims of growing the unions and retention of membership. The separation of these functions was to emerge as a challenge and tension in Numsa’s later educational efforts. As Bird explained:
In the early days education and organising were just the same thing, undifferentiated; when you went to the factory gates you did both, and you did one through the other. There was this sense that ‘alright we’ve organised and we’ve got committees all over the place, and they’ve got this thin understanding, can you make it deeper’. And that’s the time when they started to appoint education officers. And so there started to become the split between organising and education. And always the further it got away from organising, the more the relationships became an issue … you should be deepening and helping to build organisation in general. But there were always problems about if there’s conflict between education and organising, the education one would fall away … every time there was conflict, education suffered. So there’s the feeling that we’ll create more distance, and then we’ll be able to have a decent education programme. It won’t get cancelled every time there’s another meeting that’s called.
The combined effect of these educational drives was to give a huge boost to union growth. Major policy decisions crucial to growth, such as the decision to register, were always preceded by NEC and other educational meetings. ‘To exercise power’, Mawu organiser and later Numsa general secretary Enoch Godongwana pointed out, ‘you have to understand the issues’.93
Chapter Three
Power in unity: 1980–1987
Our union organises mostly metal workers … This has made it easier to assist our workers efficiently with problems they face in the metal industry,’ explained a Mawu booklet. ‘At the same time our union does not believe in encouraging workers to become splintered in their organisations. That is why our union has always tried to work in close cooperation with other industrial unions which share our principles and to fight for broader working class unity.’1
From the outset, the independent unions, through the coordination of Tuacc, had a vision of strong industrial unions where a national worker unity, and identity, could be forged. Bringing workers together in large industrial unions meant uniting people who were racially, ethnically and regionally divided across urban and rural areas and bantustans. Organisation nationally would restrict employers’ ability to exploit racial and regional differences in wages and working conditions. In view of the country’s highly monopolised economy which brought many workers under the same ownership and linked them through interconnected production, this strategy made further sense.
Organising by industries also brought power. Strike action across the auto sector, for example, could paralyse it, force concessions, and ultimately enable the union to raise issues of industrial restructuring. It was for these reasons that the Fosatu unions adopted union unity as a central policy at its founding congress in 1979.
National auto union
The launch of Fosatu in 1979 strengthened organised workers and helped to draw the unorganised into its industrial affiliates. Also, the federation was better placed to take up non-factory issues at local and national levels. As a ‘tight’ federation, it provided common resources to affiliates and helped them build membership. Regional councils were set up to ensure cooperation; they and unions were frequently based in the same buildings. According to Fanaroff, ‘We used to share organisers. The Fosatu secretary in each region was the organiser of last resort. It was share and share alike, we shared photocopiers, benches, desks, cars, organising, strikes.’2 Fosatu gave workers a concrete vision of unity in action, and was a model for future unity moves.
National Union of Automobile Workers Union (Naawu), United Automobile Workers (UAW) and Western Province Motor Assembly Workers’ Union (WPMawu) at a joint motor conference. L-R Alec Erwin (Fosatu); Johnnie Mke (UAW); Joe Foster, James Campbell (shop steward) and Natie Gantana all of WPMawu; and Brian Fredricks of the International Metalworkers Federation (IMF) (Wits archives)
Numarwosa, which had first mooted the formation of Fosatu, was the first union to embark on industrial union unity. When Numarwosa set up its parallel union, UAW, its aim was to organise Africans until the new union was strong enough to merge with them. Later, Numarwosa and UAW were thrown together with WPMawu in talks leading to Fosatu’s formation. The participation of these three unions on the South African Council of the IMF had brought the Eastern Cape auto unions Numarwosa/UAW closer to WPMawu, the Western Cape auto union, especially as they all opposed the racist Confederation of Metal and Building Unions (CMBU) which was also represented on the council.
When the SA-IMF was formed in 1974, the CMBU unions were in command. They had official bargaining rights and links with IMF leaders abroad who supported racially-separated unions. In 1980, the Fosatu metal unions walked out of the council, accusing it of racism. The IMF Council was relaunched after Fosatu drew up conditions for membership, including ‘genuine shop floor cooperation’3 and non-racialism, and forced the council to expel two segregated craft unions. The new IMF Council consisted of nine metal and motor unions which variously belonged to Cusa (Council of Unions of South Africa), Fosatu and Tucsa and represented 200 000 metal workers. The unions immediately took a resolution condemning poverty wages, influx control and apartheid.4
Naawu National Executive Committee (NEC) in March 1986. Note Daniel Dube front row second from right (Wits archives)
Cemented by this struggle, Numarwosa, UAW and WPMawu merged in October 1981 to form the National Automobile and Allied Workers Union (Naawu), with 17 000 members in Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, East London and Port Elizabeth. Naawu immediately registered with the Department of Labour, bringing the African UAW, with 5 000 members, officially on board. Because of its roots in Tucsa, Naawu was unlike Mawu in important ways. Taffy Adler explained:
Naawu
