of us do not eat properly and cannot feed our children like we used to; some of us have sent our children away to our parents. Many of us have to sell our belongings, such as clothes, bicycles and watches, and some of us had goods repossessed. We have now spent all our savings, some of which we had saved for many years and were hoping to buy better things for our children. Some of us have had to sell our goats and cattle and this was very difficult as we sold them for very little.
People have changed through all the discussions. We have come to realise what it is to sacrifice and stick together and to trust one another – that an injury to one, is an injury to all.54
As the dispute dragged on, new survival strategies evolved. Said Dantjies: ‘We approached furniture shops to delay HP [hire purchase] payments until the dispute was settled, and we got sympathetic doctors to come out and attend to sick workers and families, and we raised money for food parcels – there were some people at Wits who were very helpful with this.’
strike in Brits in 1984 (Paul Weinberg)
Mawu bolstered the workers’ struggle by going to the law. It asked the Industrial Court to reinstate on the grounds that the company had committed unfair labour practices, particularly by victimising union members, and it claimed R850 000 in wage arrears. The Back family’s response was to sell the company to Gundle Industries, which settled in September 1983, before the case came to court. The new owner reinstated all workers, recognised the union, and gave R200 000 towards lost pay.55
The length of the strike, and the publicity surrounding it, spread the union word – a process ironically strengthened by the company’s use of Bophuthatswana Radio to urge a return to work.56 Levy Mamabolo, a worker from a Brits components factory, Bosch, was one of those who learned of Mawu through the B&S. He and others ‘went from one township to another wherever Bosch workers lived, to recruit. We were determined to recruit 50 + 157 of Bosch workers and force the bosses to negotiate with us.’58 Meanwhile, Naawu was organising the nearby Firestone factory where, in September 1983, workers struck for a R2 living wage. The following year saw a successful wage strike at Alfa Romeo.59 Brits was fast becoming a union town.
Moving into homelands
As Mawu mushroomed in the early 1980s, workers in semi-rural decentralised ‘growth points’, many in homelands, began approaching it. South African labour law did not apply in the homelands and their governments bitterly opposed union or political activity. In Bophuthatswana, South African unions were banned under anti-union legislation; in Ciskei, where no formal ban was in force, unionists’ houses were stoned and burned and striking workers detained under security laws; KwaZulu was not actively anti-union but provided no legislation for protection of workers. Industrial council negotiations, wage board hearings, department of manpower inspections and access to the Industrial Court were not permitted.60
American owned KwaZulu factory, Tidwell. After a wage strike which led to mass dismissals Tidwell re-employed workers, who found their starting rate had dropped from R25 to R18 a week. In an out of court settlement with the union Tidwell paid five dismissed shop stewards R6 000 each – nearly a year’s wages (Wits archives)
In areas such as Babalegi at Hammanskraal near Pretoria and Isithebe in KwaZulu, wages and conditions were often so bad that some workers said they would rather not work.61 In 1984, for example, the starting rate for an ordinary worker in an Isithebe metal factory was R15 a week. Management actions were frequently arbitrary. American-owned Tidwell Housing, for example, told workers not to come to work because of stocktaking and gave an assurance that they were on full pay, but later docked their wages. After a wage strike led to mass dismissals, re-employed Tidwell workers found their starting rate had dropped from R25 to R18 a week.62
Some Fosatu unions, such as the National Union of Textile Workers, avoided expanding into homelands because of the repressive conditions.63 Mawu, on the other hand, was guided by members’ organising initiatives. Commented Fanaroff: ‘David Lewis described us as having ‘optimism of the will’. We’d get carried away by the sheer power of growing the union, not like Johnny Copelyn, (General Secretary NUTW) a disciplined, careful, well thought-out, strategist.’ Expansion into the homelands was often a spin-off from organising a neighbouring industrial zone. Fosatu’s drive in Richards Bay, for example, spilled over into Isithebe.
In its early organising efforts, Mawu was careful not to provoke the KwaZulu homeland authorities or the homeland police. This would change when KwaZulu chief minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi started to view the union’s sway over Isithebe as a threat, but Mawu was able to consolidate before political violence in the province erupted. Bophuthatswana, by contrast, was almost impossible to organise.
Most homeland industrial zones were small, but government incentives had lured some large concerns to Isithebe. Again, Mawu played a pioneering role on behalf of other Fosatu unions, overcoming their misgivings by arguing that a single union was in a weak position. It believed that worker power could only grow from ‘the visible presence of trade unions and the threat of strong organisation’.64
Workers from Isithebe border industry factories on a Sharpeville Day stayaway and protest (Cedric Nunn)
Without the space offered by registration and a statutory industrial relations framework, the union found itself back in the 1970s in the homeland area of Isithebe – but in an even more hostile setting. Mawu therefore targeted companies that it had already organised elsewhere in South Africa where labour legislation existed. This strategy allowed it to piggyback on worker rights that it had won in a company outside the homeland in order to demand the same rights inside the homeland. Organiser Willys Mchunu recalls targeting Henred Fruehauf and other companies into extending rights enjoyed by employees in other plants. The organisation of an entire company within a particular metal subsector would then have a logic of its own. For example, Henred, which manufactured trailers, resisted granting a wage increase because its competitors, who were not organised, would undercut them. This forced the union into organising the entire trailer industry. ‘This is how for example we ended up organising in Letaba [Lebowa homeland]. So it was only the industrial union logic that got us there a lot of the time,’ commented Fanaroff.
As in Richards Bay, the broad strategy was to operate as a general union, using ‘borrowed strength’ or secondary industrial action by workers not party to a dispute. Crouch comments that: ‘to outside observers these (sympathy actions) often seem like outrageous interference’ and that such solidarity is illegal in some countries, including Britain. He asserts that there is little reason for moral outrage, however. ‘It is through combination that workers become powerful so there is an absolute logic in borrowing other workers’ strength.’ Mchunu recalled an Isithebe engineering company, Kempher Limited, firing its workforce after a recognition battle. In what he viewed as a watershed victory, the company climbed down after sympathy strikes erupted at other companies in the industrial zone. Organiser Mike Mabuyakhulu describes the effect of the strategy:
Our tactic was to rely more on the workers’ strength, and solidarity action was a big weapon because companies were located on one industrial site so it was easier to use the clout of workers. So we organised even in the textile industry because there was no other union but Mawu there in those days. By organising across industries for unions in Fosatu, we were able to create our own base, and employers became more and more scared because they knew if they fired people, they would face
