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The building of the democratic tradition in South Africa's trade unions after 1973

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 11; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1351034042000238202

1743-890X

Sakhela Buhlungu,

Labor Movements and Unions

Abstract This article traces the emergence of the democratic union tradition in the trade union movement that emerged in the wake of the 1973 strikes in South Africa. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that attributes the emergence of this tradition solely to a generation of young white union activists and labour-supporting intellectuals, the article argues that this tradition owes its origins to a multiplicity of sources. The article emphasises the social character of trade unions and how they bear the imprint of the historical and cultural heritage and social experiences of their members and leading activists. Thus the article challenges the notion that a social group enters into new associational forms as a tabula rasa. Instead, it claims that the building of the democratic union tradition in South Africa is not just an outcome of intellectual influences but significantly was shaped by the workers' 'lived experiences'. Keywords: democracytrade unionsworker controllived experiencesSouth Africaintellectuals Notes 'Post-1973 unions' is used here to refer to the non-racial (but predominantly black) unions – which emerged in the wake of the 1973 strikes in Durban and other major industrial centres of South Africa. Today most of these unions are affiliated to COSATU and the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU). The post-1973 unions that are covered by this discussion are those affiliated to COSATU. The crudest version of this position is articulated by S. Friedman, Building Tomorrow Today: African Workers in Trade Unions, 1970–1984 (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1987). E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1963), p.794. E.J. Hobsbawm, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964), p.375. Ibid., p.373. D. Lowry, 20 Years in the Labour Movement: The Urban Training Project and Change in South Africa, 1971–1991 (Johannesburg: Wadmore, 1999). S. Zikalala, 'Interview with Veteran Unionist Emma Mashinini, now deputy chair of the National Manpower Commission (NMC)', South African Labour Bulletin, Vol.17, No.4 (1993), pp.87–9. Since leaving the union in 1996, Kubheka has become active again as a part-time minister in the church. Author interview with Philemon Bokaba, former vice-president of NUMSA, Pretoria, 24 February 2000. Author interview with Moses Mayekiso, former general secretary of NUMSA, Johannesburg, 11 August 1999. For a discussion of the role of these informal social networks or 'defensive combinations' towards union mobilization of migrant workers in urban centres see A. Sitas, 'Moral Formations and Struggles Amongst Migrant Workers on the East Rand', Labour, Capital and Society, Vol.18, No.2 (1985), pp.373–401. W.D. Hammond-Tooke, Command or Consensus: The Development of Transkeian Local Government (Cape Town: David Philip,1975), p.141. Ibid., p.216. For a further discussion of the influence of traditional African political culture of consensus building, see also D. Moodie, Going for Gold: Men, Migrants and Migration (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1994); and E. Webster, 'Defusion of the Molotov Cocktail in South African Industrial Relations: The Burden of the Past and the Challenge of the Future', in S. Kurivilla and B. Mundell (eds), Colonialism, Nationalism and the Institutionalization of Industrial Relations in the Third World (Stamford, CT: Jai Press, 1999), pp.19–58. T. Couzens, 'An Introduction to the History of Football in South Africa', in B. Bozzoli (ed.), Town and Countryside in the Transvaal: Capitalist Penetration and Popular Response (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), pp.198–204. G. Adler, 'Shop Floors and Rugby Fields: The Social Basis of Auto Worker Solidarity in South Africa', in International Labor and Working-Class History, Vol.51 (1997), p.122. 'Instrumental collectivism' is a concept used by Webster and Kuzwayo to refer to collective forms of income accumulation such as the stokvel and maholisano. In a study that sought, among others, to establish levels of collective consciousness among African workers in Durban in the mid-1970s, the authors found a relatively developed collective consciousness. For example, 49 per cent of the workers believed that their situation could only be improved through collective action. E. Webster and J. Kuzwayo, 'A Research Note on Consciousness and the Problem of Organization', in L. Schlemmer and E. Webster (eds), Change, Reform and Economic Growth in South Africa (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1978), p.229. D. Coplan, 'The Emergence of an African Working-class Culture', in S. Marks and R. Rathbone (eds), Industrialization and Social Change in South Africa: African Class Formation, Culture and Consciousness, 1830–1930 (London and New York: Longman, 1982), p.372. For useful historical accounts of student uprisings in South Africa, see B. Hirson, Year of Fire, Year of Ash: The Soweto Revolt: Roots of a Revolution (London: Zed Press, 1979); and J. Hyslop, The Classroom Struggle: Policy and resistance in South Africa, 1940–1990 (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1999). Author interview with Nelson Ndinisa, former president of SARHWU, Johannesburg, 20 April 1999. Author interview with Bobby Marie, former national organizer of NUMSA, Johannesburg, 26 October 1999. R.V. Lambert, 'Political Unionism in South Africa: The South Africa Congress of Trade Unions, 1955–1965', unpublished PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1998. Ch.4 (pp.162–230) of the thesis is devoted to discussing the structure and function of the factory committees. D.R. Bonnin, 'Class Consciousness and Conflict in the Natal Midlands, 1940-1987: The Case of the B.T.R Sarmcol Workers', M.A. dissertation, University of Natal, Durban, 1987, pp.265–6. In this quote Gwala refers to the late Harry Gwala, who was a prominent South African Trade Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) leader and ANC activist in the Natal Midlands region. Gwala served several terms in jail for his political activism in SACTU and the ANC. Author interview with Johann Maree, professor of sociology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 9 May 2000. For a detailed discussion of the problems Tom and his fellow workers encountered at African Cables in Vereeniging see P. Tom, My Life Struggle: The Story of Petrus Tom (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1985), pp.37–40. M. Ginsburg and W. Matlala,. 'At Home in the Union – Interview with Petros Mashishi', South African Labour Bulletin, Vol.20, No.6 (1996), p.88. For a detailed discussion of the 'apartheid workplace regime' and how it operated to exclude and oppress black workers see K. Von Holdt, 'From Resistance to Reconstruction: A Case Study of Trade Unionism in the Workplace and the Community (1980–1996)', unpublished PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2000. Ch.3, '"A White Man's Factory in a White Man's Country": The Apartheid Workplace Regime', is particularly relevant. Author interview with Jeremy Baskin, former general secretary of PPWAWU, Johannesburg, 24 February 2000. For a detailed discussion of these processes of inequality and social closure and the resultant racial division of intellectual labour, see S. Buhlungu and A. Metcalfe, 'Breaking the Racial Division of Labour in Knowledge Production: Reflections on Internship Programmes', Perspectives in Education, Vol.19, No.2 (2001), pp.67–84. See for example comments by Andrew Zulu, then vice-president of FOSATU, on intellectuals as cited in D. MacShane, M. Plaut and D. Ward, Power!: Black Workers, their Unions and the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1984), p.70. Tom (note 24) also made a similar comment at the end of his autobiography. A. Gramsci, 'The Intellectuals', in Q. Hoare and G. Nowell-Smith (eds), Selections From the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971), pp.1–23. For example, Webster has disaggregated the concept and identified five sub-categories of intellectuals, namely, professionally trained intellectuals, 'party' intellectuals, freelance research intellectuals, union-made intellectuals and grass-roots intellectuals. See E. Webster, 'The Impact of Intellectuals on the Labour Movement', Transformation, Vol.18 (1992), p.88. Our discussion of the intellectual contribution towards the building of the democratic tradition has adopted the same categories. C. Boggs, Gramsci's Marxism (London: Pluto Press, 1976), pp.75–6. Gramsci, 'Intellectuals' (note 30), p.10. A. Gramsci, 'The Study of Philosophy', in Hoare and Nowell-Smith (note 30) p.325. Author interview with Johann Maree, professor of sociology at UCT and member of the South African Labour Bulletin Board, Cape Town, 9 May 2000. David Madupela, then MAWU shop steward and executive council member, cited in D. MacShane, Plaut and Ward (note 29) p.70. Author interview with Jeremy Baskin, former PPWAWU general secretary, 24 February 2000. Maree interview (note 35). See, for example, Bonnin (note 22); M. Ginsburg, 'Trade Union Education: Its Past and Future Role in the Development of the South Africa Labour Movement', unpublished MA research report, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1997; and T. Sephiri, 'The Emergence and Role of Black Intellectuals in the Development of the Trade Union Movement in South Africa: A case study of NUMSA, 1980–2000', unpublished MA research report, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2001. This is term used by John Mawbey to describe the powerful position that white officials occupied in the post-1973 unions – Author interview with John Mawbey, SAMWU education officer, Cape Town, 8 May 2000. Author interview with Jane Barret, former general secretary and national transport co-ordinator of TGWU (now SATAWU), Johannesburg, 17 March 2000. Labour analysts Jeremy Baskin (interview, 24 February 2000) and Eddie Webster (interview, 1 March 2000) also point to this as the period that marks the beginning of the loss of influence by white officials in the unions. Author interview with Eddie Webster, professor of sociology, University of the Witwatersrand and member of the South African Labour Bulletin Board, Johannesburg, 1 March 2000. Author interview with Kally Forrest, former Media Officer of TGWU, now owner-director of Umanyano Media Services, Johannesburg, 1 March 2000. For a discussion of this supportive role of freelance intellectuals see L. Callinicos, 'Labour History and Worker Education in South Africa', Labour History, Vol.65 (1993), pp.162–78. Lowry (note 6) p.178. A.W. Gouldner, The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1979), p.32. G. Konrad and I. Szelenyi, Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power (Brighton: Harvester, 1979), p.14. Lowry (note 6) p.25. The term 'organisationally-based intellectuals' is used by L. Callinicos (note 45). Her discussion also covers the contributions of these intellectuals, particularly in the area of worker education. S. Kubheka, 'The Struggle to be Reborn: 20 years of the labour movement' (interviewed by Luli Callinicos). South African Labour Bulletin, Vol.18, No.5 (1994), p.25. See B Nzimande, 'Managers and the New Middle Class', Transformation, Vol.1 (1986). These ideas are elaborated further in idem, 'The Corporate Guerrillas: Class Formation and the African Corporate Petty Bourgeoisie in Post-1973 South Africa', unpublished PhD thesis, University of Natal, Durban, 1991. Thompson (note 3) p.716. For a discussion of grass-roots intellectuals see Bonnin (note 22) pp.49–58. For a discussion of worker autobiography and other forms of expression by unionized workers see Callinicos (note 45). M. Makhoba, The Sun Shall Rise for the Workers: The story of Mandlenkosi Makhoba (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984); Tom (note 24); A.T. Qabula, A Working Life: Cruel Beyond Belief (Durban: NUMSA, 1989). Ibid., p.i. The state-sponsored violence of the early 1990s which was unleashed on communities and organizations targeted these groups and individuals, particularly on the trains in the Witwatersrand region. Thus grass-roots intellectuals in the union movement who were beginning to extend their reach by preaching democracy and socialist politics beyond their workplaces and unions were forced to retreat.