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In 1984, Mawu and Naawu took part in the most important move to unite workers in South African labour history – the 1985 launch of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).

Cosatu was several years in the making. Independent unions had first met in Langa, Cape Town, four years earlier, in a bid to strengthen ties. At subsequent meetings they advanced the idea of forming a new federation. The unity talks between unions of different ideological and organising traditions continued, but not without acrimony. Erwin recalls:

At times debates were very hostile with the more populist unions, but in the formation of Cosatu an important turning point was reached, and Fred Sauls must get the credit for this, where Fosatu was close to breaking out of unity discussions. Sauls pointed out on the national executive that the cost of doing that is very high because the other unions represented political aspirations that were very powerful, and very real, and that although we might be differing about certain political and policy issues that is a lesser goal than the longer term objective of building a powerful union movement. And that was only going to happen if we could come to terms with these groupings that are more politically orientated than union organisation orientated.⁸

Banned ANC flag is raised at Neil Aggett’s funeral (Wits archives)

The area on which full consensus could not be reached was non-racialism. Cusa, which had partly grown out of the Black Consciousness Movement, withdrew from unity talks when Fosatu refused to budge on this principle, although Cusa’s largest affiliate, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), stayed on to become part of the new grouping.⁹

A key agreement hammered out in negotiations was a commitment to industrial unions. A VW shop steward, Mbuyi Ngwenda, remembers how the ANC in exile was drawn into these debates: ‘Instructions came from outside that Saawu should disband and fall into the structures of the registered, recognised unions. Saawu then agreed to take part in the formation of Cosatu.’¹⁰

It was unity in action, however, not the negotiating table alone, that cemented unions. In 1982, Food and Canning Workers’ Union organiser Neil Aggett died in detention. This sparked joint work stoppages and demonstrations in unions around the country. It was the strongest symbol yet of Fosatu’s commitment to worker unity and helped break down suspicions amongst the unions.

In Fosatu, as in Mawu and Naawu, the Aggett stoppages crystallised the recognition of the need for greater worker unity, and at its congress soon afterwards affiliates committed themselves to forming a giant federation. Fosatu and other unions also worked closely in 1984 to organise May Day rallies. Shop stewards countrywide planned joint rallies. In Cape Town, more than 3 000 workers crammed into one hall to demand 1 May, 16 June (1976 Soweto uprisings) and 21 March (Sharpeville massacre of 1960) as paid public holidays at a time when most public holidays celebrated Afrikaner heritage. Thereafter, many companies conceded these holidays in recognition agreements. Fosatu’s participation in a two-day stayaway in the Transvaal in November 1984 called by the Congress of South African Students (Cosas), also helped weld unity among unions of divergent traditions. In 1985, shortly before Cosatu’s launch, the death in police hands of Chemical Workers Industrial Union (CWIU) organiser and Fosatu’s Transvaal vice-chair, Andries Raditsela, again triggered joint stoppages which involved 100 000 workers.

Workers celebrate May Day in Pietermaritzburg in 1985 (Wits archives)

Cosatu was launched in December 1985, at the University of Natal, by 760 delegates from 33 unions representing over 460 000 workers. Launched during a state of emergency in a country gripped by repression and fear, it had huge appeal for workers because of its openly political stance and its affiliates’ reputation for winning real gains for workers. In the year that followed, unions grew by 5,7 per cent, the biggest expansion in the 1980s.¹¹ Said Erwin: ‘In difficult times Cosatu gave workers a presence – the size, the enthusiasm, the style of Cosatu gave workers a very visible presence.’¹² Mawu’s membership grew from 38 789 in 1985 to about 70 000 by 1987¹³ and the organisational strength of Cosatu’s affiliates gave the federation the power to withstand the emergency – indeed, to grow through it.

At the launch, unions resolved to work towards the unity of workers in the same industry, insisting that ‘we will be unable to protect worker interests and advance their rights unless we build large broadly based industrial unions capable of dealing with the highly centralised structures of capital’,¹⁴ and they adopted the slogan ‘one union, one industry’. An important consequence of this resolution was that general unions had to break into their industrial components and fuse these into expanded industrial unions. This resolve, to which Fosatu had long subscribed, had profound implications for the metal sector, as Daniel Dube explained: ‘We were influenced by the unity talks that had led to the formation of Cosatu… decisions had been taken at the first Cosatu congress, that we need to start merging, according to the industries they came from, so as to create bigger, stronger, more effective industrial unions. Something that wasn’t easy, but we were saying it’s about time we do it.’¹⁵

Naawu banner raised at Raditsela’s funeral (Wits archives)

Textile and Naawu delegates raise their unions banners at Cosatu’s inaugural congress in 1985 (Wits archives)

Naawu delegation to the first IMF conference held in South Africa. Fred Sauls is seated front row left and Les Kettledas stands back row second right (Wits archives)

Mawu had been pursuing a merger of metal unions for some time. In 1984, for instance, its Transvaal branch called for all metal workers to unite in opposing Seifsa. Mawu and Naawu had already enjoyed a cooperative relationship, and Naawu, now organising large auto companies in the Transvaal, often helped the overburdened Mawu. Again at its 1986 congress, delegates resolved to work towards a merger with other large, democratically-controlled metal unions. It was through the IMF Council, however that metal workers’ unity was mainly driven. In 1984, the idea of developing one metal union was mooted in the council, to strong approval from the grass roots. As Jerry Thibedi, a Mawu and Numsa shop steward, asserted, ‘Workers realised they were exploited by a united employer but were trying to fight that employer divided.’¹⁶

In May that year, Micwu, Naawu, and Mawu came together ‘to explore ways and means of developing greater cooperation in their organising work. The unions had overlapping interests in the motor industry and were often confronted with jurisdictional disputes with no forum in which to resolve them. The resultant infighting was recognised by all concerned to be destructive and wasteful.¹⁷ Micwu, however, was not an IMF member, and it was only after its affiliation in June that unity moves took off. The IMF financed the initiative and hosted workshops which were attended by a negotiating committee of Naawu’s Fred Sauls, Geoff Schreiner and Bernie Fanaroff from Mawu, and Micwu’s Des East. Regional dispute committees with representatives from each union were formed to tackle turf conflicts.

Micwu’s presence in the IMF was part of changes that it had undergone in the early 1980s. After the resignation of its general secretary and Tucsa’s only coloured president, Ron Webb, the union opened its ranks to Africans. Under Webb’s successor, Des East, Micwu decided to democratise and expand by employing organisers and setting up regional offices and local branch executive committees.

IMF meeting to support unity among auto workers. (Note Alec Erwin third left front row; Johnnie Mke and Fred Sauls are seated to the right of him, Gloria Barry sits in front dressed in white and front row second from right sits Les Kettledas smartly dressed in white) (Numsa)

Initially, Micwu clashed repeatedly with the Fosatu metal unions. It locked horns with Naawu in the components sector in the Eastern Cape and Northern Transvaal and accused Naawu of poaching coloured artisans and mechanics in factories such as Busaf, Armstrong Hydraulics and Dorbyl where Naawu had the advantage of plant wage bargaining rights in contrast to Micwu which negotiated through the National Industrial Council for the Motor Industry (Nicmi).

The conflict between Mawu and Micwu was nastier, particularly on the East Rand, as East recalls. ‘The main pressure on us was coming from Mawu which was organising in the vehicle body building sector … it became violent and ugly in the Transvaal. Workers beat each other up on trains, especially in Dorbyl.’¹⁸

As it hired new officials and drew in more unskilled and semi-skilled African members, Micwu changed politically. East remembers:

In 1983 I became first vice-president of Tucsa. At the same congress, Micwu tabled a resolution opposing the tricameral parliament.¹⁹ SABS [boilermakers’ union] supported us, it was the longest debate in Tucsa’s history – 11 unions voted for our resolution, 61 abstained, and two voted against. It gave us a lot of publicity and we got support from our African members.

Shortly after that [Arthur] Grobbelaar, general secretary of Tucsa, put his name to an advert supporting the tricameral parliament so we decided to pull out of Tucsa. We learnt that Naawu and Mawu’s views of us had changed because of our stance. We felt attracted to the Numsa merger because we could not really speak for ourselves. In a Tucsa conference we felt that their concerns were not our concerns … we reached a stage when we had to ask where are we going with the emerging unions becoming prominent. We looked and realised we don’t belong here.

Micwu executive committee in 1986 just before the union’s merger into Numsa – Tusca’s influence is evident (Micwu)

Micwu organiser Ekki Esau (Numsa)

After disaffiliating from Tucsa in 1984, Micwu joined the IMF Council and was immediately embroiled in a debate on the problem of inter-union violence. Sauls’s view was that only a single union offered a long-term solution. But in Micwu, obstacles had to be overcome. Remarked East: ‘There was strong resistance to the merger within our union, especially those who had been in the union for a long time. The choice we had was this: did we stay as Micwu but die in the long term through a long and destructive process? Or did we more actively start talking seriously about a merger?’

Continuing contact between Micwu and the Fosatu metal unions further broke down barriers. When Mawu joined the metal industrial council in 1984, it was forced into contact with Micwu because both represented semi-skilled and unskilled Africans. By mid-1985, Micwu and Naawu were also exploring closer ties as Micwu relayed information from the motor components industrial council where Naawu was not represented, and Naawu backed its demand for a R2 an hour industry minimum wage. There was still no cooperation at company level, however.

Micwu also came under pressure from an unexpected quarter. Ekki Esau relates: ‘Cosatu had just been formed and now in meetings our members were shouting ‘Viva Cosatu’ and asking us if we belonged to Cosatu. We realised we had to decide where we were going.’²⁰ Previously in the Transvaal, Micwu had attracted about 60 workers to general meetings, but now 500 to 600 people attended. Its membership grew as it benefited from a general expansion of black unionism and because of its new non-racialism. In 1982, it had 13 135 coloured members but by 1984 it had grown to a 27 000²¹ coloured and African membership at all skill levels and its strategic outlook shifted, from craft protectionism to power through numbers.

At an IMF motor caucus in 1985, Sauls again insisted that the only solution to inter-union conflict was to merge, and he revealed that Naawu had given him a mandate to initiate merger discussions.²² In early 1986, serious talks began. But they were far from easy. East remembers ‘tremendous differences between ourselves and Mawu and Naawu – it seemed at the time that the gap between us was almost unbridgeable’. Abie Masabalala, a Micwu official, recalls Sauls standing up at an IMF meeting and declaring: ‘You know we never trusted you people because we didn’t believe you were a true trade union; you people believed in begging.’²³

So delicate were the talks that the smallest issue derailed them. Ekki Esau related how, even after merger agreement, the name of the new union became a stumbling block: ‘Mawu came up with a name that was the same acronym as Mawu, so we walked out!’ Unions feared being swallowed up and losing their identities, names and organisers, while senior officials worried about their jobs. Workers kept things on course, however. ‘We stated all we wanted was for workers to unite,’ said Mawu shop steward Joseph Sepetla. ‘We were not worried about names and positions.’²⁴

One of the early differences was over whether the new union should straddle the entire metal industry or focus on a specific sub-sector. Micwu favoured the latter, Naawu and Mawu the former. These problems were raised at regular meetings ‘with the parties represented mainly by one official each. This facilitated discussion and made it relatively easy to deal with the non-political and administrative matters.’²⁵ These included matters such as constitutional structures and meetings of the new union, affiliations, regional areas, membership, national office bearers, composition of the secretariat, salaries and benefits, assets and industrial relations principles and policies.

One of Micwu’s fears arose from the agreed principle that all resources would be shared in the merged organisation. Micwu had carefully built up resources and assets while knowing that Mawu ‘had no financial resources; in fact it had a deficit’.²⁶ East recalls: ‘We had celebrated our 25th anniversary in 1984 and we had accumulated enough to buy our own building. The senior officials had cars, so the merger would mean a serious change in the way we operated. We would have to throw money into the common pool. What would happen to money and our conditions? There was resistance from staff and the executive committee.’

Despite these reservations, there was respect for Mawu and its way of operating. Esau remarked, ‘They were bankrupt but they were prepared to take a stand – our union didn’t take a stand. We never had one strike. Our members could just walk out any time and get more money. The black worker was underpaid, overworked and treated like a piece of dirt.’

They kept unity talks in perspective by focussing on the conditions of workers. As East relates, ‘We tried to keep worker rights as the prime issue. In the end that argument won the day. If we can build on our strength, reduce conflict between workers that employers are using, then let’s go for it.’

An important breakthrough was the inclusion of 2 000 members from Macwusa, the highly politicised union which had broken away from Numarwosa during the Ford strikes. The relationship between Macwusa and Naawu had worsened over the years, particularly after Macwusa scabbed on 10 000 striking Naawu workers during industrial council negotiations, claiming that the council was ‘an apartheid vehicle geared to please management’.²⁷ There were further clashes when both unions began organising Sigma in Pretoria. The decision by the IMF unions to approach Macwusa was also strongly based on the need to consolidate a union presence in the fragmented and poorly organised components sector, whose members laboured in small manufacturing outfits and garages.

Macwusa’s leadership did not enter merger talks willingly, as Numsa unionists recall:

[Macwusa’s] leadership did not come into merger talks, only the shop stewards, and they just used to come and listen and not take part. I think it was a strategy not to be seen as taking part in these talks. The comrades knew that Naawu was more dominant, and they knew they would be swallowed … But it disadvantaged Naawu in factories where there was a perception that there was no democracy, that the leadership would take decisions and shop stewards were just conveyor belts for decisions by leadership … Pebco would have a meeting and take positions, and then Naawu leadership and shop stewards would challenge where these decisions were taken. Then Naawu comrades would accuse township people of having the influence of Macwusa.²⁸

Another breach was healed when the United Metal Mining and Allied Workers Union of South Africa (Ummawosa), a small breakaway from Mawu, brought 6 000 members into the new union. In line with Cosatu’s union unity resolution, other Cosatu affiliates also handed over membership falling within the metal unions’ scope. The General and Allied Workers Union (Gawu) and the Transport and General Workers Union surrendered small numbers of workers, while the CWIU contributed to the merger in tyre and rubber.

Some merger initiatives miscarried. One of the biggest sticking points in unity talks was the issue of paid-up membership. Some unions had no national structures and few financial procedures, and could not prove their membership. Numbers were important because it had been agreed that the new union would take on one organiser for every thousand members. Saawu could not prove membership, and Dube complained:

I couldn’t tell whether Saawu had members within the metal and engineering industries, or whether they had members in the textile industry, or whether they had members in another industry, or no members at all because gatherings in the townships would fill a hall, and yet there are only seven paid-up members … that is when we realised that after all they didn’t have members, because they couldn’t submit membership numbers.

Ike van der Watt, president of the South African Boilermakers Society (SABS), chairs a bargaining council meeting (Bernie Fanaroff)

Saawu defaulted on three deadlines to supply membership details, and was told it was welcome to join Numsa at a later stage.

More telling was the failure to bring in the South African Boilermakers Society (SABS), a white craft union with which Mawu and Numsa sometimes cooperated, most notably in a rare nonracial strike at Highveld Steel in 1984. The SABS was the one established union prepared to work with independent metal unions and the only Tucsa affiliate whose expulsion from the IMF had not been demanded by Fosatu 1982.²⁹ It later left Tucsa in protest over the latter’s refusal to cooperate with unregistered unions and its support for the closed shop which, SABS argued, barred workers from joining unions of their choice. SABS general secretary Ike van der Watt, the IMF Council chair when Fosatu had walked out in 1980, had endorsed unity between the emerging and established unions and worked hard to resurrect the IMF Council.

Former Mawu organiser Geoff Schreiner believes SABS’ absence from the unity process was significant. ‘The boilermakers under the leadership of Van der Watt were serious players. I don’t think we were sufficiently sensitive to the concerns of the boilermakers and their particular constituency, and so we never really won them over. I think there was a group in the union who could have made a greater commitment.’³⁰

Numsa was launched in May 1987 at a three-day congress in Crown Mines, Johannesburg, at the height of the state of emergency. The labour movement’s sense of siege was graphically captured by Naawu’s vice president, John Gomomo. Opening the congress, he declared that metal workers were under attack as never before, that tens of thousands had been retrenched in the previous five years, that key union leaders had been detained, and that organisers had been killed in attacks on Cosatu in Natal. He reminded delegates of the recent bombing of Cosatu’s Johannesburg headquarters, Cosatu House, and of the police siege of the building earlier that year when documents and correspondence dealing with union activities were ransacked and destroyed. ‘The only guarantee for the safety of our movement,’ Gomomo concluded, ‘is strong structures and workers’ control of our organisation.’³¹

Some members of first executive at launch of Numsa in Johannesburg on 24 May 1987. L-R David Madupela first vice-president, Daniel Dube president, Percy Thomas second vice-president (Wits archives)

By South African standards, Numsa was a giant. With 130 796 paid-up members, it was Cosatu’s second-largest affiliate (the National Union of Mineworkers had 261 901 paid up members) and the product of Cosatu’s second merger. Its backbone was Mawu’s 70 000³² membership, representing a tenfold expansion since 1979. Micwu, with 40 000 members brought the second largest number.³³ Numsa’s third largest component Naawu, despite large-scale redundancies at Ford in 1985, brought in huge numbers. In the early 1980s, it grew rapidly and by 1985 it was negotiating in all auto plants except Nissan. It grew by a steady one thousand members a year from 1982, when it had 17 000 members, and then rose to 23 977 at its merger into Numsa.³⁴

Macun remarks on the signficance of ‘union density’ in determining industrial power, defining it as ‘the membership of unions as a proportion of potential members in an industry. The higher the union density, the greater the power and influence the unions can exercise.’³⁵ After seven years of phenomenal growth, Numsa’s unions had achieved significant density. Together, they spoke for 300 000 or 60 per cent of the 500 000 workers in the metal industries.³⁶ The new giant was particularly well represented in Natal, Eastern Cape, Transvaal and Western Cape and embraced workers who assembled, made, repaired, serviced and sold cars and car parts and tyres; processed iron, steel and other metals and manufactured goods from steel; turned out components for the auto industry; and manned garage pumps and workshops.

In one powerful act, Numsa had combined African, coloured and Indian working men and women into a single organisation in the metal industry. Besides its affiliation to Cosatu, it affiliated to the IMF and the International Chemical and Energy Federation (ICEF) in a spirit of international worker unity. The new union, in a tradition deriving from the Tuacc days, was guided by the principles of nonracialism, internal democracy and workers’ control and, critically, worker unity. ‘We, the members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, firmly commit ourselves to a united South Africa, free of oppression and economic exploitation. We believe that this can only be achieved under the leadership of an organised and united working class …’ ringingly affirmed the first sentences of the preamble to the union’s constitution.³⁷

The election of Naawu’s Daniel Dube as president of Numsa was a powerful moment, remembers East. ‘The merger was a lot of hard work, a lot of vindictive stuff went on, we had to overcome personality problems,’ he said. ‘But the election of Dube made us realise that we had brought something that was going to change the course of the union’s history.’ Although he was stunned by his election, believing he was ‘more of a compromise candidate’, Dube was in fact the product of the policy of workers’ control on the factory floor. Universally respected, he was to play an important role over the coming year in melding together Numsa’s disparate elements. Remarked Micwu’s Percy Thomas who was elected second vice-president: ‘I would say that the person who commanded my greatest respect was Daniel Dube. What a great, charismatic, worker leader and what an honour to have served alongside him.’³⁸

Dube boomed across the congress floor: ‘This union was not only created for those who took part in the congress. We campaign for all workers, to increase our bargaining power and our political power – the power of all the oppressed.’³⁹ Cosatu’s Jay Naidoo echoed the sentiment: ‘We must build organisation – it is our defence. We must consolidate and advance in all sectors. The tides have turned; workers are on the march. The greatest defence of Cosatu is to understand this.’⁴⁰

The last word went however to Numsa workers who, in a spirit of high optimism despite the gloomy political climate, experienced a surge of worker power that only unity and growth of this magnitude could bring: ‘Workers see this is going to be a massive union. If you call a general strike, the whole country will come to a standstill – we can put the bosses in a tight corner or crush them.’⁴¹