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The Numsa that emerged in the 1980s was a hybrid of interwoven traditions, and the Metal and Allied Workers Union (Mawu) contributed one of its distinctive strands.

Workers of the time recall the harsh conditions under which they toiled. A woman worker from a kitchenware factory, Prestige, in Pietermaritzburg, remembers pressing out metal objects in a physically demanding, repetitive, hot and noisy workplace. There were no safety regulations, no earplugs, gloves, overalls or fans to counter the heat. The women started at 7.30 am and ended at 10.30 pm, and earned very low wages. Dismissal without explanation, including because of pregnancy, was common. Pay rises were arbitrarily based on ‘merit’. Commented one worker: ‘When the boss liked you, he gave you an increase.’¹⁴ Levy Mamabolo, a Bosch shop steward, recollects that dismissals were a way of life. ‘You could not see a worker for a while, then meet him on the street: “I haven’t seen you, are you still on night shift?” He would answer, “I was dismissed a few weeks ago.”’¹⁵ Samuel Mthethwa, a Dunlop worker, remembers: ‘That white man, he could do anything to you. If he felt like hitting you, he hit you. In those days any white man could give you instructions. This meant you had to be in three different places at the same time and you could be dismissed for failing.’¹⁶

For Mawu the 1970s was a struggle for survival. That the union survived and grew was in large measure due to the hard work, tenacity and strategic thinking of its early organisers. In 1971 a University of Natal lecturer, David Hemson, together with white students from the National Union of South African Students’ wages commission, and registered unions in the mainstream Trade Union Council of South Africa (Tucsa), established the General Factory Workers Benefit Fund (GFWBF) in Durban. It administered benefits for workers and provided a forum for the discussion of factory problems. In this way the GFWBF brought white intellectuals into regular contact with African workers. The 1973 strikes led to a worker influx to the GFWBF, and members in Durban and Pietermaritzburg linked up. Pietermaritzburg members, who had a number of Sactu organisers in their ranks, were soon demanding the launch of a metal union that would focus exclusively on their problems. In April 1973, Mawu was launched with 200 members from two factories, Alcon and Scottish Cables. Mawu was the first of the new non-racial, national industrial unions to be launched in South Africa and consisted of these two branches.¹⁷

Mawu logo

David Hemson recruiting in the early days on the bonnet of his car in the absence of local offices (unknown)

Fierce debate went into the formation of unions like Mawu, and the principles and strategies that emerged underpinned these unions in the future. The Natal-based unionists had developed a strategic vision which had been sharpened by contact with coloured industrial unions in the Western and Eastern Cape. Central to their strategy was that only an accumulation of worker power could bring meaningful change. Their abhorrence of racism and their socialist sympathies led them to a long-term vision of a united working class in a democratic South Africa (non-racialism meant that unions were open to all workers, but in practice Africans made up the mass of members). Also central to their vision was the formation of industrial unions where a strong worker unity and identity could be forged: workers would initially press for power in their factories; then, through the development of a working class consciousness, they would come to identify with workers across their industry; the next step would be a union federation and the exercise of joint power with workers from other sectors and, indeed, with workers across the globe.

These unionists rejected the approach of the general unions which arose in the early 1980s, with their vague agenda of working class solidarity and strong identification with political causes. Instead they opted for the slow building of power in specific sectors. The Natal unionists observed that general unions had difficulty mobilising workers beyond their local communities and that this hampered the building of worker solidarity, and of national power, in a sector of the economy with which workers identified. The South African Allied Workers Union (Saawu), for example, which also organised metalworkers in the early 1980s, organised through rallies rather than in factories (in this method lay the seeds of its downfall – lacking depth of organisation in the factories, Saawu, like Sactu before it, was badly weakened by a state crackdown on its leaders).¹⁸ Mawu first established an organisational presence in a factory, recruited members and then built an accountable leadership which evolved into a shop stewards committee. In contrast with Tucsa’s bureaucratic unionism, workers’ control was paramount. As Mawu (and later Numsa) organiser Bernie Fanaroff recalls:

Everything was workers’ control. Everything had to be discussed at a general meeting. The shop stewards would not take decisions without going back to a general meeting. We pushed hard for shop stewards to discuss things with their own department at lunchtime and then meet as a shop stewards committee in the factory. This made workers feel that they owned the union, which was another thing we insisted on – organisers don’t own the union, workers own the union. And the result was that workers didn’t feel that gap between organisers and members and demand things from the organisers. If they couldn’t win things, they saw it as their problem.¹⁹

Early shop stewards two of whom became organisers on dismissal. L-R Baba K (Nehemia) Makama and Peet Pheku from the Transvaal, and Pietermaritzburg branch secretary, John Makatini (W Matlala)

Baba K’s membership card – he was the 28th worker to join Mawu and his monthly subscription was 80c

An early strike in Mawu at Stocks and Stocks in Clayville (Midrand) owned by Stobar Pty Ltd. The union did not have access to many company premises so workers met outside in the veld or under a patch of trees (Numsa)

Together with shop stewards from other factories, the shop stewards committee then chose representatives to a branch executive committee (BEC), which in turn elected representatives to a national executive committee (NEC) of factory leaders. National officials attended these meetings in a non-voting capacity. There were report-backs and careful mandating at all levels.

In the same year that Mawu was formed, the National Union of Textile Workers (NUTW) and the Trade Union Advisory Coordinating Committee (Tuacc) emerged from the GFWBF. In 1974, under Tuacc’s banner, they were joined by the Chemical Workers Industrial Union (CWIU) and the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU). Tuacc set out to build non-racial industrial unions based on strong, democratic factory floor organisation through shop steward representation. Its job was to coordinate the activities, finances and administration of the four unions and to formulate policies. It also allowed for the sharing of resources, including education. It laid the foundations for the later Federation of South African Trade Unions (Fosatu).²⁰

Tuacc president with Tembi Nabe, later Mawu general secretary (Numsa)

If the role of white intellectuals in Tuacc was contentious (Donovan Lowry recalls the ‘overwhelming presence of white intellectuals’ in their delegations²¹), they nevertheless played an important role in the early days, sharing skills, knowledge and resources which were denied their black union colleagues. Some became unionists, and others offered skills in legal, administrative, economic, political and financial areas, often voluntarily. They also played a teaching role, recognising that workers’ education was critical to the building of shop steward leadership.²² Sakhela Buhlungu has pointed out that white intellectuals are often solely credited with the creation of a democratic tradition within these unions whereas he believes it was the product of a dynamic interaction between the lived experiences of black workers and the contribution of community, party (SACP, ANC, Sactu) and university intellectuals.²³

The Sactu activists and the white intellectuals were both striving for a non-racial, democratic South Africa, but many of the whites had a different standpoint. ‘We had a totally different tradition: we didn’t mind using any structures provided we could maintain our independence. Workers’ independence was everything,’ commented Mike Morris, a union activist of the 1970s.²⁴ White intellectuals drew on the European tradition of union organisation and socialist politics rather than the national liberation agenda of the ANC and Sactu. The Marxist and socialist ideologies they embraced taught them that raising workers’ consciousness was the route to changing power relations in society, and their strong tactical sense made them appreciate that to build workers’ power for socialism it was necessary to offer workers real benefits.²⁵ Organising workers into unions was an ideal vehicle. Wages and conditions would be improved while power was built up for political change.²⁶ In this lay the seeds of the ‘populist/workerist’ debate. Explains Mawu organiser Moses Mayekiso:

The term (socialism) was around from early in Mawu’s activities. It was difficult at the time to propagate socialist ideas but leadership in workshops used to discuss the issue linked to trade union organising strategy, and that socialism will be successful if it is centred around organised workers. This was in the 1970s. That’s what divided the leadership into so-called ‘workerist’ and ‘populist’ camps. They were based on interpretations of the final goal.²⁷

The dominant workerist tendency, influenced by Marxism, repudiated the national democratic struggle espoused by the ANC in favour of a democratic socialist future. The ‘populist’ group favoured links with the national liberation movement, whose primary aim was to destroy the apartheid state. At times, political differences were acrimonious, and the state strengthened the hand of the ‘workerists’ by banning ‘populist’ organisers Sipho Khubeka and Gavin Anderson in 1976. Yet there was also considerable consensus on the unionisation process, as Khubeka recalls: ‘You had two groups who did not see eye to eye politically. There were the students and lecturers who felt sidelined by Nationalist politics, on the one hand, and some white students and lecturers and intellectuals who were supportive of the ANC or Sactu, on the other. Yet they had a common purpose.’²⁸

Mawu organiser Sipho Kubheka (W Matlala)

After the 1973 strike wave, Mawu’s membership grew rapidly in Natal, and by mid-1974 it had 3 883 signed-up members in at least 68 factories. Thereafter membership tailed off, and the Mawu organisers, who had moved from factory to factory without consolidating, came to understand that numbers could not be a substitute for strong factory organisation. Employers, too, had recovered from the shock of the strikes and were actively promoting liaison committees. In addition, a number of unionists were banned in 1974, including Mawu’s Pietermaritzburg organiser, Jeanette Cunningham-Brown. In consequence, a new strategy was adopted, involving the consolidation of organisation in a limited number of factories; shop stewards played a central role and were directly accountable to members, organising in their departments and dealing with management. They also represented members on Mawu’s BEC. Local offices were opened to promote members’ participation in union affairs.²⁹

In Johannesburg, another struggle to revive unionism was underway, although organisers could not recruit on the back of a strike wave. The Industrial Aid Society (IAS), with similar aims to the GFWBF, was slowly recruiting and was building factory committees. It was founded by a similar combination of people who, from the outset, focused on the metal engineering sector because of its economic centrality.³⁰

Worker members of the IAS attended classes run by University of the Witwatersrand lecturers and explored the experiences of the ICU in the 1920s and of Sactu in the 1950s. To these intellectuals, the failure of the ICU was organisational: it had failed to win recognised trade union status for Africans because it spread itself too thinly across sectors in a general union model; it placed excessive emphasis on unaccountable leadership; and it failed to organise members into strong independent worker structures which could withstand government repression. The lessons for workers in the 1970s was that they must organise into tight industrial unions which, through worker power, would force state and employers to recognise African unions. Sactu’s approach differed from the ICU’s in that it was a meeting point for factory-based unions. But for white intellectuals Sactu’s decline was a brutal lesson in organisational politics. They saw that Sactu had delayed organising the most powerful sectors of the economy, such as engineering and mining, and that it was unable to impose a working class direction on the Congress Alliance and had lost its independence. The main lesson they drew, however, was that there was danger in linking factory-based struggles with broader political campaigns which had attracted the attention of state security, and to ensure survival they concluded that unions should avoid overt links with exiled nationalist movements and maintain their independence.³¹ A survey conducted in the 1970s by sociologist Eddie Webster on why workers avoided joining the new unions found that they were afraid of dismissal and of police action, believing that the state would associate labour activism with the ANC.³² In consequence, union organisers were at pains to adopt a low profile. Mawu organiser Mike Murphy emphasises, however, that this did not mean emulating the conservative Tucsa unions:

We rejected Tucsa’s way of operating. We went to a factory and talked to people and found out what their problems were and then we’d get a meeting together and plug straight away into informal factory leadership. With Tucsa, this basic stuff was absent. Tucsa was a bureaucracy because it had a faith in the law, a financial base in terms of the law, a subscription system, which kept the office functioning and you play a game with management – you scratch their back, they scratch yours and nothing changes much.

The new unionists vigorously debated what form organisation should take. In Natal, Tuacc’s intellectuals and workers made an early choice in favour of industrial unions, and Alpheus Mthethwa, Mawu’s first Natal branch secretary, travelled to Johannesburg to persuade the metal wing of the IAS to join his union. There he ran into a raging debate on whether to form industrial or general unions. Kubheka recalls:

The discussion was that we have seen general unions in the past and they were not very effective because they did not organise strongly on the ground, they did not have a focus on a particular sector. Some people also argued that general unions tend to be more political, and this was dangerous because they do not focus on the building of grassroots structures, and it was dangerous to be too political at that time.

Then the other argument was that industrial unions are divisive. Why not have one general union divided into different sectors, so that you have one line of march in the same kind of union? It would also be easier in terms of resources. You may have a very weak union with vulnerable workers by virtue of their sector, for instance the construction industry where the industry is not based in one place. Then we have a metal industry which is situated in one place where there are many workers. Then the resources could be easily shared if we have one union, one policy, similar principles … these were all very forceful arguments.

The IAS developed close ties with Tuacc and the latter’s plea for industrial unionism ultimately won the day. In 1975, unionists agreed to form a Transvaal branch of Mawu.

Heinemann worker Christina Gumede after being beaten in a police charge on workers (Numsa)

But by December 1976 Mawu was again on the point of collapse as membership fell, and by 1977 all organised workplaces had folded. Hardline companies refused to recognise the union or negotiate stop-order facilities, and it was on the brink of bankruptcy. Added to this was the banning in 1976 of four Mawu officials and the crushing defeat at one of its strongest Transvaal factories, Heinemann, where police savagely attacked strikers. The leadership went back to the drawing board and its new strategy was a stronger restatement of the Durban 1974 model, with additional decentralisation and the consolidation of membership in a handful of factories. The new objective was to clinch recognition agreements in a few companies. Fanaroff recalls:

Because the law didn’t provide for a recognition, you had to get a written agreement which would at least have the force of a civil contract, so there was a way of entrenching rights you had won. That became a strategy to get membership and then get management to talk to you, (50 + 1) [managements demanded that over 50 per cent of workers be union members] and then to get rights that could be written down despite the fact that black unions couldn’t be recognised.

This strategy included a takeover of liaison committees, which would provide access to workers, and space in which to organise.³³ Mawu also decided to target bigger companies with large workforces which were less likely to resist unionism.³⁴ Organising foreign companies such as British Glacier Bearings in Pinetown and Craft Industries in the Transvaal allowed the union to marshal international support and to use the European Economic Community and Sullivan Codes to force recognition. In the Transvaal, Mawu targeted Anglo American in a bid to exploit the conglomerate’s attempts to project itself as a reformer. It also concentrated on specific engineering sectors. Explains Fanaroff:

We targeted factories that we thought would be easier, like the Barlow factories, and the steel and electrical sector. I had these theories about monopolising specific industrial sectors for real power. The theory was that every time you spoke about money, employers told you about their competitors, so we said we must organise their competitors. We selected the domestic appliance industry and the steel industry where we thought we could get a major part of the competition organised. We avoided the little factories, but of course they came in.

Workers sit on benches in a makeshift hall (Numsa)

This painstaking process started to show results, and by 1979 both Mawu branches had consolidated a presence in a number of factories. The union was poised to win recognition at Tensile Rubber in the Transvaal, and was informally recognised at another eleven factories where grievance and disciplinary procedures were in force. The BECs too, were working well: in the Transvaal, they were regularly attended by representatives from eleven factories. The influence of white intellectuals started to wane as African leadership emerged at all levels of the union.³⁵