The most
recent clothing strike action maybe over but there will be more.
The clothing, textile, footwear and leather industries in South Africa have a long and "illustrious" history. Below is a time line of the most prominent strike actions within these industry sectors.
Jan 1919 Formation of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) in Cape Town, the first mass trade union of black workers.
Jul 1931 2,300 white clothing workers in Johannesburg and Germiston strike for higher wages.
General Clothing strike in Transvaal
11 May 1935 Blanket workers strike in Transvaal: 250 white women strikers picket the factory every morning from 3am.
8 May 1952 The government bans Solly Sachs, secretary of the Transvaal Garment Union
11 Aug 1954 Durban – 1500 workers strike at Consolidated Fine Spinning & Weaving (Frame)
12 Mar 1956 Workers at Hextex in Worcester go on strike for 4 days in support of a demand for higher wages.
12 Feb 1958 2000 workers fired during a strike at Amato Textiles in Transvaal.
18 Jan 1973 East London Consolidated Fine Spinners and Weavers (Frame) - 1000 workers strike for wage increase.
26-30 Jan 1973 10 000 Fine Spinners and Weavers (Frame) workers strike in Natal
4 Feb 1973 Smith and Nephew Textile strike of 600 workers for more wages
Sep 1973 The National Union of Textile Workers is born at a meeting in Pinetown.
Nov 1973 Smith and Nephew Textile workers strike
1973 MAWU was the first union formed in Durban from the General Factory Workers Benefit Fund. Back then it was illegal for black workers to belong to a registered trade union so workers joined Benefit Funds - a cover for trade unions. Thousands of workers joined the fund after the Durban strikes in 1972 and 1973. MAWU was formed in 1973, and the Transvaal branch in 1975.
29 Jul 1974 East London Frame workers strike.
3 Aug 1974 Zwelitsha – 3500 workers at Good Hope Textiles (Da Gama) go on strike over wages.
Sep 1975 Workers at the Carpet Manufacturing Co. in Jacobs go on strike over the dismissal of a shop steward.
27 Oct 1975 Natal Cotton and Woollen Mills (Frame) workers strike for 2 weeks, and 200 policemen arrive to break the strike.
29 Sep 1976 3000 workers at Da Gama’s King Williamstown plant go on strike
Nov 1976 John Copelyn, SACTWU’s General Secretary, is banned together with a number of other trade unionists.
1979 The Wiehahn reforms deracialise South Africa’s statutory system of collective bargaining and dispute resolution, and introduce an Industrial Court to adjudicate unfair labour practice claims. To participate in the system, African trade unions have to register in terms of the Labour Relations Act. After initial reservations, most did so. The Wiehahn reforms gave the independent unions legal recognition and protection. Subsequent decisions by the industrial court entrenched the right to strike, and forced employers to bargain in good faith with representative trade unions.
1979 Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU) formed.
5 Mar 1980 300 African and coloured women at Berkshire clothing factory go on strike over production bonuses
22 May 1980 6000 Frame workers strike over wages and recognition of their union (NUTW).
22 Jun 1980 Rex Trueform workers go on strike for higher wages.
Jul 1981 The industrial court reinstates dismissed workers at Stag Packing Textile company – the first ever reinstated decision of the court.
4 Aug 1982 Veldspun Textile company – 1000 workers strike against retrenchments.
22 Feb 1983 Bata shoe workers in KwaZulu, members of NUTW, strike
7 Jun 1983 Natal Thread strike – first ever legal strike in South Africa since the Wiehahn reforms, by 300 NUTW workers.
21 Feb 1985 Workers at SA Nylon Spinners go on strike
1 Dec 1985 Formation of Cosatu (Congress of South African Trade Unions)
17 Feb 1986 BKB woolworkers in Port Elizabeth strike.
May 1986 Start of 21 day Rex Trueform strike.
19 Aug 1987 Hundreds of workers at SBH Cotton Mills strike over a company rule which requires them to ask permission before going to the toilet. The rule was subsequently changed.
7-8 Nov 1987 ACTWUSA formed through a merger of the National Union of Textile Workers (NUTW), Textile Workers Industrial Union (TWIU) and National Union of Garment Workers (NUGW), ending the long history of separate organisation by textile and garment workers.
5-6 Dec 1987 GAWU formed through a merger of the Garment Workers’ Union (Western Cape) and the Garment Workers’ Industrial Union (Natal) beginning of new chapter of militant worker struggles in the garment sector of the Cape and Natal.
15 Feb 1988 Cape Cotton workers strike for June 16 as a public holiday, and higher wages.
6 Jul 1989 260 Textiles workers at Finitex strike against the company’s use of breathalyser tests, and the involvement of the police in petty theft cases.
25-27 Oct 1989 1400 Leather workers at Futura (Bata Shoes) shoe company in Pinetown went on strike. They demanded recognition of their trade union, SACTWU.
21 Nov 1989 Start of the Cape Cotton “grasshopper strikes”
4 Dec 1989 550 Cotton textiles workers march to the industrial court to show support for a dismissed worker leader.
May 1990 3 day strike of Eastern Cape Clothing workers
11 Jul 1990 10 000 Frame cottonworkers start a 3 week long legal strike over wages.
28 Aug 1990 Natal Human Chain Day: 23 800 workers link hands in support of the Workers Charter campaign. With the Cape (July) and Transvaal (October) human chains, over 60 000 Sactwu members took part in the chains.
9 Sep 1990 1000 Da Gama workers march through East London, to force their company to recognise SACTWU.
1 Oct 1990 Da Vinci Clothing workers in Natal go on strike, sparking off an industry-wide strike of 15 000 workers, over wage increases.
7 Apr 1992 A 16-day strike at Pep Textiles in Transkei ends, with workers winning a 17% wage increase.
18 Jun 1992 More than 50 000 clothing workers in Natal and the Cape march during working hours in support of their wage demands.
19 Sep 1992 300 Sactwu members occupy Woolworths, a clothing shop in Cape Town, in solidarity with workers dismissed by Woolworths supplier factories for taking part in a union march.
24 Mar 1993 Over 2000 Da Gama workers strike for 47 days in support of a demand for higher wages. This is one of the longest strikes in Sactwu.
19-23 Nov 1993 After a 4-day strike, monthly staff at Frame – all members of Sactwu – win a 9,5% increase after the company initially proposed a wage freeze.
24 Jul 1996 Start of a 7 day strike by more than 80 000 Sactwu clothing workers nationally.
18-21 Aug 1997 Cosatu rolling strike action campaign for fair employment standards.
3 Feb 1998 Table Bay Spinners strike in support of industry- wide-cotton-worker demands
31 Jan 1998 Nictex blanket workers strike for more wages.
8 Sep 1999 Over 100 000 Sactwu members nationally participate in protest action in defense of jobs. In Cape Town, more than 30 000 workers march in the biggest ever union march on parliament.
10 May 2000 More than 4 million workers throughout South Africa strike from work. The action was the third leg in Cosatu's campaign to protest against job losses and fight for new policies to create jobs.
21 Jul 2000 Start of a 12 day long strike by more than 1 000 Seton leather workers. The strike related to workers working rotational shifts and a demand to be paid for 42 hours per week.
27 Feb - 1 Mar
2002 1000 David Whitehead workers in Durban, strike in defence and protection of worker rights. The strike was the largest and strongest protected wage related legal strike in the textile industry since 1993.
28 Feb - 3 Mar
2002 Sactwu holds its first-ever National Bargaining and Servicing Conference in East London. The theme of the Conference was "Buy local, save jobs, crush poverty, build Sactwu".
23 May 2002 Registration of the National Clothing Bargaining Council. The National Clothing Bargaining Council provides the industry with a vehicle through which to address the new social and commercial challenges of the industry and regulates the wages of over 120 000 clothing workers.
Jul/Oct 2002 Team Puma, a textile factory in the Western Cape legally strike over wages and the unilateral introduction of a new shift system. The strike lasted 16 weeks.
26 Jan 2003 National Textile Bargaining Council is registered, a significant step forward in the union’s long campaign for centralised bargaining in the textile industry.
Reference: http://www.southafrica.to/history/TradeUnions/TradeUnionHistory.htm
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THE GARMENT WORKERS UNION
The first successful attempt to organise workers in the clothing industry was the formation of the Witwatersrand Tailors Association in 1918. This period in the history of the union is characterised by its attempts to stamp out sweating and the systems of contracting and piecework, and to improve working conditions. The union was divided into two sections, the bespoke and the factory. An attempt was also made to ensure that employers and manufacturers adhered to log prices and did not underpay workers in order to be competitive.
After the strike of 1922, the government introduced machinery to regulate relations between workers and employers. This was the beginning of an attempt at conciliation which was later much championed by the leaders of the Garment Workers Union. The Industrial Conciliation Act was passed in 1924 and the Garment Workers Union was one of the first to be registered. With the formation of the Industrial Council for the Bespoke Tailoring Industry in 1928 and then the Industrial Council for the Clothing Industry, the union became party to both councils.
The union's membership was not confined to the Witwatersrand, but was extended to Bloemfontein where a branch was established by the Secretary, Cecil Frank Glass, in 1926. The members were mostly older males, many of them Jewish tailors who had emigrated from Eastern Europe to South Africa. During this period there were a number of individual strikes by workers against their 'rat employers'.
The Witwatersrand Tailors Association was active in promoting a trade union federation in South Africa, supporting first the South African Industrial Federation, and then, during its decline in 1922, the formation of ATUSA (Associated Trade Unions of South Africa) which later became SATUC (South African Trade Union Congress). The active leaders included M Baum, D Colraine, C F Glass, H Joseph and A F Tuffin.
The election of Emil Solomon Sachs as General Secretary on 14 November 1928 heralded a new era for the union. Sachs and his thinking dominated all its activities until 1952. He came to South Africa from Latvia at the end of 1913 or the beginning of 1914 (Sachs gives conflicting dates in various biographical accounts). He attended school until 1916, then worked in a bookshop and later in mine shops on the Witwatersrand. In 1919 he was active in the Reef Shop Assistants Union which agitated for shorter hours. According to Sachs' own testimony, he had to leave the trade as he was marked as an agitator, but he continued as Honorary Secretary of the union. In 1924 he enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand for an engineering degree, but had to discontinue his studies because of insufficient means. He first came into contact with garment workers when he was elected Secretary of the Witwatersrand Middlemen Tailors Association on 31 March 1927. He subsequently became the General Secretary of the Witwatersrand Tailors Association.
In July 1929 a new constitution for the union was adopted, the name being changed to the Garment Workers Union, although the name was actually only adopted in 1930. There were 1750 members, two thirds of them factory workers.
Sachs immediately tackled the problem of the violation of the agreements of both the Industrial Council for the Bespoke Tailoring Industry and the Industrial Council for the Clothing Industry (Transvaal). He started examining wage registers and prosecuting employers, many of whom were paying irregularly and forcing workers to sign for wages which they had not received. Sachs firmly believed in the law in South Africa and in the following years the Garment Workers Union made much use of the courts to bring employers and enemies of the union to justice.
The union suffered a severe setback in the early 1930's in its fight for better wages. In 1931 there use a general strike which ended inconclusively and left the workers whose earnings were meagre and inadequate in no better position. In 1952 there was another strike of garment workers as a result of demands by employers to reduce wages.
Mr Oswald Pirow, then Minister of Justice, took a hard line and used the police force against the strikers. The workers were defeated although the employers achieved only a 10% reduction in wages, compared to their original demand for 25%. Sachs was served with a deportation order which was never enforced, although he was not allowed to live on the Witwatersrand for twelve months. Between 1928 and 1932 there were 100 strikes which to some extent helped to improve conditions or end grievances. In 1934 the bespoke section of the union was dissolved and the tailors formed the Tailoring Workers Industrial Union (Transvaal).
The 1930's and 1940's saw the blossoming of Afrikaner nationalism, and the National Party made a concerted effort to destroy the union which had attracted so many of their people. In 1935 a closed shop clause was included in the agreement. These were also the years which saw the rise and zenith of Fascism in Europe. Fascist groups such as the Greyshirts and Blackshirts used racist ideology to attack the union.
Anti-Semitism was also on the upswing and Sachs was repeatedly accused of being a 'Communist Jew'. It says much for Sachs and the personal loyalty of the workers: towards him, that the union did not succumb. He openly fought back and from 1939 he won a number of defamation cases against the Afrikaans press who were supported by the Nederduits Hervormde Kerk van Afrika. A very bitter struggle was waged in the Germiston branch where the National Party Member for Parliament, Johannes du Pisanie, was active in inciting the workers. The 1940?s were a period of bitter struggles for fair wages as also of feuding between the Transvaal garment workers and Cape workers, led by Robert Stuart, who was bitterly opposed to national unity among garment workers.
In 1948 the union obtained a forty hour week for the workers.
In 1948 a commission of enquiry was appointed to examine the affairs of the Garment Workers Union. From this time onwards Sachs was personally harassed, his passport being withdrawn on 20 May 1949, which prevented him from attending the International Conference of Garment and Textile Trade Unions that year. Sachs refused to surrender the passport and the Minister of Justice, Dr T E Donges, appealed to the Supreme Court, but Sachs eventually won the appeal.
The passing of the Suppression of Communism Act in 1950 caused another crisis in the history of the Union. Its leaders Anna Scheepers (President), Sachs (General Secretary) and Johanna Cornelius were listed as Communists. Sachs appealed on the grounds that he had been a member of the Communist Party from. 1921 until August 1931 when he had been expelled from the party for political differences. Subsequently he supported the South African Labour Party. Sachs' banning meant that he could no longer hold his position as General Secretary of the Garment Workers Union, nor could he attend public gatherings.
Sachs flagrantly disobeyed these orders by addressing a mass meeting of garment workers on 24 May 1952. He was supported by all the workers who again convened on 26 May after his arrest and condemned his listing as a Communist and his removal from the secretaryship of the Garment Workers Union.
Sachs' position eventually became so intolerable to him, that he left South Africa and settled in England. He died in London in 1976.
Over the years the composition of the union had changed. Whereas in 1938 Coloured workers were 22% of the total membership, by 1953 the union comprised 6o% Coloured workers to 4016 White. By law the union had had to establish parallel branches, No.1 branches being for Whites and No.2 branches for Coloureds. This has now been reversed and once again the Garment Workers Union is allowed to have combined branches.
Johanna Catharina Cornelius Fellner succeeded Sachs as General Secretary and served in this capacity until her death on 21 June 1974. In the first few years of his exile Sachs attempted to continue his fight for the workers in South Africa but lack of support from the Garment Workers Union caused his efforts to peter out. In general this was a quiet period of co-operation and negotiation. It was influenced by the Botha Commission (Industrial Legislation Commission) set up in 1945, and the passing of the Natives (Settlements of Disputes) Act and the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1956. There was a split in the ranks of the union, as the White workers felt that the provisions of the Industrial Conciliation Act would make it impossible for racially mixed unions to operate. They thus formed the Garment Trade Union of European Employees (SA). Other problems to which the union paid attention were job reservation, workers in uncontrolled areas, and the establishment of a training college for garment workers.
Another outstanding leader of the union was Anna Elizabeth Scheepers. Born on 18 March 1914 on the farm De la Rey near Krugersdorp, she attended Monument High School but was obliged to leave school in her matriculation year as her family had been severely affected by the depression. In 1933 she started work as a presser in a Johannesburg factory and began to be active in the activities of the Garment Workers Union. In August 1935 she was elected President of the union. Like other trade unionists of the time she visited Russia before the war and C R Swart attempted to list her as a Communist in 1952. She has distinguished herself, receiving a medal for voluntary services in World War II from Field Marshal J C Smuts. In November 1968 she was elected as the first and only woman on the General Council of the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation. In April 1973 she was awarded the Honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of the Witwatersrand and in 1974 she was elected a Senator.
Besides the struggle for fair wages and a shorter working week, the union was able to obtain for the workers by 1949 three weeks' paid annual leave, whereas in 1928 there had been no such paid leave. In 1928 the only paid holidays were Christmas Day and May Day. In 1949 four other public holidays were added. By creating funds, two important social services were provided namely assistance to the sick and unemployed.
The Garment Workers Union struggled in order to obtain a better life for its members, relying almost entirely on its own strength and the moral support of fellow trade unionists. The union was respected by some employers and feared by others, but its members were treated with respect as they always had recourse to it if they were being mistreated.
Reference: http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/inventory.php?iid=8182
