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union velopment the a victory for worker initiative and self-organisation

COSATU and its affiliates have become firmly established in the Transkei since the military overthrow of the authoritarian regime by in 1987. ROGER SOUTHALL* shows that, despite some positive reforms by the military government, it was essentially initiatives and actions by workers themselves that brought trade union organisation to yet another region of South Africa.

The granting of 'independence' to Transkei in government led by Major General Bantu 1976 was based upon a despotic system of Holomisa, following his two stage coup of labour control. Employers could hire and Fire 1987. as they pleased because of the unorganised Later openly associating with the (then still slate of the workforce and the availability of a exiled) ANC, this military regime introduced massive pool of unemployed workers. an opening up of political expression and a Trade unions were barred if not banned, tolerance of worker organisation which was labour protection was minimal, and sporadic previously unknown. worker protests within Transkei were The conclusion that the emergence of trade unhesitatingly crushed by employers allied to unions in Transkei was due to the initiatives of the authoritarian Matanzima regime. It is not the new regime docs not, however, reflect the surprising, therefore, that there was a sudden realities of the process. The sudden emergence upsurge of worker actions in Transkei, from of unions affiliated to the Congress of South 1988, along with the liberalisation of labour African Trade Unions (COSATU) in Transkei law under the radicallyincline d military is essentially a product of actions and

Professor of Politics, Rhodes University, and member of the Editorial Board of the SA Labour Bulletin

July/August 1992 56 self-organisation by workers themselves responding to a worsening economic situation in the 'independent' homeland.

Worsening economic situation A number of factors working upon the economy of Transkei, mainly fromSout h Africa, caused a serious decline in the local economy and job opportunities there fromth e mid-1980s. Financial limits upon the expansion of the homeland public sector had meant a failure to develop effective employment opportunities for the majority of the population. The declining recruitment of Transkeian workers by the South African Chamber of Mines, from 1986, seriously aggravated unemployment in Transkei - and other - since the Transkei. mid-1980s had a marked negative impact on Also depressing the job market was the their economies. phasing out by Pretoria of its industrial The Transkei labour market was even less decentralisation policy. From 1968, this had able to absorb the growing number of new involved the promotion of so-called 'growth work seekers. By the mid-1980s minimum points* designed to provide some employment wage rates had fallen to less than a third of to counteract the socially disintegrating effects their equivalent in South Africa and to far of rural decline. below the official Household Subsistence In Transkei, the capital Umtata, Butterworth Level. Workers became ever more dependent (near East London), and later eZebeleni (near on the informal sector. Queenstown), were selected as 'growth centres'. Under the Transkei Development New forms of popular self-organisation Corporation (TDC) they were provided with The downturn also caused a growing problem basic infrastructure necessary for industrial of political control for the bantustan regime, expansion. By 1983, however, total particularly in the peri-urban areas and employment in formal sector manufacturing in 'squatter' settlements outside Butterworth and Transkei amounted to no more than 12 000. Umtata. Following the upgrading of industrial Such growth has been a marked feature of decentralisation by the South African the last decade. These settlements did not come government in 1982, the rate of industrial job clearly under either municipal control or the creation increased substantially. This was Tribal Authority system of chiefs and headmen mainly through foreign investments, especially (which still exists in the rural areas), and their from Taiwan. By 1985, the number of populations began to create their own forms of manufacturing jobs had climbed to 19 600 - self-organisation which provided the basis for only to fall back to 14 621 in 1989. the emergence of a local worker movement. The reasons for this decline are not wholly During 1987, signs began to appear mat clear. In part it was caused by the wider workers were beginning to mobilise against the economic recession. It may also have been a worsening conditions. There was a series of reflection of the negative impact of Pretoria's determined work stoppages at the Electricity lowering of protection for the textile industry Supply Corporation in Butterworth in August in the early 1980s. Whatever the case, the rapid 1987. Reports by the Ministry of Manpower in downturn in industrial development in 1987 noted that it had recently been SA Labour Bulletin Vol 16 No 6 •"^ New forms of popular organisation -discussing ways to take control of their lives Photo: Paul Weinberg

"inundated" with complaints and that there was The government dithered. No legislative now an "urgent need for a statutory body changes followed. The wage determinations specifically designed for settlement of remained but the majority of employers industrial disputes in Transkei". ignored them. The inconsistencies handed workers a legal rights issue around which to Contradictory interventions organise. by the military government At firstther e were some isolated wage The intervention of the newly installed military disputes in the private sector by relatively government on the labour scene began with small numbers of workers, as at B V new wage determinations for the private Supermarkets in Umtata and Transkei Blue sector, in March 1988, which raised minimum Line Transport wages considerably. What really worried the government were However, the determinations did not define wage actions appearing in the public sector: the industries to which they applied nor the • Post Office clerks in Umtata staged a brief meaning of the skill categories into which they sit-in; placed workers. They also accommodated • hospital workers and nurses at Engcobo employers by allowing for a three stage stopped work; introduction of new minimum wages, • more than 2 000 health workers in Umtata concluding with a final increase only in August followed them; 1989. • drivers at the TDC owned Transkei Road The confusion surrounding the and Transport Corporation (TRTC) went on determinations triggered off significant strike; developments in labour relations in Transkei. • mechanics at Transkei Engineering The military government immediately found Services, also struck for higher wages. itself subject to contrary pressures. On the one The military authorities responded with hand, the Ministry of Manpower began persuasion as well as pressure. On the one cautiously to advocate the introduction of trade hand. Brigadier Rodney Keswa, the minister unions. On the other hand, the TDC and the responsible for manpower, announced that large body of industrial employers argued that worker organisations could be established if such a move would frightenof f investors. employers agreed. On the other, workers who July/August 1992 58 FEATURE struck at the Electricity Supply Corporation close solidarity involvement by COSATlTs were charged with unlawful actions. Post and Telecommunications Workers' The government then imposed an umbrella Association (POTWA). This increased the ban on all strikes, boycotts and work stoppages pressure upon a still reluctant military in terms of the Public Security Act government to agree to trade union rights. It also moved to secure the support of public The government sought to divert that sector employees. Earlier, General Holomisa pressure by agreeing to 40-50% salary had urged civil servants to form their own staff increases for all public servants in mid association. He then negotiated with South September. This quietened the mainstream African Finance Minister, Barend du Plessis, to civil service, but it encouraged the militancy of secure an immediate 15% pay increase for those who did not benefit and were already public servants and a gradual harmonisation of beginning to organise themselves. Transkeian and South African civil service benefits. Private sector workers take action In the meantime, following initiatives from Even before the public sector wage rises had the Public Service Commission, the Transkei been announced, the postal strikers' militancy Public Service Association (TRAPSA) was had been copied by a number of workers in the launched in August 1988. Its aim was the private sector. representation of civil servants, and also to Around 650 workers at Langeni Forest draw in all other public servants, including Sawmills (near Umtata) repeatedly downed those then organised within the Transkei tools in June and July to back their demands Teachers Association and the Transkei Nursing for prescribed minimum wages and 'proper Association. representative structures'. Workers liaison committees began to appear in similar Reactions from public sector workers stoppages elsewhere. A broad spread of public sector workers The most significant struggle involved over immediately rejected TRAPSA. They saw its 300 workers at Ohlsson's Brewery in official promotion as an attempt to prevent BuUerworth which dragged on for fully eight their own self organisation. There was a weeks. There was a heavy police involvement, walk-out of TRAPS A's inaugural meeting in the arrest of demonstrating workers, alleged September 1988, followed by the launch for intimidation of strike-breaking scabs and the recognition by a Transkei Postal Workers' fire-bombing of two delivery vehicles - and the Association (TRAPOWA). eventual mass dismissal of the workforce. Various of the leaders were detained by the Originally based on a call for wage parity police. This gave TRAPOWA a high profile at with Ohlsson's workers elsewhere in South a May Day rally in Umtata organised by the Africa, this particularly bitter struggle rapidly National Union of Mineworkers. This rally developed into a demand for recognition of was also marked by the call to Transkei COSATU's Food and Allied Workers* Union workers to link up with trade unions in the rest (FAWU). of South Africa. The end result was a triumph for the The government attempt to contain the workers. They got the firstnegotiate d (private postal workers caused a widely supported sector) agreement between a union and protest strike in June 1989. Over 180 postal management in Transkei. The brewery had to workers were arrested and charged, over 200 agree to the principle of wage parity and the were suspended, troops were brought in to do re-employment of those who had been their work, and pressure was applied on dismissed. It also accepted an 'interim TRAPOWA to affiliate to TRAPSA. recognition' of FAWU - with a view to full The immediate result was a forced return to recognition once the union could officially work. The strike had, however, encouraged a demonstrate its majority status. 59 SA Labour Bulletin Vol 16 No 6 FEATURE This key struggle at Ohlsson's - one of the that trade unions would be allowed. They were better paying employers in Transkei - set off a advised to register themselves by 30 November much wider drama. The effect of this and then take part in a major redrafting of determined, effective mass strike was electric. labour legislation, to be completed by early Workers from factories elsewhere clearly 1990. This was to be undertaken by Professor looked to the Ohlsson's strikers to break Nic Wiehahn, famous for his fundamental through the barriers so that they could force review of labour law carried out on behalf of their own managements to respond to their the South African government in the late 1970s. own urgent wage demands. When, therefore, Ohlsson's management Continuing labour protest sought to keep production going by taking on The terms of reference of the Commission casual labour, workers at the majority of restricted its enquiry to private sector factories responded by downing tools. They employment, but an important feature of the united in a street march on the day of a labour protest had been the extensive Supreme Court hearing relating to the brewery involvement of public sector workers. Thus strike. labour protest continued: November 1989 Government moves towards • 1 220 employees struck at the Ncora trade union recognition irrigation scheme; With the local police clearly unable to cope. • workers at TDC headquarters tried to force General Holomisa stepped into the struggle. senior management's resignation; He received a floodo f complaints from both •TRTC bus drivers disrupted public transport; sides: from management about the low • striking workers at the TDC's bulk fuel productivity and poor skills of Transkei labour; depot nearly ran Butterworth's garages dry. and from an "ad hoc workers' committee" February 1990 about excessive working hours, lack of job •TDC security division workers struck for security, widespread ignoring of minimum two days; wages, worker compensation, training • some 3 000 workers downed tools at the opportunities, sick leave and recognition of Magwa Tea Corporation's various estates in service. Trie workers also protested salary the district; disparities between Transkei an firms and their • Umtata Municipality's 1 800 workforce sister companies elsewhere in South Africa. stayed away for two days over a wage Holomisa concluded that Transkei would claim, and more than 1 000 were dismissed. not be able to 'escape' trade unions for long. March 1990 He arranged that all strikers and dismissed • wage demands were backed by stoppages workers return to work unconditionally, and he by staff at Transkei Airways; established a committee of workers, employers • 1 500 workers hailed work for a week over and government representatives to monitor the wages at ten of TDC projects in Umtata. situation. These actions, combined with continuing With the expectation growing that the private sector actions - notably by 1 500 government would announce major labour workers who struck the Mzamba Wild Coast reforms, workers gathered in an unprecedented Hotel complex in February - kept up severe mass rally in Umtata, on 22 October 1989. pressure on the government to deliver Waving flags and banners of COSATU and the substantial reform. NUM. the ANC and the SACP, a crowd of 15 The most important blow was administered 000 was led by worker leader Oupa Kumalo to by workers in Butterworth who staged a the Botha Sigcau building, where he presented widely supported three day stayaway in early a petition to Holomisa. March in protest against the detention by the On 26 October, the government announced police of Mongameli Dyantyi, president of a July/'August 1992 60 FEATURE local Workers' Co-ordinating Committee soon as possible. This required (WCC). They got the rapid release of Dyantyi • the registration of trade unions and and Holomisa's personal assurance that employers' associations; Wiehahn's report would respond to workers* • the creation of structures of collective numerous specific grievances. bargaining; and • the introduction by the state of suitable Workers draw COSATU into Transkei measures for the progressive By now, trade unions were rapidly gaining implementation of a tripartite National ground - to a large degree on the basis of Manpower Commission (NMC) charged WCCs which had become more and more with playing a key role in establishing the active in the major employment centres. new labour relations system. The moment the government declared its The main body of the Wiehahn proposals acceptance of trade unions, the WCCs was later put into a draft Labour Relations committed themselves to organising workers Decree. The intention to recruit a COSATU under COS ATU's umbrella. COSATU itself advisor to represent labour on the NMC was was not directly involved, although it served to widely welcomed, as was its recognition of the inspire the WCCs. Indeed, this enthusiasm led legitimacy and role of trade unions. [o a decision by worker representatives at Butterworth on 12 November to establish Government continues to vacillate interim COSATU structures - even though The government denied itself its expected COSATU itself was apparendy being cautious reward because it excluded all public servants about moving too rapidly, after warnings from from the decree when it was finalised in Holomisa and Keswa against the activities of August 1990. national unions in Transkei. Warning had already been given of the All such caution disappeared, however, after possible consequences of this. In March, the a call for COSATU's assistance by a major two day strike by Umtata municipal workers workers* meeting in Umtata in late January. had mushroomed into a major challenge. Then Holomisa announced, just a few days Following the dismissal of more than 1 100 later, that he was following in President de strikers, mass marches through the streets of Klerk's footsteps by unbanning the ANC, Umtata forced the closure of many businesses. PAC.SACPandSACTU. The police struggled to keep order. Once again, the direct intervention of Wiehahn labour reforms General Holomisa secured a return to work and If Wiehahn had tried to turn back the tide, the the re-employment of the workers, but the Holomisa government would have been in incident raised widespread expectations irouble. However, his report published in concerning the scope of the government's mid-March 1990, proposed the repeal of the forthcoming legislation. It became evident very Labour Relations Act of 1977 and the rapidly that there would be no return to recognition of fundamental worker rightsa s a industrial peace without a further extension of basis for a more just and functional system. industrial rights to public sector workers. The report also argued that the exclusion of A first indication of this was the effective public sector workers, and farm and other bypassing of the Act by the Magwa Tea employees, from the provisions of a reformed Corporation. It managed to bring a (temporary) system would be discriminatory and that all end to a bitter four month dispute at its Majola classes of workers should be included under a tea estate - by reaching a settlement negotiated new Act. by FAWU. This included increased wages and It recommended, in brief, that the labour the re-employment of some 1 000 previously relations system of Transkei should achieve dismissed workers. Even after this, the dispute harmony with the South African system as rumbled on until the following May when 61 SA Labour Bulletin Vol 16 No 6 to cover also the 14 parastatals. It also announced the appointmeni of a Commission of Inquiry under Professor J B Cloete to consider the situation of mainstream public servants.

COSATU unions take the lead In contrast to developments within the public sector, labour relationselsewher e experienced a marked and rapid improvement The labour unrest of the pre-Wiehahn period had had no COSATU's Jay Naidoo and Transkei's Bantu institutional channel of communication but the Holomisa at CODESA: but earlier Holomisa told post Wiehahn situation now saw rapid progress COSATU to stay out of the Transkei towards a regularisation of industrial conflict. Photo: William Matlala Other developments - such as the establishment of the NMC and the appointment FAWU secured the re-employment of other of renownedlabou r lawyer Halton Cheadle as dismissed workers. president of the new Industrial Court - also An even more vicious battle broke out at the laid a basis for a functional system of industrial TRTC's Umtata and Butterworth depots, conciliation and conflict resolutionove r the where management tried to clamp down on longer term. worker organisation. A long struggle followed In the immediate sense, however, the labour in which the Military Council supported the reform package made an uneven impact It was management. It sent an ultimatum demanding more successfully applied in industry than in that the strikers return to work, and provided the commercial sphere. This is evident in the soldiers to run the TRTC's services during the quite limited number of strikes during the resulting lock out second half of the year. There were yet other confrontations. On 13 Those strikes that did take place almost all September, a day's stayaway took place in showed three important features: Butterworth. This was mobilised by 1 The most important was the appearance of community organisations against the COSATU unions at the head of workers in government's detention of 29 police officers dispute. FAWU was involved at Tanda who had attended the launch of a local branch Milling. SACCAWU stepped in to represent of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union workers in clashes at the Holiday Inn and (POPCRU). Metro Cash and Carry. PPWAWU was pulled These actions developed into a growing in to negotiate on behalf of 80 workers campaign against the limited application of the dismissed by Chipboard industries, and so on. Wiehahn reforms. The TRTC workers* 2 A second, closely related factor, was that a attorney openly accused the government of number of these strikes did not begin as local attempting to crush the labour movement and disputes but as part of wider South African called for amendment of the new act to include trade union campaigns. Some of these parastatal workers. COSATU met with confrontations were lengthy and the final Holomisa in October 1990 to express its solutions came through South African national concerns. The federation pressed hard for the level negotiations which were applied also to inclusion of all workers under the decree. Transkei and other homelands. Under these pressures - and its desire to be 3 The other notable feature was that these seen to be aligning itself with the forces of strikes remained within the work place. They liberation - the Holomisa government at last did not spill over onto the streets, into other agreed to amend the Labour Relations Decree factories or into wider demands, even though

July/August 1992 62 FEATURE workers were clearly not forgetful of the wider Yet it would be wrong to conclude that the political agenda. recent arrival of COSATU in Transkei is What these developments underlined was somehow a direct product of the military the rapid entrenchment of trade unions in the regime's initiatives or its association with the workplace and the beginnings of their ANC. As the events show, this simply does not systematic utilisation of the newly established hold. Trie workers' movement has had to push industrial relations machinery. This was hard all along the way for the concessions evident in the creation in August 1991 of an achieved. industrial council for the metals and motor What is also significant is that the sector in Transkei following discussions development of the trade union movement was between employers' consultants and the closely linked to the expansion of broader National Union of Metalworkers of South popular organisation within Transkei. During Africa. the 1960s and 1970s, under the heavy hand of the Matanzima's, oppositional activity was Responses of employers almost wholly unable to move beyond None of these developments has been homeland electoral and legislative politics. The automatic and inevitable. appearance of the various worker committees Reports indicate, for example, that industrial show that the substantial growth of the employers have adjusted to the arrival of trade peri-urban settlements and 'squatter* camps unions differently. Quite a number negotiated since 'independence' in 1976 provided space recognition agreements with unions even for the development of popular movements before the reformist legislation was enacted, which challenged the conventional patterns of and welcomed the stabilisation that unions bantustan political control. have been able to bring. No doubt this increased capacity for worker One such company even managed to self organisation also had roots in former negotiate a retrenchment agreement with migrants' trade union experience outside SACTWU - involving reduction of its labour Transkei. It is important to stress, however, force from 800 to 260, caused by the flood of that the various strike and other actions which cheap South East Asian textiles on to the South forced the labour law changes in Transkei African market - without even having to go to were, on the whole, not a result of organisation arbitration. by South African trade unions. Against this, less adaptable employers There were almost certainly important cross complain about the militancy and resistance of border personal connections, and FAWU in the unions with which they had to deal. They particular claims to have arrived in Transkei declare that with the poor quality of the labour ahead of Wiehahn. None the less, the overall and phasing out of decentralisation incentives, shape of the process was that COSATU and its there is now little to keep them in Transkei. affiliates moved into Transkei alongside the The loss of some 2 000 jobs in industry during reforms, and the overall push for the the 1989/90 unrest confirms the long term legitimation of unions came from the workers battle against retrenchments that the unions are themselves. going to have to wage. All this is reflected in the present state of the unions in Transkei which is one of The workers movement had to organisational growth and consolidation. push hard all along the way However, against the background of the The rapid development of trade unions, and the declining regional economy, the unions still concession to them of many wage gains and face a major test of their skills and maturity in adustrial rights in the context of Transkei's the struggles for work place gains and a living ieriously worsening labour market would wage together with the need to retain appear contradictory. employment. # 63 SA Labour Bulletin Vol 16 No 6