When the SA-IMF was formed in 1974, the CMBU unions were in command. They had official bargaining rights and links with IMF leaders abroad who supported racially-separated unions. In 1980, the Fosatu metal unions walked out of the council, accusing it of racism. The IMF Council was relaunched after Fosatu drew up conditions for membership, including ‘genuine shop floor cooperation’3 and non-racialism, and forced the council to expel two segregated craft unions. The new IMF Council consisted of nine metal and motor unions which variously belonged to Cusa (Council of Unions of South Africa), Fosatu and Tucsa and represented 200 000 metal workers. The unions immediately took a resolution condemning poverty wages, influx control and apartheid.4
Naawu National Executive Committee (NEC) in March 1986. Note Daniel Dube front row second from right (Wits archives)
Cemented by this struggle, Numarwosa, UAW and WPMawu merged in October 1981 to form the National Automobile and Allied Workers Union (Naawu), with 17 000 members in Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, East London and Port Elizabeth. Naawu immediately registered with the Department of Labour, bringing the African UAW, with 5 000 members, officially on board. Because of its roots in Tucsa, Naawu was unlike Mawu in important ways. Taffy Adler explained:
Naawu was more organised bureaucratically than Mawu partly because of the Tucsa tradition. At one point the union had uniforms for women who worked in the offices in PE. There was a level of organisational capacity which was admirable; there was a management committee at the provincial and national level where issues were discussed; there were definite lines of authority and responsibility – national exec, national office-bearers’ committee, reports that went out, financial reports, records of decisions taken. You knew there was someone in control who recognised and exerted that authority, and that was based in PE at the time.5
Gavin Hartford, a Naawu and later Numsa organiser, recalls the personal service Naawu gave members, in the Tucsa tradition of administering benefits:
We were going once in the car with Les [Kettledas] to the airport in between two strikes and he popped out of the car and went to the deeds office to process a deceased member’s estate. That was the kind of service they provided. They saw the worker through from the cradle to the grave … when the member died the family would come and say, ‘Uncle Les has detailed knowledge, he’ll know what do we do now.’
Naawu Transvaal AGM in May 1983 (Paul Weinberg)
They knew the Basic Conditions of Employment Act backwards. They knew the estate law, the LRA, the constitution of the Industrial Council, they knew the minutes of every meeting, they knew the agreement backwards. This was the Tucsa tradition … You were a bureaucrat, you knew your documents … you always had the government gazette and you always read it. You worked very closely with the Department of Labour. Never mind the registration debate at the time, the Department was your ally and you knew the Department officials.6
In the early days, the 1970s and early 1980s, the union collected members’ dues in the same tedious way as Mawu did – the only difference was that it had administrators. Once Naawu had negotiated company-level recognition, stop orders followed and it became better-resourced than Mawu. Every Naawu official had a car, for example, whereas in 1984 23 Mawu officials shared four vehicles. The auto union, also unlike Mawu, only relied on outside funding for special projects such as the organisation of factories in the Transvaal. Registration encouraged it to maintain tight financial and administrative procedures, as Kettledas explained:
We had to keep proper records in terms of the [Industrial Conciliation] Act. We had to have our books audited and submit our audited statement to the Department of Labour. We were also running benefit schemes, and it was important we have accurate records … there had to be income and expenditure statements for both the unions and the funds on a monthly basis, presented to the branch executive committee. And we had very strict treasurers, treasurer at branch level, treasurer at regional level, treasurer at national level and a finance committee which had to meet regularly. We had branch quarterly general meetings and the membership were quite vigilant … you could get very detailed questions, from the floor, on your financial statements. I can remember that people were very nervous when it comes to branch general meetings … we just kept our head above water … I can recall that for four years all staff of the union never received a salary increase … and we accepted that. I started with R250 a month in 1974, and by 1980 I was earning about R750.7
Trade union unity summit in Athlone, Cape Town in 1983 (CDC)
National metal union
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