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The Struggle for Legitimacy: South Africa’s Divided Labour Movement and International Labour Organisations, 1919–2019

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The Internationalisation of the Labour Question

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements ((PSHSM))

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Abstract

Who could be considered a legitimate representative of South Africa’s working class, and even who constituted this class, was bitterly contested during the twentieth century. This chapter examines the struggles for international recognition by the rival constituents of South Africa’s labour movement, which was sharply divided along racial and ideological lines. Initially, the International Labour Organization and other similar bodies formed links with the white-dominated labour movement, which regarded itself as the legitimate representative of all workers in South Africa. This position was successfully contested by emerging black African trade unions who themselves, in the face of fierce repression, competed for financial support made available by various sections of the international labour movement.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I am grateful to Danelle van Zyl-Hermann for her comments and assistance with this chapter.

  2. 2.

    Elaine Katz, A Trade Union Aristocracy: A History of White Workers in the Transvaal and the General Strike of 1913 (Johannesburg: African Studies Institute, 1976).

  3. 3.

    ILO, Address by Mr. Nelson Mandela at the 77th International Labour Conference, 1999, https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/statements-and-speeches/WCMS_215611/lang--en/index.htm, accessed 7 February 2019.

  4. 4.

    Tore Linné Eriksen, Norway and National Liberation in Southern Africa (Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute, 2000): 339.

  5. 5.

    Roger Southall, Imperialism or Solidarity: International Labour and South African Trade Unions (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 1995); Eriksen, Norway and National Liberation; Tor Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa Volume II: Solidarity and Assistance 1970–1994 (Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute, 2002); Roger Southall and Andries Bezuidenhout, “International Solidarity and Labour in South Africa,” in Labour and Globalisation: Results and Prospects, ed. Ronald Munck (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004): 128–144; and Håkan Thörn, Anti-Apartheid and the Emergence of a Global Civil Society (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

  6. 6.

    Bill Freund, “Labour Studies and Labour History in South Africa: Perspectives from the Apartheid Era and After,” International Review of Social History 58 (2013): 493–519.

  7. 7.

    ILO, ILO Constitution (1974), http://ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:62:0::NO:62:P62_LIST_ENTRIE_ID:2453907:NO, accessed 7 February 2019.

  8. 8.

    Jeremy Krikler, White Rising: The 1922 Insurrection and Racial Killing in South Africa (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005).

  9. 9.

    Jeremy Krikler, “Lost Causes of the Rand Revolt,” South African Historical Journal 63, no. 2 (2011): 325.

  10. 10.

    David Yudelman, The Emergence of Modern South Africa: State, Capital, and the Incorporation of Organized Labour on the South African Gold Fields, 1902–1939 (London: Greenwood, 1983).

  11. 11.

    Helen Bradford, A Taste of Freedom: The ICU in Rural South Africa, 1924–1930 (London: Yale University Press, 1987); Lucien Van der Walt, “The First Globalisation and Transnational Labour Activism in Southern Africa: White Labourism, the IWW, and the ICU, 1904–1934,” African Studies 66, nos. 2–3 (2007): 223–251.

  12. 12.

    Harold Jack Simons and Ray Simons, Colour and Class in South Africa, 1850–1950 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969): 361.

  13. 13.

    Ken Luckhardt and Brenda Wall, Organize… or Starve: The History of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1980): 44.

  14. 14.

    Simons and Simons, Colour and Class in South Africa: 364–365.

  15. 15.

    Letter from C.F. Glass to South African Association of Employee’s Organizations, 16 February 1926, AH646, Cc10.4, Historical Papers Archive [hereafter HPA], University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

  16. 16.

    Report of Workers’ Delegate to the International Labour Conference, 1925, AH646, Cc10.4, HPA.

  17. 17.

    Report of Workers’ Delegate to the International Labour Conference, 1925.

  18. 18.

    Letter from A.M. Merkel to F.H.P. Creswell, Minister of Labour, 18 August 1931, AH646, Dc12.15, HPA.

  19. 19.

    Report of Workers’ Delegate to the International Labour Conference, 1925.

  20. 20.

    Letter from Secretary, SATLC to Department of Labour, 30 January 1933, AH646, Dc12.15, HPA.

  21. 21.

    Duncan Money, “Race and Class in the Postwar World: The Southern African Labour Congress,” International Labour and Working-Class History 94 (2018): 133–155.

  22. 22.

    Baruch Hirson, Yours for the Union: Class and Community Struggles in South Africa (London: Zed, 1989): 100.

  23. 23.

    John Major, “The Trades Union Congress and Apartheid, 1948–1970,” Journal of Southern African Studies 31, no. 3 (2005): 477–493.

  24. 24.

    Report on the World Trade Union Congress, 6 November 1945, AH646, Dc13.7, HPA.

  25. 25.

    Report of the South African Trades and Labour Council delegate to the Pan-African Conference of the World Federation of Trade Unions, 1947, AH646, Dc13.7, HPA.

  26. 26.

    Eddie Roux, Time Longer Than Rope (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964): 333.

  27. 27.

    National Executive Committee, 14 August 1945, AH646, Da2.15, HPA.

  28. 28.

    Simons and Simons, Colour and Class in South Africa: 587.

  29. 29.

    Jon Lewis, Industrialisation and Trade Union Organization in South Africa, 1925–1955: The Rise and Fall of the South African Trade and Labour Council (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984): 156.

  30. 30.

    Luckhardt and Wall, Organize… or Starve: 83.

  31. 31.

    Letter from Dulcie Hartwell to American Federation of Labour, 26 August 1953, AH646, Dc12.15, HPA.

  32. 32.

    Dan O’Meara, “Analysing Afrikaner Nationalism: The ‘Christian-National’ Assault on White Trade Unionism in South Africa, 1934–1948,” African Affairs 77, no. 306 (1978): 45–72.

  33. 33.

    Letter from A.G. Forsyth to Secretary of Labour, 8 February 1949, AH646, Dc12.15, HPA.

  34. 34.

    Letter from A.G. Forsyth to Director General, ILO, 25 May 1949, AH646, Dc12.15, HPA.

  35. 35.

    Letter from E.S. Sachs to Credentials Committee, ILO, 20 June 1951, AH646, Dc12.15, HPA.

  36. 36.

    Lewis, Industrialisation and Trade Union: 168.

  37. 37.

    Eddie Webster, Cast in a Racial Mould: Labour Process and Trade Unionism in the Foundries (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1985): 267.

  38. 38.

    Although the South African Trade Union Council was only known as the Trade Union Council of South Africa after 1962, this chapter refers to the organisation as TUCSA to minimise confusion between this body and the similarly named South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU).

  39. 39.

    Lewis, Industrialisation and Trade Union: 156–177.

  40. 40.

    Southall, Imperialism or Solidarity: 102.

  41. 41.

    Southall and Bezuidenhout, “International Solidarity”: 133.

  42. 42.

    Fifth Report of the Credentials Committee, 21 June 1956, AH1426, Ef5, HPA.

  43. 43.

    Luckhardt and Wall, Organize… or Starve: 389.

  44. 44.

    Second Report of the Credentials Committee, 16 June 1959, AH1426, Ef5, HPA.

  45. 45.

    Seventh Report of the Credentials Committee, 18 June 1959, AH1426, Ef5, HPA.

  46. 46.

    Tom Lodge, Sharpeville: An Apartheid Massacre and Its Consequences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

  47. 47.

    Jabulani Sithole and Sifiso Ndlovu, “The Revival of the Labour Movement, 1970–1980,” in The Road to Democracy in South Africa Volume I, 1960–1970, ed., South African Democracy Education Trust (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2004): 211.

  48. 48.

    Luckhardt and Wall, Organize… or Starve: 392.

  49. 49.

    Memorandum Submitted by the South African Congress of Trade Unions, 1961, AH1426, Ef5, HPA.

  50. 50.

    Merle Lipton, Capitalism and Apartheid: South Africa, 1910–1986 (Aldershot: Wildwood House, 1986): 201.

  51. 51.

    E.A. Deane’s Address to the 46th Session of the International Labour Conference, 1962, AH1426, Ef5, HPA.

  52. 52.

    ILO, The Role of the ILO During and Ending Apartheid, 2013, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---africa/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_214906.pdf, accessed 7 February 2019.

  53. 53.

    ILO, Special Report of the Director-General on the Application of the Declaration concerning the Policy of “Apartheid” of the Republic of South Africa, 1965, https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/P/09832/09832(1965-1).pdf, accessed 8 February 2019.

  54. 54.

    Address by Miss Lucy Mvubelo, 1962, AH1426, Ef1, Historical Papers Archive, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

  55. 55.

    Southall and Bezuidenhout, “International Solidarity”: 134.

  56. 56.

    ICFTU, 24 February 1966, Press and Radio Service.

  57. 57.

    Simon Stevens, Boycotts and Sanctions Against South Africa: An International History, 1946–1970 (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2016): 150–174.

  58. 58.

    TUCSA Application for Affiliation, 22 October 1962, AH1426, Ef1, HPA.

  59. 59.

    “Rebuff for Boycott,” Rand Daily Mail, 13 January 1960.

  60. 60.

    Lipton, Capitalism and Apartheid: 200.

  61. 61.

    Letter from General Secretary, ICFTU to J.A. Grobbelaar, 27 April 1970, AH1426, Ef5, HPA.

  62. 62.

    Steven Friedman, Building Tomorrow Today: African Workers in Trade Unions, 1970–1984 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987).

  63. 63.

    Sakhela Buhlungu, “Rebels Without a Cause of Their Own? The Contradictory Location of White Officials in Black Unions in South Africa, 1973–1994,” Current Sociology 54, no. 3 (2006): 442.

  64. 64.

    Southall, Imperialism or Solidarity: 335.

  65. 65.

    Muriel Horrell, Dudley Horner, and Jane Hudson, A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa: 1974 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1975): 318.

  66. 66.

    Muriel Horrell, A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa: 1970 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1971): 126.

  67. 67.

    Sithole and Ndlovu, “The Revival of the Labour Movement”: 211.

  68. 68.

    Stephen Ellis and Tsepo Sechaba, Comrades Against Apartheid: The ANC and the South African Communist Party in Exile (London: James Currey, 1992): 6.

  69. 69.

    Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: 451–452.

  70. 70.

    Memorandum to be Submitted by the South African Congress of Trade Unions to the 60th Session of the International Labour Organisation, 1975, AH1999, C6.12.2, HPA.

  71. 71.

    Sian Byrne, Nicole Ulrich, and Lucien van der Walt, “Red, Black and Gold: FOSATU, South African ‘Workerism,’ ‘Syndicalism’ and the Nation,” in The Unresolved National Question in South Africa: Left Thinking Under Apartheid, eds. Edward Webster and Karin Pampillas (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2017): 258.

  72. 72.

    FOSATU Budget Proposals, 1983, AH1999, C5.2, HPA.

  73. 73.

    Income and Expenditure Statement for the Year Ended 31 December 1982, 1983, AH1999, C5.2, HPA.

  74. 74.

    Ian Macun and Andrew Frost, “Living Like There’s No Tomorrow: Trade Union Growth in South Africa, 1979–1991,” Social Dynamics 20, no. 2 (1997): 76.

  75. 75.

    Wessel Visser, “A Racially Divided Class: Strikes in South Africa, 1973–2004,” in Strikes Around the World, 1968–2005: Case Studies of 15 Countries, eds. Sjaak van der Velden et al. (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2007): 50.

  76. 76.

    Jeremy Baskin, Striking Back: A History of COSATU (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1991): 49.

  77. 77.

    Visser, “A Racially Divided Class”: 47.

  78. 78.

    Letter from J.A. Grobbelaar to Director General, ILO, 29 November 1983, AH1426, Ef5, HPA.

  79. 79.

    Macun and Frost, “Living Like There’s No Tomorrow”: 77.

  80. 80.

    National Executive Committee, 2 December 1986, AH 1426, Acl.1.9, HPA.

  81. 81.

    ILO, Special Report of the Director-General on the Application of the Declaration Concerning the Policy of Apartheid in South Africa, 1987: 8, https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/P/09832/09832(1987-23).pdf, accessed 5 March 2019.

  82. 82.

    Eriksen, Norway and National Liberation: 343.

  83. 83.

    ILO, The Role of the ILO During and Ending Apartheid, 2013.

  84. 84.

    WFTU, We Welcome COSATU Home, 2018, http://www.wftucentral.org/we-welcome-cosatu-home/, accessed 5 February 2019.

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  1. International Studies Group, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

    Duncan Money

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  1. Institute for History, Leiden University, Leiden, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

    Stefano Bellucci

  2. Department of History, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland

    Holger Weiss

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Money, D. (2020). The Struggle for Legitimacy: South Africa’s Divided Labour Movement and International Labour Organisations, 1919–2019. In: Bellucci, S., Weiss, H. (eds) The Internationalisation of the Labour Question. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28235-6_17

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