Metal that Will not Bend. Kally Forrest
could claim contributions after six months. Mawu argued that white unions such as Yster and Staal should not have a say over a fund where they had no members and it succeeded in forcing them off the board. It was agreed that only the big unions, with fund members, should have voting rights.35
Mawu failed to win the principle of union representation in proportion to numbers, a worker majority, after employers and white unions blocked the demand. Nevertheless, it forced its way onto the metal industry pension board, winning a say over assets of R800 million. In 1984 it called for workers’ pension money to be invested in community development, and Mawu’s mainly migrant membership demanded that the fund contribute to rural housing. The white unions tried to block the demand, claiming it would endanger the fund’s financial health and reduce employees’ benefits, but the board finally invested in workers’ housing through the KwaZulu Development Corporation.36
In Naawu’s case, the campaign for worker representation and control of pension funds helped end a 13-year battle at Leyland. Naawu’s Joe Foster commented: ‘The company attempted to introduce a pension scheme in 1973 but this was opposed by the union because we had no say in it … Towards the end of last year [1985] we threatened to pull out of the fund unless the rules were amended to allow for equal representation. On March 14 these rules were finally changed.’37
In a quest for a retirement provision more favourable to workers, the metal unions took up the suggestion of provident funds raised in Fosatu’s pension report. Pension funds favoured long-service employees or those on high income, while provident fund members, according to Naawu’s Adler, ‘get their contributions and the employer’s contribution in a lump sum when they leave the company – no matter what the reasons are for leaving’.38 In addition, the lump sum was available on retirement at age 55. Despite some employer resistance, provident funds became a standard union demand in the 1980s.
The move to provident funds and worker representation on pension boards was a far cry from strikers’ original demand. Initially caught off-guard, union leaders had responded and deepened the demands of the shop floor while exposing the state’s hidden agenda of strengthening an embattled white economy starved of investment capital. They had engaged in the way Tarrow describes social movements as deepening understandings and demands, observing that ‘Movements do passionate “framing work” shaping grievances into broader and more resonant claims’.39 The pension strikes and union campaign had profound political implications. For the membership, the principle of transparent consultation was at the heart of their support for these demands. As well as forcing the apartheid government to back down, black workers, regarded as children by employers and the state, had pushed forward the frontiers of worker control. Winning representation on pension boards gave them an adult status denied them in the workplace and wider society. It demonstrated the possibility of using worker power to shift state policy. Pensions were an issue that allowed these unions to enter the terrain of restructuring the economy, an arena to which they would later return.
East Rand strike wave
News of the VW strike and the R2 living wage demand reverberated, falling on fertile ground in Mawu’s East Rand stronghold. The strike wave that followed, beginning in June 1980, was almost entirely spontaneous and illegal. The union stepped in to lend support where possible, and this encouraged further actions in what Hyman describes as ‘cumulative disorder’.40 Short demonstration stoppages were the most common, their primary purpose being to call attention to the urgency of workers’ feeling of grievance. In such stoppages strikers are often willing to return to work to negotiate before employers make concessions.41 The tactic of ‘working to rule’ whereby workers protest by conforming to the letter of their job description was notably absent, however, which told a story in itself – there were no specified ‘rules’ to begin with.
Both Hyman and Tarrow42 assert the effectiveness of the wildcat strike because management has little opportunity to plan its response, in contrast to the formal notice given in an official dispute. Tarrow sees spontaneous action as the most authentic expression of worker power, but on the East Rand many such actions failed. Many workers, especially those demanding pay rises, returned to work without winning concessions, or were dismissed. Facing such risks, their actions may appear irrational. Hyman suggests, however, that even where workers know they cannot win, ‘the opportunity to release tensions accumulated in an oppressive work situation gives many apparently irrational walk-outs a convincing rationale’.43 Providing workers are not sacked, even failed strikes have the effect of shifting the balance of power and shaping future dynamics in the workplace.
Workers on strike during the East Rand strike wave at Hendler and Hendler (The Star, 7 May 1982)
Workers at Rely Precision in Boksburg claimed that the strike wave spark originated in their factory in May 1980 when Mawu members spontaneously downed tools over the dismissal of a steel cutter accused of not being at his work station, despite his 15 years of service. Strikers refused to disperse until management gave them a hearing, and were assaulted by police, arrested and spent the night in jail. Represented by a union lawyer they ‘all appeared in the court the same morning … we foundry workers stood together in our boots and overalls, still dirty from the sand and dust of the foundry … some of us had the foundryman’s leather apron on. Others wore their safety glasses.’44 The charge of participating in an illegal strike was later dropped.
The company refused to rehire the dismissed strikers, but Mawu would not let the matter die. It helped them to produce a play about their experiences that was performed across the East Rand. It also brought a case against the minister of police which resulted in compensation two years later. ‘The money helps, but the victory helps the metal workers’ struggle even more,’ said a union member. ‘Since then the SAP [South African Police] have not beaten us on the East Rand because they do not want to pay again.’45 For management, it was a costly victory. Paul Stewart records that a year later the output of the scab labour hired from nearby townships was still below that of the fired migrants.46
Tension was heightened by the mysterious ransacking of Fosatu’s offices in July 1981 (Wits archives)
Two other Mawu victories fuelled the climate of dissidence. At Vaal Metal Pressings and Hendler and Hendler, workers gave their majority support to Mawu in company referendums and Hendler began pay talks with shop stewards outside of the industrial council. Seifsa’s response was to issue guidelines urging members not to conduct referendums. A strike at the CWIU-organised Colgate in Benoni, where workers won the right to bargain outside the industrial council and which involved a product boycott, also served as a potent example.47
Mawu’s Mayekiso believes that the trigger for wider dissidence was a pay strike at engineering firm Hall Longmore, where workers won 10c an hour more than the industrial council offer. ‘When … other factories heard about this, they also began demanding increases and this was the beginning of the wave of strikes … It started in Wadeville and spread to Benoni, Alrode and Isando.’48 Soon afterwards, 2 000 workers at Salcast Smelter in Benoni struck in support of wage demands, followed by 1 500 workers at Hendler. Between July and November 1981, more than 50 strikes took place on the East Rand, involving 25 000 workers.49
Many of the strikers were migrants living in East Rand Administration Board (ERAB) townships such as Tembisa, Vosloosrus and Katlehong. There was great excitement, especially in hostels, as workers everywhere on the East Rand told stories. One worker described the exhilaration: ‘Groups of people would gather at night and discuss the latest news. Each had a story to tell. Each worker was giving his own sermon, some angry, some laughing. Talk mixed excitedly with song. It was like the Zion churches. And all the strikers were Christian soldiers.’50 Hostels became pillars of union strength, and the tension was heightened by the mysterious torching of Fosatu’s Benoni offices in July.51
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