A view from the unions THE FOLLOWING article consists of extracts from an interview with the general secretary of the General Workers Union (GWU) which appeared in the journal South Africa Labour Bulletin, in its November 1983 issue.
The GWU is one of those unions who are seeking to forn a single union federation of South African workers. It is heavily implanted among dock workers. The interview deals largely with the relation between the unions and political organisations such as the UDF.
is that they are primarily organisations of activists. To say they are organisations of activists is not intended as a slight in any way, and we believe that there is a great need for this type of organisation in South Africa. But we still insist that they bear no similarity in their structure or organisational practice to a trade union. This problem has been recognised by the UDF, in the Western Cape, where some organisations, referred to as mass-based organisations, have been given a certain number of delegates. Other organisations, those that we would primarily refer to as activist organisations, have been given a smaller number of delegates. While this recognises that differences do exist, we believe that it is an inadequate recognition. The difference between an activist organisation and a mass-based organisation is not one of size, and therefore of the number of delegates to a central body
In the introduction to the interview, the GWU explains that 'we take issue with claims and resulting criticisms that we do not support the UDF or that we are "not interested in politics"
We support any organisations opposing the new constitution and other laws which deny the majority of South Africans democracy. Our support obviously extends to the
UDF ... As stated in the interview a national union federation may provide workers with the necessary support to participate in a multi-class organisation. Participation of workers on the ground, rather than through an alliance merely at the top" would still be imperative'
Question. Why has the General
Workers Union decided not to affiliate to the United Democratic Front?
Answer. The first point Which we've stated repeatedly, is that we are committed to supporting any organisation which opposes the constitutional proposals and the Koorhof Bills (1) and the UDF would obviously be primary amongst those organisations. We are also committed to the idea of doing campaigns with the UDF in opposing the Bills and the constitution. But we don't see our way clear to affiliating to the UDF. Our difficulties there relate to two broad areas, two broad issues. The first concerns the structure of many of the other organisations that are affiliated to the UDF, relative to the structure of a trade union. These structures are very distinct and critically different. Our second major area of difficulty relates to the essentially single class nature, working class nature of trade unions, relative to the multi-class nature of the UDF, 24 and of many of the organisations affiliated to the UDF.
Q. What do you see as the essential differences in structure between the General Workers Union and other trade unions, on the one hand, and many of the organisations affiliated to the UDF, and why do you think those differences present obstacles to affiliation to the same organisation? A. The answer to that question Is long and complicated. It's relatively simple, difficult as that has proved to be in practice, for one union to affiliate to another union, because trade unions to all intents and purposes have identical structures. They all have factory structures, branch structures, and national structures, so that one union can fairly easily lock into another union at all levels of both organisations. This is simply not the case with a great many of the organisations united under the banner of the UDF. To take two concrete examples from the Western Cape: the Ecumenical Action Group called TEAM, and the Detainees Parents Support Committee. The former is a grouping of progressive priests, and the latter is a grouping of individuals dedicated to opposing detention, and providing support for those in detention. Let me be clear from the outset that both of these are laudable and necessary ventures, but neither bear any similarities whatsoever to the structure of a union. The same can be said in varying degrees of a great number of other organisations affiliated to the UDF, all the youth and student bodies, for example. The critical feature that all these organisations have in common, as far as we can see, delegates to a central body, but rather of the entire structure and funetioning of the organisation. As we see it, an activist organisation is essentially a grouping of likeminded individuals, who are brought together by a common political goal. Their activity consists in propagating their ideas amongst a constituency which they themselves define. Activists grouped together in this way, in an organisation of this sort, have a great deal of freedom of manoeuvre in the extremely flexible parameters in which they operate. They don't represent members in a strong sense. They propagate ideas amongst a certain constituency, or in a certain area, and as such play a very important political role. Unions, on the other hand, are not organisations of activists, and union leaders are not activists in the same sense at all, because they are representatives in the strongest sense. Union leaders don't claim to represent the views of the working class. They represent the views of their members. Church or student activists, can claim to represent the broader social aspirations of church congregations or student bodies and it doesn't really matter whether they are actually mandated by the broad mass of students or church goers, or whether they are not. By propagating their ideas or their line they attempt to make students or church goers aware of their broader interests and their social role. A union leader, on the other hand, can't go to a factory and claim to speak for the working class. He has to be mandated by workers in a 1. Officially called the Orderly Movemen and Settlement of Black Persons Bill, ti Koorhof proposals were introduced k year and concern Black people's right residence in urban (or 'white') areas. was falsely presented as a loosening segregation legislation.
International Viewpoint 30 September 1985
unter cm a currently factory, and he has to be reasonably sure that the particular workers who have mandated him back up his mandate. In a union situation there is no alternative to working in that way ...
Most of the organisations affiliated to the UDF have as their legitimate political task, to appeal to the masses 'out there'. We have as our task the representation of the workers inside our organisation, and the painstaking process of drawing more and more members into the formal and disciplined structure of a trade union. This is a major reason why we've found it difficult to envisage fitting into the structure of the UDF. We've experienced huge difficulty in explaining to our members how we would fit into the UDF as a union, yet conversely we have found it very easy to explain to our members how we would fit into a trade union federation ...
Q. You referred earlier to problems in the relationship betwen the union as a single class organisation, and other organisations affiliated to the UDF which are multi-class organisations. Could you elaborate on that?
A. We'll have within our ranks members with militant political views, and we'll have in our ranks members with fairly conservative political views. We'll also have within our ranks a great many members who have few political views at all, people who have joined the organisation purely to fight their bosses. With a certain degree of tension now and again, these diverse views can all contained within an organisation, because they are all held by workers.
To a certain extent this could also be said of any other mass-based
Inte national organisation. It could be said of student organisations where these are mass-based, it could be said of women's organisations where they are mass-based, it could be said even of a community organisation. It conceivable that a woman joins a womens organisation to fight womens' issues. Such an organisation should be able to contain within it a fair diversity of general political views as well. But there are two key differences. The first is that student and community organisations, and, although not necessarily correctly, womens organisations, tend to identify the state as their source of oppression. This means that they are inevitably more clearly politically defined, and their membership is more clearly a politically based membership. They don't have the bosses to intercede in the struggle in the same way that workers in a trade union do. Secondly, the fact of the matter is that in South Africa, most non-trade union progressive organisations, tend to identify themselves quite strongly with one or another political tendency.
This of course involves particular problems in Cape Town. I don't know if these problems are the same everywhere else. But here the community organisations are divided quite clearly into two groups. There was a possibility that affiliation could jeopardise the unity of, if not directly our union in Cape Town, certainly of some other unions in Cape Town. This is also especially sensitive when we've identified as a priority the formation of a trade union federation, with the even greater diversity of views that are contained therein. Just as we wouldn't want to do anything that would jeopardise the unity of the whole trade union movement. I'm aware that opens us
Resolutions up to what has become a currently fashionable charge, namely that we are economistic. Although it's not always clear from those levelling the accusation, I take this to mean that we concentrate our activities exclusively on wages and working conditions, that we're not concerned with political struggle, that the only basis of our unity is the struggle in the factory. Its as such, a unity that makes little positive contribution to the national democratic struggle. There are two answers to this: the first is that a union must inevitably carry within it the tendency towards economism. A factory-based organisation by definition sets itself certain limits, and the General Workers Union has si never made any claim to mystically transcend these limits. The second answer to the question is that the accusation reflects a very narrow, formalistic notion of what politics is, and that's what really brings us to a point pertinent to the question of the class composition of the union ...
More pertinently it doesn't go any way towards transforming a student organisation into a workers organisation. To say that workers constitute the majority of any Black community in South Africa is obviously true, but it doesn't mean that workers constitute the majority of community organisations, of organised community organisations, Or organised community members. In fact, it's lamentable, but nonetheless true, that community organisations have had relatively little insertion into the ranks of contract workers, for example. In those rare cases cases where, the majority of a particular community organisation are in fact working class people, its possible that these working class members will have little influence at the top of of the Twelfth
VIEWPOINT
Resolutions pt the
Twelfth World Congress ol the fourth Inten
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S
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EC
World Congress now available
Contents Introduction p.5 The world political situation p.7 Political revolution and counter-revolution in Poland p.51 Dictatorship of the proletariat and socialist democracy p.78 The Central American revolution p.89 This special issue of International Viewpoint contains the resolutions adopted by the Twelfth World Congress of the Fourth International in January/ February 1985. Single copies are available for 55 francs, £5 sterling or 9 US dollars (postage packing included). Send your orders to: International Viewpoint, 2 rue Richard Lenoir, 93108, Montreuil, France. Cheques payable to PEC, sterling cheques payable to International Viewpoint.
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International View point 30 September 1985
BELGIUM the organisation, in the decision making structures of the organisation.
Q. The participation of Western Cape trade unions in the Disorderly Bills Action Committee (DBAC) last year, seemed to be an unsatisfactory experience, not only for the trade unions, but for other organisations participating in the DBAC. Very little was achieved after a long series of meetings. To what extent do you think this has discouraged workers and trade unions in the Western Cape from participating in the UDF, which is seen as some bigger form of the DBAC? (2)
A. In the initial stages of the formation of the UDF, our experience of the DBAC definitely did influence our feelings about participation in the UDF. The experiences on the DBAC were uniformly negative, in the sense that we found ourselves in the middle of extraordinary squabbles. Sometimes they seemed to be squabbles based on straight power plays, straight questions of dominance between the two factions of the community organisation in Cape Town. The upshot of that was nothing got done, with respect to the Koorhof Bills. I recall a laughable situation on one occasion - I myself wasn't present there, but our representatives reported - where in the same week that the Koornhof Bills were withdrawn, the DBAC met. They sat through an entire three or four hour meeting without once mentioning the Koorhof Bills. The DBAC seemed to be set up for some other purpose altogether. The purpose seemd to me to be for one grouping in the community to achieve domination over another grouping in the community. This did colour our participation in the UDF at first, but it doesn't anymore. We, like I imagine other groups who were equally disappointed with their experience of the DBAC, have shaken off the ill effect of that experience.
2. The DBAC was set up before the UDF to oppose the proposed constitutional reforms. It brought together several different organisations including the trade unions. Very quickly, big differences opened up on the functioning, the system of representation of the different component organisations and on what attitude to take to the different bills (see International Viewpoint' No 46, February 13, 1984).
In the end there was a split with one side subsequently launching the UDF.
The other organisations involved, some of whom are now in the National Forum, criticised this approach. They thought it displayed sectarianism and opportunism on the issue of the vote for Indians and Coloureds.
In the debates within the DBAC some currents had displayed a certain reluctance in calling for a boycott of the Indian and Coloured referendum proposed by Botha. On their side the unions, alienated by this experience, found further reason not to affiliate to the UDF. [Note by 'International Viewpoint'] 26