Date: 29/04/2010
Source: Congress of South African Trade Unions
Title: Cosatu: Vavi: Lecture by the Cosatu secretary-general on the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Indians in South Africa

Thank you very much for the invitation to address this gala dinner and to discuss a most important topic, which raises our fundamental trade union principles of working-class solidarity and internationalism.

There are indeed many ways to recount history of Indian workers in South Africa. We could simply recount the dry facts without relating them to the reality today. We could simply romanticise the history of Indian people by highlighting their struggles, trials, tribulations and victories.

We could simply opt for the Great Man theory of history, placing one or a few individuals at the centre of historical processes, completely divorcing the latter from the material environment influencing the evolution of human society. This is how the history of Indians in South Africa has been understood. These narratives are flawed as they contradict the dictum that "the masses are the makers of history".

Class Struggle is the Locomotive of History

The history of the arrival of Indian people to work in the sugar plantations in 1860 Natal mirrors the general history of peasants divorced and alienated from their means of subsistence i.e. land. In the nineteenth century, many peasants were confronted with a tough situation surrounding land use in India.

The pressure of the drought in this period led to desperation, with many peasants swelling the ranks of the landless labourers.

The burden of hostile natural processes such as drought brought with it increased difficulties as the rural wage labourers and peasants found it harder to support the demands of the rent-seeking landlords as well as the tax collectors.

This, as colonial officials noted, produced "a floating population who live [d] from hand to mouth."[1] <#_ftn1> It was this population that was to serve as a recruitment ground to meet the needs of the agricultural capitalists in the Natal sugar plantations. There were however pockets of resistance from the Indian small capitalists, who lamented the potential labour shortage that this move would result in.[2] <#_ftn2>

The demand for Indian contract (indentured) labour arose from the requirements of white capitalist farmers in South Africa who were trying to gain a foothold of the sugar industry. Indian emigrants could provide a cheap and secure supply of labour.

This was more so because African labour had not yet been secured, as the rural subsistence economy was still intact. The white capitalist farmer found African labour all the more problematic because of African workers, who had not yet been fully proletarianised, would only work for short periods, after which they would home. [3] <#_ftn3>

Indian working class history read from this angle dismisses the capitalist myth that the making of the working class anywhere in the world was simply a voluntary pursuit of greener pastures.

Class struggle is the locomotive defining Indian history in South Africa and that the story of colonial dispossession and landlessness is the unbreakable thread that ties the history of Indians to that of Africans in South Africa.

Like the history of all working class people, Indians were propelled to action by the material conditions confronting them in the sugar plantations, etc. There are various important moments that mark this resistance to prevailing conditions.

In 1913, the same year in which the segregationist white state imposed the Land Act, thousands of Indian coal miners embarked on a strike in Newcastle. At its heart was a protest over the three pound a year tax required from Indians by the government.

The idea behind this tax was the repatriation of Indians who were no longer under contracts back to India. Large numbers of workers marched from Newcastle to Volksrust, to deliberately defy the law that required Indians to carry permits to cross from one province to another. [4] <#_ftn4>

The annals of the labour movement's history are littered with attempts to form a single non-racial trade union movement. It was in 1915 that the International Socialist League started organising Indian workers. This attempt at organising Indian workers intensified in after 1917 Conference of the International Socialist League (ISL).

Importantly, the ISL also started advocating for solidarity across colour lines and concentrated itself on establishing mixed trade unions. This was not applied throughout the country. In Natal, the ISL limited organisation to Indian workers and made no inroads in transgressing this narrow approach.

This being the case, the unity of Indian workers dominated the agenda of the ISL. In March 1917, the Indian Workers Industrial Unions representing certain sectors of the Indian working class was inaugurated in March 1917 in Durban. The union became very active during 1917-1918 with a series of open-air meetings and theoretical classes.

This was yet another attempt at creating a non-racial trade union federation in our country. In 1919 a union federation called the Industrial and Commercial Union (ICU) led by Clemens Kadalie was formed. Despite its many successes the ICU did not succeed to unite all workers. It was a one-man show.

Another federation called the South African Non-European Trade Union (SANETU) was formed in 1928. In 1941 another federation called the Council of Non-European Trade Unions (CNETU) was formed under the leadership of Moses Kotane, Gama Makhabeni, Dan Tloome, David Gosani and James Phillips.

These dress rehearsals with non-racialism were to find resonance in later years through the Communist Party of South Africa (now SACP) and later the African National Congress.[5] <#_ftn5>

In March 1955, the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) was formed. This is the federation of amongst others of Billy Nair. This attempt was crushed by the apartheid regime.

Finally in 1985 a new kid in the block, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) was formed under the leadership of Elijah Barayi as President and Jay Naidoo as the General Secretary. Attempts to smash COSATU did not yield any result.

The development of trade unionism amongst the Indian workers is one of militancy and a blatant rejection of the capitalist path to development.

Indian Workers and the Struggle against apartheid

The Indian people, just like their African and Coloured counterparts, faced some of the most brutal oppression in the struggle against apartheid. The 1946 Land Tenure Act removed thousands of Indian people from the city centres, due to fears of the competition that Indian traders posed to their white counterparts.

The forced removals of Indians and their relocation to townships such as Laudium, Lenasia, Phoenix, Cato Manor and Chatsworth were some of the most brutal acts by apartheid racial divide and rule strategy.

Aside from the brutality of these removals, forced removals exacerbated poverty amongst their victims. It placed workers far away from workplaces, squashed workers' livelihoods and added additional expenses such as the renting of council housing. The removals almost succeeded in destroying the sense of inter-racial and ethnic unity that was present in many mixed locations.

We say almost, as some of these tribulations actually provided the bedrock for racial unity amongst the oppressed in South Africa.

Despite being differentially incorporated into the apartheid system, different races were also brought together by a shared experience of oppression and dispossession. The three Doctors Pact signed in March 1947 gave practical expression against narrow ethnic chauvinism and the compartmentalisation of working class struggles using colonial and apartheid invented forms of discriminations.

It made a commitment to greater cooperation in the struggle for "the attainment of basic human rights and full citizenship for all sections of the South African people".[6] <#_ftn6> The concerns and aspirations of the oppressed sections of the South African people were given full expression in this declaration.

The declaration made a commitment to struggle for full franchise, the recognition of African trade unions under the Industrial Conciliation Act, housing provision, land justice and freedom, the abolition of the pass system and the removal of all racially discriminatory and oppressive laws in the then Union of South Africa. [7] <#_ftn7>

This was just one of the many historical instances when working class solidarity beyond race and creed took centre stage. It is a vindication of our contention that the Indian working class has never been found wanting in the struggle for political and economic justice in South Africa. The names Ghandi, Yusuf Dadoo and G M Naicker are all engraved in the history of our struggle.

Indian Workers and Contemporary Struggles

If it was true that the Indian working class was propelled to action by the conditions prevailing under the segregationist and apartheid era, the same conditions of a racial capitalist system is producing new forms of struggle.

In 1998, two years after the implementation of the disastrous GEAR policy, the working class was beginning to feel the brunt of market-driven policy. The protest of about 2000 people outside the Durban City Hall against evictions and water disconnections still serves as a point of inspiration for working class struggles today.[8] <#_ftn8>

The Indian working class, the majority of protesters in this case, was challenging the foundations of a policy driven by the privatisation and commodification of basic services. It was challenging the notion that people should be treated as consumers and clients in the democratic dispensation, as opposed to being treated as citizens who should actively participate in building a new South Africa that breaks with our apartheid past.

These struggles were important for not only did they challenge the logic of the so-called "free" market but also continued our long established traditions about the meaning of non-racialism, equality and social solidarity. The bread and butter issues affecting the working class were taken up jointly by the class, which understands that it cannot afford to cling on issues that help divide it.

The working class devoted its energy to inventing new ways of protesting, whilst learning from the past. The struggle to stave off eviction of those who could not pay council rates and the struggle against the criminalisation of the poor by instituting charges against those who responded to water and electricity disconnections became an inspiration to other struggles around KwaZulu Natal and indeed many parts of the country.

These struggles continue to teach us valuable lessons. In waging these struggles, the black working class will not find any support from the petit bourgeoisie and some of the self-serving politicians. They will continue to be called names such as "counter-revolutionary", "reactionary", and "agent provocateurs".

Racial minorities will face even sharper criticism. By merely demanding a better life, through quality education and healthcare, free access to water and electricity, they will be labelled "racist" and unwilling to accept the rising tide of democracy.

But these attempts to delegitimise these struggles will not work. The struggles of workers across the country are converging. They have erected a new pillar of working class solidarity.

Increasingly, the working class in Chatsworth, Tafelberg, Delft, Diepsloot, Warden and Orange Farm are in essence pursuing the same cause. These same workers have had to watch the elite enriching itself whilst their poverty is multiplying. It is the same working class that watches as some public representatives drive the latest and most expensive car models and erect even higher electric-fenced walls.

This culture of leaders wanting to be the first in line to benefit is seen through the ridiculously high salaries paid to executives, even in state owned enterprises. A minority of leaders have become more concerned about their families and friends' access to lucrative state tenders than actually delivering services to the poor.

COSATU's call that public servants must choose between serving the people and being in the business of making money, is more relevant than ever.

This self-aggrandisement of some leaders occurs amidst working class battles over the increasing price of petrol and transport, electricity and food. Workers have had to live with the greed of capitalists in the food industry through food price fixing. The watchdog in the form of the Competition Commission has no teeth to bite capitalist greed.

This is why we must support the call by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries for guilty firms to cut their prices. Signs of remorse and fines are not enough to address capitalist collusion and price fixing in the food industry. Individual company directors have long evaded the radar of the Commission; any steps to hold greedy directors to account must be applauded. In defence of the living standards of the working class, we must support the Ministry's call that bread should be sold at cost price.

The children of the working class continue to die year-out and year-in Mahatma Ghandi hospital; they have to queue for long hours for consultation with a doctor. It is these worker's families that are ravaged by HIV/Aids epidemic.

Just like in the old apartheid days, workers still travel long hours to work, simply because municipalities opt for selling land nearest to places of production to the highest bidder. The banks and the private housing industry have made a fortune out of working class suffering. Everywhere we are confronted by the propping up of lavish town houses, on land that should be used for housing for the poor.

Conditions on the shop floor continue to deteriorate. Indian workers in this province are largely familiar with the impact that liberalisation and the lowering of trade tariffs has had on working class livelihoods and jobs. Workers in the clothing and textile industry have suffered massive retrenchments.

Many of these workers were later hired under new conditions, usually with lower wages, lesser bargaining powers and generally more hostile conditions of employment. For many, a toilet break whilst at work has become an unaffordable luxury. Trade Unions continue to suffer an onslaught from these bosses. Work has been increasingly informalised.

The image of a female shoemaker sowing shoes in a little corner outside the factory that she used to be employed in has become common, especially in the Pinetown area. More and more jobs continue to be lost as white owned South Africa companies relocate to the London and New York stock exchanges.

These changes show that class struggle is the locomotive of history. They teach us that workers are never docile in the face of massive attacks on their standards of living. These struggles show that working class solidarity is the best weapon we have against a neoliberal onslaught and trade Unions are the best organs of worker power.

The increased informalisation of work calls for the organisation of the unorganised. The casualisation and sub-contracting of work demands that trade unions become responsive to the new workplace regime. It demands that workers unite under the clarion call for this May Day, which is a call for the banning of labour brokers.

COSATU hopes that the just as the experience of an oppressive three pound tax and hostile working conditions sowed the seeds for a new type of worker militancy and resistance, the current conditions of the ever-escalating cost of living can provide the much needed momentum for Indian workers to resist and discard the shackles of a racist and oppressive capitalist system.

We hope the increased commodification of health, education and basic services, so brutally felt by the poor in Chatsworth and other parts, can be the motivation to seek for a better world governed by true equality and freedom. We hope the apartheid sword of racial disunity and compartmentalisation can be turned on the enemy.

Workers of all races have no choice but to make a home in the union. Despite largely progressive labour legislation and the constitution that workers' struggled for, the real source of worker power lies in our numerical strength and unity against the bosses.

The abuses suffered by workers under casualisation and sub-contracting are living proof that workers who are not unionised suffer most brutally. Unions afford workers the possibility for collective bargaining; hence statistics prove that union members get higher pay and a variety of benefits such as pensions and medical aid.

The footprints of the Indian people's struggle against colonial domination, racial and class oppression are an omnipresent reality on South Africa's struggle history. This is a history to be proud of, for it is not the history of few individuals. It is the history of collective struggle and resistance, of working class internationalism and solidarity. The rich traditions of Indian working class struggles must never be forgotten.

They must be owned and transposed through generations, not only by the Indian people but the working class as a whole. For the history of Indian resilience and struggle is part and parcel of the history of all oppressed and exploited people.

There is no better way to commemorate the 150th anniversary than for the working class to rally together across racial lines, in the workplaces and in our communities, and to strengthen worker power by joining the trade unions en masse, to unite in the struggle against a capitalist onslaught against the living standards of workers, corruption and greed as well as the commodification of basic services.