Worker power for a better South Africa and a safer world is a living phenomenon. It rises in every pay office where the production hours of workers are being monitored. It affects every community, as shop-steward councils keep the lights on during bargaining season. It speaks for justice across borders, carrying
the hope of children in Gaza and Gqeberha in the same breath. Worker power is practical, ethical and necessary – and it is profoundly personal for me.
As a teenager, I remember sitting in crowded community halls where shop-stewards explained wage negotiations and union campaigns,
and their links to our living conditions in a language everyone could understand. I recall attending United Democratic Front (UDF)
local meetings where our COSATU local leaders encouraged us to contribute small amounts to support striking workers. These early experiences shaped my political consciousness, guided me toward a Marxist- Leninist orientation, and instilled in me a lifelong
appreciation for the transformative potential of worker power.
In South Africa, worker power has a deep pedigree. The Industrial Workers of Africa (IWA) was founded in 1917 by the International Socialist League – forerunner of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA/SACP)– later merging into the Industrial and Commercial
Workers’ Union of Africa and becoming the country’s first trade union for African workers. This establishment marked an important
step for black workers in collective action, leading to significant strikes such as the 1920 mine workers’ strike. Subsequently, workers helped shape the Congress tradition through the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), an ally of the African
National Congress (ANC) and Communist Party. SACTU demonstrated that the fight for freedom and the fight for better
working conditions are the same struggle. Repression scattered its leaders, but the idea did not scatter. It took root underground
and abroad, keeping domestic resistance and international solidarity alive.
The Durban strikes of 1973 signalled a rebirth. Tens of thousands of workers downed tools and won gains that renewed Commentary confidence in independent unions. This wave seeded shop-floor organisation and leadership schools that would carry into the next decade. It proved that disciplined mass action could open space in a highly repressive system.
The story of worker power is also a story of international solidarity. In February 1981, workers at Wilson Rowntree, a subsidiary of
the British firm Rowntree Mackintosh, were dismissed after they went on strike for better working conditions. The South African Allied Workers Union called a consumer boycott. The call crossed oceans and rallied British unions and the anti-apartheid movement. The boycott kept pressure on the company and broadcast the voice of South African workers to the world. As primary school learners, we forced our school tuck shop to stop selling Rowntree sweets and chocolates, symbolising the strong links between worker, community
and global struggles.
In November 1984, the Transvaal stay-away emptied factories, shops and mines, showing both the breadth of organisation and the depth of social anger. It made the economy shake and the apartheid regime shudder. By 1985, the moment had matured. Unions gathered in Durban and founded the Congress of South African Trade Unions. The new federation carried the lessons of earlier years, and the organising muscle of affiliates forged in the fires of the seventies and early eighties. In 1987, mineworkers walked out in one of the largest industrial actions in our history. The strike tested endurance and solidarity. It drew a line between a system that depended on cheap labour and a movement that insisted on dignity. The state and capital responded with dismissals and repression.
The moral and political effect of that strike helped drain legitimacy from apartheid. It exposed the
fragility of an economy built on exploitation. COSATU locals gave this power a presence in every area. Locals brought shop-stewards from different affiliates into one room. They coordinated campaigns, supported factory committees, and linked workplace issues with
community needs. It was this influence on the nature of our community-based action that enabled an understanding that worker power stretches beyond wage negotiations to include community, solidarity and shared responsibility. These structures were the backbone of feedback, education and mobilisation, and the anchoring of a dialectical democratic culture between the federation and society.
Worker power shaped the institutions of our democracy. The Labour Relations Act of 1995 set new rules for bargaining. It established the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration to resolve disputes and promote industrial peace. The Basic Conditions of Employment Act and the Employment Equity Act strengthened rights to decent hours, paid leave and non-discrimination. NEDLAC brought
together labour, business, community and the state in a single forum for social dialogue and policy-making. The National Minimum
Wage Act set a legal wage floor and embedded an annual review process. These are hard-won
tools. They came from research, negotiation and mass-action-based pressure. They belong
to the working class of this country.
The trade union movement produced leaders who carried worker values into mass democratic politics and government. Jay Naidoo became the first general secretary of COSATU and later served as a minister in the democratic cabinet. Cyril Ramaphosa and Kgalema Motlanthe – who both served as general secretaries of the National Union of Mineworkers – rose to the highest echelons of the state. Gwede Mantashe rose from the mine shaft to union leadership and later to the top ranks of the SACP, the ANC, and the government.
Their trajectories show the formative power of the shopfloor and the responsibility that comes with it. However, it also exposes the patriarchal nature of our liberation movement as invisible barriers prevent dynamic women trade union leaders, including Connie September, Zingiswa Losi and many others, from occupying the highest offices of power.
A strong labour movement champions a decent wage and fair working conditions. It fights capitalist exploitation and the racism and sexism that feed it. It insists that a woman in a clinic, a driver on a night shift, and a sweeper in a school are not cost lines. They are citizens with rights and workers with agency. Collective bargaining tables, picket lines and policy panels are all part
of the same mission. The goal is a society where value created by labour is recognised, shared, and translated into services that work and communities that thrive. Worker power modernises. It adapts to new realities. In today’s South Africa, where the hegemony
Commentary of the liberation movement is losing influence over society, it is more urgent
than ever to organise unorganised workers and reawaken progressive trade unionism. Digital platforms and fragmented supply chains challenge old models of representation.
Automation and artificial intelligence are reshaping tasks and skills. Climate change is already altering jobs and communities.
These conditions often place workers in precarious situations and thus constitute the new frontlines of class struggle. Only by bringing them into collective structures can unions rebuild the social and political leverage necessary to defend workers’ rights,
influence policy, and promote a vision of society rooted in justice, dignity and equality.
COSATU has outlined a policy framework for a just transition that prioritises job protection, fosters new skills development, and places affected workers at the centre of the energy shift. Its leadership has raised concerns about the speed and shape of the fourth
industrial revolution and pushed for comprehensive plans that prepare workers for new technologies. This is a sober and practical
path that keeps people in focus while modernising the economy. With this legacy and these tools, workers can drive a capable and ethical state. That state pays suppliers on time. It fixes the basics in energy, water, transport and safety. It respects collective bargaining and tackles corruption without fear. Organised labour can audit delivery at the local level through its locals, bring whistleblowers to safety, and partner with communities to keep clinics open and roads repaired.
When shop-stewards treat every problem as a solvable task and every win as a step toward dignity, the entire public sphere lifts.
Responsible worker power also nurtures an enterprise that creates decent work. It supports cooperatives, pushes for localisation and
green reindustrialisation, and brings worker voices into corporate boards and public agencies. It stands with small businesses that obey the law and pay living wages. It promotes continuous learning so a young coder, a mid-career fitter, and an older nurse can all move forward with confidence. Internationalism remains a pillar. Solidarity built the anti-apartheid movement, and it remains a vital force. Workers speak up for the people of Palestine because justice does not stop at a border.
COSATU has backed calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions and has worked with global unions to defend human rights and labour
rights. But more is needed. A safer world grows when workers everywhere reject war profiteering, forced labour, and union busting, and when they build clean energy jobs, public health capacity, and decent housing. A free Palestine will occur when workers refuse to produce, upload and offload goods going to and coming from apartheid Israel and other oppressive states. The message is clear.
Unity on the shop-floor and in society translates into tangible improvements in pay, safety, and public services. It opens paths for
young leaders. It refines policy. It binds our future to international justice. Every meeting of a local shop-steward council, every
wage agreement that lifts a family above the poverty line, and every act of solidarity with people under siege make South Africa stronger and the world safer. For me, those evenings in the 80s, covertly planning collective resistance to apartheid showed that the
work is patient and resolute. The prize is a country that works and a humanity that refuses to abandon its own.
Cde Reneva Fourie is a member of the Central Committee and Politburo of the South African Communist Party.
