An interview with Wilhelmina Trout, South African trade union activist
During their 2009 tour of southern Africa, members of the Vukani Mawethu Choir had an opportunity to meet with trade union activist Wilhelmina Trout. Trout has a long history of activism in the South American labor movement, from the early years under apartheid to the formation of Africa’s largest labor federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). She also served as coordinator for the Gender and Trade Union Education Project, at the Institute of Development and Labor Law at the University of Cape Town, Now retired, she works closely with the South African Service and Allied Workers Union, the Self Employed Women’s Union and the Sexual Harassment Education Project.
Vukani Mawethu prepared several topics for Ms. Trout. Here is her response: About the relationship between the unions and the elections: Presently, I am involved in training and education in trade unions. The last project was…for Southern Africa…I’ve been working for the last six or seven years mainly outside of Southern Africa trying to build the trade union movement in the southern region which stretches from Zambia right down to Mauritius and Sajal, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is also a part of southern Africa. Actually, it was a project that I did for Solidarity Center… and for the Southern African Trade Union Congress.
A lot of my work, including my last project, was working in southern Africa to build leadership to build the trade union movement in the other countries.
Because South Africa has such a strong history and a strong labor movement, there is no separation between the factories and sweat shops across the borders. So, in order to protect workers willing to build their solidarity between workers—between unions—so that they can collaborate together, there was one specific project, for example, which happened between Lesotho and South Africa in which we formed a Southern African Leadership Academy, and through that we were giving this training.
But, to come back to this project we were doing with Lesotho; it revolved around the fact that the United States was making blue jeans in Lesotho and in addition to violating labor laws and conditions against the workers, had no regard for the environment. We came there, we were walking not on green grass but blue grass because of the dye coming out of the factory and permeating the soil, and cattle were grazing there.
Coming back to the elections and the trade union movement:...I’ve always worked in the Congress Of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). They are the biggest labor federation. In 1985, when COSATU was formed, it was a merger of various trade unions, and one of the important unions was the Metal Workers’ Union. Of course the organization of southern African workers goes way back to the Southern African Trade Union Congress (SATUC) which was formed, as DuBois said, “in the midst of World War II…at the Trade Union Conference in London in 1944 to plan for world organization of labor.” [W.E.B. Du Bois, The World and Africa, p.243, 1945]
But, in 1985, COSATU was formed. My background—my involvement—my activism comes from SATUC. But, because I am a trade union educator, and because I worked for the education of all workers—not only for COSATU—I was working for workers belonging to COSATU and workers belonging to then two other federations: one was the historically white federation [she’s white], and one was the federation that is aligned with the Pan African Congress [and was responsible for the convening of the Fifth Pan African Congress held at the end of World War II].
We see this election [of Zuma ] as the most challenging one since 1994, because of the division within the ANC and the new party that was formed [COPE] , and what the challenges are that we are facing in this world crisis of Capitalism. So, COSATU once again was against breaking the alliance between the ANC and the South African Communist Party, because COSATU was not only allied with the ANC, but also with the South African Communist Party…The vote was for maintaining the alliance and bringing the ANC back into power.
This interveiw was transcribed and prepared by CCDS member Alex Bagwell, who sings with Vukani Mawethu. It appeared in the Jan-March issue of the Northern California CCDS Newsletter, our last print issue.
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