The significant increase of women in paid labour during the 1970s and early 1980s was vital in terms of garnering support and raising awareness of the injustices they suffered as a group. Their concentration in certain industries (such as retail or food and processing) and workplaces was important in creating suitable conditions for women to identify their experiences as a group. Women, who took up union leadership positions and challenged gender specific issues, often came from sectors or workplaces that were dominantly female. Examples include Emma Mashinini and Maggie Magubane. Before launching CCAWUSA in 1975, Emma Mashinini first became a worker representative in the textile factory where she worked66 and Maggie Magubane was also a worker representative at the Biscuit Factory where she worked before becoming the General Secretary of Sweet Food and Allied Workers Union.67
The presence of women in the labour movement in the early 1970s shaped labour struggles within the South African workplace, giving it a different dimension. The discrimination of women on the basis of gender in the workplace brought up new challenges for the labour movement. As part of the working class, women challenged the unions as well as management in addressing their particular interests as a group. Some of the most important issues that women raised included demands for equal wages, access to training opportunities and demands for maternity leave and childcare.
Demands for ‘equal pay for work of equal value’
In challenging discriminatory practices in wages, women made a call for ‘equal pay for work of equal value’ (Baskin, 1991). For instance, in 1981, textile workers (the National Union of Textile Workers (NUTW))68 reached an agreement with South African Fabrics to close the wage gap between women and men workers in the industry.69 In another incident, in 1984 CWIU women in Elandsfontein challenged management’s practices of placing women in the ‘bottom grade’ with the lowest pay.70 Women, who composed half of the workforce, were placed in this grade, while men were in different grades that paid higher wages.71 After pressure from women who raised the issue with the
66
See Mashinini (1989:18).
67
FOSATU Worker News (undated).
68
FOSATU Worker News, 1981.
69 Another example in which women challenged unequal pay was in 1986 when CWIU workers
engaged in a three week strike at the Mining and Industrial Rubber Company challenging the differences in pay between women and men who performed similar tasks. As a result of the industrial action, women gained a 54 percent increase, putting the wages at the same level as those of their male colleagues (cited in COSATU Women’s Subcommittee Meeting, June 1993, COSATU Archives)).
70
FOSATU Worker News, 1984, No. 31.
71
union, management was forced to scrap the grade and pay women the minimum rates, equivalent to those of male workers.72
At its launch in 1985, COSATU raised the demand for a living wage for all workers. But it was not until 1987 that the Living Wage Campaign took off, with the aim of challenging poor wages earned by the black working class. The demands of the campaign included a living wage for all, an end to tax deductions, a 40 hour working week, job security, a minimum of six months paid maternity leave, an end to the hostel system73 and decent family housing near places of work, decent education and training.74 The campaign noted the exploitation of women as well as the racial and gender discrimination they suffered under the capitalist and apartheid system.75 It provided women with the opportunity to highlight the discrimination of women in the labour market.76
Baskin (1991) argues that COSATU’s call for a living wage resonated with the feelings and experiences of the working class concerning the low wages and inflation (resulting in high commodity prices), which the country was undergoing at the time. He further asserts that during 1987 almost six million working days were lost through strike action (excluding stay away from work actions). One of the most noted strikes involved the retail sector, which is dominated by women workers (Baskin, 1991:248). It is estimated that about 11 000 workers from OK Bazaars and Hyperama (both retail supermarkets) went on strike for ten weeks to demand a living wage.77 In the end, women won a significant increase (R100) that applied to everyone in the workplace. In his address to the opening of the COSATU women’s conference in 1988, Chris Seopesengwe who was the chairperson of the NEDCOM then, argued, “the militancy of the OK strike set the tone for COSATU’s Living wage campaign which shook the state and the bosses” (5).78
The campaign was a useful opportunity for women to challenge employers’ notions that only men were breadwinners. In one of the campaign’s pamphlets it
72
Baskin (1991) observes that the struggles over equal wages have met with resistance from employers, who often placed women and men in different grades with different pay. In such instances, women have been placed in the lowest paid grades. In some instances, like in the case of NUTW reported above, a year later employers had replaced women with men. Baskin (1991:378) reports that there were only two women left in the company, both serving tea.
73
The apartheid’s hostel system mainly provided accommodation for migrant workers in the cities, excluding their families. Workers in these places lived in squalid and overcrowded conditions, without any privacy, making family life impossible (for a full discussion of the dynamics of this accommodation system see Ramphele, 1993).
74
COSATU Second National Congress (1987:19), (COSATU Archives).
75 Ibid (1987:20). 76
The campaign also gave women the opportunity to highlight the plight of many women who were concentrated in low skilled jobs where trade unions did not organize, such as domestic service and the agricultural sector (COSATU Women’s Subcommittee meeting, June 1993 (COSATU Archives)).
77
This has been noted as one of the longest strikes in the history of South African labour movement activities (See Seidman 1993).
78
was stated that “women workers, just like men workers, need a living wage to provide decent housing, education, food, clothing, transport and leisure for themselves and their families. Women workers have special reasons to join the fight to win these demands.”79 The pamphlet highlights two major points: firstly, women were also workers, and secondly, they are responsible family providers, something which the state, employers and the general society fail to fully acknowledge.
Under apartheid laws, married women and single women were taxed differently from men. The Income Tax Law regarded men as responsible breadwinners (regardless of their marital status), and therefore taxed less.80 Unmarried women were taxed higher than men, but married women’s tax was the highest, based on the notion that they had husbands to take care of them.81 The Living Wage Campaign served as a springboard in challenging these sexist notions and raising public awareness of gender inequality in the government’s legislation. Through the campaign women questioned the basis of being taxed at a higher rate whilst they did not have much influence in the economic decisions of the country.82
While the demand for a 40-hour working week was important for all workers, it was most important for women workers, as they were most likely to be employed in sectors where employers unilaterally enforced overtime work. In her biography, Frances Baard (1986:21) points out that at a canning factory, work started at six in the morning and went on until it was all done, even if it meant finishing work at ten in the evening. For many women like her, this was too strenuous and inconvenient, as they had to walk long distances in the dark on their way back home, which was often not safe. It also interfered with their family life and involvement in their children’s lives.83
The Living Wage Campaign also reflected on gender discrimination in education and training opportunities, which were often reserved for male workers. As already indicated, employers often preferred men to women for training opportunities and skilled occupations (Standing, Sender and Weeks, 1996). Standing et al. point out that fewer companies reported women employed in apprenticeship positions in 1988. This, as emphasized above, has significant implications for the differences in wages between women and men.
In objecting to the gender inequalities in education and training opportunities, women raised several issues that not only related to the workplace. Firstly, the
79 ‘Women Workers Join the Fight for a Living Wage’, COSATU Pamphlet (COSATU Archives). 80
The taxable income of a married woman was calculated on the basis of her own income together with that of her husband, which pushed her into a higher income tax bracket (Smith, Undated source).
81
COSATU Women’s Sub-committee meeting, June 1993 (COSATU Archives).
82
COSATU Women’s Conference, 1988 (COSATU Archives).
83
As will be shown in the discussion below, women in the trade unions made demands for a right to a family life.
issue of unequal opportunities (for girls and boys) in the schooling system, which was promoted by the apartheid state, and the society’s biased (in favour of boys) cultural norms, were raised.84 Secondly, women argued that education and training opportunities for women in the workplace, and the unions as well, were crucial to improving the conditions of women within both arenas. Lack of education and training were identified as major obstacles in improving the poor status and positioning of women within society, the labour market, and the labour movement.
In an address to a conference for the International Food Unions held in Geneva in 1983, Maggie Magubane, who was then the General Secretary of the Sweet Food and Allied Workers’ Union, argued that management’s reluctance to giving training to women was linked to the idea of not regarding women as permanent members of the workforce.85 Magubane pointed out that managements were often reluctant to train women to get better jobs ‘because women did not stay in jobs long enough to make training them worthwhile.’ According to her, this also indicated that women were being discriminated in training opportunities because they had to take time off work in situations of pregnancy and childbirth.
Women have a right to be workers and mothers:86 the struggle for maternity and child-care rights
Although women’s presence and the demand for their cheap labour continued to increase from the early 1970s through to the 1980s, the employers and the government continued to regard their involvement in the labour force as temporary. Both government and employers rejected suggestions to recognize women workers’ rights in the workplace. Their rights in the workplace therefore, were not protected, and women were subjected to various forms of discrimination. The Wiehahn Commission, however, made attempts to alleviate this situation after its conclusion of the investigations into the 1973 strikes. As part of its recommendations for the transformation of the labour relations system in South Africa, the Commission made the recommendation that women’s right to return to work after childbirth be guaranteed (Barrett et al, 1985:114). This recommendation was rejected by the government, citing the cost implications for the employers.
Both employers and the state still perceived the workplace in masculine terms whereby all workers are men and do not require time off for childbirth. Management’s attitude towards women was that “women must either work, or they must stay at home and have babies” (Speak, 1989). Reports by women
84
Women and the Living Wage Campaign Booklet (COSATU Archives).
85
FOSATU Worker News, 1983, No. 21.
86
This is an argument made by Khosi Maseko who was National Union of Textile Workers (NUTW) shop steward (quoted from the COSATU Worker News publication in 1984).
indicate that in some cases women were made to sign declarations, which stated that they were not pregnant at the time of being employed, and that should they become pregnant within a certain period, their services will be terminated immediately.87 In one of the women’s meetings reported in the FOSATU Worker News (1983), a shop steward stated that ‘the problem is clear, if you get pregnant that’s it, the boss fires you.’88 Khosi Maseko (1984) therefore concludes that “maternity then becomes retrenchment through the backdoor.” According to her, women’s economic need to keep their jobs often puts women in a situation where they would go to any lengths to protect their jobs.89 In most cases this often included ‘back street’ (illegal) abortions,90 and some women fastening their stomachs tightly to hide their pregnancy (and in some cases this has endangered their unborn babies) (Maseko, 1984). It is under such circumstances that many women workers raised their concerns about the lack of protection for their jobs and maternity rights.
In articulating their demands for maternity rights, women argued that the issue involved both women and men. ‘Everybody has the right to have children, and both men and women are involved’ is one of the statements made by women during this period.91 The demand for maternity rights was therefore framed in terms of workers’ rights. Similar to the common workers’ demands in the workplace, such as wages, demands for maternity rights are economic demands. It is a demand for continued access to means of earning an income to support their families. This was also a demand for employers to recognize women not only as substitutes in the workplace, but an integral part of the labour force with a meaningful role to play.
Women’s struggles for maternity rights and job protection feature prominently in the early trade union strikes, as illustrated earlier by the 1980 Frame Factory workers strikes. In 1981 the Sweet Food and Allied Workers’ Union (SFAWU), which at the time was led by Maggie Magubane as the general secretary, signed an agreement with Kelloggs Company.92 The agreement offered workers 33 percent payment of wages for a period of 12 weeks and the opportunity to be placed first if any vacancies opened while the woman was ready to return to
87
Report made by a CWIU shop steward at a women’s group meeting (FOSATU Worker news, 1983, No 25).
88
FOSATU Worker news, 1983, No. 25.
89
FOSATU Worker News, 1984, No. 30.
90 Based on these experiences, working class women in South Africa have been very vocal on matters
of women’s health and women’s access to health services. The call for the legalization of abortion and free access for all women resulted from the realization of the dangers to many working class women who faced risks of infections, infertility and, in the worst cases, death from the illegal abortion procedures (see resolutions of the 1988 COSATU Women’s Conference).
91
Speak Magazine, 1984, No.6.
92
work.93 Although the agreement was limited in terms of guaranteeing women their jobs after childbirth, it opened the way for women’s struggles on maternity rights.
Scholars like Baskin (1991:376), however, put emphasis on the CCAWUSA agreement in 1983 with OK Bazaars as the “first major breakthrough” in the struggle for maternity rights. In 1983, the retail sector union, SACCAWU, (formerly known as CCAWUSA), which was mainly dominated by women workers, successfully negotiated a maternity agreement that gave women a full guarantee of having their jobs back after childbirth. The union’s first agreement on maternity rights was with OK Bazaars (one of the former major retail stores in South Africa). With the new agreement women had a one-year’s unpaid leave and a guarantee of retaining their jobs (Baskin, 1991; Bird, 1988). While I agree with Baskin (1991) that this was a major gain in women’s struggles for maternity leave, the maternity agreements achieved prior to the CCAWUSA agreement are still fundamental in terms of placing women’s interests on the agenda of workers’ struggles in the workplace.
The gains that women were making in some workplaces were vital in mobilising women to be proactive in protecting their rights to employment. For instance NUTW women shop stewards at Whiteheads, a textile factory in Tongaat, Kwa-Zulu Natal, sought information about how to best negotiate a maternity agreement after hearing about the successes made by unions like CCAWUSA.94 Many of the women in the area were breadwinners in their households, and the housing rent in the area is reported to have been high. Loosing their jobs was therefore detrimental for their continued access to housing.
The presence of women in considerable numbers in particular workplaces is useful in explaining the increase in gender specific demands. This was limited not only to the female dominated sectors or industries, but it was also witnessed in male dominated sectors such as metal, where in some cases women constituted a substantial number in certain workplaces. In some of these workplaces, women acted in solidarity to enforce their demands for maternity rights in the workplace. For instance, in 1984 an estimated 200 workers at Motor Assemblies near Durban stopped work for about two hours in support of a demand for guaranteed re-employment after giving birth.95 This took place after one woman who was pregnant was forced by management to go on maternity leave without any guarantee of re-employment. It was after this incident that their union, the National Automobile and Allied Workers’ Union indicated its attempts to take it
93 Ibid. 94 Speak 1984, No.6. 95
up with the Motor Assemblies management. The motor employers’ maternity agreement was reached in 1988 (Adrienne Bird, 1988). It allowed six months guarantee of re-employment for women who have worked for an employer for two years (Adrienne Bird, 1988:4).
The success in maternity agreements boosted women’s struggles for maternity rights as increased numbers of workers continued to make demands on their companies. Bird (1987), for instance, reports that during 1986 CWIU won twenty maternity agreements in the Gauteng region (then known as Transvaal) alone. One of the chemical sector companies in Kwa-Zulu Natal, the NCS Plastics Company in Pinetown, also signed a maternity agreement in 1984, which not only guaranteed women workers’ jobs, but also allowed fathers two days off work for the birth of a child. According to Dorothy Budokwe, who was a shop steward with the CWIU in the company, the inclusion of men in the agreement was in recognition of the fact that maternity rights are for all workers.96 This finding challenges Baskin’s (1991),97 which credits CCAWUSA for having negotiated the first paternity agreement with Metro Cash and Carry in 1985.
One of the significant achievements in women’s struggles on maternity rights was the industry wide maternity agreement in the metal sector (a male dominated sector) in 1986.98 According to Bird (1987:19), this was South Africa’s first national industry-wide maternity agreement. It allowed women six months paid maternity leave, and a guarantee that they could return to their job after giving birth. This achievement came as a result of pressures from the women workers within the sector, who pushed the Metal and Allied Workers’ Union to include the demand in their national sector bargaining (Bird, 1987).
Women’s demands for maternity rights in the workplace should be regarded as