Riches from rags: bosses and unions in the Cape clothing industry 1926–1937

Abstract

During the late 1920s and 1930s a strong, militant garment workers' union was built up in the Transvaal. Solly Sachs, Joanna Cornelius, Anna Scheepers and others, led the union through more than a hundred strikes in a successful battle for improved wages and conditions. In addition, the union held out against a barrage of attacks from Afrikaner nationalists intent on wresting control from 'the Jew-Communist Sachs'. The struggle of young Afrikaner workers against wage-cutting bosses and their rejection of the ideology of the Afrikaner nationalists provided an encouraging example to the rest of the South African labour movement. ' This was in sharp contrast to the experience of the garment workers of Cape Town who had to confront a union, closely in league with the factory owners, which condoned substantially lower wages than in the Transvaal and refused to lead a fight against poor conditions. The alliance between the local clothing manufacturers and the leadership of the Cape Federation of Labour Unions (CFLU) effectively countered all attempts to form a militant garment workers' union in Cape Town. The failure of the various attempts to mobilize Cape garment workers significantly illuminates the operation of South African industrial legislation. Specifically, it shows how the Wage and Industrial Conciliation Acts operated to structure the alliance (between manufacturers and union officials) and prevent the emergence of a militant trade union in the Cape clothing industry. One cannot approach an understanding of the struggles of workers in Cape Town, without an appreciation of the general conditions of class struggle