Aug-Sept 2014 K.indd

54

AUG/SEPT 2014 • www.cosatu.org.za

African miners for higher wages. Workers were forced back to work and about 12 African miners were killed, whilst 1 200 were injured. AMWU leaders were arrested. In 1944 the ANC Youth League is formed by the young militant leaders, amongst them Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, OR Tambo, Mdu Lembede based on ideas of African Nationalism. They believed that only Africans can free themselves through their own efforts and to involve masses of people in militant struggles. As masses of people fl ocked to the cities, began forming community organizations and trade unions the militant ideas of the Youth League found support. The Youth League then drew up the Programme of Action (POA ). This was a call to mass strikes, boycotts and stayaways. It was adopted by the ANC in 1949 and led to the De fi ance Campaign of 1950 . This was the beginning of mass movement of de fi ance just after the National Party came to power in 1948 on the ticket of separate development using policies of apartheid . This was a whites-only elections and the Nationalists clamped down on black organizations enacting Apartheid repressive laws further restricting movement through in fl ux control laws etc. The Supression of Communism Act (1950) banned the Communist Party of SA, which of fi cially disbands and go underground and reforms as SACP (SA Communist Party, we know today). In March 1955, The SA Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) was launched with 34 unions representing 42000 members, formed around the principle of worker unity, non-racialism and mobilization, with the slogan “An injury to one is an injury to all”. This was following the dissolution of SATLC over membership of African trade unions a year earlier in 1954. Conservative craft unions had reformed as Trade Union Council of SA (TUCSA) which barred African members. 1956, August 9th about 20 000 African women joined by women of other races led a protest march to Pretoria against carrying of passes by black women. In 1957, SACTU launched the “Living Wage Campaign”. It was the success of the De fi ance

Campaign that led to more closer co operation between the ANC and SA Indian Congress. New organizations sprang up like the SA Coloured People’s Organisation (SACPO) and the Congress of Democrats (COD) which was an organization of white democrats – all in opposition to apartheid. These organizations together with the SA Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) formed what was known as the Congress Alliance, which came together to organize the “Congress of the People ”. They drew up demands into the “Freedom Charter” which was adopted at the congress of the people at Kliptown on the 26th June 1955. The NP government immediately discredited the Freedom Charter calling it a “Communist document” in order to ban it under the “Suppression of Communism Act (1950)”. There was more co-operation in the struggles between blacks and whites in the fi ght for justice and democracy. The Congress Alliance became an expression of the ANC’s policy of “non-racialism” as declared in the Freedom Charter. A minority who called themselves “Africanists” opposed the Freedom Charter objecting to the ANC’s increased co-operation with whites and Indians (described as foreigners ). The difference of opinion between the Africanists and those in the ANC that supported the Freedom Charter (called “Charterists”) could not be resolved. This led to the Africanists breaking away to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in 1959. The PAC began its anti-pass campaign on the 21st March 1960, asking people to leave their passes at home, gather at police stations and demand to be arrested (for not carrying a pass ). At Sharpeville where people had gathered in the Vaal the police opened fi re on unarmed and peaceful crowd, killing 69 and 186 people were left wounded. This marked the end of peaceful protest, as the government on March 30, 1960 banned both the ANC and PAC. For the ANC this was beginning of the armed struggle. The ANC went “underground” and formed Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in 1961 “ hit back by all means within our power in defence of our people, our future and our freedom”. The treason trial of 156

the Communist Party organized an anti pass demonstrations. Police shoot dead 4 protesters in Durban. The following year SA Railways and Harbours Union (SARHU) is formed which increased its membership to 20 000 by 1943. 1939 – 1945 begins the WW2, Manufacturing sector grows with employment of white women and black African workers taking up skilled and semi-skilled factory jobs as white men had gone to war. This resulted in growth in numbers of women in urban areas and 60% of workers in the clothing industry were white women. The new era was about to begin in the 1940s with increased militancy and spreading of peoples organizations fi ghting against increased exploitation and Afrikaner nationalism. 5. THE RADICAL 1940s-1950s AND With such increased attacks on the rights of black people called for a more militant response from the ANC, as harsher racism helped to bring together organizations that were exclusively for Indians, Coloureds and Africans. Hence, in 1947 the ANC and the Indian Congresses signed a pact stating full support for one another’s campaigns. In 1941 a Council of Non-European Trade Unions (CNETU) united many black workers in industrial unions and this led to many strikes. Between the years 1936 to 1945, at least about 27 unions in Natal organized black as well as Indian workers mainly in the sugar plantations. The SALTC drew up a Workers’ Charter demanding “equal rights for all workers regardless of sex, race, or creed”. White women organized in the National Union of Distributive Workers whilst black women were organized by African Distributive Workers Union (ADWU) both won increases through a strike at OK Bazaars. In 1942, the Communist Party and other existing African trade unions formed the African Mineworkers Union (AMWU) under the leadership of JB Marks as the fi rst union for African mine workers. In 1946 AMWU called out a strike of about 76 000 RISE OF PROTEST ACTION AGAINST EXPLOITATION

Education