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working conditions and basic pension and leave rights. The workers SADWU is organising are not producing essential commodities in factories but are producing personal services in individual families. Also many black women are without work, so even domestic workers’ wages appear attractive to them. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why domestic work still exists and a grossly underpaid occupation in most Third World countries. As long as South Africa remains a less developed country, domestic work will continue as a major sector of employment for many black women.

Pretoria to protest against passes for women were domestic workers who had been contacted through their manyano. Many times in the past, trade unions have attempted to recruit domestic workers, but have not always been successful. The most successful attempts have been made recently by the South African Domestic Workers Union (SADWU) which claims 20000 members out of some 800000 domestic workers in the country. “Dif fi cult” But it is dif fi cult for the Union to fi ght successfully for higher wages, proper

also fl ourish in the suburbs. Almost every domestic worker belonged to a manyano. Every Sunday and Thursday, suburban churches, parks, rivers and fi elds come alive with church meetings, singing and prayers. Such groups have their early history in the 1890’s, when mainstream churches established women’s prayer unions and introduced uniforms. These manyano have not only been spiritual and social homes to their members. They have sometimes provided a focus for political organisations. In the 1950s many of the women who joined the great march to

COSATU LIBRARY BOOKS Donald Ratau  011 339 4911 donald@cosatu.org.za

Understanding the economy ISBN 0-620-20937-2

This book is meant for all those people who want to read more about the economy but have not been able to find anything which explains it in a way that everyone can understand. Most people who write about the economy only seem to recognise the formal economy. All those economically active people who work outside the formal economy are usually invisible, as if they were not part of the full picture. This book shows both the formal

Collective Bargaining: A workers’ education manual ISBN 92-2-105284-2

Success in collective bargaining calls for knowledge and skill in several basic areas. How should a claim be presented to an employer? What arguments should be used? How is bargaining conducted? What is the role of the state? What are the rights to which a worker is entitled, in terms of international labour standards? These are among the questions answered in this manual, which belongs to a series designed to be as effective as possible in the defence and advancement of workers’ interests.

and informal sides of our economy and gives proper recognition to all those workers, especially women, whose contribution to the economy normally goes unnoticed.

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