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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Separation for Unity: The Garment Workers Union and the South African Clothing Union 1928 to 1936 |
Author: | Witz, Leslie |
Year: | 1988 |
Periodical: | Social Dynamics |
Volume: | 14 |
Issue: | 1 |
Period: | June |
Pages: | 34-45 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | trade unions clothing industry Labor and Employment History and Exploration Economics and Trade Ethnic and Race Relations Historical/Biographical organizations |
External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02533958808458439 |
Abstract: | The registered Garment Workers' Union (GWU), with an almost exclusively white membership up until 1939, worked very closely with the unregistered trade union for African clothing workers, the South African Clothing Workers' Union (SACWU). Up until its demise in 1984, the GWU proclaimed that it had always been committed to the principle of nonracialism. This paper examines the validity of this assertion for the period 1928-1936, when Solly Sachs was the general secretary of the union, and argues that the GWU did not give the SACWU full support. Moreover, it committed itself to a policy of keeping white and black workers separate in order to keep the GWU united. The paper starts with a description of the nature of the work and the workforce in the clothing industry in those early years. Bibliogr., ref., sum. |