NANNA’S LIFE STORY | South African History Online

I was born in 1925 and grew up near Hermitage Street, on the hill in Paarl. We were four brothers and four sisters. My father, Henry Josephs, worked at a butcher. When he became ill, the doctor said the climate in Paarl was not good for his health so we moved to Cape Town where he worked as a gravedigger in the Observatory cemetery. We stayed there for a short while and then came back to Paarl where we settled down.

My father was interested in politics and had to have a newspaper every day because he wanted to know what was going on in the country. He would tell my mother about it but she was just occupied with raising the children and cleaning the house. She would just listen to what he had to say and just agreed with everything, but I always questioned him.

However, I was always interested in what he read in the newspaper. I was in primary school and in those days children were not allowed to sit in the company of adults. But whenever I told my father that we wanted to go and play, he would say we must stay so that they can know what we are doing. Then I would sit and listen, until he indicated to me that he wanted me to leave.

Bryma Moerat's father used to visit him a lot, and then they talked about these matters. Bryma's ¹father noticed that I watched and listened while my father talked. He used to look at the gap between my front teeth and said, ‘She's going to travel a lot, and she's going to travel very far.' I don't know if that was a warning.

My father was strict, but he was a good man. He never told us what to do, but he was very unhappy when my two brothers went into the army. He did not want them to go to War, and he always gave their letters to my mother. He was a sportsman, and Saturday was their sports day. He was a pleasant man, especially when he was a bit tipsy.

I loved being in the veld, almost as a tomboy, climbing trees. I had very few female friends. I really liked to spend time with my parents and my sisters. We were a knitted family and I wasn't interested in dancing and bioscope. I was very interested in other people's lives and their problems. Where we lived was mixed and next to us were two African families and I really liked to go play there. If I didn't want to stay at home or someone made me angry I ran next door and ate a little – I really liked their stamp-mealies and beans.

I went to school at the age of nine, because you were considered too young to go to school at the age of six. We attended Bethanie Congregational School, opposite the therapist and near to Du Plessis' garage, but they now use it as a kindergarten. Our teachers, like Mr. Matthews, were very strict and you had to do your schoolwork. At that time the lessons were mostly oral, we did not write a lot. So, we had to concentrate and pay attention. You got the lesson and then they asked questions. Because of that it felt like a place of learning to me. I found the way in which they were teaching us very interesting. We could understand and process it, because you will get a lesson today and you had to remember it and tomorrow you are questioned about it.

I was a very shy person and didn't want to get a hiding or be ‘uitskel' in front of the children so I always tried to study hard. I enjoyed school but I did not enjoy reading very much, but whenever I went for training I got things to read at home. To this day, I read the newspaper a lot. Otherwise, I am not someone for reading; I only read when I have to.

In Paarl life was very difficult because there was very little work, and most of the work was in the factories and people were only hired when the fruit arrived. It was very difficult if a father had to work alone. If a husband worked and his wife did not help him, or the child did not help the father, you could not make ends meet. You had to make do without some things and people had to get by on very little clothes, food, and other household things. You had to take in two or three other families if you could not afford to pay the rent.

Many of the children came to school without having something to eat. They were hungry, and it is not really a nice thing to beg. One day a child in my class was listless but she was not really sick. She told the teacher that she did not feel well because she did not eat. The teachers were very concerned and whenever they noticed that something was wrong with one of the children in class, they were there to investigate.

I passed standard six but left school before high school, which started at standard seven. My father was never a healthy man and he struggled to support us. We experienced financial problems because my father fell ill and could no longer work. My father had injured himself playing football, and was never the same person. The butchery where he worked was cold inside and he developed TB and died shortly afterwards.

My mother never worked regularly but when my father became ill she had to. At that time two of my brothers were in the army, so my mother had to go to work to support the family, because all the other children were still in school. She started working at the same factory where I subsequently worked.

My brothers were in the army so my eldest sister and I had to do the housekeeping. I really felt for my mother because I saw that she couldn't cope financially. So I left school to go and help my mother. I went to work at the factory with my mother to put the other children through school. At a later stage I felt the need to continue my schooling but it was impossible at the time.

We experienced a lot of difficulties and there were times when we had to go without food, although our parents did not want it that way. There were times when you wanted more. You felt that you were working alone, and there were eight children to take care of. That was a difficult period for us.

Everyone tried to make the best of their lives. When you had problems you could always go to the church because they were very supportive. There were no other formal support structures but the community itself was very sympathetic towards one another because we lived in a row of ‘barrack houses'. The toilets were at the back, and there was one toilet that was blocked for some time and the drains were overflowing. It was dirty and miserable but the municipality was not very co-operative. Dirt would lie around. Things would happen to your dwelling. We complained but they did not take any notice. Nothing was done about it. So the people decided to send a delegation to the municipality. They were not prepared to meet with us so we got together again and elected another delegation. We went and explained the dangers to them and asked how they could expect anyone to live in a place like that. They finally came to fix the toilets.

Diana Ferrus

Seasonal work in the canning factory ↵

“we didn't have lunch hours, we didn't have breaks, there were no benefits”

I was 14 years old when I started working as a seasonal worker. There was no mention of child labour at that time. You could start working at the age of ten. In those days the factory's name was Premium, and it finally changed to Langeberg.

My mother had been working there for a while when I started in 1940. At the time that my mother started to work in the factory, the conditions were very, very bad because there was no union yet. My mother was just an ordinary worker and did not bother about things that were happening around her. When my mother came home, she would always tell us how bad the conditions in the factory were, the long hours, she's tired, and she's hungry. I always listened to her saying that there's no sitting place, no cloakrooms, and that they must eat their lunch out in the fields.

I worked at first in the cutting department but it was very tiring, because you had to stand the whole day. At that time, we didn't have lunch hours, we didn't have breaks, and there were no benefits. If they wanted to they could give you lunch-time; they could give you tea-time – but there was no law and no agreement with the workers. When it came to lunch-time you were at their mercy but nowadays lunch-time is compulsory. There were no cloakrooms. There was a big shed where they stored the fruit which workers had to use as a cloakroom. You did not get protective clothing either. There was no transport to take you to work or home. You had to walk home from work and the next morning you must walk from the house to the factory.

As a seasonal worker we worked with apricots and when they were finished we would be laid off for two to three weeks. Then, when the peaches came in they hired you again and laid you off again; the same for pears. So, food and canning workers were not covered by the Unemployment Insurance Act because you had to work continuously for thirteen weeks to be covered.

If you had a baby, or even if they saw you were pregnant then you'd get dismissed and they would not employ you again. Later we negotiated a confinement allowance but it was very little. You could stay at home two months before the baby and afterwards you could also stay two months. There was also no crèche in the factory. Parents with small babies had to leave them in the shed until they could breastfeed them at lunchtime. People complained about the injustice and few benefits but they accepted it because they didn't know how to deal with it and had no option because they had to earn wages.

The employers could pay you whatever they wanted to. There was day-work and piecework. When I started I earned 75c for day-work. When you did day-work, you normally started at 7.30 and finished at 5.45. Sometimes you started in the morning at 7 o'clock and worked right through to 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock in the evening. For piecework you got paid per box. To cut apricots you earned nine pence per box, and you know how many apricots can go into a box. But you gained more by doing piecework than day-work as a cutter, canner or in the label-room.

I worked in the factory for six years in all the different departments. Then they asked me to work as a supervisor in the canning department. If you were a canner you could pack trays (there were 12 cans on a tray) and you got paid a certain amount per tray. In the jam-room, where they boiled the can or jam, there were these big round rings that you had to take out and put on a tray. If there was no work in the canning department they put me in other departments, like the jam room to put syrup on the tins, or to the store, to label the tins, or to put tins in the cartons or transport.

THE 'SUBS' STEWARD - "a fine leader to workers in all areas" ↵

The Food and Canning Workers' Union was established in 1941 and was open to all races. We had African members, we had Indian members, and we had European members. We had one committee representing ALL the workers. When I first started working in the factory the union had just started. I did not really show an interest in anything, including the union. I didn't get involved with the union from the beginning, because at first I didn't understand why I must join the union and what a union is. I just knew that I had to pay my subs, and even when there were meetings sometimes I did not want to go.

In those days the employers and the government were very tough on anyone who tried to organize workers. One day a woman came to the factory gate to see someone she knew - Daphne ². She asked her about the conditions in the factory and told Daphne that she wanted to do something for the workers and asked her to get a group of people together so that she could speak to them. This woman was Ray Alexander. Ray went about it very tactfully by not calling large numbers of workers together. She met with some people at their homes and asked them to spread the message to the other workers. She explained how we could set up a union to fight for better conditions.

Those were difficult times because you could not get the workers to register, because the employer and the government were watching you. It was very difficult to get halls for meetings, because they really didn't like the union because the union is fighting for the workers' rights. One night Ray came out but she couldn't get a place for a meeting so she asked this comrade to drive her and she said that she will wait for us on the bank of the Berg River. She put on the lights in the car and she enrolled the workers. That is how we started our branch in Daljosophat in 1941.

From there the union started to organize factories in Paarl like H. Jones. The union grew from area to area. If we organized Ashton or Montague we'll take sub-stewards from Paarl, sub-stewards from Wellington. Paarl had a strong trade union in the community. The community of Paarl was very active, even the trade union. If you were a factory worker, you were a member of the trade union, and at home you were a member of the community. That really worked. The community also went to the trade union for help and for advice. You could always go and ask them to explain something.

Things improved a little once the union got recognition. Employers could not refuse to meet us to discuss worker issues once we were registered. From there the union came in and negotiated agreements with improvements every three years. I can't say there was complete improvement but there was some improvement. After the union started we fought for unemployment insurance, we fought for sick pay, for protective clothing, for a confinement allowance. We didn't get them all at the same time but the fight went on. We didn't get everything we wanted but at least we went forward.

Ray Alexander signed up union members on the bank of the Berg River using the lights of the mayor's car

When I started to work I was shy and never participated in union meetings, but later on I realised that something was wrong but I could not put my finger on it. Working in the factory and seeing injustices by employers against workers – long hours, little pay, no facilities, mothers having to sit and breastfeed babies in the field, and bad treatment, shouting at the workers. Why is it so difficult to find work? Why do we get up so early and work till late without being shown any appreciation? What is the problem, and how can we overcome the problem? All this made me realize that things are not right and workers are not getting a fair share. Something needed to be done to give workers a better chance.

I was always elected on deputations to the employers. One day when we had a wages discussion I was very cross because the employers didn't want to give an increase. I was fighting the bosses very hard and Ray spoke to me and said that I must become a ‘subs' steward and must take more part in the negotiations. Afterwards I was elected as ‘subs' steward and on a shop-floor committee that took worker problems to management. I was 21. The duty of the ‘subs' steward was to collect the subscriptions from the workers every Friday after they're paid. You had to sit in the cloakroom and wait until the last worker had paid their subs before you could go home. From that time, Ray and I worked together. We still had a working relationship after she was banned.

The white supervisors were very harsh. If you had a problem with a worker for the first time, they watched you. And once it happened a second time - you must know there will not be a third time - the third time they show you the door. Most of the supervisors could not speak English but most of the people from the union who came to meetings or discussed complaints with them were English speaking. Whenever Ray or Becky [Lan] went to talk to them and spoke to them in English, they would just say ‘yes' and ‘no' and then run to fetch someone who can speak a little bit of English.

Because of their attitudes you could not really talk to the supervisors. Whenever they saw a shop-steward they knew it was a complaint. They were not prepared to sit down and talk to you. You had to stand and talk to them. They would walk from one side to the other and you had to run after them like a dog to get them to listen to your case. That really bothered me.

One day an executive member and I took a complaint to management and the manager said, ‘Here you must work.' He had this attitude that you are a slave and you just have to work. I told him, ‘Do you think one must work yourself to death and after three weeks you must stay at home for six months?' So, there was never a good relationship between management and us. Things were very bad then.

I always said we must unite and act so that these problems could be solved. It is better if there is a union that there is an agreement, because then you act in accordance with the agreement. There is a clause in the agreement that states that if you, as workers, do not adhere to the agreement then the employers have the right to take you to court; and you (as workers) have the same right to take the employers to court if they don't adhere to the agreement.

There was a strike at the H. Jones factory in Paarl because one of the committee members was dismissed. During the strike Ray had to come out many times to negotiate. The owner threw her out a few times but she persisted and persisted. The employers hired white workers [as scabs] but the fruit made their hands black and the work was too much for them. After one day they told the employers they were not prepared to work again. Some then came to speak to the coloured workers and discussed how difficult it was for coloured workers in the factory. The owner then realized he was losing a lot so they negotiated a settlement.

One day in September 1953 the union came to the factory and told us that Ray is banned - and that is the time that I really took an interest in the struggle as a whole because I was thinking, why did the government ban Ray, WHY? Ray always only tried to get a better living for the workers, better wages and better living conditions. I started to think that there's something wrong and if we don't do something about it, many terrible things are going to happen. I got cross and then I really got involved in the union. From then on I always tried to march forward and not to go backwards again or we would not achieve anything for our workers or our country.

In the factory the committee was mainly women because men were not prepared to serve. It was difficult for women to get involved in the union in an official capacity because of having a family, having a house. It was also very difficult organizing women in the 50s and 60s because they were used to staying at the home but they realized they should be in an organization because they have so many problems.

If women think about their burden and how difficult it is to bring up their families on low wages and under bad conditions they must be determined to go forward, and join other women, and men, in the fight for better wages to feed and build a better future for their family. Once you join any organization you take on responsibilities if you are determined to achieve anything. There are three things to build on in organisations: determination, reliability and discipline. If we can do this we will build strong organisations and women must never step back because we are the people that suffer the most.

Working women must always look forward and march forward. Even if our men don't want to march with us now they will at a later stage. We were fighting difficult battles as women's committees, and therefore the workers had a lot of confidence in us.

Men were not very supportive initially in the factory because they asked ‘what can women do? What can they show us? We are men; women can't do what we can't.' Later on when men saw that women took issues to management, even men's problems, and even resolved men's problems, men realized that their role is to stand together with us to improve things. Then they accepted the women's efforts ‘half-half'.

While I was working in the factory the union helped other organizations in launching FEDSAW (Federation of South African Women). I was elected to represent our union and felt proud that so many women came together to build a strong organization to bring relief to women.

I think there was a great need to organise women because women were much oppressed, more than men. Not to discriminate against men, but women had a larger challenge to face than men as mother, worker and wife. Women have been oppressed by the government, oppressed by the employers and some by their own husbands.

It's very necessary for women to be organised and to be united, so that women can assist each other to help them with problems. We had to work because men's wages were so low. And women feel the hardship more because they are the person that keeps the family together. It was difficult because the government always came down with an iron hand to destroy anything that we tried to do to improve conditions for women. But the women went through a lot and persisted and persisted. At a later point we demonstrated that we could get things right through strong organization and standing together.

The regime was very harsh and once you came into conflict with them you knew that you were going to get it. When they banned our president, Frank Marquard, in 1954 I could not understand why, because everything that he had done was for the good of our people, and he tried to improve the lives of the workers. They called a meeting and the people, myself included, were very angry and decided to go on strike to protest against his banning, because we couldn't get an answer why he was banned. As ‘subs'-stewards we had to give the workers strike pay because you couldn't expect their families to go without anything.

Frank left and he could not come near to us. Frank played a very big role in my life, which helped me to realise what was happening and what we were dealing with. We then elected Christiaan Kilowan, as president. The union struggled financially and did not have money to pay people. I became an executive member in the branch and then they elected me as the national treasurer. I served on the committee and only had to step in when there were problems. I worked on a voluntary basis until they could afford to pay the people they have appointed to work for them.

After Ray and Frank, another [general] secretary by the name of Becky Lan was banned so we didn't have anybody in the office. They came to the factory and they asked for the workers to elect somebody. I had been active in the Paarl branch and always helped them out in the office when the branch secretary went on leave. Because there was nobody, in 1956 they elected me as the acting general secretary, because the general secretary could only be elected at a national conference ⁵.

After working in the factory for 14 years the people were very unhappy when I had to leave, because they saw that I was speaking for them, even though they were wrong. Those workers realised that you are their leader, because you are still prepared to plead their case.

Footnotes

In her autobiography All my Life and All my Strength (2004), Ray Alexander identified relatives of Rose Petersen of the Sweet Workers' Union as contacts who helped to provide her access to the canning factories in Paarl. A niece worked for H Jones & Co (p.115) and a nephew (p.118) for Associated Canners Ltd which owned the Premium plant where Liz worked.

Ray Alexander (2004, p.118) identifies the driver/comrade as Gregoire Boonzaier, one of the country's leading artists and a Communist Party member. The car was the mayor of Cape Town's and had been hired by an admirer of Ray's work.

A large number of FCWU representatives were present in April 1954 at FEDSAW's national launch, where the Women's Charter was adopted, a precursor to the Freedom Charter adopted at Kliptown in 1955.

Ray Alexander worked behind the scenes in insisting that a worker rather than a white activist be elected to replace Becky Lan. In her autobiography All my Life and All my Strength (2004:281) Ray, who was still General Secretary, complimented Liz for offering “fine leadership to workers in all areas”. She supported Liz with whom she had worked on several occasions in negotiating piece rates because she was “very good in pressing employers for improvements”.

Life as general secretary ↵

“running all over the country,organizing people”

In 1947 a law had been passed for each race group to have its own union. The Labour Department threatened that if the unions are not going to form their own unions, then they are going to deregister the unions. The Coloured union was registered but the union that the Africans belonged to was not registered. The union was weak so we decided that we were going to try to keep the registration, so that we can build the union ⁶. Because if we didn't have registration and wanted to take up the workers' complaints, employers can say, ‘we don't need to talk because you are a non-existent organisation, you are not registered'.

We always said that registration's not so important. Non-racial unity was very important because registration is only a piece of paper. All the years we were working together. We did not want to split, and we had to make a plan so that it appeared as if we were splitting. We had one committee, not two separate committees and we just kept two separate sets of books in case the inspector came around to investigate. We had two sets of books but we were mixed, Africans and coloureds, when we went to see the employers about complaints. Oscar Mpetha represented the Africans and I represented the coloureds but splitting was entirely against our policy.

When the African comrades, like Oscar, that worked for the union were also banned they didn't have anybody to work for them. So I worked for both Food and Canning and for African Food and Canning. A lot of other unions didn't have organisers or people to work for them. I also tried to help organising the Tin Workers' Union so I had three unions that I was looking out for.

Then the union extended to Port Elizabeth and Mossel Bay. I was elected general secretary, not only doing the clerical work in the office, but also responsible for the organizing, for negotiations, for agreements and if there's a dispute you are the person that has to take the lead. So it was quite a big job, but I was not alone because whenever I went somewhere the branch secretaries or the branch organizers accompany us.

We had a big fight for a Conciliation Board to be set up. The coloured unions were registered but not the African unions so whenever we had negotiations the employers tried to lock out the Africans. The government appointed a native dispute settlement officer to represent the Africans ⁸but he was never in contact with them. He did not know how the Africans were living or what their needs were, but he was there to represent them because they weren't allowed to speak for themselves.

We were not prepared to negotiate without the Africans. We didn't negotiate directly with employers because there were Conciliation Boards with the bosses, the government, and some native settlement of dispute officers. We hoped to break the system down but at a later stage we determined not to negotiate with the government and the native dispute officers so we spoke to the employers to negotiate with them directly.

Things improved a lot from there, because we understood the worker and negotiated with the employers directly. Things became easier for the union because the employers were much more likely to give in to worker demands because they knew if they didn't they were likely to have trouble with the workers.

There was also an essential products law that said strikes were illegal for food workers but when the workers were determined they didn't care about the law and just went out on strike. In most of the cases they won, were not prosecuted and didn't go to jail because it was settled directly with employers. If we had gone through the Conciliation Board, immediately after workers went on strike the government would step in and workers would be prosecuted.

As a union official I had to cover a wide area because our branches stretched as far as Port Nolloth. Whenever there were negotiations and agreements I had to go with some of the executive members to do the negotiations. I did that for a long time and hoped not to lose contact with the workers. My work was almost like being a supervisor for all the branches. If there were problems in a branch that they could not handle, I had to go and help them. I had to oversee the functioning of the branches. There was a constitution that determined how the branches should function and every three months or so I had to check whether the finances were handled correctly.

You had to take care of all the negotiations, whether it was piece work or any other work. There were times when you could not reach agreements, because we did not want to give in and the employers did not want to give in. You got a mandate from the workers and if you couldn't go further than that level you had to stop and come back. So that is how we negotiated all of the time. In earlier years we made agreements for three years and then it started to break down, so we made agreements for shorter periods.

The union was very strong, especially on the factory floor. The workers were united. The government tried everything to divide the union. Lucy Ninzi and I worked together, and at many of the factories they still tried to divide us who were in the leadership. When we got to a factory the employer would say, ‘Liz can come in but not Lucy.' We would refuse to enter the premises. The committee would then discuss it and send a delegation to meet with management. We always made a breakthrough, and they agreed.

We had one serious problem in the union. We had to elect other people as substitutes for the people who were banned. It was a problem to fill these posts, because we did not know whether we are appointing the right people for these positions. We elected people and we gave them posts as chairman or vice chairman but never really explained to them what their responsibilities were. Previously people accepted a position but did not know how to provide leadership or which way to turn. It caused a lot of problems and things were difficult until we sat down with people and explained what was expected from them. We started with the ones that we elected. We gave them the constitution so that they could at least know what is in the constitution. We received most of our training from Jack Simons, Ray's husband.

Ray was very strict. There was no such thing as coming late. I stayed in Paarl and took the train to work early in the morning. I had to be at the office a certain time for our ‘early discussions'. My sister's one son lived with me so I had to get up to see to him. Then I had to run otherwise I was going to miss the train. When you were late you had to give Ray an explanation. You could not use the train as an excuse, because you knew that you had to take the train. That is what our people lack – discipline and commitment. They don't have that, and you need that to make progress.

I was really committed. There was a factory in Bellville called Spekenham. Our president, Christiaan Kilowan, and vice-president, Johnny Mentoor, were organising the workers when they went on strike. I was in bed when they visited me and told me about the strike, and they did not want to go without me. I told them to go and fetch the other executive members but they insisted that I must go with them. So I went with them, they settled the strike and from there they had to take me to hospital where I had a miscarriage. The baby was growing in my tube and they had to remove it. After I recovered I went back to work.

It was always a problem to organize branches over the weekend. You never get everyone who is prepared to sacrifice a day. Not all members worked hard in the union. Its not that they are not serious but its just plain laziness, because how did others know that it's their duty. If you join an organization you make a commitment because the organisation has obligations that must be attended to.

We would take six people along when there were three branches to visit. Since I was driving I had to go to the place which was the furthest away, say Port Nolloth, and I would drop two at Lamberts Bay and the other two at Saldanha Bay. We usually arranged for a meeting in advance and when I was done I used to pick them up again. We would get to people's houses about four in the morning, park and wait in the car until they got up, and then we knocked.

Lamberts Bay did not have tar roads yet, and one day we got stuck in the sand. The gears locked and I had to call a mechanic, because I did not know what was going on. We were digging the car out of the sand until somebody came to help us get the car out.

My friend Elizabeth Mafekeng wanted to meet the workers she had organised in Tulbagh. The employers didn't allow us to go on the premises because you must get their permission. I was driving and we hid the car in the bushes until it was dark. When it was dark, we went onto the premises and as we were going around this corner, the foreman came around the other corner with a knobkerrie. He threatened us and said that we should leave the premises.

When we got back we found out that we had a case against us for trespassing. Sam Kahn and Albie Sachs were our lawyers and they defended us successfully. The magistrate and the prosecutor and some of the others went to the factory to see where we trespassed. They saw that there was no gate; it was just a fence. The court said that can't be trespassing because we didn't open a gate. So the case against us was withdrawn.

Before I was banned I was very, very active, running all over the country, organizing people, meeting people. We had a very difficult time with the Special Branch. The Special Branch and bosses were always working together. Whenever you go to the factory, they would inform the Special Branch. But we were never intimidated by them because we knew we've got the right to go to the workers, to speak to the workers. In East London the employers and the Special Branch were united because they didn't want the union to operate or workers to be organized. I had not even started to contact workers when the Special Branch took us for questioning and were just wasting our time.

If you wanted to go to the East London location you had to have a permit. At the registration office you had to get a permit, saying to whom you want to go to. But in front of the office there was a big board – ‘No permit to L. Abrahams'. So I could never get a permit to get to the workers in the location. For me see the workers they had to come out of the location, to some place where we meet.

An Indian comrade had a hotel and gave us a space for a meeting because we couldn't get a hall. Some of the committees in the location informed the workers and organised them to come to the hotel, so that we could have a meeting. They were so determined to smash up our meeting or to harass the workers. Wherever you went, they followed you. One of them followed me right up to the toilet! I was so mad; I turned round and said ‘I'm going to have you arrested under the Immorality Act!'

Footnotes

Amendments to the Industrial Conciliation Act in 1956 forced the FCWU to register as a Coloured union.

Oscar Mpetha was banned for the first time in 1959.

In terms of the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act of 1953

200 workers at Spekenham Food Products factory went on strike for four weeks, demanding better working conditions and wages of at least £1-a-Day in line with SACTU's national demand. The solidarity between the African and Coloured workers was a key factor. 27 African workers were arrested and later convicted for contravening the Native Labour Act and later four Coloured workers were arrested for allegedly interfering with scabs trying to get to work (New Age 10 Oct 1957 cited in Luckhart and Wall, 1980).

Providing political support ↵

“politics and unions can't be separated”

Politics was part of the game because I was a trade unionist. Other activists did not have a similar belief. It all boils down to politics, whether you like it or not. I got involved because I worked in Cape Town and I lived in Paarl. I travelled from Paarl to Cape Town to work every day. Because I worked in the Cape there were a lot of activities – CPC (Coloured People's Congress), SACTU (South African Congress of Trade Unions), FEDSAW – that had been started in Cape Town and wanted to expand. They asked me to set up branches in Paarl and in other places when I went to visit the union braches. Everything you established in Cape Town, you had to establish in Paarl as well. In the beginning the organisations in Paarl were strong but it fizzled out as time went on.

I joined the CPC because the union wanted to take action but it couldn't strike and conduct campaigns because it was registered. Through the CPC we could assist the union a lot, for example if we wanted to conduct a boycott. The CPC and ANC supported the union a lot. If the ANC had a campaign the CPC supported it and vice versa. The feeling was that if there were many organisations supporting one another we would be stronger than just one organisation.

There were always people who said you cannot mix unions with politics and politics with unions. But as time went on people saw that the two cannot be separated. Because, if you're a union member then you're fighting for bread and butter rights but when you're outside you're fighting for your whole life to improve. You must be a member of the community to lend a hand if the problem is poor housing, or high rent which also needs to be addressed. If you only improve your bread and butter on one side and do not build on the other side then it doesn't help because the one side will weaken. Today workers realize that it is also important to belong to a political organization.

The alliance in the 1950s was the start because the organisations were all there but it hadn't really taken root among the people, if we compare with nowadays. The other problem was that people felt that one organization could achieve more than another. It was rather unbalanced and they did not always pull in the same direction. The unions were relatively strong but they didn't always have strong relationships with the CPC and ANC.

With the pass campaign men thought that women are only talking and won't be able to achieve anything with this issue that had been oppressing them for so many years. Pass laws were always a sore point for women workers at union meetings because husbands who had left their passes at home would be arrested and taken directly to prison and the wife would only hear late at night or the next morning that her husband had been locked up.

We always argued at union meetings that passes then were only for Africans but the other races would suffer just as much in the future. We had a local campaign in Paarl involving the CPC and ANC. The branch decided to burn passes. Different people were placed at different points where people were going to burn their passes. My colleague, John Pendlane (president of the AFCWU) and I were at the bus-stop at Huguenot where people gathered to burn their passes. Following this, different delegations went to Pretoria to join the march. Although I didn't participate Elizabeth Mafekeng was our representative.

Rocky and the ‘Riots'

In 1955 there was a conference abroad and the union sent ‘Rocky' [Elizabeth] Mafekeng to represent us. Mafekeng worked closely with someone called Fillies in the branch. Sometimes when he was not there, I would go and help Rocky Mafekeng so the Special Branch often saw Mafekeng and me together. When she came back, the Special Branch always hunted her, but never touched her.

However, in 1959 she was banished out of Paarl. She was the president of our union [A-FCWU] at that stage and the branch secretary. They gave her a deportation order – she was supposed to go to Vryburg. Mafekeng was mother to 11 children, and had a two-month old baby. The distance from the nearest tap to her hut would have been 72 miles, with a baby of two months! We established a committee to see how we could protect her. We called meetings and explained to the workers. We informed all the branches and the workers were very, very disappointed and very cross. We had published a pamphlet about why Mafekeng was deported and this really upset the community. When they saw it, it was the last straw.

The last meeting was a big mass meeting on a Sunday of all the workers in Paarl, all our branches like Wellington and Worcester, the ANC, SACTU and other organisations. The meeting decided that Mafekeng shouldn't go. We had to make arrangements for her to go somewhere else. On Monday at 12 o'clock the police were coming to pick up Mafekeng to take her to the train station to put her onto the train to this Vryburg. The whole night the workers were at Mafekeng's house, waiting to see what's happening.

At 12 o'clock, when the police came to fetch her, Mafekeng was gone because we had organised transport to take Mafekeng to Lesotho. We all were at her house and when they arrived they could not find her so they were very, very angry. The Special Branch came straight to me and wanted to know where Mafekeng was. I said, ‘Listen here, how am I suppose to know?' and he was very, very rude. He talked a little and then he shoved me a little, and then I would shove him a little and said just what I wanted to say. He repeatedly came back and told me, ‘We know that you know where Mafekeng is.' When the police found out that Mafekeng was gone, it was a terrible riot. Police were shooting at the people and the workers were so fed up they broke open the shops, and cars were turned over. Two workers were shot dead and others were wounded and taken to hospital. Two days later we heard that Mafekeng had arrived in Lesotho.

Even the gangsters supported the community and the union. There were two gangster factions - the Elephants under Solly van Zyl and the Apaches under Jack Kaizer. Before the Mafekeng incident they were not involved in the trade union, but Jack and Solly knew me very well and they were very supportive during the Mafekeng affair, because they knew what she had done for the community. The Mafekeng affair really touched them and that is how they got involved in the protest. Solly was detained for public violence during the riot.

After the riot, there was a court case with a lot of people involved. We couldn't fit in the court; there were too many people, so they hired a hall. Sam Kahn and Albie Sachs and two advocates were our lawyers. Four of the people in the community gave evidence against us to say that workers were throwing stones. The two Vos brothers led evidence against us. During the case the one brother talked himself into a corner, and was charged and found guilty of perjury, with the result that the other people only received warnings.

What do you mean the British government can have Mrs Mafekeng? This is a fine time to become humanitarian. (Contact, 28 November 1959)

Mafekeng left only with the baby. Her mother and her husband stayed behind with the other ten children. Oscar, me and other comrades were elected to a committee to look after Mafekeng's children, for anything they need and whenever there were problems at school. The children couldn't get into school so we tried to go to the schools and speak to the teachers or principals to allow them to get in. The organisations then assisted with the children's education. One daughter went away and later became an engineer and the other two stayed behind.

While Mafekeng was in exile, her husband and mother passed away. She wanted to come back to attend the funerals, but the risks were too great and she had to stay in Lesotho. We remained in touch with each other and if the children went there for the holidays, they first came to me so that we could discuss the problems.

In 1991 Mafekeng came back to Paarl. The union then decided to build a house for her but it took them a year to ask her what type of house she preferred and where it should be built. Ray and I had to intervene for them to get that house and had to speak to Mandla (FAWU General Secretary) and the previous General Secretary.

Support to Comrades

While I worked for the union, I was the Western Cape secretary of SACTU and belonged to the CPC and FEDSAW. Being a CPC member we were always attending ANC meetings even if you're not a member. When Joe Morolong, a union officer for the Commercial and Distributive Workers Union in Cape Town, wanted to go out of the country I helped hide him and took him to Wellington station to catch the train.

In February 1963, ANC comrades asked me to do something for four comrades that were arrested by the police. I was told that Archie Sibeko, Chris Hani and two others did not actually commit a crime but were caught with duplicating ink and blank sheets of paper in the car, and they made up a story that they were on their way to print pamphlets. They were off on bail and decided that they must skip. Archie Sibeko had been an organiser for the FCWU and was an NEC member for SACTU. He was also a member of the ANC Executive and was very involved in the writing of the Freedom Charter. Chris Hani was very young - he was only 20 years old when he went into exile – and did voluntary work at SACTU's office because SACTU didn't have an organiser. He assisted with organising in the office although he was not actually involved in the unions.

We were not yet members of the ANC, because in those days the ANC was only for Africans, but w e were made responsible for Archie and we went to fetch him during the night. I was the one that had to see to his safety. We were working with Oscar Mpetha, who expected us to do ANC work because if you were a member of something, everybody must help. He always said, ‘When there's a strike, all hands on deck'. I hid Archie at our vice-president, Johnny Mentoor's house. Johnny did not leave him at home during the day, because his wife and sons were not supposed to know that Archie was on the run. If he stayed at home, they would become suspicious.

Archie Sibeko working on the stove at Johnny's factory

In the morning, Johnny would take Archie with him to the factory until the day when the other comrades made arrangements for them to go away. Archie worked on the ‘stove' and made the fire so that they would think he was one of the workers. I also hid Archie in the Drakenstein mountains, near to the factory where our president worked. The place where I hid him was only five minutes walk from the nearest police station. The funniest part, I had to take them out of hiding, take them something like a disguise, because it was organized that they go to some place. The day that they left, I went to get them from their secret places. I took Archie to Wellington station where he got on the train. The four of them left, and we later received feedback that they made it safely out of the country.

Footnotes

Mafekeng's banishment came shortly after she led a large demonstration in Paarl to protest against an official drive to issue passes to African women in the Cape. She was to be sent to Southey, a Bantu Affairs Department trust farm located 40 miles from Vryburg (Blumberg 1959). The reason given for her banishment was that her presence was 'injurious to the peace, order and good administration [sic] of the people of the Paarl district'

Later, in 1963 Morolong was banned and restricted to his father's kraal in an isolated area of the Northern Cape, Detshipeng Reserve (Ken Luckhart and Brenda Wall, 1980).

In his autobiography Freedom in our Lifetime , Archie Sibeko explains that they were caught with the pamphlets and convicted in 1962. Their application to appeal was turned down. “Chris [Hani], Faldon Mzonke, James Tyeku and I decided to prepare leaflets for wide distribution”¦. the regime had introduced a bill providing for heavier punishment for sabotage, and periods of up to 90 days detention for "suspects". We needed to explain this iniquitous legislation to the people, and.”¦ decided to run off the leaflets one night ”¦ packed them into Tyeku's car”¦ [and] set off for the townships to hand over the leaflets to branch officials for distribution. Before we reached Nyanga East we were stopped at a police roadblock. It was the security police, and it immediately dawned on us that the trap was deliberate”¦. I had eluded them for a long time... They immediately searched us and found the leaflets”¦. we were sentenced to 18 months 'imprisonment with hard labour, and no option of a fine'”¦ Albie Sachs was sure it was worth appealing”¦. In February 1963 we were told we would not be allowed to appeal, and our sentences were confirmed. This came suddenly after months of silence and caught us unprepared. We had to improvise where to hide”¦. we were moved and split up”.

Archie Sibeko (1996) relates the story in his autobiography: “My controller was Liz Abrahams, who ”¦ was responsible for me for at least a month. It was a risky job because had been discovered she would have been imprisoned for long years. She moved me frequently, mostly keeping me in farm worker compounds, but once I was in a house in a canning factory compound, right opposite a police station. Liz arranged for [my wife] Letitia to visit me”¦ She had evaded the police when coming to Paarl, but they picked up her trail later and followed her, hoping to be led to me. When they realised I was no longer around they detained her for months and then expelled her from Cape Town. Liz continued to hide me until the message came for me to proceed north. She was the last of the Western Cape leaders to see me before I left home.

Marital Struggle ↵

“I'd rather run in front of a car than be an informer”

Every Friday I went to the factory to collect subs because in those days there were no stop orders. I got home Friday nights at 8.30pm after I had collected subs at the Gants factory in the Strand. Before that I also went to collect subs at H. Jones where they had three shifts – 6am in the morning, 12.30 in the afternoon and then again in the evening. One Friday night I came home and I still had to cook. I had just put my bag down when someone knocked on the door, and the daughter I have raised said, ‘Nanna, here are the boers'. They were also against the boers, because they always saw them coming to me and then we'd fight.

I told them they must come in, and they said I must sit down. I told them, ‘No, I don't have time to sit, I am busy cooking.' They said, ‘No, sit down there is something we must read to you.' By then I knew about banning orders because I saw Ray's banning order. I said, ‘No, I know it is a banning order and it is not necessary for you to read it – I can read it myself.' I phoned the lawyer, and h e arranged for it to be postponed for one day in order for me to go and sort out things at the office.

I had been working for the union for eight years when the banning order came in 1964 and lasted for five years ¹⁴. I was banned in August and the national conference was in September, and I had prepared everything. It was very difficult so we held the conference upstairs and I was downstairs so they could run up and down. I was confined to Paarl area, and I couldn't be in a crowd of more than three people or it'd be an illegal gathering.

I didn't make much publicity about my banning order; I didn't even have my photo in the press. When I was banned Ray didn't even know and she was shocked. Ray couldn't stay away when I was banned. Hymie Barnett our union lawyer explained that she wanted to run to Paarl. He said, ‘No you can't run to Paarl, you'll see Liz the next day'. Since that time she always sent messages to meet me and we met on a regular basis in different places.

One day Ray couldn't get a place for us to meet and she wanted to see me. Oscar and I walked and had to follow her, and if she turned in we also had to turn in. So she walked; she turned into a building and she went into the toilets and we followed her. So there was Ray, Oscar and me – all three in one toilet. It was a little factory where European ladies were working. Of course, one of these ladies wanted to come to the toilet, and when she opened the door, and saw: Oooo, black, white and brown! She shouted and ran back into the factory and we had to get away, because we were banned. That is how Ray and I kept contact ALL the time.

“Ooo, black, white and brown!”

The whole five years I stayed at home. I was cut off from everything. I was just chopped off and I wasn't prepared not to see the workers. I couldn't speak to the workers, I couldn't leave Paarl. Workers knew where I stayed and whenever there were problems they used to come and discuss them with me. I organised myself and made contact with the workers and met them secretly. If there were problems the workers came to me and we'd make arrangements to meet. For example, while I was banned the branch split in two [Paarl and Daljosaphat branches].

The banning was a very, very hard time for me. The authorities were extremely vicious. As a result of the banning order I could not attend the baptism of my godchild because I was not allowed to be in the company of more than three people at a time. There was also a family funeral I could not attend, and I had to stand on a hill to watch the funeral. That was one of my most difficult days.

The people from the union, family and friends came to visit me and saw how depressed I was. The union brought me a lot of books and other things to read to keep me busy. I could not keep myself busy with reading, so I kept myself busy with housework. I cleaned my mother's house and the houses of others because I felt I could deal with it much better in that way than to sit and read.

Every Monday I had to report between seven and seven, and then they would make a note in the book of the time that I reported. During that time I was very dissatisfied and I did not accept anything. I was very angry. When I went to report the young policemen were very rude to me. One day one of them took my book, signed it, threw it one side and it fell off the desk. The older one got up and he touched me and said, ‘Okay.' I went to him, but I was so angry, and I told him, ‘I gave the book in his hand, so why is he throwing it at me.' We started arguing and I went to the commander and told him what happened. He apologized, said he would deal with the officer, and showed me someone else that I had to report to. With all those things happening I sometimes forgot to go and report on a Monday and had to get a sick certificate to show that I could not come in to sign.

A year before my banning order expired someone from the Security Branch came to see me. He said he wanted to help me and said it was unfair that I had been banned. He wanted me to get information for them. I was so cross that I said ‘take your things and go to Simonstown, I don't want to see you. I'd rather run in front of a car than be an informer'.

Footnotes

The banning order under the Suppression of Communism Act confined Liz to Paarl, and prevented her from attending gatherings, working in a factory or shop, entering African locations and from taking part in trade union activity (Sechaba, 1(8), August 1967, p.3).

Being banned ↵

“I'd rather run in front of a car than be an informer”

“Ooo, black, white and brown!”

Footnotes

Back to union ↵

“African men stood up and told the employers that we want those Coloured women back”

In the 1960s our union was the hardest hit of all the unions because all our organizers, all our secretaries and all our presidents were banned. At the time almost all our people were banned from top to bottom because they said that our union was a red union, we were influenced by the communists, just because we won't hide anything from the workers, just because we discussed any law that affected the workers in our meetings. Of course, the employers didn't like it and the government said we are a union that is near to the Communist people.

After I was banned Freda Petersen, an executive member, took over but she was very nervous and she cracked when she heard that the Security Branch were there. Then they got Johnny Mentoor, the vice president, to take over. He kept it going but the original unity was no longer there.

After my banning order I was not as involved as before. When Jan Theron became general secretary in the mid 1970s they brought him to see me and we discussed union matters. Jan, his wife Althea and Virginia Engel worked together in Cape Town. Quite a few years after my banning order was lifted the comrades asked me to come back to work in Cape Town again to sort out things because there were not enough people there. Jan had never worked in the factory, although he had experience about the union, so they asked me to come back to assist the union, to assist Jan.

I agreed, but at first I was very nervous because I didn't want to be banned again. I refused to go back to the head office, because I was still being watched. I was scared that they would ban me again, because it had been so difficult. They hired a small office just above the head office so that they could come to me. I assisted them because all the organizers had just joined the union and whenever they wanted to, they came over to my office. I worked liked that until the time of the Fattis and Monis strike. I was still working under cover but I had to come out in the open when the strike broke out.

Strike at Fattis & Monis

The strike at Fattis & Monis in Bellville lasted for seven months in 1979. The day the strike started Jan Theron, was busy in George and Oscar Mpetha, the Secretary-General of the African Food and Canning Workers Union, was busy organising in East London. I was alone at the head office and had to handle the strike with an organiser from Cape Town, Virginia Engel. I was with the workers at the meeting the night when they decided that they're going to strike tomorrow because five Coloured women were dismissed. We met the employers and they refused to reinstate the Coloured women. They had fired five coloureds and the whole factory, Africans and coloureds, came out on strike ¹⁵.

When the strike broke out I rushed to the factory and had to get the workers to the office quickly because the police vans were there to arrest them. The men stood up, African men stood up and told the employers that ‘we want those Coloured women back. If you don't want to take those women back, we are not going to work'. So the unity among the workers was quite good. They didn't say, ‘Oh that is a Coloured, we are not going to stand with a Coloured', or ‘That is an African, we are not going to stand with an African'. The workers would only go back to work on the condition that everybody was allowed back. The bosses were not prepared to do that, and the negotiations continued. The negotiations broke down, and then it started again.

We had meetings in Bellville every day. We did not have a place to meet because the employers and the authorities co-operated and phoned different venues and told them not to give the venue to us for meetings. The manager of the bioscope in Bellville was very helpful and gave us some rooms and we had meetings with the workers nearly every day to inform them of the progress with the employers and to keep them together otherwise they became scabs. The workers stayed strong for a long time, but then the children of some of the workers fell ill and one child died. That broke their morale a little bit. We could not afford to pay their full wages but could only give them a little money every week to see them through. In that way we lost some of the people, but they still stayed together. Some organisations also gave food parcels but it was very hard for workers to stay in the strike.

It was not easy to keep people together for seven months. The workers were from different areas such as Stellenbosch, the Valley (Paarl) and the surrounding small towns, and w herever workers lived we had a small group who kept in contact to keep the people on the ground informed. It is of no use for the middle layer to know everything and on the ground they know nothing. That is the basis from which everything else must grow. Sometimes the morale was high but sometimes it was low. So, we always took people from different trade unions with us when we went to speak to workers so they could see that they were not alone in their struggle.

When we reported back about what the employers had said they would see there is still hope because there were still things to be done. We always tried to keep them in high spirits and there was never a major break away from the strike. We had a committee that dealt with all types of problems and if we were not in a position to solve the problem, we approached other organisations for assistance. There was also a committee that raised the funds to help people pay their rent to prevent them from being evicted from their homes.

Jack Tarshish, the owner of a shirt factory in Cape Town gave us a lot of support. We had stickers to explain the strike that we were selling in the community. We had other fundraising efforts with which we could pay the strikers a little something. We could never say that we would give them R50 or R60, because as we raised money we paid it out so that we could give something to everybody. They could really see that the union was trying to help them. We encouraged them and told them that they were not alone, and that we should continue, because if we lost they were going to be in a weaker position. They really appreciated the fact that other trade unions and people from communities came together to support them.

During that seven-month period the Africans had to go on their annual holiday, to their families at home. The lawyers advised us not to let them go home because it was going to infringe on the strike. So we spoke to them, explained to them and asked if they were prepared to stay to see how far we got with the strike. We had a lot of support from different organisations and foreign countries. The company even had to change the names of some of their products to send it overseas.

The pressure became too much for the bosses, so they called us to negotiate in order to try to settle. After the strike all the people were reinstated and the Africans went home on holiday. They got leave for that period, and the company also provided transport, food and other things for them to take home to their families.

Rebuilding the Paarl Branch

I assisted the other organizers with negotiating at Fattis and Monis for four months. Then there were problems with our branch in Paarl and they appealed to head office to release me to assist them. I was elected as branch secretary in Paarl and worked there until 1985.

Dienie Hartogh, who worked for the union, had made a statement saying that she did not believe that it was right for Africans to be chosen above coloureds. There was a lot of unhappiness amongst the union members in our camp because we were against Apartheid, and what she was asking for now is Apartheid. We had meetings and decided to call her in to ask why she made such a statement. She denied it. The executive were unhappy because they felt that it was a sensitive matter. She worked for the union for a long time and had a clique that supported her.

When she was dismissed, she was very unhappy and formed a breakaway union. As a trade unionist, you must act on behalf of the workers, and she had an attitude so the members felt that they wanted to give her another chance. We discussed it with the executive and Oscar and I went to speak to the old members because we felt the branch was not going to function well anymore because she divided the branch in two. We used to have one chairman, one secretary and one treasurer for the whole of Paarl. But she divided the branch to such an extent that the one branch now had two chairmen, two secretaries and two of everything else, which broke the branch. We solved the problem and managed to get the branch together again.

While I was working in Paarl I also assisted head office officials to organize other branches. We went to organize workers in the dried fruit factory in Upington for the first time and stayed there a week. On the way back we had a tyre burst, the car rolled and I ended up in a vineyard next to the road. I was in intensive care and very badly injured - I had four broken ribs, a broken leg and an injured arm. I spent 14 days in Malmesbury Hospital. After that I worked another two years but the injuries were getting to me. Then I retired from the union in 1985.

Footnotes

The union had demanded a minimum wage of R40 per week and an 8-hour day. After management broke off negotiations, claiming that the demands were 'inconsistent with government policy', the registered ‘coloured' union planned to apply for a Conciliation Board hearing. Five workers who signed the application were sacked, and another five workers were dismissed in April 1979 following protests. Workers resisted Department of Labour attempts to split the united workers along racial lines, saying, 'We are all workers for the same firm' (Luckhart and Wall, 1980).

Politics in the 1980s ↵

“I had to hide them in my house for 14 days without my husband knowing”

When Ray went into exile we corresponded regularly. She arranged for me to come to Botswana twice to collect material for the union and bring it back. Once on the train I met the wife of Sobukwe, the leader of the PAC. She was also on her way to Botswana to the priest and we started to talk. There was no platform to alight from the train – you had to jump down. No one came to fetch me and she told me to go with her to see if she could find someone before she went to her destination. She stopped in front of a hotel and talked to a lady with a bakkie and came to get me. I mentioned a name and she took me to the man who knew that I was coming.

All the comrades who left the country were there, and they organised many different meetings. It was extremely hot so Ray and I would go into the mountains. We didn't work in the day but started to work at 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock in the morning. She would write stuff, which I would bring back for the union.

We almost died one day, because they only had gas stoves to prepare food and later we smelled that something was not right. They had forgotten to turn off the gas. They prepared strange food and did not cook the meat thoroughly. I decided that I would prepare the food because I felt like tender meat. I cooked it nice and tender with vegetables and they sat down to eat. They asked who prepared the food and ‘Why did you not cook earlier?' I replied, ‘I do not know your style of cooking, I can only cook my style'. Then they ate.

When two MK soldiers, Vivienne Mathee and Jaama Matakata, came back they knew that if they experienced problems or something was wrong, they could come to me to discuss it. I always worked in co-operation with them and was actually the connection between them and anything that was going to happen. When they came back they didn't have place to go to, so I had to hide them in my house for 14 days without my husband knowing. I hid them in this room, and when he went to work, I took them back into another room. When he came back, I moved them to another place.

He never knew that there were people in the house that shouldn't be there. I couldn't discuss or explain anything to him because it would have caused problems for me. One of the workers at the grape factory, who passed my house every night, came to me the next morning and said ‘Liz, I saw two Europeans sitting in the tree watching your house'. I said it must be enemies. If it was friends then they'd come to the house. So I had to call on other comrades from Guguletu and our European comrades to assist and move them.

Footnotes

Before Ray went into exile in 1965 she met with Liz and spent a day handing over the union work she had been conducting surreptitiously and arranged a cover address so that they could continue to maintain contact (Alexander, 2004:296).

MK is the acronym for uMkhonto we Sizwe, which was the military wing of the African National Congress.

Detention Without Trial ↵

“on Women's Day we occupied the prison's surgery”

During the time of the UDF (United Democratic Front) I was assisting the civic with setting up street committees, doing house-to-house organizing one night. The next day on 13 June 1986, while I was working in the office they came and detained me. I was detained for almost three months with Chantel Fortuin, Lucy Ninzi and another small group. After that, Lizzie Phike and Maggie Wilson and others were detained again.

We were detained in Paarl at the police station alongside the river. It was terrible - it was in winter and it was very, very cold. I felt so sick, because one slept on a mat and if you turned your head, the cold air rising from the cement floor entered your mouth as you breathed . They interrogated me in the morning, they interrogated me at night.

I told them my chest was sore, I did not feel right. Then I fell ill. At night at 11 o'clock, they took me to interrogator's room and I couldn't speak so they took me to Paarl Hospital and we drove past our house. The doctor who examined me knew that I was not a private patient but a prisoner, because the police were with me. He said that I had bronchitis, gave me medicine and we were on our way back to the cell. The next day they interrogated me again, but they could not hear what I was saying because I had a tight chest because of the bronchitis. The interrogation went on and on and on.

They did not give your medicine to you. They kept the medicine and never brought the medicine. They came very early every morning at 6:00 and would ask, ‘Any complaints, any complaints?' with that harsh voice. I complained every morning about the medicine, which I never received. All they would then say was, ‘Yes, we will come, we will come,' but they never came.

One day the call came again, but this time it was a woman. I told her, ‘You come here every morning, wanting to know if there were complaints. How many times did I complain? Where is my medicine?' I told her that my chest would not heal and that my chest was sore. Then she went to fetch it and brought it to me. The next day, there was someone else. I had to ask for the medicine again and then I just didn't bother anymore.

The Special Branch was very, very hard, trying to show that ‘we've got the power and we'll show you what we can do'. Especially one security policeman, that always hunted me in Paarl, this Daniels. He was sent to interrogate me. He didn't even interrogate, because we were fighting all day. Daniels was very boastful and arrogant, and the two of us could not get along at all. He was very presumptuous.

One day he and another detective called Louw came and leaned against the wall. He said, ‘Hey Liz, up to now, what did the people get from you and your struggle for the people?' I replied, ‘I can tell you what the people got. I started working for the union and people earned 75c, now the people are earning more than R100. That is what I struggled for, but tell me, what did you struggle for? You only struggled for the oppression of our people and even your children are suffering because when they say oppression to all who do not have white skins, then they oppress your child as well.' And I said, ‘Hey, just ask me what you came here to ask me, do not come and ask other stuff.'

He said, ‘Geez, Liz, you are so difficult. I know if you would get the chance one day that you would take me out.' I said, ‘ No, I will not take you out, I will take you in and then I will get your head straightened out. That is what I will do, because that is what you need.' I left him standing there and walked away, and then they were on Lucy's case again. With Lucy they did the same thing, but she was not someone who talked much. They talked, but Lucy would just stare at them.

After a week they transferred us to Pollsmoor. It was a little bit better, I can't really say better - at least there were beds with sheets and blankets. The food was very bad and we kept complaining about the food. We decided that we were not going to eat it. Later on – after fighting, fighting, then the food improved. It was this stamped mealies and cabbages.

We were first in a big cell – thirteen of us. Sometimes we were just mischievous. W e were despondent because we did not want to be there and we got up to mischief. Sometimes we refused to go for our exercise. We just sat there, covered the listening devices and discussed what we were going to do. One evening we decided not to go back to the holding cells at 3.30pm. I always sat in front because I was the eldest. They came to tell us that it was time to go back to the cells.

We sat there and said we wanted to know why we were detained. They got very upset because they knock off at 4 o'clock and they didn't want to work late. They said we must go to our cells, and when we refused they went to fetch reinforcements. They took us one by one and chucked us into the cells. I still refused to budge and a short warden grabbed me. I took my elbow and hit her on her breast – now that was painful – and she backed-off and another one grabbed me and chucked me into the cell. Once we were in the cell they sprayed a lot of teargas in the cell and there was nowhere to run. We all huddled around the taps, and wet ourselves to breathe.

Then they wanted to split us up. They removed the young prisoners and said there was going to be an identification parade. Then they took all of us and, after they had seen our faces, put us in single cells. We wanted to know why – if they wanted to identify someone, they must have done something.

We were very unhappy, because we wanted to know why we were there. We wanted to know, because if you go to prison, it must be because you have committed a crime and you must appear in a court of law and you must be sentenced, but we just lay there. What did we do? They said they were waiting for the Special Branch to come. We said, ‘Let the Special Branch come, so that we can ask them'. But the Special Branch never came.

The next morning they asked a retired judge to come and speak to us. We explained to the judge that we are human beings and wanted to be treated like human beings and receive decent treatment – not like animals. The meeting finished and he undertook to come back and try to see what he can do about the food. He never came back - just promises.

While we were in detention there were many problems within the Food and Canning Workers Union, where Lucy and I worked. Our union was very hard hit because many of our organizers and our secretaries were detained. Every morning, when you woke up, you would see a new branch secretary in gaol. When you went to the exercise yard in the morning and the branch secretary from Grabouw was detained. The next morning there's another one from Saldanha Bay, and so on. When we had discussions we never excluded anyone because we wanted them to understand how a union works, how you must act to build up a union. They were all interested even if they did not belong to a union.

On 9 August - Women's Day - we occupied the prison's surgery as the doctor was not there and had a meeting. What a discussion! When we were done, we rose and sang the anthem. The matron came and said, ‘Come, come, you had enough outings – the time is up.' But we stood firm and sat and somebody told her, ‘You must wait until we have finished praying and singing, and then we will come'. So we prayed, shouted ‘ amandla' and toyi-toyi ed all the way to the gate. From there we all went back to our cells.

The detention was a very emotional experience for me. I was very depressed and because I was emotional, I created many problems for the people looking after us. I could not eat while I was in prison – I don't know if the food was not right. I don't know what the reasons were for me not eating. One day I got soybeans and something else with it. When I picked it up it started to wriggle like small worms – it was not small worms, but it wiggled. I could not stomach it at all, and I could not eat it.

They brought me a short brown loaf of bread with a hole at the top, a piece of white fat and a bit of red jam. I also could not eat that stuff and the warder said, ‘Liz, you must eat' and I replied, ‘I cannot eat.' She put it at my bed and I left it there. They returned in the afternoon with more food and I told them I could not eat it. By then I was angry that they kept on bringing me food and when I saw the food it made me nauseous. I took the food and the bread and I threw it out under the gate so that it landed a distance away. In the late afternoon, a female warden came and I said, ‘If your children cannot eat, then you will know how it feels not to get any food in your stomach.' I kept on refusing the food.

People could bring you money in prison. I did not know who brought me the money, but I had money. John Pendlane, who was detained at the prison in Worcester, had told me, ‘Liz, if you cannot eat in prison, buy salted fish and bread. The wardens are constantly going to the shops, and you can send one of them.' So I sent one of them and then I started to eat the salted fish and bread. I felt that my stomach was a little better. I started to eat food, but not the strange food that they were bringing me. If it looked strange to me, I would leave it and rather have the fish.

The worst part of being detained is when they tell you, ‘Get ready, pack, pack, you are going home', and when you have finished your packing and you think you are going home, they take you to another prison. That is what they did to Shenaaz Isaacs from Bonteheuwel. She was at Pollsmoor and they came and took her. She was all packed and we thought she was on her way home.

Normally when you are released, you would come back to visit the others, to see how they are keeping. We thought it strange that she did not pay us a visit. All along she was at Wynberg police station – alone, alone. She said that she was so afraid that they would rape her. They tried to do it with Cecil Esau's sister. She was so fearful and thought they would come when it was quiet. Eventually, there was someone whom she met. I don't know if she knew him from before or if they met there for the first time. Then she was a little bit happier and after a while she came back to Pollsmoor. When we opened our eyes, she stood at the gate of our cell – and we said, ‘And now?' She said, ‘Now they are bringing me back.' We did not know where she had gone, or whether she went home and was detained again.

This put us in a state of depression, because they told me at 6pm that evening that I should get ready to go home. Well, you stayed ready, packed – if they told you to go, then you do not fiddle much, you just grabbed your bag. I sat and wondered whether this was for real. Where to from here? They said, ‘Come, Lizzie, you must come now' and I went with no objections. They did not take me to another prison. I came home, but the whole way I was nervous because I reckoned they are going to take me somewhere else.

My family was very depressed because they did not know much of what was going on. When I was detained in Paarl, before I went to Pollsmoor, they always tried to visit me but they did not allow visitors. They always brought things, and I could see, yes, they still thought about me, especially Sadia. Sadia's children had cars but the others did not have transport. They always brought something or would send a message.

The daughter who grew up in my house always tried to come and visit at Pollsmoor, but she was always depressed because they did not know when I was going to come home. The children in the house actually felt that if you go to prison then it was because something big has happened, but there was never anyone who came and explained to them that it was not so.

When Mrs. Goosen was detained, I went to her husband and children, because they also did not know what to do. I told them what it meant and that they could visit her. So this had an effect on them, and when I came out, they wanted to know everything. Of course, I explained to them.

From retirement to parliament ↵

After I retired I continued to help FAWU (the Food and Allied Workers Union) to organise farm workers in the Noorder Paarl and Pniel branches. The employers were so hard that they didn't want to meet the union but the branch committee formed a deputation to employers to allow me to come on the premises and to help with negotiations.

In 1990 we started the ANC branch in Paarl and I was elected as the interim chairman. The next year, after the conference, they elected the executive and I was re-elected as chairman. I was the chairlady of the ANC Women's League in Paarl but I said they should get other women involved and we should build up their confidence. Once they have confidence they will take the lead. I was vice-chairlady of the ANC Women's League, a member of the Communist Party, and assisted the civics with problems and deputations and marches and so on. So I was all over. I was retired but I was working harder than when I was working for the union.

In 1995 I was elected to Parliament and served on the labour committee. If there was a problem, or something happened on a farm, I could stand up and ask for a discussion regarding the issue. Then I explained what happened and how it happened and asked whether we cannot find a solution. I could then ask Parliament to take such a matter into consideration or that the law be amended.

Unions, Then and Now ↵

“the union can play a big role once we go back to basics”

There is a big difference between the unions of today and then. We built the union under very difficult conditions. We believed in building the organisation because we saw that it could bring about change for the workers. We went out to organise. We never travelled by plane – we only travelled by car. Today people earn big salaries and they work in luxury. I don't bear a grudge against them, but I don't think they have that same feeling to work for the people like we used to have.

In the past, there were misunderstandings between officials and committees, but it never got to a situation where we could not deal with it or find solutions. Compared to the problems in the past the problems of today are much bigger. We never took officials to court. There was a certain respect and subservience amongst one another that is no longer there, based on my experiences. People say things about you without any consideration for your feelings. They don't care.

In those days if the branch had a problem you would be there to sort it out locally. We called meetings to explain certain things and that played a big role because people knew what to expect when they decided to take a certain course of action. That is a role that the union can play. They cannot say that they don't have the time. If the Secretary-General and Vice-President are unavailable then the executive members can do it. They have more time than the officials who have to run around. That is the one thing the union must do again.

People still phone me early in the morning and when I get home there are people waiting for me, and yet there is a union. It is difficult for me to discuss union matters with employers. I tell the people to go to the union – the union is there to help them. They say they went there and could not find the people. That is a sad state of affairs, because you don't know how to solve it or how the workers will find solutions to their problems. And there is slackness amongst the officials as well.

One of our problems today is that people get too comfortable in their positions. Now that we have cars and houses, we do not want to do what we did before. I am very angry that there are people who are in positions that could be of great value to the ANC, but because they became complacent, they are not prepared to make any sacrifices. Many of the things happening in the union nowadays really hurt one. Now is the time to give your all for the things that will benefit our people, such as improving the conditions of workers in the factory and improving the lives of people in general. I am still struggling to understand what it is that we should do to improve things in the future.

The union can play a big role once we go back to basics. In many factories a lot of people still cannot read or write, and they are usually women. A woman suffers because she gets an income, but she knows that she must cover a lot of things with that income. Every payday she must rack her brains about what and how. So a woman like that will easily latch on to something that she believes is going to change her life. This has to be understood within the context of change. She must understand why there is change and what the change is all about. Unless we explain it to her so that she understands, she will remain in the dark.

There is change. Certain laws prohibited the trade union from doing certain things, but today there are major changes. There are improvements in the laws for trade unions and in the labour sector as a whole. You can include much more in the agreements today than in the past. Today agreements sometimes involve the union, the employer and the Government.

All the changes are being discussed with the leaders of the union, and the members should understand that change is necessary although they don't understand how it should be done. The union must be involved in helping people to understand the changes that must happen, that will be happening, and that are already happening but it is going to take some time. If you got used to something over a number of years it is very difficult to change immediately. You must gradually change people so that they can understand how to do things if they want to benefit.

Organizers, secretaries, presidents should never make empty promises to workers. Because that is the thing that back fires very dangerously. If you can't do a thing, you must tell them. Don't give them false hope that I'm going to get things right for you. That is a thing that I learned in the unions. It backfires and then it's difficult to get that confidence from people again.

1910s - Anti-pass campaigns ↵

“the hardship of the workers made me determined never to give up”

When we first went to Hondeklipbaai and Doringbaai the workers were suffering. People in the fishing industry only work for 4 months of the year. They sometimes have only one meal a day. There were no schools, no hospitals, and no doctors. The hardship of the workers made me determined never to give up. The only thing I wanted to do was to assist and to get people a better life, because they are entitled to a better life. They are human beings. That made me so determined, because our people are really suffering a lot.

There was never a moment in my life that I said, ‘No, it's too much - I'm going to give up'. I feel that I have contributed something, because there are some good things that came out because of our fight – not only me, but also the people with whom I have worked. Of course, the sacrifices were there but I must admit that the burden was not too heavy. If I had to do it all over again to improve people's lives, I would do it – from A to Z.