International solidarity is an important part of a strong labour movement. At every CUPE National convention, including our most recent 50th anniversary convention in Quebec City, we invite prominent international labour leaders to share with us their experiences of struggle. In 2013, as the global attack on the labour movement intensified, we had the opportunity to draw lessons from the experiences of leaders on the frontline of working class struggles around the world, including in South Africa, the Philippines, Honduras and the UK. These challenges, as you will see, are many of the same struggles we face here in Canada.
This is the first in the series of articles based on our interviews with these leaders to appear in the coming weeks.
Loraine Baitsiwe, the 2nd Deputy President of the of the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) and Mokone Moses Miya, the Deputy General Secretary, spoke to delegates at CUPE’s 50th anniversary convention in Quebec City.
Miya spoke about his union’s struggles at home and described their approach to political education as crucial for membership mobilization and advancement. “We have a slogan: an injury to one is an injury to all. It is our belief that … only when we fight together, side by side, can we win our battles,” said Miya. This principle is at the core of their education programs.
Miya was elected to one of the union’s top positions at the SAMWU National Congress in 2012 and dedicated himself to fighting privatization. “We all know that privatization has not improved the services to the public and has never been cheap. It promotes corruption. Public money is being squandered without being accounted for. Privatization must not happen,” he said.
Baitsiwe explained that CUPE’s support was instrumental in SAMWU organizing and servicing a project that began in 2007. It focused on women in the union who were working as wastepickers for private companies and making lower wages than their municipal counterparts.
“These private companies tend to pay women wages that are far lower than their male employees, even though they are doing the very same work,” said Baitsiwe. “They worked primarily in the waste management and recycling sectors.”
The first CUPE/SAMWU worker to worker solidarity project took the form of a pilot project in one province, the Northern Cape. “These services were privatized by many municipalities, but the union was then able to organize these workers in the private sector,” she explained.
Through this project, SAMWU has been able to close that wage gap, secure sick leave and other benefits for these workers. “Before these female workers were unionized, they were making between 50-65 Rand a day. That was compared to a municipal worker who is paid between 300-400 Rand per day,” said Baitsiwe.