US Worker Movements and Direct Links Against Apartheid

This post is part of our forum on the “The End of South African Apartheid Anniversary.”

Some earlier historical scholarship on the US-South African relationship viewed the 1980s as the beginning of prolonged US trade union action against apartheid. Recently scholars like historian Peter Cole have instead insisted that US unions were engaged in anti-apartheid action from at least 1962. These early worker movements condemned corporate America for its complicity with apartheid. Polaroid’s Black workers in the United States protested the use of Polaroid film for passbooks, South African identification that constrained the daily movement and freedoms of Black people. The Polaroid Revolutionary Workers’ Movement (PRWM)demanded that the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company immediately cut all business with South Africa. Due in part to worker pressure and to the exposure of Polaroid’s failed multi-year “experiment” with responsible engagement, the company completely abandoned business in South Africa in 1977. The Polaroid result spotlighted the possible power of US worker movements in holding US corporations accountable for their engagement with South Africa.

Following the PRWM’s action, US trade unionists used worker power and connections to companies with South African ties to further isolate the apartheid regime. Around the same time as the Polaroid experiment, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) would draw attention to the plight of Black workers in South Africa. The CBTU initiated direct contact with workers and unionists in South Africa and linked domestic Black worker concerns to human rights violations abroad. Frustrated with the conservative direction of the AFL-CIO, the CBTU became the first US labor organization to advocate for an economic boycott of South Africa. In 1975, the CBTU passed a resolution in support of the South African Congress of Trade Unions federation, which was aligned with the African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement. By 1980, the CBTU was actively supporting strikes in South Africa and sending funds to workers and unions. President of the CBTU, William Lucy, would go on to become a founding member of the grassroots Free South Africa Movement in 1984.

US labor leaders aimed to ensure that South African worker and unionist livelihoods were prioritized in US policy. One way to establish this was through a crucial lobbying arm, the Labor Committee Against Apartheid. Formed in June 1983, the labor organization launched with a meeting of fifty labor leaders from the greater New York area, representing nearly twenty unions.¹ The organization combined forces with the CBTU and raised funds to support wrongfully-detained Black South African workers. With the goal of forging direct ties, the Labor Committee sent letters to South African apartheid officials, calling for the release of detained trade unionists. One of their primary campaigns was in support of detained Black South African trade unionist Oscar Mpetha.² They also provided details on US multinational operations to Black-led South African unions working from inside the country. Together with the CBTU, the Labor Committee Against Apartheid viewed attacks on the South African labor movement as attacks on workers everywhere.

Other US unions opted to send visitors to South Africa to assist the emerging unions with worker safety and collective bargaining. US unions like the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (ACTWU) sent a health and safety expert to South Africa at the request of South Africa’s National Union of Textile Workers. The US union representatives witnessed deplorable working conditions in the factories, and helped South African unionists develop a health and safety program. ACTWU representatives also spoke with leaders of the emerging Black trade unions and returned to the United States to share what they gleaned about working conditions in South Africa.³ The US-based UAW similarly maintained strong ties to South African automobile workers and sent a delegation to a Ford South Africa plant in 1980. Nelson Mandela famously acknowledged the union’s support, and visited the UAW Local 600 in 1990.

The reach of US worker activism against apartheid was expansive, with individual locals using their influence to fight for parallel worker rights in South Africa. The AFSCME District Council 37 headquarters organized a conference where unionists called for US unions to provide direct financial assistance to unions in South Africa. UAW locals organized clothing drives, and even wrote articles in support of liberation. Finally, Local 10, a majority-Black American local branch of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, refused to unload ships carrying products from South Africa. The local also organized a strike fund for South African workers. Its legacy in fighting apartheid is still felt today. Many current unionists from the Bay Area attended 2023 conferences in South Africa, held to commemorate a series of pivotal South African strike actions against apartheid work conditions. 

Through a combination of raising funds for South African workers, visiting unions in South Africa, advocating for Black South African workers in official US policy, or sabotaging South African commerce through the workplace, US trade unions were active in uniting worker issues with human rights concerns in South Africa. Concerned workers used their positions in the workplace and in the union to advocate for oppressed people beyond their borders. As both unions and the current South African state lend support to Palestine today, they can certainly draw on the very same tactics and forces that helped end apartheid in South Africa thirty years ago.