Race and class in the National Union of Distributive Workers: The breakable thread of non-racialism: 1937-53
Date
1997-05-05
Authors
Desai, R.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
As David Roediger perceptively argues, a highly poetic politics-as captured in the above quote- is
what is required in a situation where workers who identify themselves as white are bound to retreat
from genuine class unity and anti-racism. The development of non-racial trade unionism has had a
long, complex and indeed contradictory history, to which scant attention has been paid. This is no
better illustrated than in the history of trade unionism in the retail sector where the National Union
of Distributive Workers under CPSA control and the Trotskyist influenced African Commercial and
Distributive Workers Union were in operation. In this light the organisational and political
relationships between the NUDW and organised black workers in and outside its own ranks are
investigated. Organisational and later legal considerations demand separate treatment of African and
non-African black workers, as with the exception of Cape Town (where it had a largely African B
branch), the union co-operated with independent African unions (namely in Johannesburg, Durban
and Pretoria). The unions' other B branches were either composed of South African Indians or
'coloureds'. The chapter begins with an examination of the factors that conditioned the NUDW's
attitude to race, which demands some attention to the theory that implicitly guided the union. It is
followed by an outline of the policy, evolution and history of the 'B' branches, which illustrate the
subsidiary character of these branches to the union, the most important of which was the largely
African branch in Cape Town. Some tentative conclusions are advanced as to what motivated the
parental style relationship between the 'A' and 'B' branches, which are arrived at on the basis of
suggestive rather than completely substantive evidence. The notion that African workers in this
sector were not as open to class orientated organisation is challenged. The chapter then moves on
to discuss the nature of the African workforce on the basis of Hellmen's study of African
commercial labour force in a large store, which in the case of the major cities I have assumed to be
relatively representative of the country.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 5 May,1997