Solidarity Road

The events leading to the Marikana massacre not only shattered South Africa's image of itself as a democracy in which workers had a respected place, but also the image of Cosatu and its largest affiliate at the time. Subsequent events confirm that South Africa's pre-eminent trade union federation has lost its way. To understand why this has happened, Jan Theron argues, it is necessary to understand the choices made by the trade unions that formed it in the 1980s.The Food and Canning Workers' Union (FCWU) was perhaps the most famous of these, and had produced some of the country's most prominent labour leaders - Ray Alexander, Oscar Mpetha and Liz Abrahams, among others. But by 1976, when Jan Theron became its general secretary, it was on its last legs and riddled with corruption. Solidarity Road is an uncompromising account of a struggle to overcome corruption, as well as to revive a tradition of non-racial solidarity. A demonstration of non-racial solidarity by the workforce of Fatti's and Moni's in Cape Town catapulted the union into national prominence, in the same week as government tabled its race-based labour 'reforms' in Parliament.