UIF - A battle for benefits
- Authors: FOSATU
- Date: 1985
- Subjects: FOSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/155613 , vital:39899
- Description: Unemployment has always been and still is a tricky problem for capitalists. On the one hand lots of unemployed workers make it easier for employers to keep wages low. But if there are too many unemployed workers then they might support moves for immediate and fundamental change in the society. Employers and the governments of capitalist countries have tried to solve this in different ways and at different times. But in most countries some income has been given to the unemployed for part of the time they have been without jobs. They have usually done this by providing some kind of benefits paid to the unemployed for a certain limited period of time. 1 lie fund from which these benefits are paid is usually controlled and administered by the government. However, there are many different ways that these benefits can lie financed. Before looking at what happened here in South Africa let us look at the problem of unemployment benefits generally in a capitalist state.
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- Date Issued: 1985
An introduction to the Federation of South African Trade Unions
- Authors: FOSATU
- Date: June 1983
- Subjects: FOSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/138646 , vital:37659
- Description: The formation of FOSATU is part of a long history of struggle to organise the Black workers of South Africa into independent, non-racial trade unions. Black worker resistance in South Africa is as old as the introduction of wage labour but the first effective recorded trade union organising black workers was started in 1917 to be followed by the more famous ICU (Industrial and Commercial Workers Union) in 1919. Ever since then unions have fought against State and employer hostility to the unionisation of black workers. Other federations rose and fell. The 1950's marked a great rise in political and worker organisation with the emergence of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) as part of the Congress Alliance. Severe State repression led to the 1960's being a low point of worker organisation. However, growing economic problems of inflation, unemployment and poverty plus a very much larger industrial working class led to an upsurge of worker militancy in the early 1970's. This gave rise to new union organisation in Natal, Transvaal and Port Elizabeth. By 1974 new coordinating bodies had emerged in Natal and the Transvaal. The need for greater unity was clear in the face of hostility from the State, employers and established unions - both the racist white unions and those in the Trade Union Council of South Africa (TUCSA).
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- Date Issued: June 1983
MAWU and the industrial council
- Authors: FOSATU
- Date: 1983
- Subjects: FOSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179221 , vital:39865
- Description: In South Africa at present there are 104 Industrial Councils. However, the one for the Iron, Steel, Engineering and Metallurgical Industries is the largest and most important covering nearly 500 000 workers. But only about 100 000 of these workers belong to trade unions. At the Industrial Council the employers and trade unions negotiate an agreement that covers all 500 000 workers. At present on the union side there are 14 trade unions - M A W U will make it 15. But most of these unions are racial unions and what are called craft unions - that is their members only do certain kinds of jobs e.g. boilermakers or electricians etc. On the employer side nearly all the 8400 factories in the industry are members of the employer association SEIFSA. It is SEIFSA - which is the largest and most powerful employer association in South Africa - that negotiates for employers on the Industrial Council.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1983
FOSATU - Policy motion on industrial councils
- Authors: FOSATU
- Date: Nov 1981
- Subjects: FOSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/118421 , vital:34627
- Description: FOSATU BELIEVES: Industrial Councils were established and have been developed to serve the interests of employers and a minority of workers. That most Industrial Councils are presently unrepresentative of the majority of workers and therefore undemocratic. That the Constitution and structure of most Industrial Councils reflects this un-representativeness and authoritarian base and it would be difficult for any small and democratic union to have an effect on Industrial Councils as they presently exist. That some Industrial Councils., because they are dominated by employers, misdirect workers' money collected either in the form of a levy or in benefit funds. That some Industrial Councils have blocked speedy solution to industrial problems by placing cumbersome procedures and bureaucratic structures in the way of direct negotiation between employers and workers.
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- Date Issued: Nov 1981
Affiliates, facts and figures
- Authors: FOSATU
- Date: 1980
- Subjects: FOSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/179234 , vital:39863
- Description: The Federation of South African Trade Unions - FOSATU - was formed on the 14th and 15th April 1979 at an Inaugural Congress held at Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria. The Congress was attended by 130 delegates representating 12 founding unions. FOSATU was formed as a federation to unite all workers irrespective of race, creed or sex who shared the common objective of struggling for the rights of workers. Our prime objective is to organise workers in their workplace and through the strength of their organisation to eliminate the racial discrimination and racial divisions that are used to perpetuate the exploitation of the oppressed majority of workers. It is a federation of industrial unions bound by common policies and objectives and based on the closest possible cooperation to the mutual benefit of all its affiliates and their members.
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- Date Issued: 1980
FOSATU Notice day
- Authors: FOSATU
- Date: Apr 1980
- Subjects: FOSATU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/118508 , vital:34641
- Description: This booklet gives the minimum period of notice required before either the employer or his employee may terminate his contract of employment as laid down in the various wage regulating measures ie. Wage Determinations, Industrial Council Agreements and Wage Orders. The booklet must be used in conjunction with the: "The complete guide to wage regulation measures" by H. Cheadle and L. Silver to determine the exact area and industrial scope to which each particular measure applies. The notice period given in the booklet is of course the minimum required and it can be varied by employers in determining individual contracts of employment.
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- Date Issued: Apr 1980