Socialism. Lecture delivered before the Graaff Reinet Literary Society by Dr D F Malan.

The records of the Garment Workers Union were acquired by the University of the Witwatersrand in the first half of 1977. They originally consisted of about 1150 files and boxes as well as several large cartons of miscellaneous documents. This rich hoard represents one of the best documented histories of a trade union in South Africa and spans the years 1915 to the present. The records of the Garment Workers Union 1 complement the records of TUCSA (Trade Union Council of South Africa) and also form the core of a documentation project to record the history of the industrialisation of South Africa.

The records document the activities of the union which initially included both garment workers and bespoke tailors. They record the history of the struggle on behalf of the workers for fair wages and the attempt to combat underpayment and unfair dismissal by employers; the fight against contracting and piecework; acceptable hours of work and working conditions; recruitment of members and the appeal to workers to support the trade union in order to improve their lot; collective bargaining with the employers' associations in order to draw up mutually acceptable agreements; relationship of the Witwatersrand Tailors Association and Garment Workers Union with such trade union federations as South African Industrial Federation (SAIF), Cape Federation of Labour Unions, South African Trades and Labour Council and TUCSA; relationship with the government - in particular the Department of Labour and the Wage Board; organising of the union, discipline of members, help to members such as providing loan funds, welfare services, sick benefits and medical aid; financing of the union; the registration of branches in Johannesburg, Pretoria, the East Rand, Orange Free State and the Cape; strikes, including the miners' strike of 1913 and 1922; fostering of race relations (as a large percentage of garment workers were Coloureds); the struggle for unity and the attempt to create a united union for all garment workers in South Africa; industrial conciliation; the threat of Afrikaner nationalism to the unity and very existence of the union (the majority of the workers were Afrikaners); the Commission of Inquiry into the Garment Workers Union in 1949; support of political parties such as the South African Labour Party and the Communist Party of South Africa; the Suppression of Communism Act and the threatened listing of the leaders of the union leading to the eventual departure of Solly Sachs from South Africa; the activities of Solly Sachs, Johanna Cornelius and Anna Scheepers; the fight against the Blankewerkersbeskermingsbond.

The records are in English and Afrikaans with some odd correspondence in Yiddish (many of the tailors wore Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe). In the description of Afrikaans documents the spelling in use at the time has been followed. The union was multi-racial consisting of Whites, Coloureds and Indians. Branches were kept separate, No.1 branches being for Whites and No.2 branches for Coloureds. Throughout the inventory, the apostrophe denoting the possessive form in the case of all trade unions has been dropped, e.g. Sweet Workers Union.

I would like to acknowledge the help of those officials of the Garment Workers Union who gave me their time and offered me inside information about the union which was not recorded in the records, in particular Ms Fay Mandy and Mr Andrew Unsworth. I would also like to express my gratitude to the researchers who used the documents while they were being processed, and who drew my attention to information which I would otherwise have missed in so vast a collection. To the students Brian Cutler and Lesley Dean, who helped me sort the documents and who patiently bore with experimental methods of sorting and arrangement of the records, my sincere thanks.

Marcelle Jacobson November 1950.

In 1948 a commission of enquiry was appointed to examine the affairs of the Garment Workers Union. From this time onwards Sachs was personally harassed, his passport being withdrawn on 20 May 1949, which prevented him from attending the International Conference of Garment and Textile Trade Unions that year. Sachs refused to surrender the passport and the Minister of Justice, Dr T E Donges, appealed to the Supreme Court, but Sachs eventually won the appeal.

The divisions in the original files have been preserved and therefore subjects are scattered. The index should be consulted.

Main correspondents:

M Baum (Secretary Witwatersrand Tailors Association), D Colraine (Secretary Witwatersrand Tailors Association), Cecil Frank Glass, H Joseph (Secretary Witwatersrand Tailors Association), E S Sachs, A F Tuffin (General Secretary Witwatersrand Tailors Association).

Correspondence and copies of agreements.

1927 July 16 Agreement between Manboys and Witwatersrand Tailors Association.

1929 July Agreement for the clothing industry.

Strike at Henochsberg 1919, tailors' strike 1920.