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Interview: Veronica Mesatshwa

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VERONICA MESATSHWA

The interview is translated from Zulu to English:

Facilitator: We are speaking to Mrs Veronica Mesatshwa, we are in

Johannesburg, the date is the 12 July 2010 and the interview is done by

Brown Maaba. Thank you very much for your time. You can speak in

English, Zulu or Xhosa; you can mix its fine. Can you just give a bit of

background, where you were born, what kind of family you had,

maybe you were poor or maybe you came from a well to do family

and you just decided to join the workers and how you eventually

connected with labour activism.

Respondent: Hallo Brian. Veronica was born in the Eastern Cape,

in an area called Mount Ayliff; I come from a village called Emvalweni.

If you check the area of Mount Ayliff, it’s a very poor area, politicians

call it the Bundus, and I come from such an area. It’s a very poor area;

hence I come from a very poor family. I went to school, but we did not

have that luxury of reaching university with your parents still paying for

your studies, even my matric, I wrote it in adult school. My parents

managed to take me to school up to standard seven. Standard 8 was

called Form 3 at that time; I did it in Manaye Adult School. After that I

wanted to further my studies, I was working at the time. At home we

are seven kids, its five girls and two boys. I am going to mix, so you will

have to put the interview correctly.

Growing up in Mount Ayliff, as I said that I couldn’t reach university

level of education as I had wished, to see myself graduating in

university in that black hat, it didn’t happen that way, during my

younger days. I had to leave school after I had completed Form 1,

what do they call it these days, its called Grade 8. I had to leave

school after I had finished Grade 8, it was my first year in secondary


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school. I had to go look for a job because there was no one who was

bringing income at home, I had to go and look for work in order to look

after my mother and my siblings. It was very difficult for my coming

from a rural area when I started working. We all know about the Group

Areas Act, it wasn’t very easy if you were coming from a rural area to

enter into the city. You had to go to your Isibonda (councillor) that is

what they were called at the time, you had to go to Isibonda and then

he would in turn take you to the Chief. During those days it was not

easy if you were a female to go out and get work, the belief was that

when you were growing up as a girl, you had to get married, that is

what parents wanted for their girl children. It was not easy to get a

permit to go to the city and get a job as a girl, even going to the

nearest town and looking for a job was difficult to access a permit for. I

ended coming to Pietermaritzburg, in Edendale and I got a job at a

place called Pietermaritzburg Lay Ecumenical Centre, they didn’t

require a permit for me to work there because they were not in the

city. I worked there as a cleaner. I worked there for years until I met

my late husband. We got married and I received a citizenship for

Natal, if you remember that time Transkei was an Independent state, so

when I got married I received Natal citizenship. I was keen to study, so

because I worked at the Lay Ecumenical Centre I continued my studies

and did my Form 3, I think it is Grade 10 nowadays at the adult centre, I

passed because I was a person who had ambitions about my

education. I then got married; after I got married I had my first born.

After my first child I told him that I wanted to go back to work and

further my studies, it was not easy for an African man then to let his wife

work. When I started working again it was 1975, I worked in a shoe

factory, I didn’t even finish six months there. During the time I was still

working at the shoe factory, there was one time where people came

to recruit us in joining a union, it was not Fosatu then, the union was

called Twek. They recruited us, that time there were not sectors (e.g.


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transport, mining, security, etc), what was important with the trade

unions then was to go out and unite people who are working and

educate the people who are working and educate them about their

rights. When they came to recruit us I joined the union and

encouraged the others to join the union. I was influenced by the

history with my father, he was a trade unionist, and he worked at a

harbour in East London. I used to listen to him when he would talk to

my mother about trade unionism, I remember one time when the

police came looking for him at night, he was lucky because they

missed him, it was the day that he had left going back to work. They

said he was involved with people that are trying to fight employers, I

remember the police during that time used to ride in horses and would

wear helmets. I would ask my mother why police keep coming to our

house looking for my father and why my father was saying he was

involved in the workers’ struggle at work, I would ask her what the word

trade union meant. She would try to explain to me that it was a

movement that helps workers and makes sure that workers are

protected. When they came to recruit us it reminded me that I had

told myself that when I start working, I wanted to be a nurse, I said I

should I get work I would join a union because I grew up knowing that

trade unions help workers, my father used to say that it was a good

thing. My father would sometimes be on leave and then he would

receive a telegram and he would tell my mother that workers needed

him to come back to work because something was happening and we

had to meet and resolve issues. I didn’t know why they needed him,

whether he was a shop steward I didn’t know. I couldn’t ask because

they were not talking to me in the first place, I just eavesdropped on

their conversation. I joined the union the day they came to recruit us.

The reason why I couldn’t last six months in the shoe factory was that

immediately after I joined the union, I didn’t just sit down and watched,

I attended meetings, when they came back lunch time, I asked them


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where their offices were and wanted to know what we needed to do

and when, how were we supposed to learn about these things. If I

remember the person what came was Mr Makhathini who was working

for NUMSA and Mr Moses Ndlovu who worked for PAWU which is

SEPAWU now, they have both passed on now. They explained where

the offices were, how we meet as workers and a lot of other

information. I had interest, I would make sure that on Saturdays I would

attend a meeting which would take place at Cumbaland hotel in

Pietermaritzburg. I would attend and listen to everything they told us,

at that time we were still encouraged to take notes, later on they

didn’t want people taking notes because some of them were

informants, it was a way of protecting information. They would

encourage us to take notes so that we could go back and share with

other colleagues at work, I wasn’t a shop steward but because I had

interest, I would take notes and during lunch breaks share with

colleagues what the meeting was about and the issues that were

discussed.

After that, I remember we were in a meeting they told us that the union

was no longer called Twek but they had formed Fosatu and there was

also SATU, there were comrades who were under SATU who came to

address us as well, by that time we were already member of Fosatu. I

was very vocal at work and challenging the way workers were treated

at the shoe factory, what would happen was that we were earning on

commission that is how many shoes you made on a particular day that

is how we were going to earn. We didn’t have basic salary, people

who earned basic salary were people who were in the offices, and the

people who were in the offices were Indians and white people only,

there was no black person in the office. I had heard that when you

work you need to have a basic salary even if you work on commission,

so I challenged the basic salary issue and other things. I remember it


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was lunch time when the boss called police for me, he told them what I

was doing and that I was involved in terrorism, I was telling other

workers that they should get basic salary and yet at the company

people work for commission. I told the police that I didn’t do anything

wrong, what I was talking about was our rights as workers, a right to

have basic salary, I asked them what would happen if I got sick, that

would mean that I don’t get paid just because I am sick. The

environment was not nice any more, health wise I was not doing well

because the police were always at work coming to check up on me.

The two comrades who recruited us came to see me, I told them what

was happening and they asked me what I wanted to do, I told them I

wanted to quit because the way I saw things they would get worse, so

because it was lunch time I just got dressed and didn’t go back after

lunch. I would go back to the colleagues and ask them to continue

fighting even if I was not there anymore; I asked them to make sure

that they were stronger and united.

I spent a month or two at home then I got another job in a salt factory,

where they would put it in the machines and then put it in measured

bags. I didn’t even spend two weeks there. I worked the machines

when I arrived there, I looked at African people, they would carry big

bags of salt on their shoulders, even women would carry the bags, and

sometimes they would fall while the bags are being put on their

shoulders. What they were supposed to do was to carry these bags on

their shoulders, walk up the stairs to where the machines were and pour

the bag into the machine. I challenged them about this and told them

this treatment was no different to slavery, I didn’t even say exploitation,

I said slavery. There were forklifts they could use, I gave them

suggestions on how they can use the forklifts and how then people can

take the bags already up there and pour into the machines, they told

me I was too clever for my own good and they were going to deal with


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me. This was Friday, and then on Monday I decided I was not going to

back there because I couldn’t stand to see black people being

slaved. I called it slavery and not any other word, the manager called

me in his office and asked me what I was trying to do, I told him that I

wanted to show him the way he was treating people was wrong, I

asked him what would happen if a female was in early pregnancy and

carried the bag on their shoulder, I asked him why the Indian men and

white men were not carrying the bags instead of women. So I left,

Friday when left there I decided I was not going back on Monday.

I sat at home for a while until I found another job, I loved this job, it was

a home which was based in a hospital for old age people, I loved the

job because I wanted to be a nurse but I also didn’t stay long there.

They had awkward shifts and when you check the most gender, it was

women and if they didn’t have transport arranged to pick them up at

7pm, it was a problem.

Interruption: someone at the door

Facilitator: You were still talking about working at this hospital but you

were not happy about the transport problems and the fact that

women went home late.

Respondent: Yes, women would go home at 7pm, but it was not bad

during the 70s because it was 1975, but for us as women to walk a very

long distance in order to get, there was a bus which pass by, there

were buses and no taxis at the time, it would come at 18h45, of course

we were going to miss it because we knocked off at 7pm. We would

have to walk a very long distance, something like from here to Boysens

on foot in order to get the 9pm municipal bus, so we had to walk fast

because if we missed that bus we would have to walk home. I asked

myself why they didn’t arrange transport for the people knocking off at


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7pm, if they wanted us to pay we would pay for that transport, so that

it can take us to town so that we can get transport to go home. That

would avoid us having to reach home at 11pm at night if we had

missed our bus. I didn’t stay very long because there was the challenge

of transport and also I was very vocal about this issue and I would not

keep quiet when I saw the things that were not happening, so I saw

that I needed to leave before I get into trouble because I would

challenge the issue. I think I spent three months there and I saw that

this does not help, have you every seen sometimes when people don’t

understand yet that as workers we also have rights, they are scared to

fight and talk.

I left there and then I had my second born child, I stayed home a little

bit. In 1979 I joined Ok Bazaars, they usually hired you as a casual first

and then you can be permanent, you would be very lucky if you were

hired permanently from the start. I worked as a casual, there were two

of us who were hired at the same time and there were other casuals

who said they had worked as casuals for eight months. There was

something called liason committees, they were not established by

workers themselves but by employers, trying to oppose the introduction

of trade unionism in the workplace. I remember that the first meeting

that I attended, I had questions that I asked, I said even though I was a

casual I wanted to know what protected me as an employee within

the company. I also asked them why I had to work more than three

months there in order to be permanent. The apartheid era made

things very difficult for Africans, I know now we are all being called

blacks, but if you take the issue of black and break it down in class,

race and gender, you can see that the Africans were worse off

because Indians and coloureds didn’t work as casuals before they

were employed permanently, they were employed straight from

outside and work as a permanent employee, but as an African you


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had to work as a casual first before they consider to employ you

permanently. That was the first meeting that was organised and I

remember I had worked there for three months as a casual and there

were those who said had been working there as casuals for eight

months. I asked those questions, I wanted to know why we were not

given policies and what was protecting us as casual working at OK

Bazaars. I also asked why they hired us as casual and we had to work

for a long time before we became permanent whereas the others

were being employed permanently straight from outside. I remember

that I even said that they were classifying us as per race, and there was

a white woman call Bitty who asked where I got those words. I said

that is what I think and see that here we are classified according to

race, these are blacks in an African manner, these are Indians and

coloureds so they must get better treatment than us.

Important Mkhize together with Vivienne Muthwa, Vivian is still alive

today, arrived to recruit. We were still casuals but now we were

working everyday but we were working shifts. So that day it was month

end, and during month end we would work from 8am to 5pm. So

Important and Vivian came to recruit for CAWUSA, it was not SACAWU

that time, which was founded by Emma Mashinini. I went for tea break

in the Canteen, I found them in the canteen and could hear that they

were talking about something I was interested in which was trade

unionism. Ever since I started working there I would ask colleagues why

they didn’t have a trade union, who was there from outside in the

liaison committee because I didn’t see anybody from outside to speak

about the liaison committee. I was a casual and joined the trade

union, I didn’t know how I was going to pay my subscriptions but

because we didn’t have a recognition agreement, we knew that we

would have to pay it by hand. That day I was the only one who joined

the trade union. I encouraged Important and Vivienne to leave the


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forms with me and they asked me how I was going to pursue

permanent staffers to join being a casual. I said I would pursue them to

join. I would spend my tea and lunch breaks speaking to them about

joining. After I had challenged the policies in the liaison meeting, all

casuals were hired permanently. It was 1981 when they employed us

full time, I was happy because I could challenge them being a

permanent employee. In their liaison committee meetings that I would

attend, they had representatives but you could hear the language

they spoke that they were reps for employers. I remember I told them

that that they were not representing workers but representing

employers. I asked them when they would talk about our issues

because every time when they come back to us they tell us what they

employer says and not talk about things affecting us, they would never

come back to us saying these are the issues that they achieved for us.

There were now a lot of us who had joined the trade union, we had

two branches, Motshapelo and Boshoff. They elected me to be a

representative in the liaison committee and I said thank you God

because I was going to change all this nonsense of the liaison

committee, I told them this. I was still going to trade union meetings as

well. I told them we are going to do away with the liaison committee;

they laughed at me and asked me if I was sure. They took me to

training for liaison committee, I remember the guy who was training us

was a strong politician, but because he wanted to work he had to

keep on training people this was, and also he had never gotten a

person who would challenge him in the training. When I would

challenge him during the training, he would look at me, smile and look

on the side and ask me to come and see him during lunch time. Lunch

time I went to see him and we talked, then he asked me to meet him

after hours so we could talk more. He asked me who else within the

reps I trusted who would not take what we would be discussing back to

the bosses. There were two girls, Octavia Zondi and Zandi Majozi who


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were also reps, and were coming from Boshoff. I asked them to come

with me so that we could talk to the trainer; I had started talking to

them about doing away with liaison committees. I said to them that

we needed to do away with liaison committees and start recognising

trade unions in OK Bazaars; they asked me if we can do this, and I said

yes. He said if we are strong and united we can do away with liaison

committees. I told them I was going to draft a petition stating that we

want to do away with liaison committees and establish unions. He

asked me if we were strong enough to purse this, I said I was going to

do it. He said I should go for it. Just imagine he was from head office

from top level management, but he was a politician who didn’t want

to be known. He said if we felt we were strong enough we should go

for it and send it through to head office, he was going to approve it.

I was back from training, they wasted their money on top hotels and

good food, I called in a meeting and management agreed. I told

them that I attended the liaison committee training and it was not

going to help our cause, it was not going to take us anywhere, it was

not going to help us fight for our rights, I said let us continue with the

trade union. I told them I had drafted a petition and I asked them if

they were going to sign, so that we all know that we are joining the

union that we know will fight for us. They all agreed. I drafted the

petition but now I didn’t know where I was going type it. The two

comrades came and I told them that I had been elected as a

representative for the liaison committee and I showed them what I had

drafted. I told them that I had listed all the names of staff and I wanted

everyone to tick on the petition whether they wanted a trade union or

not, there was and yes and a no. They told me that they were not

going to change anything on the petition, I had taken the initiative,

and it was perfect as is, they told me to go for it and they would

support me. I went to the meeting and told them that I didn’t have a


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lot of report backs, I showed them what I had brought, I told them that

we cannot have two things, the liaison committee is a management

thing and the trade union is for workers. You’d be surprised that the

Indians, Coloureds and white women can to tick on the petition that

they wanted a trade union. I went to arrange an appointment to see

the HR manager, he told me that he had heard what I was doing and

asked me if I thought I was going to succeed, I told him that I was there

to ask for a meeting. I called two other liaison committee reps and told

them that we are going to meet with the management and present to

them what we had proposed. I introduced to them what I had done

and how people had responded to it, I told them that we are doing

away with liaison committee, we were going stay with the trade union.

He took it and we asked him to make a copy for us. He said he would

write a letter to head office and see whether they approve it. It came

back approved, luckily we went to another branch and we told them

to do a petition like ours, immediately they drew one. Before they

could even send it to head office, they received a letter which told

them that liaison committees have been done away with and trade

unions were taking over. I was so happy.

Important and Vivienne came again and I told them what had

happened and I told them that I had been attending Fosatu meetings

and I know that we are supposed to have shop stewards. They asked

how we were going to have shop stewards because we were not

recognised. I said we need to have them because they are the ones

who will get things moving inside so that the trade union can be

recognised. They asked if we had strong people inside who can be

shop stewards. I volunteered and said that I would find people that I

could work with. I identified two males that I was working with; I didn’t

want to get females because most of them were very scared. After I

had identified the two gentlemen and found that they were strong, we

decided to get another person, so we identified another lady who


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used to be in the liaison committee, she was strong but she would get

scared sometimes. After she had attended a few meetings she started

to understand the issues, from there we started representing the

workers. We represented the workers without the recognition

agreement, when management said we were not recognised, I asked

them where the recognition agreement of the liaison committee was

because I had never seen one. We represented the workers and we

fought for them. During the time CAWUSA was negotiating the

recognition agreement, we didn’t just sit and wait, we put pressure

from the inside. CAWUSA got recognition from OK Bazaars,

immediately after that I would spend my lunch time recruiting people

from Pick ‘n Pay and wholesales, I had checked the scope that was

covered by CAWUSA. I would spend my lunch time running around

and mind you it was not in one area, I had to take a bus to other

places because there was no quick transport. I would for example go

from here to Yoeville during my lunch hour, I would have to make sure

that I am back at 1pm which would be end of my lunch hour. On

Saturdays I would ask for meetings in other shops so that I could recruit

people. I recruited people from Pick ‘n Pay, Spar, Brown Cash and

Carry, Metro Cash and Carry, all of the shops that were retail around

Pietermaritzburg, I would recruit them.

There are people who are in SACAWU who are now big shots in Nedlink

that I recruited as far as Port Shepston. The police came to arrest us,

we were in our night dresses when they arrested us, but we did not stop

there. There was a strike in OK Bazaars which started in October 1985

that ended in 1986 January, I hear people saying it was in 1986 but

forget that it started in 1985. I was involved in that strike and the first

person who got arrested. You know how things were during that time,

they arrested us but fortunately they couldn’t have a reason to charge


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us, so we won the case and were released. They came back for me

for the State of Emergency.

When we got back to work after the strike.

Facilitator: 1986?

Respondent: Yes. I remember telling them that they would all go back

if they didn’t know what they wanted, if they know what they want

then we would all stay at home. I told them they will all go back and I

would be the last one to go back, but the reason that made me

achieve going back last was that they arrested me for the state of

emergency, so I was the last one to go back. They went back to work

in January and I went back end of February, but I continued to work

and I never kept quiet, I carried on with the cause.

After a while I decided to go pursue other avenues. I resigned at OK

Bazaars and the first thing I did was to work for insurance, I felt they

made more money than us who worked at OK Bazaars. I didn’t stay

long with insurance but I am happy because when I left, whatever I

fought for, people who stayed behind benefited on that, what I said

was that this thing of people working for commission for over ten years

was not right because they would continue working for commission

even after they had worked for ten years. I was saying to them if a

person has had policies that didn’t lapse, why can’t they create the

basis for basic from there because his business would be continuing

then they should earn continually on the basic. They shouldn’t just look

at new business that I would be bringing but recognise the business I

brought a while ago that the company is still benefiting from, e.g. if my

business has lasted for a year then I must earn from that. I am happy

now to hear from people I left behind saying that I worked to change


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things but then left them, but now they say nationally if they have

brought business they earn a percentage on the amount that is being

paid by that business.

I went and applied in SATAWU which was still SARU. You will hear just

now how I applied. SARU had a strike in 1987, do you remember this

strike.

Facilitator: Yes I remember.

Respondent: We were involved, we were helping them. In 1990 I left

the OK Bazaars to become a consultant. I was bringing in business but I

was more interested in the workers from Transnet because you could

see that they were exploited, I would be there to sell insurance but I

wanted to know their rights, I wanted to know more that I was

supposed to be asking. I would look at their well being within Transnet,

they would tell me that for all these years they never got any pension

fund or provident fund, and it was only black people who experienced

this, that was what upset me most. They said that they were forced to

save for their retirement but it was not in retirement, it would be in a

lump sum and the money was not invested anywhere, this only

happened to black people. Even if railway was investing it, but you will

never know because they would never keep people’s interest money

and not use it. It might happen that the money generated interest but

the workers wouldn’t have known. They would tell me that they only

started in 1976 to give money towards pension. I asked them if railway

considered linking their service to the pension fund because some of

them were close to retirement. They told me that they didn’t know

whether their union knew that they could do that, link their service to

the pension fund. I continued to talk to them and I started recruiting

them for SARU.


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I must go back to this point, I forgot about it, and it happened before I

left OK Bazaars. This was during the formation of Cosatu, I was a

delegate in the congress that founded Cosatu, and I even remember

the song we sang in the launch of the congress in a stadium in Durban,

SARU had come with CAWUSA, that is where we were singing the song

that said Cosatu will take us to freedom, we sand that song the whole

day. The union had started to differentiate sectors of work in the union.

When we went to launch Cosatu, because we didn’t just launch, there

were preparations that we made beforehand, I was now a delegate

because I was a treasurer of the Natal midlands region. Elijah Bharayi

was elected by us as the first president. The women’s desk of Cosatu

was elected in the congress of 1987, where Comrade Ragmat stood

up and raised concern on women issues at the work place and it was

decided that affiliates should have women’s desks and so forth in order

to look at women issues at the workplace. We found that we are all

working but men were the only ones that benefitted from anything that

was accomplished by the unions. Women had issues of getting

maternity leave, leave when the children are sick and there were no

guidelines from congress when the desk was established to say how this

was going to be done. If I remember correctly it was people like

Comrade Ragmat and others who we met to establish those

guidelines, this is how gender desks were established. Later on we

decided to do away with women’s desks and established gender

desks because we found that when we took out issues to be

approved, a lot of men opposed our ideas because they didn’t

understand where we were coming from because they were not there

in discussions. The gender desks included the participation of men so

that they could better understand women’s issues.


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When I left to work for insurance, when I was recruiting for SARU, I knew

the difference between SARU and BLATU, I knew that BLATU was a

formation of Transnet management because they had a problem with

SARU because they could see that it was growing. SARU was

established in 1936 prior to UTATU which was established in 1955. They

could see that SARU was a progressive union, so when I joined

insurance, I didn’t mind that I didn’t make any business as long as I

could recruit people into SARU. I remember one day in

Pietermaritzburg when I used to go around selling insurance and

recruiting at the same time, we never used to have problems getting

into companies because they knew we sold insurance. This day when

we entered, we saw a very angry white man coming towards us and

pointing at me, he said I was no longer allowed to enter his premises, I

asked him why because I was also working for African Life Insurance,

he said they know what I was doing and I know that I am not selling

insurance and that I am a trade union agent. I asked him who told him

and he said they heard that I was recruiting for unions in Transnet, so

they chased me away. Now I had a problem of how I was going to

continue to recruit workers from Transnet. I heard that they had

opened an office in Pietermaritzburg, I went there and found that they

didn’t even have an organiser, they would attend meetings but find

that there’s no one to talk to them, I was known in the Cosatu

structures so I would go there and motivate them. One day I went to

Cosatu offices and the chairperson told me that they had posts that

were available, for Administrator and Organiser. She asked me to

apply for the organiser post, I asked her if she believed I could be an

organiser, it told her that I will apply for the post of the Administrator

instead because I believe I can do that work. I went for the interview,

we were interviewed by the Provincial Office Bearer, it was August, a

few days passed and I saw the Chairperson coming to our office at the

insurance company where we were preparing for the day, he came to


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give me a letter from head office. I thought to myself even if they

didn’t take me I will still continue to recruit people for the union. When I

opened the letter it said that I could start working on the 1st October

1990 and they told me that I needed to report at their offices to the

Provincial Office Bearer to accept my offer, they didn’t tell me what

they were employing me as what. I was fortunate because when you

work for insurance you have a lot of free time, so during this day I went

out and did my work and when it was time for my appointment at the

Cosatu office, I went there and met with the person that was

interviewing me. He called me in the office, they said they didn’t write

on purpose of my letter what they were employing me for, he said we

sat with you in an interview and listened to your whole history and we

saw that you would be good as an organiser. He said the office bearer

also asked us to recruit you as an organiser because of your past

record and the work that you have done in recruiting people to the

union. I said to myself, I had never seen a woman organiser before but

I took the job because it was a challenge for me. So I went back to my

office and I resigned and I started working as an organiser on the 1st

October 1990 at SACAWU, it was SARU at the time. I became the first

woman to be employed as an organiser.

Facilitator: Did that come as a surprise?

Respondent: It came as a surprise even to other affiliates, it was SACTU

who had a woman organiser and it was understood because the

clothing industry was full of women and she was a coloured woman. It

was a surprise that a male dominated union has employed a woman

as an organiser, especially workers from railway will be recruited by a

woman. I never felt that I was a woman amongst men because they

respected me and even I want to be honest with you, I was assertive, I

told myself that I was going stand tall amongst these men. We worked


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very well together up until today, there were a lot of challenges, but I

never encountered problems just because I was working with males.

What made me to be respected by workers, firstly you should never lie

to the workers, never create expectations that you know will never be

fulfilled. To be a good official to the workers, you must be able to give

them bad and good news, don’t be an official that only wants to

convey good news to the workers, you wont make a good official if

you only prefer to convey good news because when the day comes

when you have to convey bad news, then you will not be able to do

your job. You have to give the bad news as they are so that you can

be able to sit down and strategise, you will always hit crossroads, but

you will always find a way to resolve them. That is how I managed to

work with workers as an organiser, I enjoyed to be an organiser, I

enjoyed working on cases because I was never unfortunate to lose

cases and I liked it even more if I had to take the case through

conciliation and arbitration.

In 1995, SATAWU which was SAWU at that time, they had a national

staff meeting, that time Cosatu wanted every affiliate to have a an

established gender desk, have policies e.g. gender policies, sexual

harassment, it wanted very affiliate to have a full time gender

coordinator to make sure that this was implemented. As much as I was

an organiser, I would participate in the gender structure of Cosatu, as a

result I was a regional secretary of Gender desk in Natal, I was clued up

on issues of gender. So when Cosatu said they should appoint full time

gender coordinators, SATAWU didn’t know who they were going to

get. So there was that staff meeting in 1995, the meeting was in

Durban, the issue of gender was on the agenda. We invited someone

to come and make a presentation on gender, Ntokozo Mbele who is

an ex employee of SATAWU, at that time she was still in Cosatu but now


19 of 22

is in PSI and still deals with gender issues. Unfortunately she couldn’t

come because of a family matter, now we didn’t have anyone to

address us on gender issues, some other female comrades who knew

that I was involved in gender issues and they also were involved in their

branches, they said I should present instead on the gender issues

because I was well clued up on the matter. Just imagine I had not

prepared, but if you know your subject matter, I stood up and did the

presentation on gender. The presidents used to attend staff meeting

and the president was had attended said, he said he didn’t think

SATAWU should look for a gender coordinator in such a hurry, we will

ask Natal to release Veronica and come to head office for about six

months to set up the gender desk, draft policies and then after that she

can go back to KZN. He said in KZN we will have to see how we work,

remember that all the work had already been done, it was just a

matter of recruiting here and there. The other thing that I am good at is

mentoring, I had been mentoring the administrator I worked with and

she knew how to organise and handle cases, I used to give her a case

and I would sit and observe her while she was dealing with it, so I

mentored her on how to draft letters to management as well, I

delegated to her a lot. When I left KZN, I told the office bearer that

there was no need to bring in someone else to do what I was doing,

the administrator is more than capable to do it, the office bearer

supported me on this and she took over my things. She once wrote a

letter to me thanking me for exposing her in to working with cases and

organising. After the six months I thought they would release me back

to KZN and hire someone, the NEC was going to meet and when they

came back having agreed that they cannot hire someone else from

outside, they decided to employ me and told KZN that if the

administrator was capable to handle my job they will employ her as an

organiser. They came back and told me their decision. It was bad

because I ended staying the whole year on my own because I didn’t


20 of 22

bring the kids with me when I thought I was going to stay for six months.

In 1997 I made sure that my kids came to live with me. I worked on the

gender desk from 1996 to 1998. In 1998 when SATAWU started looking

at other affiliates on the changes they had made, they wanted

establish sectors, e.g. aviation, road freight, road passenger. When

they started looking at those sectors they said that Cosatu had

encouraged them to fill up higher positions first and the employment

equity issues was at hand as well, they decided to look inside the

organisation at people who they can appoint for those position. They

approached me and told me that they were going to the CEC and

they needed to appoint someone to head up the maritime sector,

they had already appointed heads of other sector and they had a

problem getting someone for maritime, they said they had tried to

employ someone but he failed, they asked me if I could take this

challenge. I said I would take up the challenge as long they are not

appointing just to watch me fail, they said no they would support me. I

sat down and said to myself why would I fail, I was a very good shop

steward, an organiser and I had established the gender desk, so I

decided to take up the challenge. From there I took Maritime as I am

still the National Sector coordinator for Maritime.

Facilitator: Thanks for the detailed interview. Just as a last question,

when you look back, would you want to live your life differently?

Respondent: Let me tell you, the opportunities were there that I could

go out to the corporate world and leave trade unionism, but I didn’t

take those opportunities because I think this was my calling, its like

taking up teaching because you wanted to be an engineer and

because you didn’t pass maths and science then you decided to be a

teacher, you must have passion for every career you choose otherwise

you will not succeed. I wanted to work for the unions from the first day I


21 of 22

heard my father talking about it so trade unionism is what I always

wanted to do and I didn’t want to waste my time with something else.

So I would not want to lead a different life. I was to leave a legacy for

my grandchildren and talk about something I lived and know about

when I talk to them. People think trade unionism was for people who

were uneducated, they think if they are well educated and earn half a

million per annum they don’t need to join a trade union because they

can challenge issues themselves. Trade unions will always be there, I

would not want to live a different life. I could have gone out of the

trade union a long time ago, but in the corporate world, the

companies that we deal with when you look at management, they are

there but they don’t know what they are doing themselves, when we

get there we start from scratch and teach them about the recognition

agreement, interpreting labour relations act, interpreting occupational

health and safety at work place, those are the things that in most

companies are still confused about. Take for instance a minor thing, a

company is supposed to do job evaluation and job grading so that

they can band people accordingly, they don’t know what informs

putting people in different bands, you find that the companies don’t

know why they should do those things. We come in to companies and

help them do these things and give them advice on which consultants

they can contact to help them with these issues. Sometimes they ask

us to help them but we cannot because it would be conflict of interest.

So sometimes they offer us jobs in their employee relations departments

and tell us that they can pay us more than what we earn or they offer

you a big package. So it depends what you love to do, I love trade

unionism, even my grandchildren will know about how much I loved it.

My kids know this, when they join a new company I tell them to make

sure they join a trade union and participate and not just be a member,

participate and know what is happening. So I don’t think I can still live

another life now, it would be very difficult for me.


22 of 22

Facilitator: Thank you very much for your time, if I need to follow up on

anything else I will drop you an email.

Respondent: Do you have my email address?

Facilitator: No I don’t.

Respondent: Ok, I will write it down for you.

Collection Number: A3402 Collection Name: Labour Struggles Project, Interviews, 2009-2012

PUBLISHER: Publisher: Historical Papers Research Archive, University of the Witwatersrand Location: Johannesburg ©2016

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interview: veronica mesatshwa€¦ · interview: veronica mesatshwa 2 of 22 school. i had to go...

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