NALSU Labour Studies podcast: Anusa Daimon, Chitja Twala, Lucien van der Walt, "Labour Struggles in Southern Africa 1919-1949: New Perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU)"

SPEAKERS & TOPIC: Anusa Daimon, Chitja Twala, Lucien van der Walt, "Labour Struggles in Southern Africa 1919-1949: New Perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU)" TOPIC: The Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) and the Vuyisile Mini Workers School, in in partnership with HSRC Press, were proud to recently launch "Labour Struggles in Southern Africa 1919-1949: New Perspectives on the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU)." This collection provides fresh perspectives on the ICU, which was by far the largest black political organisation in southern Africa before the 1940s, active in six countries and in global trade union networks, and lasted into the 1950s.The book's chapters examine different aspects of the ICU’s record, achievements, and failures in relation to the post-apartheid present. In its syndicalist One Big Union approach to workers’ rights; emphasis on economic freedoms; internationalism; unmatched presence in rural areas and on farms; and robust protection of women and migrant workers, and sheer size, the ICU overshadowed rivals like the African National Congress (ANC), the Communist Party, and the Southern Rhodesia Bantu Voters' Association. It helped forge a popular and proletarian counter-public, and promised freedom through a general strike, not parliament. Not just an exercise in excavating struggle history, this volume demonstrates that the traditions and legacies of the ICU remain of great relevance to contemporary southern Africa. With the recent centennial of the ICU, it is time to revisit this once mighty movement.Contributors to the book include Anusa Daimon, Henry Dee, David Johnson, Peter Limb, Tom Lodge, Sibongiseni Mkhize, Tshepo Moloi, Noor Nieftagodien, Laurence Stewart, Chitja Twala, Nicole Ulrich, Elizabeth van Heyningen and Lucien van der Walt. The book also includes a previously unpublished paper on the ICU by the late Phillip Bonner, doyen of South African social history.The book was co-edited by David Johnson, Noor Nieftagodien and Lucien van der Walt, published by the HSRC Press, and brought together NALSU and the History Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). We thank Wits for a generous contribution towards publishing costs. It is available at all good bookstores. For more on the book, and downloads (registration needed), visit the HSRC here: https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/labour-struggles-in-southern-africa-1919-1949Three contributors presented at the launch, capturing some of the ICU’s spread and importance. Anusa Daimon looked at the rise of the ICU in Zimbabwe (then southern Rhodesia), and the role of "rabble-rouser" Robert Sambo; Chitja Twala presented his work (with Peter Limb) on the ICU in small Free State dorps and dorpies (small towns); Lucien van der Walt traced the history of the ICU in mining towns in Namibia (then South West Africa). They helped bring the ICU’s history to life. Details: This is a recording of a live event in the NALSU Labour Studies Seminar Series, partnered with the Vuyisile Mini Workers School, held on Wednesday, 15 November 2023, at the Graham Hotel, Makhanda, South Africa. The Vuyisile Mini Workers School, for unions and other working-class movements, is part of NALSU's Worker Education Project, of which see here https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/workereducation/. Work on the ICU is also part of NALSU's Labour History Project: for more information is available here https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/labourhistory/
ABOUT NALSU: Based in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, NALSU is engaged in policy, research and workers' education, has a democratic, non-sectarian, non-aligned and pluralist practice, and active relations with a range of advocacy, labour and research organisations. We are named in honour of Dr Neil Hudson Aggett, union organiser and medical doctor who died in 1982 in an apartheid jail after enduring brutality and torture.
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