TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 2

Subsection 2

19 The link between trade union struggles and the democratic movement is clearly discernible in the following excerpt from the ANC’s submission:

At decisive moments in the re-emergence of the democratic movement, business’ initial reaction was invariably one of opposition, victimisation of activists and union officials, and recourse to the regime’s security forces. The first reaction to a strike or attempt by unions to organise workers was all too often to call on the police. Many violations of human rights occurred as a consequence.

Given the major role played by the independent black trade union movement in fighting apartheid, the struggle for trade union rights and democracy were often indistinguishable. The overlap was not exact, while finding coherence to the extent that both the refusal to recognise trade unions on the grounds of race and the denial of franchise both constitute human rights violations. The struggle for trade union rights, for better working conditions and for democracy, in turn, led to a host of specific gross human rights violations that are the direct concern of the Commission.

It was certainly the perception of most black workers that big business was in bed with the government. The role that business, either directly or indirectly, played in shaping apartheid policies, collaborating with agents of the state and benefiting from the system, implies a level of moral culpability which simply cannot be ignored.

20 Evidence of different levels of collaboration emerged in the Commission’s hearings on business and labour. On the one level, business is charged with direct collaboration (most notably with the security establishment). On the other, business is charged with implicitly collaborating with the state by doing business with it, paying taxes and promoting economic growth. Professor Sampie Terreblanche argues that:

Business should acknowledge explicitly, and without reservation, that the power structures underpinning white supremacy and racial capitalism for 100 years were of such a nature that whites have been undeservedly enriched and people other than whites undeservedly impoverished.

These forms of collaboration create and promote a context that leads to the systematic execution of gross human rights violations. It contributes to the emergence of an economic and political structure – a culture and a system which gives rise to and condones certain patterns of behaviour.

21 The COSATU submission argues that:

Indeed, the historical record does not support business claims of non-collaboration. A vast body of evidence points to a central role for business interests in the elaboration, adoption, implementation and modification of apartheid policies throughout its dismal history. The South African Police and Defence Force were armed and equipped by big business. Apartheid’s jails were constructed by big business, as were the buildings housing the vast apartheid bureaucracy. Apartheid’s labour laws, pass laws, forced removals and cheap labour system were all to the advantage of the business community.

22 Major Craig Williamson (a former security police spy) expressed a similar understanding of collaboration by pointing to systemic links between the economy, civil society and apartheid:

Our weapons, ammunition, uniforms, vehicles, radios and other equipment were all developed and provided by industry. Our finances and banking were done by bankers who even gave us covert credit cards for covert operations. Our chaplains prayed for our victory and our universities educated us in war. Our propaganda was carried by the media and our political masters were voted back into power time after time with ever increasing majorities.²