The General Industries Workers Union of South Africa (GIWUSA) is a South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) affiliated, socialist, internationalist trade union organizing and defending workers rights in various industries which include but are not limited to: Engineering, Contract and Labour Brokers, Plastic, Furniture, Glass, Pharmaceutical, Chemicals, Wood, Paper, Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Hospitality, Food Processing, and Agriculture.
Negotiating wages and conditions of employment, with an uncompromising loyalty to the interests of workers.
Defending workers against unfair dismissals and unfair labour practices. We represent workers in matters of retrenchments and any other matter in which the rights of the workers have been infringed upon. The CCMA and Labour Court are battlegrounds, in which we must confront and triumph over the greedy Capitalist class, which routinely and ruthlessly exploits workers with impunity.
In instances where negotiations with the employer breaks down, we are unafraid to escalate and undertake industrial strike action to ensure that the demands of workers are met.
The National Office Bearers of GIWUSA
On the weekend spanning the 8th to the 10th of April 2022, in the context of deepening, interlinked Crises of Capitalism - astronomical unemployment, energy price increases and the rising cost of living, rising xenophobia, the Climate Crisis and the bourgeois offensive against the working class - the National Executive Committee of GIWUSA met to strategise on the response of the organised working class to this state of crisis.
The meeting discussed the ongoing #CloverStrike, which began when workers took industrial action in November 2021 against wage cuts, austerity measures, retrenchments and the take-over of Clover by MILCO/CBC.
The necessity of fighting the Climate Crisis was stressed, as was the fact that Climate Change is an issue that is manufactured by Capitalism, yet it is the working classes who will suffer most on account of the consequent crises. It was made clear that GIWUSA must support campaigns that not only fight Climate Change, but also campaigns that fight every other Crisis of Capitalism that is inescapibly interwoven into the crisis of the Climate. Addressing the Climate Crisis requires the dismantling of the same insatiable Capitalist machine of extraction that is responsible for the exploitation of workers. As GIWUSA we firmly hold that Climate Justice is justice for the working class!
The state of the organised labour movement, particularly within SAFTU, was discussed, given that many trade unions are capitaluting to the pressure of the Capitalist class and accepting wage freezes and cuts, austerity measures, the slashing of benefits and the imposition of long work hours. This treacherous state of affairs underscores the need for an alternative and thus the meeting discussed organisational tasks to strengthen GIWUSA into that fighting alternative to this unacceptable betrayal of the working class.
