Human Rights Violation Hearings — Newcastle — 1996-09-11

WITNESS:   I got to that firm in 1983, and I worked.  It was in Dundee.  When we were working in that firm - it was called Alu Cable, under African Cables - we observed the manner in which the workers were being exploited or oppressed, and the way that they were being chased out of work, the treatment as well as the working environment, and we realised that this was a violation of workers' rights and we wanted them to join certain unions.  And at that time, as I have already mentioned that it was way back in 1983, the only union that was existing at the time was SAAWU.  It's South African Allied Workers Union.  And we tried to mobilise these workers to join the union, and there was one worker who was chased out of work.  We decided to come together as workers to support this worker who had been chased away from work.  We said, "This is the time to show solidarity as workers.  We should not withhold and support, and we should withhold our labour so that our bosses may realise how important we are in the workforce."  And one of the  white people had to be chased out because he had no

COMMISSIONER: absolutely no reasons why he chased one of the workers away.  Thereafter we started negotiating about wages, because our wages remained the same, whereas the cost of living was getting higher and higher.   We negotiated up to a certain extent that we went into a go-slow.  That was the very first go-slow to take place in that particular company.  And it so happened that we got into negotiations with the union office.  We decided that there should be certain things that we should do.  We came into a conclusion that we should stop the boycott or the go-slow.  After we had fixed the problem of workers being exploited we went on, we moved further to the community, where the councillors were increasing rent, which was initially R26,00 and it was going to R28,00.  And we realised that we should help the community, we should talk and have negotiations as well as meetings with the community.  And we came together as workers from Alucab, and we wanted to expand this to the community so that we can come up with a strategy to deal with this.  And we discussed it as the community that we have never been consulted with regard to the rent increase, and it was not going to help up for the rent to go up because we had no facilities that would make the rent increase.  And we divided our work into different categories.  Some were talking to the workers from different factories, some were going straight into the community, and some were mobilising part of the community to join the unions and be part of the struggle.  They decided that we should spray some graffiti which passes some message with relation to the strategy that we were going to take as workers as well as community members, and  /the leader

COMMISSIONER: the leader was Dumisani Oscar Zulu, who was leading in the

COMMISSIONER: spraying of graffiti.  And there is a certain person, that is myself, I had to go into the community to mobilise the community towards this.  Whenever there was a meeting, whether it was between the political groups or within the workers themselves we would visit those meetings.  We would attend those meetings from time to time.  And we would also go to meetings where they would discuss the rent going up.  And we realised that the conditions in that residential area were not healthy and they were not acceptable.  We still used the bucket system and we did not have proper taps, we shared the taps.  We decided that we should sit down and talk to the people, show them the negatives of the residential area in which they were staying, and we decided to boycott rent.  We told the community that we were not going to pay rent from that particular month, and we went to certain attorneys to try and give us some advice.  We sent some of the delegates to go and see some attorneys.  They gave us a report back as to what the attorneys had said.  And at that time the attorneys could not tell you to go on and boycott.  We decided that the boycott was the only solution that would bring change.  What happened was we went on with the boycott, and the administration agreed to lower the rent.  And we saw that there's a lot that we could get at that time if they could agree to lowering the rent.  What I experienced as a student I also experienced as a worker.  The behaviour of the councils was the same as that of my superiors at school, as well as the headmaster.  They said we were people who had come to sow some seeds of hatred within the community and we deserved to be arrested or to  be killed.  This was a directive from the then

COMMISSIONER: councillors.  We were arrested in 1985, and we were arrested on different occasions.  When we were arrested some were left out, and when we were released some would be arrested.  Our charges were different.  They would be public violence and illegal gatherings.  Even our bails were quite high, but the community came together.  When they said they wanted R5 600,00 the community collected that amount of money within 30 minutes and they bailed us out.  This place was still Natal, and there was not yet a state of emergency.  It was only implemented in the Eastern Cape as well as the PWV area.  And in 1986 as we went on with the struggle, and after Comrade Moses Mabhida had died, who was general secretary for the South African Communist Party, we attended his memorial service at Edendale Cemetery.  And when we got there we came back with some pamphlets that we had to distribute in the residential area as well as at factories in Dundee.  And thereafter I started being harassed.  I was living like an animal being hunted by predators.  I was hunted by Security Police as well as the Flying Squad and the SBs.  Whenever they wanted me they had to even come to my workplace, and I could not even walk around the residential area, and I decided at that moment that I had to leave the country.  And when I was speaking to some attorneys in Durban I told them, and they said to me there was no need for me to skip the country, I had to remain in the country and they would defend me whenever I was accused of anything or arrested.  And I lived a life of a hunted person.  I had to hide myself at Lamontville,  together with other comrades, because I was running away from the police.  And there was a certain meeting that was