Transport and General Workers Union: Progress report on developments in TGWU during the period August 1987-July 1988

The past year has been a very dramatic one for TGWU. It has been a year of enormous growth in membership, and at the same time a year where we have had to deal with the traumas of numerous mergers (both into TGWU, and TGWU membership into other unions). We have had to endure the difficulties of being without a physical locality for our head office for three months (after the bomb attack on Cosatu House), and more recently the arson attack on our head office premises. In an attempt to cope with the growth of the union we have developed new structures, and have expanded our staff at all levels. The year has also of course been a very dramatic one for the trade union movement as a whole, and for Cosatu in particular. The two most serious features of this have been the restricting of Cosatu in terms of the State of Emergency (along with 17 other organisations), and the proposed Labour Relations Amendment Bill. TGWU has tried to address these issues with the seriousness and determined opposition that they deserve. As a result, the state has seen fit to clash with our members, as witnessed by the detention (and now trial) of our first vice president, Comrade Alfred Ndlovu, and at least 15 other TGWU memebers over the past year. Nine TGWU members are still suffering in the isolation and evilness of detention