Apartheid’s Garment Union Divide: How South Africa Barred Black Clothing Workers from Equal Representation

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Apartheid’s Garment Union Divide: How South Africa Barred Black Clothing Workers from Equal Representation

National Union of Clothing Workers (NUCW) and Garment Workers’ Union of South Africa (GWUSA) / 1960s-1980s

In 1962, South Africa’s black garment workers organized the National Union of Clothing Workers when the Garment Workers’ Union of African Women merged with the African Clothing Workers’ Union. Led by Lucy Mvubelo, the NUCW represented black workers while the Garment Workers’ Union of South Africa represented white and coloured workers. The division was not simply a matter of union preference: apartheid law prohibited the two organizations from merging and barred the NUCW from joining industrial councils, the formal bodies through which wages and employment conditions were negotiated. As a result, black clothing workers were denied equal access to the institutions that shaped their industry, and the NUCW often had to rely on the smaller GWUSA to advance its interests. The union’s exclusion continued after it affiliated with the Trade Union Council of South Africa; in 1969, the council expelled all unions of black workers, although the NUCW managed to rejoin in 1972. Its growth—reaching approximately 26,000 members by 1985—helped expose the untenable racial structure of South African garment labor. That year, the authorities finally permitted the NUCW and GWUSA to merge, creating the National Union of Garment Workers and ending an officially enforced split in worker representation.