CWA a Vital Partner for South African Workers at Vodacom

A victory for workers struggling to bargain collectively at South Africa's Vodacom could have ripple effects for workers throughout the African continent and around the world – including Verizon Wireless employees in the United States, union leaders say.

Vodacom's parent company, Vodafone, operates in much of the African continent and countries that include Spain, France, Germany and England. It also owns 45 percent of Verizon Wireless.

"These workers will prevail," CWA President Larry Cohen said. "Their struggle serves as a reminder of what we can achieve despite history and the odds. A little more than a dozen years ago, these workers would have been jailed under South Africa's brutal anti-worker apartheid regime. Yet today, apartheid is gone and South Africa's labor laws are more progressive than our own in the United States." 

For two years, CWA has been working with the Solidarity Center and the Communications Workers Union of South Africa to help the country's roughly 3,000 Vodacom workers – mostly young, black women – organize a union and bargain a contract.

Since apartheid ended in South Africa, labor and government have generally had a good relationship, seeing themselves as partners in the struggle to end segregation and rebuild a vibrant country based on social justice.

Because of that, "it used to be blasphemy to oppose unions in the workplace," Solidarity Center Organizing Director Hanad Mohamed said during a presentation June 14 at CWA headquarters.

But attitudes are changing for the worse. And Vodacom made things even more contentious by hiring what may be the first union-busting attorney in South Africa – an American. Under her direction, Vodacom employees have been the targets of anti-union fear and intimidation tactics familiar to many American workers. Mohamed said the South Africans were so shocked by the behavior they were often heard to say, "This kind of thing only happens in America."

The workers went on strike in March – an especially courageous act, Mohamed said, in a country with 40 percent unemployment -- but a court injunction ended the walkout several days later. The injunction was overturned last month. To push the company to bargain, the workers have threatened to go on strike again and this time take the country's landline workers with them.

The company agreed to talks but so far has done little but throw up roadblocks by demanding bargaining sessions in places far away, forcing union leaders and the workers who will join them to deplete their resources by paying for airfare. But the union is standing strong.

CWA's support and advice have been invaluable, Mohamed said, helping the union do unprecedented research on the company and map out a coordinated campaign and message. "People feel and believe that CWA is in this fight with them," he said.