Trade unionists

Every year the AAM lobbied delegates and held a fringe meeting at the TUC annual congress. This leaflet advertised a meeting at the 1981 TUC.

In February 1981, workers at Wilson-Rowntree’s East London factory were sacked for striking in protest at the dismissal of three colleagues. Wilson-Rowntree was a subsidiary of the British company Rowntree-Mackintosh. The AAM campaigned with the British unions GMWU, USDAW and TGWU  to make the company reinstate the sacked workers and recognise the South African Allied Workers Union.

In February 1981, workers at Wilson-Rowntree’s East London factory were sacked for striking in protest at the dismissal of three colleagues. Wilson-Rowntree was a subsidiary of the British company Rowntree-Mackintosh. The AAM campaigned with the British unions GMWU, USDAW and TGWU  to make the company reinstate the sacked workers and recognise SAAWU (South African Allied Workers Union). In June 1982 it held a Week of Action in support of the sacked workers and a march in York, where Rowntree-Mackintosh had its headquarters.

Like other local AAM branches, Bristol AA Group held local meetings and demonstrations highlighting national anti-apartheid campaigns. This 1982 newsletter publicised a meeting on South African political prisoners, an international week of action on companies trading with Namibia and support for workers sacked by the British confectionery company Rowntree-Mackintosh’s South African subsidiary.

Activists in the National Graphical Association (NGA) began a campaign in the 1970s to have the South African Typographical Association (SATU) expelled from the International Graphical Federation (IGF) until work in the South African printing industry and membership of the appropriate trade union was not defined by race. These extracts from the verbatim reports of the NGA’s Biennial Delegate Meetings of 1982, 1984 and 1986 tell how the initiative of activists within the NGA led to SATU’s expulsion from the IGF in 1986.

British trade unionists picketed South Africa House on May 11 1982 calling for the release of three leaders of the South African Agricultural Workers Union detained without trial. Left to right: Roger Ward from the draughtsmen’s union TASS, Muriel Turner from the clerical union ASTMS and ASTMS General Secretary, Clive Jenkins.

In 1982, the AAM and British trade unionists campaigned for support for striking South African workers at Wilson-Rowntrees, a subsidiary of the British confectionery maker Rowntree- Mackintosh. Southampton AA Group distributed this leaflet asking supporters to protest to the company’s managing director about the treatment of its black workers.

In February 1981, 500 workers at Wilson-Rowntree’s East London factory were sacked for striking in protest at the dismissal of three colleagues. Wilson-Rowntree was a subsidiary of the British company Rowntree-Mackintosh. The AAM campaigned with the British unions GMWU, USDAW and TGWU  to make the company reinstate the sacked workers and recognise the South African Allied Workers Union (SAAWU). This leaflet publicised a march in York, where the company had its headquarters.