News

Emma Mashinini joined a long list of trade union heroes to have received the UNI Global Union Freedom from Fear award after she was honoured at the World Congress in Cape Town.

The South African trade unionist and political leader brought the crowd to their feet in song when she received the prize in recognition of a lifetime of bravery and of building the trade union movement in South Africa.

Speaking to a packed Congress Hall, Mashinini said, “I want to say thank you for this honour and for the recognition given to me because all my life I’ve been fighting for recognition – the recognition of trade unions and other organisations.”

During an era when political organisations were banned and union leaders were forced to go underground, Mashinini or “Mama Emma” as she is known in South Africa, was elected to the national executive committee of the National Union of Clothing Workers. She was arrested in 1981 under section 6 of the Terrorism Act and spent the next six months in solitary confinement at Pretoria Central Prison.

She was a key figure in the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) as well as AFRO FIET, the forerunner of UNI Africa.

“The first time I voted, it was myself, my daughter and my granddaughter, and believe it or not when I put the cross on my first ballot paper, I used a FIET pen.”

Mashinini is one of seven trade unionists being honoured at this year’s World Congress. She joins:

• SNTPT and SYTS in Senegal (Ndeye Founé Niang and Babacar Sarr)
• Fidel Alfonso, President of Sintravalores (Prosegur) Colombia
• Sutragrisa-Ripley Peru
• Metro Habib Employees Union, Pakistan
• UNI Europa Hair and Beauty (François Laurent)
• SNEGCBEFCAM, Cameroon (Babaoulè Abraham)
• Cash and Transit Union in Prosegur, Peru