Industrial Workers of Africa

The Industrial Workers of Africa was the first African trade union in South Africa.  It was nursed by the International Socialist League (ISL) and explicitly modelled on the Industrial Workers of te World (IWW). At a preliminary meeting on 19 July 1917, the ISL stressed that it wanted 'to make the natives who are the working-class of South Africa be organised and have rights as a white man.' Key figures in the Industrial Workers of Africa included Fred Cetiwe, who worked as a picture framer's assistant, and T.W. Thibedi, a schoolteacher from Johannesburg.

Read more? Lucien van der Walt, 'South African Socialism, 1886-1928' in: Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940 (Leiden 2010)