Solidarity

Solidarity is a South African trade union that negotiates on behalf of its members and attempts to protect workers' rights. Although the union is often involved in issues of political import, it does not align or formally affiliate itself with any political party. Solidarity is a trade union within the Christian tradition of unionism. Its membership is mainly, but not exclusively, White Afrikaners.Today, the union represents about 135,000 workers employed at some 8,000 companies, and while it said it does not classify its members by race, it estimates that between 70 percent and 80 percent of its members are white. History Its origins go back to 1902, when the Transvaal Miners' Association was founded in the mines on the Witwatersrand. In 1913, it became the Mine Workers' Union, and it later became the largest affiliate of the South African Confederation of Labour (SACOL), which supported the apartheid system. In its earliest iteration, the TMA took militant stances in a series of “great industrial strikes” and, as the renamed Mine Worker’s Union, in 1922 was a major player in the “Rand Revolt,” in which it fought for preservation of jobs for white South Africans at the expense of black workers in South Africa’s gold mines.