Emma Mashinini
Emma Mashinini was born in Johannesburg in 1929. In the 1930s she and her family were forcibly removed to Orlando in Soweto. Emma took a job working in a clothing factory. She worked her way up and was later elected to the national executive committee of the National Union of Clothing Workers (NUCW), the highest body of the Garment Worker's Union and remained a member of the committee for the next 12 years. In 1975 she took up a position as president of a new union, the Commercial, Catering and Allied Worker's Union of South Africa (CCAWUSA) that she had founded. By 1977 her union had 1 000 members. Emma was arrested in November 1981 under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act and spent the next six months in solitary confinement at Pretoria Central Prison. After her release she resumed her post at CCAWUSA for another four years. In 1985 she was involved in the formation of the Congress of South African Trade unions (COSATU) a body that united trade unions across the country. In the early 1990s she became the president of the Mediation and Conciliation Centre in Johannesburg and in 1995 was appointed commissioner for the Restitution of Land Rights.
Emma Mashinini
SAHO biography
