23/03/2025
Publication: CWAO
Author: Press Writer
Fighting the bosses across the region
The Casual Workers' Advice Office (CWAO) has started a regional network of unions that organise workers in insecure jobs. The network’s co-ordinator, Nandi Vanqa-Mgijima of CWAO, talks to The New Worker about it.
Q: What is the Southern African Regional Network (SARN) and why did CWAO start it?
A: The SARN is a network of worker organisations which are popularly known as trade unions, but we are not limited to unions only. As long as the organisation works to organise the vulnerable sector of workers, they can join. CWAO is the host of this network.
CWAO started SARN with the recognition that there are increasingly vulnerable workers around the globe and in Africa. These workers work more and more in insecure employment .
Q: Which organisations are part of the SARN?
A: There are about 8 trade unions from Namibia, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa who belong to the network, including the Migrant Workers Union (Miwusa) and Simunye Workers Forum. They organise workers in domestic work, farm work, catering, the sugar industry, plantations, factory labour broker workers, and migrant workers.
Q: What is the SARN's purpose and what work does it do?
The purpose of the network is to share organising experiences, to share the stories of the struggles of these vulnerable workers, to learn from each other, to build solidarity, to engage in exchange programmes in each other’s countries. We want to build alternatives and find new ways of organising together in this difficult period where workers’ rights are under attack.
The network holds online meetings and face to face meetings to learn from each other’s campaigns and programmes. As the host, CWAO has also hosted members of SARN to come here and get a first-hand experience of our campaigns. We produce some booklets to compare our struggles and to compare the basic labour rights of these various countries. We share organising materials and this helps to develop workers’ knowledge and enhance their capacities.
Q: Why is this regional network important?
A: Because we need to network more and more with organisations in the region, in particular because South Africa is a sub-imperialist country. You find South African companies operating in the region and we want to build synergies. In other words, we want a network with those workers in other countries who are working under South African companies. SARN hopes to help challenge poor labour practices that those workers might be experiencing.
SARN is also important because an increasing number of workers are moving to South Africa. Those workers are exposed to extreme forms of exploitation and oppression in the world of work so it is important that we have a space whereby we expose those tendencies and seek ways to build solidarity, so as to defend worker rights across the region and globally.
Q: What’s next for the SARN?
A: Comrades have expressed that the network is of value for they have learnt a lot from it in terms of organising vulnerable workers. Through the network, some organisations began to organise not only permanent workers, but casual workers too. We want to strengthen the network so that later on, we can expand it. To follow what we are doing, keep an eye on the CWAO website or feel free to get in touch with me.