SACTWU mourns passing of its founding President

Date: 10 January 2021

Media release: immediate

SACTWU mourns passing of its founding President

The COSATU-affiliated Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) mourns the passing of its founding President, Mr. Amon Ntuli.

He passed away on Friday afternoon in the Hillcrest Hospital in Durban, from a non- COVID related illness, and sadly just a few days after the passing of his dear wife of 36 years, Gloria.

At SACTWU’s founding Inaugural Congress held in the Great Hall at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) on 16-17 September 1989, he was elected unopposed as SACTWU’s first President.

He has a rich and deep history in the domestic and international trade union movement.

A textile worker and shop steward from Frame Textiles in Pinetown, he emerged as a great worker leader during the historic 1973 Durban strikes in South Africa.

He first served as a President of the National Union of Textile Workers (NUTW), one of SACTWU’s founding trade unions.

Over the years since then, he played an instrumental role in the process of unifying clothing, textile and leather workers in our country and internationally.

Domestically, this included a series of mergers of the then many separate trade unions in our industry, resulting in the formation of the Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union of South Africa (ACTWUSA) in 1987, of which he was elected as its Inaugural President.

ACTWUSA itself merged with the Garment Workers Union (GAWU) in September 1989, to form SACTWU as we know it today.

Amon Ntuli played a key role in the establishment of the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU), and later of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

He has served as a member of the COSATU Central Executive Commitee (CEC) for many years, since its establishment in 1985.

Internationally, he also served as a Vice President of the International Textile, Garment & Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF), a founding international of the now IndustriAll Global Union.

For many years, Amon Ntuli also served as a COSATU representative on the Job Creation Trust (JCT), as well as Chairperson of Edupeg (now called “Edufundi”) – one of our union’s social outreach programs which provides numeracy- and literacy skills development to thousands of underprivileged learners and educators in pre- and primary schools in various parts of our country.

In the run up to the democratisation of our country, he helped to lead the historic Worker Charter Campaign, which resulted in key worker rights (such as the right to strike) finally being enshrined in the South African constitution and protected in our Bill of Rights.

He was a firm campaigner for centralised bargaining, initially assisting to reform and strengthen the previous Industrial Council forums, which laid the basis of today’s national Bargaining Council system.

Under his Presidential stewardship, SACTWU had managed to build one of the most impressive trade union provided social support benefits for workers, such as our self-run funeral, retirement and bursary fund programmes from which tens of thousands of our members benefit regularly.

For many years, Amon Ntuli also served as Chairperson of the Board of Zenzeleni, a SACTWU-owned workwear clothing manufacturing factory in Durban.

He played an important role to encourage our trade union to play a broader role in society, such as in industrial- and trade policy matters, instead of narrow trade unionism only focusing on matters such as wage negotiations and unfair dismissals.

He was a pioneer in establishing the union’s investment company, from its inception, and served on its Board as well as a Trustee of the HCI Foundation for many years.

He was active in the union’s efforts to save Seardel (Southern Africa’s largest clothing and textile company) from bankruptcy, and served as the Executive Director of Human Resources on its Board for the decade following that effort.

Over the last few years, he struggled with a kidney related illness. Just before Christmas last year, he was hospitalised and mainly in a coma, until his sad passing on Friday 8 January 2021, at the age of 63.

He was a Deneb (an HCI subsidiary) Executive Director until August 2020 when he retired due to ill health, and was responsible for Employment Equity and Industrial Relations for the Deneb Group of companies.

His contribution will always be valued, especially his never wavering insistence on strong shop floor organisation and worker control of trade unions.

Amon Ntuli has always eagerly embraced modernisation, but at heart he always remained passionate about his rural roots.

We will never forget him.

Issued by

André Kriel
SACTWU
GENERAL SECRETARY