Don Stillman (left), Director of Governmental and International Affairs for the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, and Moses Mayekiso, then General Secretary of the Metal and Allied Workers (MAWU) union, in Alexandra township outside Johannesburg. The UAW provided a wide range of support to the independent black trade unions, particularly the National Automobile and Allied Workers Union (NAAWU), the Motor Industry Combined Workers Union (MICWU), and Mayekiso's MAWU. The three South African metalworkers' unions combined in 1987 to form the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), which represents workers today in the auto, tire, engineering, car parts, and electronics sectors....
Don Stillman (left), Director of Governmental and International Affairs for the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, and Moses Mayekiso, then General Secretary of the Metal and Allied Workers (MAWU) union, in Alexandra township outside Johannesburg. The UAW provided a wide range of support to the independent black trade unions, particularly the National Automobile and Allied Workers Union (NAAWU), the Motor Industry Combined Workers Union (MICWU), and Mayekiso's MAWU. The three South African metalworkers' unions combined in 1987 to form the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), which represents workers today in the auto, tire, engineering, car parts, and electronics sectors. Mayekiso and four other activists in Alexandra were arrested six weeks after this picture was taken and were tried for treason by the apartheid government. The UAW formed a committee of distinguished jurists who monitored the trial and focused the spotlight of international attention on it. Mayekiso had applied tactics learned in the labor moment to organize in the township, and convictions would effectively have made township activism a capital offense and severely crippled the anti-apartheid struggle. With strong support and resources not only from the UAW but also from the global union movement, Mayekiso and his co-defendants won acquittal in April 1989.
