Emma Mashinini

Mashinini died in Johannesburg on 10 July 2017 at the age of 87.

In 1995, Mashinini was appointed as a Commissioner for Restitution of Land Rights, returning to Pretoria as a part of the government. In 1998, she helped to secure land rights for a community of 600 families that had been evicted in 1969. During her tenure, she said that her agency suffered from a lack of personnel and funding. In 2002, she commented that she was "greatly distressed" by a court ruling limiting compensation for the many South Africans claiming land rights. "I saw the task for myself and for ourselves as getting the land back to the people," she said.

When the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) was being formed in 1985, Mashinini was an outspoken advocate for the inclusion of female unionists. After considering a series of images which did not include women, Cosatu eventually adopted a logo prominently including a woman with a baby.

On 27 November 1981, police arrived at dawn to Mashinini's home, searching the building and arresting Mashinini. She was detained under section 6 of the 1967 Terrorism Act, a law which allowed indefinite detention of anyone deemed by police to "endanger the maintenance of law and order."

Mashinini played several important roles in the transition to ANC rule in the 1980s and 1990s. She served on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and went on to become a Commissioner for Restitution of Land Rights. Her autobiography, titled Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life, was published in 1989 and republished in 2012. She received numerous awards and decorations, including the Order of the Baobab and the Order of Luthuli.

In 1975, Mashinini founded the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU), becoming a powerful figure in the South African labour movement at large. Her activism led to constant police harassment.

Mashinini left school at age 14 to work a job after the separation of her parents left her mother without enough money. She got married at age 17 and gave birth to six children. Three died in their early days of life, due to the inadequate medical care available for Black babies. (Her daughter Penny died at the age of 17 in 1971.)

In 1956, Mashinini began working in the Henochsberg clothing factory, which was segregated by race as well as gender. In addition to the difficult conditions and bad pay offered to factory workers, Black women faced a unique and many-layered set of challenges. Treated as inferior to other workers, Black women faced police brutality and the violence of poverty under Apartheid when they returned home each day. Black workers also faced difficulties in getting to work on time—from the segregated neighbourhoods to which they had been confined.

Mashinini attended the 1955 Congress of the People in Kliptown, a major event for the African National Congress (ANC). She later wrote:

Mashinini was born in Rosettenville, a white suburb of Johannesburg. Her family lived in the backyard of a house where her mother, Joana, did housework. When Mashinini was six years old, her family moved to Prospect Township, a neighbourhood near City Deep. Prospect Township was a common destination for Black families who had been evicted from their residence in White areas. In 1936, this neighbourhood too was aggressively gentrified, razed under the Johannesburg Slums Act of 1934. Most of the people in Prospect Township were relocated to Orlando, Soweto, but Mashinini's family was able to resettle in Sophiatown. Sophiatown was forcibly evicted in turn, several years later, and Mashinini's family moved to Soweto.

Emma Mashinini (21 August 1929 – 10 July 2017) was a South African trade unionist and political leader. Living in Johannesburg, her family was forcibly displaced several times during her childhood. She started working at age 14 and soon became a union organiser at her garment factory. She became active with the African National Congress (ANC) in 1956. Mashinini served for 12 years on the executive board of the National Union of Clothing Workers (NUCW) and founded the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU) in 1975. She was arrested and detained without charges for six months in 1981–82.