The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)’s “40 Women • 40 Years” exhibition is on display at the People’s Summit – We the 99% – from 20 to 22 November at Constitutional Hill, Johannesburg.
The exhibition honours the COSATU worker leaders, organisers, shop stewards and gender activists whose struggles have shaped the Federation and the country. It forms part of COSATU’s 40th anniversary and sits within the COSATU Women’s Herstories Project – an initiative undertaken by COSATU and the National Labour and Economic Development Institute (NALEDI), with support from the Wits History Workshop, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), and the National Skills Fund (NSF).
The project aims to document, preserve and elevate the contributions of women workers that have too often been minimised or erased within mainstream labour history. By deliberately centring women’s narratives, the Herstories Project challenges this erasure and reclaims women’s rightful place in the story of South Africa’s labour movement.
A central feature of the project has been training young women workers to conduct interviews with veteran organisers, creating powerful intergenerational conversations grounded in feminist research, worker solidarity and collective memory. This approach ensures that younger women draw strength and direction from the histories of those who came before them, while contributing their own voices to the evolving story of the movement.
Drawing on oral history and popular education, the project is building a living archive of testimonies from women whose struggles shaped union democracy, collective bargaining, gender justice, community organising and campaigns for decent work. Oral histories are essential because they safeguard memory, capture emotion and preserve the lived experience of women whose contributions were not always recorded in formal archives.
The 40 women featured in this first phase represent thousands more. Their profiles mark the beginning of a growing collection that will expand as more interviews are conducted and more stories come to light. COSATU intends to publish a comprehensive book of women’s biographies and to build an online, publicly accessible archive that preserves these narratives for future generations.
The People’s Summit is a platform for economic justice bringing together social movements and progressive organisations representing workers, feminist formations, community struggles, youth movements and broader civil society from across the world. Running parallel to the G20 Leaders’ Summit, the People’s Summit offers a wider space for grassroots organisations to articulate the needs and struggles of the 99%.
By bringing these stories into public spaces such as the People’s Summit, COSATU affirms that women’s struggles are central to the fight for economic justice, democracy and social transformation. The Herstories Project is both a tribute to the past and an organising tool for the future – inspiring new generations of worker leaders to continue the struggle for equality and dignity for all workers.
Issued by COSATU
Gertrude Mtsweni (COSATU National Gender Coordinator)
Mobile: 082 829 2966
Email: gertrudem@cosatu.org.za
Or
Zanele Sabela (COSATU National Spokesperson)
Mobile: 079 287 5788 / 077 600 6639
Email: zaneles@cosatu.org.za