Abstract
As a young teacher [in South Africa] in the 1980s, my dream was to build a nonracial teacher union. At that time, teachers had no right to even join a union—they had no labor rights at all. Teachers were divided along ethnic, racial, and even regional lines. These were the times at the climax of apartheid, some of it under a state of emergency where teachers were expelled from the profession for joining a union. It was worse for those who were seen to be leaders of the movement, and I lost my job. After that I joined the university and we used the university as our base for the trade union—I ended up being the general secretary of the National Education Union of South Africa, which was one of the founding organizations of SADTU.
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© 2008 Mary Compton and Lois Weiner
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Compton, M. (2008). Interview with Thulas Nxesi, President of Education International. In: Compton, M., Weiner, L. (eds) The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and their Unions Stories for Resistance. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230611702_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230611702_22
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37360-4
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61170-2
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