Could the unionisation of church workers, including priests, particularly in the context of the recent reported incidents of alleged persecution of priests by the hierarchy at the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and the revocation of their licences, be a distinct possibility?
South Africa is a highly politicised country, also with a long history of trade unionism dating back to the early years of the last century — a movement that was initiated by Clement Kadalie, widely regarded as the father of African trade unionism.
Kadalie, who died in 1951, was a Malawian immigrant, a teacher by training, who settled in Cape Town and founded in 1919 the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union.
The founding of the union was directly linked to the raw deal and poor working conditions Cape Town dockworkers were subjected to.
To prove the extent of the popularity and power of workers’ solidarity, by 1927 the union had amassed a membership of more than 100 000, a phenomenal growth by any stretch of the imagination, proving that adversities of any form do bring people together to pursue a just cause.
Dockworkers, at the height of colonialism and oppression of African workers in South Africa, were regarded by their colonial masters as nothing but a cog in the wheel and so not deserving of any human rights, including a fair wage and human dignity.
Kadalie’s intervention through the union exposed unjust working conditions of the African working class in the industry — an effort that sought to bring about change and a recognition to the sector that an African worker was deserving of dignity by the employer, as they were also entitled to a fair wage reward not based on the colour of the skin but on fair labour practice.
More than 100 years since the formation of the Kadalie’s union, the latter-day Anglican Church in Southern Africa has been singled out as an institution that mistreats its priests, treating them as if they were not deserving of human dignity.
Last week, protesting members of the Diocese of the Highveld, including a number of priests, staged a protest march against the diocesan bishop, the Right Reverend Charles May, outside the Cathedral Church of Saint Dunstan, in Benoni, Ekurhuleni.
Among the complaints raised not only against the bishop but his executive as well, which includes the registrar and chancellor, were claims of gross abuse of authority, in which priests are suspended or have their licences revoked without transparent processes being followed, and that the bishop was a bully who saw himself as “untouchable” and, with an iron fist, meted an unjust treatment to a clergy “that did not toe his line”.
Other complaints included claims that the bishop was “arrogant and full of himself” and suffered bouts of “inferiority complex” of a serious nature, causing him, as a way of coping with his inadequacy, to resort to “bullying tactics”.
Some priests claimed they had unjustly, and at the whim of the bishop’s discretion, not supported by due processes, had their licences revoked, and that both the registrar and chancellor connived in the evil.
The bigger question to be answered, though, is: What must be done to bring justice to an unjust situation?
The citadel of Anglicanism or the worldwide Anglican Communion, is to be found in the Church of England, colloquially regarded as “Tory Party at Prayer”.
Due to the intolerable and invidious situation the clergy find itself in, a resolution was taken in 2021 that it would serve the best interests of the priests in England if they were to be unionised and join a trade union.
Now more than one million churchworkers in England, including part of the hierarchy made up of archdeacons and other senior clergy, have joined the trade union by the name of Unite to help priests deal with all firms of injustices.
Thousands of parishes in England are now awash with traditional trade unionism language in which a senior parish priest could be wearing the title of “Father of the chapel”, signifying that priests have, using the trade unionism platform, taken upon themselves to fight, toe to toe, with the conservative church hierarchy to end tyranny in the vineyard of God by being members of the union, Unite.
South Africa’s faith-based church workers must not be left unorganised; the working class must form itself into a strong trade union, the only way to fight the tyranny of the oppressive church, an action that will cause Kadalie to smile in his grave.
• Mdhlela is a freelance journalist, an Anglican priest, an ex-trade unionist, and former editor of the South African Human Rights Commission journals
