LOVE AND LABOUR, the life of Myrtle Witbooi

270pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, Geneva, 2023

South African labour activist Myrtle Witbooi (1947-1923) grew up in Genadendal. She moved to Cape Town to work as a 'live-in' domestic worker when she was 17. Experiencing injustice first hand, she started organising workers in the garage of her employer’s house at a time when organizing domestic workers was illegal. In 1986 she co-founded the South Africa Domestic Workers Union (SADWU). In 2000 she helped form the South African Domestic Servants and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU), and served as General Secretary until her death. In 2008, she led an international network of domestic workers campaigning for a global labour standard for domestic workers, which resulted in the International Labor Convention on Domestic Work 189 in 2011. Two years later, she was elected the first president of the newly formed International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF), the first and only global union federation led by women.

Sociologist Jennifer Fish is Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Old Dominion University in the USA. She has served as a researcher, writer and policy advisor for the International Domestic Workers Federation and national unions in South Africa and the USA. She was Myrtle Witbooi's colleague and close friend for 22 years.