When workers come together and decide to form an organisation to help them at their work, this organisation is called a trade union. But, as we will see it is not always easy to form trade unions, and workers have had a very long struggle to do so.
In the 1998 parliamentary debate on reconci I iation and nation-bui I ding, then deputy president Thabo Mbeki famously argued that South Africa comprised two 'nations' divided by poverty: