Although women have been involved to some degree in all kinds of organisations in South Africa, from church groups to liberation movements, in many ways it was the trade union movements that became the spawning ground for women organisers and in which women first rose to positions of importance in South Africa. Trade union actions such as strikes also served to politicise some women.
The organising of women began in the 1920s, principally in the laundry, clothing, mattress, furniture and baking industries. While several black national federations were formed and dissolved, the one that endured in spite of the new labour legislation of the 1920s was the Non-European Trade Union Federation, formed in 1928.
