Chemical Workers' Industrial Union

The union was founded on 24 November 1974, on the initiative of the General Factory Workers' Benefit Fund.

By the end of the year, it had about 1,000 members and had affiliated to the Trade Union Advisory and Co-ordinating Council.

It developed a strategy of focusing on mass organisation in a small number of factories, mostly Revertex and Henkel.

It declined to only 500 members in 1979, but that year became a founding affiliate of the Federation of South African Trade Unions.

[1] It was a founding affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions in 1985, and by 1986 had grown further, to 29,859 members.