ICEM Mourns Death of South Africa’s Muzi Buthelezi

 

The ICEM is saddened to learn of the death in late December of South African labour leader Muzi Buthelezi, 53, a former Executive Committee member of the ICEM. He was general secretary of the Chemical Workers’ Industrial Union (CWIU) and the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers’ Union (CEPPWAWU).

Comrade Buthelezi headed the CWIU when it merged with PPWAWU in February 1999 and became the first general secretary of the 92,000-member CEPPWAWU. He stepped down in 2002 and became chairman of CEPPWAWU Investments, the union’s Provident Fund, where he became prominent in black economic empowerment projects.

He was a leader inside COSATU and a convenor for South Africa’s National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC), a tripartite statutory body aimed at achieving positive social and labour legislation. He was also chairman of Imithi, a black empowerment consortium which took a stake in South Africa’s largest generic medicines manufacturer, Aspen Pharmacare, of which CEPPWAWU Investments owns a stake. He had been a director of Aspen.