The Public Service and Commercial Union (PSCU) Secretary General Tahir Maepa paid tribute to cde Steve Dawson, a leading figure in South Africa’s trade unionism, following news of his death.
Dawson, 76, was Deputy Secretary General-of the PSCU at the time when the current regime unleashed its most devastating programme of anti working class coalition with the Democratic Alliance and the intended destruction of coal-mining sector and job cuts in the public service.
Maepa said: “Steve and I were comrades and personal friends for over 30 years. No words can express the sense of loss I feel, he was was one of the finest trade unionists of his generation, a stalwart who put himself on the front line to defend vulnerable workers and dedicated his life to the fight for workers’ rights.”
Dawson was an astute lawyer with a sharp intellect and keen knowledge of the interrelationship between the sociopolitical and economic systeym of a country and its legal system.
It is for this reason that he spent a significant part of his life working with or within the labour movement. With his extraordinary knowledge of the law, he could have opted to focus on private practice or to the lured by the limelight and privileges afforded by operating within the corporate sector or for government.
But his social conscience instructed him to use his legal prowess in the service of the workers.
His passing on is a great loss to the legal fraternity, the labour movement and society.
The greatest tribute we can pay him is to tirelessly defend the rights of workers and society and to relentlessly struggle for a more just, equal and humane society, said Maepa.
The Star