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including the recognition of the union and giving black workers all trade union facilities such as the right to collective bargaining, higher wages, improved working conditions, free access to the firm for all trade union representatives, cloakroom facilities for holding meetings, stop orders for deduction of trade union activities, and better relations between the union and the firm. In order to forestall the boycott the company accepted these demands and the campaign against its products was called off.

For the Rembrandt Company, at first it took a different line and accepted the challenge bu instituting civil proceedings for damages against us. But the matter was eventually settled out of court.

In Port Elizabeth, a stronghold of the ANC, the economic boycott started as far back as 1953 and was launched by our local branch there. A demand was sent to many firms demanding promotion of African workers to responsible positions and better pay. It was publicly announced that those firms that refused to accept the demands would be boycotted from the beginning of 1954. Several demands accepted and upgraded workers and those that failed to do so were boycotted.

By 1957 the economic boycott in Port Elizabeth took the form of boycotting shopkeepers in the township who stocked the blacklisted goods and they were given a month within which to dispose of their stocks. The majority of the traders in the area were members of the organisation and respected its decisions. Others responded not out of loyalty to the ANC but for fear of the