Profile of Reuben Tjaitjai

Profile of Reuben Tjaitjai

DETAWU President was born in 06 June 1966 in a place called Sikhukhuza in a small village called Mjejane in Mpumalanga, a product and the son of a farm worker.

He attended school in Tamahok farm from 1976 to 1980 and from 1983 he started working as a farmworker at Tamahok until 1987. In 1987 he came to Johannesburg to look for better employment that might improve the conditions back at home and he worked for Willard’s Company. In 1989 he worked for a transport company called Trans Cape Transport where he worked as a general worker until 1992.

Due to bad conditions and exploitation faced by workers, he then joined Labour movement called Transport and General Workers Union (T & GWU). In 1994 he was then elected as a Shop steward and it is where he met the late founding President of Detawu, President June Dube.

In 1996 he then joined a Company called Long distance transport a division of Imperial Logistics, and in 1998 he got retrenched because of the strike of 1997. He then worked as a taxi driver in 1998 to 1999. In 1999 he was re-employed at Imperial Logistics as a truck driver. On November 1999 he was elected to be a shop steward at Imperial Logistics In 2000 there was a merger between SARHU (South African Railway & Harbours worker`s Union) & T&GWU to form SATAWU, he then became the member of SATAWU and was elected as a local sector chairperson of Road freight in Germiston local. He was also elected as a road freight deputy chairperson in Gauteng until 2016 and then in August 2016 there was a political tension within the organisation , he then politically resigned from SATAWU to DETAWU and again the members saw a potential in him and was elected as a shop steward. In 2017 February he was elected as acting Provincial chairperson of Gauteng. In April 2017 DETAWU CEC again saw potential in him and elected him as a Deputy President. He was fortunate enough to work with the late President June Dube ( May his revolutionary selfless Rest In Power) and in 2018 December at the CEC of DETAWU he was elected to become a President due to the sadness passing of Cde June Dube , he is still a truck driver working for Imperial Logistics South Africa.

Why Detawu

The union was formed at its inaugural launching Congress on 24 September 2015 at Pretoria. The Congress was blessed by the attendance of comrades from five (5) Provinces of the Republic of South Africa.

CONTACT US

208-212 Jeppe Street, Marble Towers
5th Floor, Office Number 09-12
Johannesburg, South Africa
Phone: +27 11 338 9077/8
Fax: +27 11 338 9036
Email: receptionist@detawu.org.za