Louis Charles George 'Loet' Douwes-Dekker

Louis Charles George Douwes-Dekker was born on 22 October in 1936,Indonesia Asia.His parents were scientists,he spent four years in a Japanese concentration camp as a child before moving to South Africa.He attended Durban High School,graduated from the University of Natal in 1961,completed an honors degree at University of South Africa,and later master's degree in sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand.His the former Assistant General Secretary of the Trade Union Council of South Africa (TUCSA). Later he became the Chair of the Urban Training Project (UTP), a Black trade union service group in Johannesburg at the time of his banning. He was also a part-time lecturer in Industrial Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand. Douwes-Dekker was banned in terms of the Internal Security Act of 1976, Section 9 (1). After an appeal by the university against his banning order, he was given permission to continue his academic duties. He was banned from 16 November 1976 until 31 October 1981.

Douwes-Dekker and two other banned trade union workers, Eric and Jean Tyacke, brought a civil action of defamation against TUCSA and its General Secretary, Arthur Grobbelaar, for a statement the latter made regarding their banning after an interview with the Minister of Justice. In March 1978, an out-of-court settlement was reached and TUCSA and Grobbelaar issued a statement unreservedly withdrawing remarks understood to mean that the banned people were engaged in activities intended to endanger law and order in South Africa and stating that they never intended to imply that the three were not dedicated to furthering the trade union movement through lawful channels.He conducted a research for the South Africa Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) convnced him there was work to be done on behalf of black workers.He became an administrator for the TUCSA in the late 1960s,but left after it expelled African unions.He was co-founder of the Independent Mediation Serve of South Africa in 1983,and between 1993 and 1999 was a professor of industrial relations at the business school of the University of the Witwatersrand.