Ray Alexander Simons

"If Ray Alexander-Simons landed in Cape Town today, on the 7th of November 2016 and started organising workers five days later, which indeed she did when she landed in Cape Town in 1929, she would find a vastly different scenario," he said."

"the late activist would have her work cut for her, as she would find 3.11 million workers representing 25.3% of the workforce organised in trade unions, a shop steward movement which I believe has 300 000 men and women in almost every industry"

"She will have in her toolbox the most vanguard industrial labour relations, processes and procedures, rights and obligations in the Labour Relations Act"

"She will have legislation on Employment Equity, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act which incidentally updates the one Ray and her fellow unionists fought for in the late 1920s and 30s in the last century"

"She would also take a fresh look at the structure and role of the trade unions in South Africa, especially the methods of organisation and the scourge of corruption. And the duplication of trade union organisations competing against each other for members and revenue. For example, there are five unions servicing the transport industry and a large number of unions servicing the security industry - the largest security service in the world, which employs 450 000 people"

"Mrs Alexander-Simons's daughter, Ms Tanya Barben, said: "It is appropriate that the function takes place on the 7th of November for it is the date on which teenager Rachel Esther Alexandrowich (Ray Alexander) arrived in Cape Town from Latvia and it is also the anniversary of the October Revolution [which took place in Petrograd, Russia, from the 7th to the 8th of November, 1917]. She was undaunted when facing the bosses, the bargaining councils or the police forces. She sacrificed a lot, including her own family to fight for a democratic South Africa"