For more than a decade, they have been advocating for workers' rights and have supported initiatives in the mobilization of workers and the organization of trade unions within various workplaces. Women in trade unions have made links between struggles in the factory, the community, the country, and at home. They have pushed for a range of reforms by opening the debate on the links between realms usually conceived as separate: the personal and the political; the home and the workplace; and child-bearing and work-related labour. In 1981, after pressure from women who raised the issue with the National Union of Textile Workers, an agreement was reached with the company South African Fabrics to close the wage gap between women and men workers in the industry and pay women the minimum rates, equivalent to those of male workers.