Black unions spell threat to apartheid
1985Michael Schreiber 1985-11Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 21 →
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Thirty-eight leaders of the United Democratic Front, South Africa's largest anti-apartheid coalition, sentence on charges of high treason. Trial opened on Oct. 21 for 16 of the defendants.
Supporters of civil liberties must protest this show trial. We must redouble our efforts ous apartheid government that ignored world appeals and hanged Black South African 20 SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1985 Delegates from 16 Black and non-racial unions in South Africa will meet this month to form a united "super-federation" representing over 500,000 workers.
The federation will be the most powerful working-class organization in South African history. It is the result of a number of-sometimes heated"unity conferences" undertaken since the independent unions were allowed to register in 1979.
The largest single component of the new federation will be the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which has organized some 200,000 members and organized 18 major strikes in the three years since its formation.
NUM President Cyril Ramaphosa attributes the union's growth to the fact that "The workers understand that our union is prepared to fight to the end— and to win."
The unions have agreed that they will restructure themselves after unification into broad industrial unions representing workers in the mines, factories, transportion, and services throughout the country.
The federation's largest components are based in South Africa's most strategic industries-such as mining, metals, CUSA, the Council of Unions of South Africa, and FOSATU (below), the Federation of South African Trades Unions, are the two largest federations that will unify this month.
chemicals, textiles, automobiles, and food processing. These highly concentrated industries have become dependent on an increasingly skilled Black labor force in order to compete in the world market.
As a Black worker at General Motors commented, "Our strength is in the economy. We have the power to bring the economy to its knees."
Political action
The federation will play an important political role out of necessity. Black union leaders cannot pretend to bargain with the employer on "pure and simple" wage issues-as many of their counterparts attempt to do in the United States.
Low wages are the product and the goal of the government's system of quotas, pass laws, forced removal, and violence. Apartheid policy was summed up succinctly by a government deputy in parliament when he said: "A Black man in a white area is there only to sell his Thus, in 1981, although Black people made up 71 percent of the workforce, they only took home 29.4 percent of the total wages. Black workers received 22 percent of the wages of white workers employed in manufacturing, 18 percent in construction, and mines.
South Africa is a unique example of a highly industrialized capitalist society that owes its wealth and very existence to the extreme oppression and misery of its Black population. For that reason, labor struggles have steadily converged with activities against repression and around demands for democracy and national rights.
On many occasions during the past year, labor unions have joined ad-hoc coalitions with community associations that are concerned with specific problems such as housing, utility rates, and schools.
These two types of mass organiza(continued on page 14)
FOSATU maurity RULES face a possible death to secure their release from poet Benjamin Moloise.