S. African unionist explains rising workers' movement

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20 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1989 began her talk with a brief description of her own experiences. After leaving college, she became an organizer for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).

"From a membership of zero," she stated, "eight months later we had 400,000 members. There are 790,000 mineworkers in South Africa. About 600,000 are Black workers."

'In 1985," she said, "the NUM, together with about 33 other trade unions, came together to form a super-federation called the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)."

"COSATU is still the biggest federation in the labor movement in South Africa. And you have the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU)-COSATU being non-racial, NACTU being non-racial but calling for Black leadership."

Ngubo outlined the offensive against the labor movement which has intensified over the past two years. On Feb. 24, 1988, 17 organizations—including COSATU, the United Democratic Front, and student groups-were banned from activity. The government then passed a repugnant labor reform act.

The labor act "winds back the clock to prior-1979, before unionization," Ngubo pointed out. "Employers can sue workers who are out on a legal strike for loss of productivity and man-hours lost."

NACTU and COSATU called day demonstration (May 6-8, 1988) to protest the act. "The students did not go to school," said Ngubo, "The factory machines were down. The Johannesburg streets and all the central cities became ghost towns."

In the aftermath of this and other successful actions, the idea of trade-union unity was raised, she reported. Some 700 workers from all the COSATU unions, from NACTU, and from 17 independent unions met on March 46 to discuss unity in one coalition "similar to the AFL-CIO."

"They are going to come together again on May 2," Ngubo said, "the deadline is May 8, came out of the summit talks as to whether they want to form a super-federation or not.

"Of course, certain things need to be worked out, especially in terms of ideology. The COSATU federation at their congress last year adopted the Freedom Charter, thereby giving tacit recognition to the working document of the ANC.

"The NACTU organizations and other independent federations came out and said they would like to have a workers' document or a 'Workers Charter' format rather than adopt the Freedom Charter. They have a problem with some of the planks of the Freedom Charter."

Ngubo concluded her presentation by calling for three things from American workers: "Sanctions, solidarity, and education —so that we never allow the media to black out the fact that South Africa is still not free."