Biggest strike in
South Africa's history
THE OUTCOME of the general strike of Black workers against repression on June 6-8 was a major success, despite a wavering at the end and a poor showing by the miners. This three-day strike was the largest mobilization of its type in the country's history. It was the first time in South Africa that a strike announced for three days actually went the distance.
PETER BLUMER & NATHAN PALMER
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TAT-T SOUTH AFRICA and agricultural workers, although to an extent that is still modest. In 1987, workers belonging to COSATU averaged wage increases of 18%, more than for any other workers outside the confederation, Black or white.
Dominated by COSATU (with about 900,000 members, of whom 691,000 are regular dues payers) and NACTU (400,000 members, 150,000 dues paying), this trade-union movement embraces about 40% of the economically active population of the country, a figure well above the percentages of trade-union membership in some West European countries and in North America. This says a lot about the level of activity of the South African working class and the role of its organizations in the fight against the apartheid regime.
In the two years of the present state of emergency, about 30,000 people have been imprisoned and more than 2,000 killed. The pressure was stepped up on February 24 by a ban on all political activity for 17 political, community and trade-union organizations, including the United Democratic Front (UDF, which stands in the political tradition of the ANC), the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO, the heir of the Black consciousness movement), the support committee of relatives of detainees and COSATU.
Hard core of the resistance
Except for COSATU, it seems that the political structures that existed in the Black townships have not been able to keep going. (Even before February 24, the UDF was suffering a very grave decline in activism.) This, however, did not keep the March 21 commemoration of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre from being marked by a stayaway of nearly a million people!
The latest events show clearly that in the difficult phase in which the Black movement finds itself the industrial working 9 class is the hard core of the resistance. DeJune 27, 1988 • #144 International Viewpoint
C OSATU and the National Congress of Trade Unions [NACTU, the confederation dominated by the Black consciousness current] did not formally issue a strike call, since that is forbidden by government regulations. The mobilization was also supported by the South African Council of Churches and the Black employers' association. It had a more than noticeable effect on the country's economy.
As was the case in previous national actions, the highest level of absenteeism was in the Johannesburg region, the country's industrial heartland, and Durban. On the other hand, numerically the largest participation was in the Cape region. Various estimates of the total involvement have circulated, some going as high as 3 million strikers for the first day of the strike, June According to the Federated Chamber of Industries, the white employers' organization, the absentee rate was 90% in the Johannesburg region on the first day of the mobilization, falling to 60% on the second day, while it remained at 90% in Natal.
The employers' organization claimed that the reason high absenteeism persisted in Natal was the paralysis of public transport. This supposedly counterbalanced the coercion policy followed by most of the employers, who decided to dock wages for the days of work missed.
The authorities relied on the restrictions imposed by the state of emergency both to avoid commenting on the mobilization and to try to keep it from being reported in the liberal and independent press. But a certain sort of commentary did come from PW Botha, who announced that the state of emergency would be continued for a third consecutive year. That was a way of showing that the regime intends to continue its multi-faceted offensive against the opposition to apartheid — to ban both the activities of political organizations and political activities by the unions. The year 1987 set a record in the number of strike days, despite the fact that Botha has kept renewing the state of emergency throughout the country since June 12, 1986. In 1986, the number of workdays lost was 1.3 million, which was already higher than in the preceding years. Now the figure has risen to 9 million. That figure alone would be impressive for a country of 33 million inhabitants. But several features should be noted in particular.
### Independent unions extended
This record is the result mainly of several big strikes - those in the public sector (railroads and the postal service) in the retail trade, the metal industry and the chemical industry. But the figures were boosted above all by the mining industry, where 5.25 million workdays were lost in one miners' strike that lasted 21 days and reduced the value of production by $145 million from the level of the equivalent period in 1986.
The conflicts in various industries have cost eight times more workdays lost than the stayaways, the national days of action in which the entire population was called on to participate, although the protest on May 5-6, 1987, on the eve of the elections to the white parliament, was undoubtedly the biggest political strike in the history of the country.
The independent unions that ten years ago were only local or at best regional nuclei have extended throughout the country, in both the public and private sectors, and to all area of economic activity. Recently, they have also spread to domestic
SOUTH AFRICA spite the repression, the trade-union organizations have been able to maintain their capacities for organization and mobilization. It is for this reason particularly that the question of unity in action is being posed more and more sharply. The repression has been so severe that no one can claim to have a short-term strategic solution on the ground for overthrowing apartheid. Facing longer-term perspectives than expected, the various political movements have to revise their tactics. In this context, the pressure for unity is growing, especially in the factories.
All the South African observers agree, moreover, that the regime has made a deliberate choice to win the confidence of the big industrial and financial liberal bourgeoisie, at the risk of gradually losing a part of its traditional Afrikaner voters. The recent elections showed that the English-speaking vote has shifted somewhat from the Progressive Federal Party to Botha's National Party, while a section of the National Party voters went over to the extreme right.
The economic reforms underway, designed to "deregulate" the system by privatizing certain key sectors, are an attempt to attract foreign capital and increasingly to share social control over Black labor with big capital. These measures have been accompanied by new, more restrictive labor laws and a renewal of the state of emergency.
### Anti-labor offensive reopens unity discussions
Despite a few scattered criticisms, the big employers in general have backed all these measures. This changes the political context a bit from 1985-86, when the big employers went off to meet the ANC in a blaze of publicity. This turn by the bosses implies certain strategic shifts for the ANC.
A new version of the government's project has been debated in parliament. It involves a notable change on a specific point. Initially, the representative of the minister of labour could widen the brief of an employer/trade-union conciliation commission simply at the request of one of the parties. In the new draft, this will be possible only if the two parties consent. Aside from this change, all observers point out that everything that angered the unions and provoked criticism from various sides has been maintained in the latest version.
A strike "for the same or a similar reason" less than a year after a first work stoppage is considered an unfair labour practice." The unions can be prosecuted for damages caused by a wildcat strike. Unless they can prove otherwise, union members involved in starting an illegal strike are regarded as having acted in the name of their union. Days of action will be illegal, and unions will be prosecuted if they call them. 10 with minority unions in plants. Following The employers will be able to negotiate International Viewpoint #144 • June 27, 1988 the same logic, the law puts back into question the right of a union representing the absolute majority of the workers to speak in the name of all the workers in an enterprise, according to the practice of closed-shop agreements.
Firing will be easier, and employers will no longer have to respect the "last in, first out" rule. The government will be able to name anyone of its choice to chair a conciliation commission, while up until now only experts in labor law could be appointed to such a position.
The scope of these attacks, coming in a context in which, since February 24, political maneuvering room is still more limited, is a real challenge. And the trade-union movement seems determined to pick up the gauntlet, even at the price of a confrontation with the government.
Even though the COSATU leadership is divided over this, the recent special congress of the confederation seemed to want to play the card of opening up to unity in action with NACTU. Combining the forces of these two confederations will undoubtedly be important in taking up the challenge that has been hurled at them.
Up until now, relations between the two confederations have been, to say the least, almost nonexistent. The dispute goes back in fact to the period of the unity discussions that led to the founding of COSATU in November 1984, without the participation of the unions that had been grouped in NACTU since October 1986. However, for about a year NACTU, which shares most of COSATU's objectives, has adopted a more favorable attitude to unity, and has made proposals several times to COSATU. Until now, the COSATU leadership has rejected them.
The current most closely linked to the UDF - or even to the ANC and the South African Communist Party, which represented the predominant line in COSATU's leading body — does not want to depart from a political/trade-union axis that assembles all the components that support the ANC's programmatic document, the Freedom Charter.! But this cannot help but be a serious obstacle to uniting the mass trade-union movement.
This position seems to have been pushed into the background during COSATU's May 14-15 special congress in Johannesburg. The congress issued an appeal for "a conference bringing together a broad range of anti-apartheid organizations to concentrate on opposition to repression and apartheid."
Such a resolution undoubtedly represents a compromise made at the conclusion of a congress that was marked by some quite
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ТАТ ТАТ-т TAT-T SOUTH AFRICA sharp clashes. It may satisfy those who want to see a hand extended to the white liberals of the extra-parliamentary opposition. But it also suits those elements in the confederation most favorable to unity, who see it as a basis for extending working-class unity over the traditional political lines of cleavage.
This new position is also a result of the determination of certain unions (in the chemical industry, where NACTU is the majority confederation, or in the metal industry) not to get locked into a fratricidal struggle and to show greater firmness toward COSATU's national leadership. In March 1988, an agreement for united work was already reached in the metal industry between NUMSA (COSATU) and two unions belong to NACTU.
### NACTU meet ANC leadership
After two refusals, NACTU in effect got more or less what everyone else had had until then - from COSATU to the churches, and including the white students and the directors of the biggest South African firms — an official meeting with the leadership of the ANC. It took place in Harare in Zimbabwe at the beginning of May.
The event made a certain impact, not only because the ANC delegation was headed by the organization's general secretary, Alfred No, but above all because it led to a joint communique from the two parties. In this declaration, Nzo said: "There is more uniting us than dividing us." He supported unity in action against apartheid, without making adherence to the Freedom Charter a precondition.
The question is not only a source of debate between COSATU and NACTU. It had already aroused sharp internal discussions during the preparation for COSATU's previous congress. While no one seems to reject the demands that this document contains, adopting it as a political 1. The Freedom Charter was incorporated as a programmatic guide at the previous COSATU congress.
guideline could not fail to raise problems of exclusion.
Elijah Barayi, chair of COSATU and leader of the miners' union, said again during the mid-May special conference: "We firmly urge all of those who genuinely want peace and security...to look forward to the future in terms we have spelt out through the Freedom Charter." 2
Some newspapers have even judged that the ANC leadership seemed less committed to the Charter than the currents linked to them in COSATU. It is far too soon to draw conclusions on this point. But it seems at least quite positive that some shibboleths are starting to fade. The sectarian conceptions of the united front were defeated at the COSATU congress. It was proposed to open an anti-apartheid conference "on the basis of disciplined mandates, democracy and free and open debate."
Discussion will aid unity and solidarity
Obviously the question of unity will raise problems of interpretation. At the time of the congress, various points of view were already being debated. The final document took the form of a compromise. The Weekly Mail reported, moreover, the remarks of a delegate who thought "it allows for COSATU, together with its allies, to draw up a programme of action that will be consistent with its support for the Freedom Charter, while at the same time giving the executive a mandate to invite groups such as NACTU and the Five Freedoms Forum." 3
Other resolutions may smooth the way in the future for unity initiatives, such as the decision to form Industrial Area Committees that could organize the local communities around campaigns led by the unions.
On the NACTU side, the new debate on unity should discourage dogmatic responses of refusing to participate on the grounds that some white liberal formation or other was involved. Exposing what the liberals are looking for in a grouping has to be done in front of all the participants and not by declarations from the outside.
If it is confirmed that participating in such a conference is not conditional on accepting the discipline of the Chartist current, there would seem to be no reason left why NACTU and all the formations of the South African left should not get involved in order to defend their point of view.
If these new political developments are confirmed, there is no doubt that this will greatly aid the solidarity movement abroad by knocking down the arguments, good and bad, that have traditionally been put forward to support claims that only one or another current in the Black movement should be supported. But, for the moment, this is only supposition. * 2. Weekly Mail, May 20, 1988. 3. The Five Freedoms Forum is a grouping around a democratic project promoted by white liberals.