Nearly all of the workers, who are represented by seven unions, are black. They demanded wage increases ranging from R40 ($8) a week for the lowest-paid general workers to R60 ($12) a week for long-distance drivers. Wages average R450 per week - about $90. Annual inflation currently runs at 6-7 percent.

Five days into the strike, the trucking companies agreed to most of the workers' demands in negotiations with the government's Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration. Long haul drivers won an 11.8 percent increase; lower-paid workers had their wages raised by as much as 14 percent.

Workers also won a subsistence allowance increase of 21 percent. This covers, among other things, meals on road trips, which drivers must currently pay for out of their own pockets. In many rigs, drivers are on the road from 2-4 weeks at a time working in teams - one sleeps while the other drives. Housing for these over-the-road truckers consists of a bench in the back of the truck cab.

Thousands marched in Johannesburg, Durban, and other cities during the walkout. In Johannesburg, the city center was effectively paralyzed. Strikers forcefully persuaded nonstriking truckers to stop driving their vehicles, and there were a few clashes with police. "No worker in this country who is exercising their right to withhold their labor will allow scabs to disrupt a strike," said a spokesperson for the Transport and General Workers Union.

The strike follows a year in which work stoppages dropped to their lowest level since 1988. Large-scale strike action fell to 650,000 workdays in 1997, a 64 percent drop from the 1.7 million days lost in 1996.

The vast majority of strikes are wage-related, as black workers fight to bring their pay up to the level of their white counterparts and secure living wages. Nearly all walkouts also aim to sweep away the remnants of the apartheid organization of labor.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home