BY T.J. FIGUEROA
PRETORIA, South Africa - In the largest protest action since the end of apartheid rule in 1994, hundreds of thousands of government workers and other employees took to the streets nationwide in a one-day strike August 24 to press their demands for a wage increase. The militant demonstrations involved large numbers of women and, for the first time, thousands of whites.
The largest demonstrations took place in Bisho, Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Mafikeng, Nelspruit, Pietersburg, and Pretoria. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) said more than half a million people took part in all.
Following a series of negotiations over the past year and union protests that began in July, the African National Congress (ANC) government said it did not have the money to meet union demands for a 10 percent wage increase. It said it would unilaterally implement an average increase of 6.3 percent. This offer was increased slightly after tens of thousands marched in a July 23 protest.
Leaders of 12 public sector trade unions and staff associations subsequently lowered their demand to a 7.3 percent increase. Consumer inflation in South Africa hovers around 6 percent, economic growth is flat, and thousands of jobs are being cut by bosses in a range of industries.
Marchers included nurses, teachers, laborers, and office workers. Some cops also marched. Schools across the country were shut, and many government departments and courts were empty. Nurses organized to provide essential hospital services.
The August 24 strike marked the first joint action by unions affiliated to the ANC-aligned COSATU and the Federation of South African Trade Unions. As a result, thousands of teachers, nurses, and other government employees who are white marched alongside workers who are black in the demonstration. For many, if not most, of the white employees it was the first time they had ever marched.
Following the demonstrations the government said it would not budge from its stance and union leaders promised more mass action would follow.
The ANC-aligned Congress of South African Students, which organizes primarily in the high schools, did not give support to the strike. Instead it held a march of several thousand in Johannesburg calling for an end to the wage deadlock.
Miners strikes
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of workers in other
sectors of the economy have struck as the annual wage
negotiation season gets into full swing.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) reached agreement with the Chamber of Mines August 16 on a two- year wage deal at most gold mines that includes a 9 percent increase in the second year of the contract. The miners also won agreement for the companies to implement meal breaks in line with the new Basic Conditions of Employment Act.
Thousands of gold miners downed tools at about half a dozen mines where specific agreements had not been reached.
About 11,000 coal miners represented by the NUM struck Ingwe and Anglo American mines August 20 to demand a 9 percent increase. Ingwe miners reached a tentative agreement on August 24.
Tens of thousands of members of the Communication Workers Union struck Telkom, the telephone utility, and the post office the week of August 16 to press their wage demands. Postal workers won a wage increase ranging between 7.5 percent and 11.4 percent on August 30. At press time, telephone workers remained on strike.
COSATU congress
About 2,400 union delegates assembled for a special
COSATU congress in Midrand near Johannesburg August 18-20
to elect new officers and discuss the unemployment crisis
and public sector wage dispute. John Gomomo, the former
president of the federation, and Mbhazima Shilowa, the
former general secretary, have taken government posts. The
alliance between the ANC, COSATU, and South African
Communist Party also came under discussion at the meeting.
The congress elected Willie Madisha, president of the South African Democratic Teachers Union, COSATU president and Zwelinzima Vavi general secretary.
ANC chairperson Patrick Lekota, who is also South Africa's defense minister, addressed delegates on behalf of the ANC. He took issue with statements of some COSATU leaders on the ANC's economic policy: "The recent trend, on the part of some highly placed comrades, of ascending platforms or by other ways criticizing or agitating against policies and actions of the movement, inside and outside government, smacks of a lack of revolutionary discipline.... This undisciplined approach has a number of negative consequences."
In response to these remarks, delegates passed a resolution stating, in part, "This special congress notes that: It is becoming a trend that we are rebuked in our congresses; In the process we get projected as the party that is ill-disciplined within the alliance; We are told to raise issues within the structures while we are rebuked in front of media cameras; We believe that this should be ended."
Some COSATU leaders, in particular officers of the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union, have urged a "buy South African" protectionist campaign in response to layoffs and competition between South African bosses and their counterparts abroad. The partial consequences of this course were evident at the congress when Vavi, opening the proceedings, said there had been a "huge mishap" in ordering caps handed out to delegates. "If you look inside some of your caps you will see they have a sticker saying `made in China,' " he said, according to South African Press Association reports. Hundreds of delegates reportedly tossed their caps on the floor.