Report from South Africa
Unions flex muscles in major test of post-apartheid
relations
By guest writer Zenzile Khoisan in Cape Town, South
Africa
On Aug. 24, more than half a million civil-service workers
throughout South Africa took to the streets to press the
government for salary increases, better working conditions and
involvement in the budgetary process. Called under the banner
of the United Public Service Union, this one-day work stoppage
represented class-conscious unity across racial lines.
"This is a historic day for the workers in our country,"
said Faez Jacobs, a national organizer for the National
Education, Health and Allied Workers Union to a rally here of
some 40,000. Surveying the huge crowd, he observed that the
"government would now realize the resolve of the workers."
The spirited chants, singing and toyi-toyi rhythmic marching
from the sea of health workers, teachers, telephone workers and
clerks inaugurated a new era of labor activism. The 12 unions
that had called their members to the streets to press for an
above-inflation wage increase of 7.3 percent represent the core
of the public service. Even police women and men marched with
the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union.
The South African Democratic Teachers Union and NEHAWU are
hard-core members of COSATU. This 1.4-million-member labor
federation, the largest in the country, is a central part of
the Tripartite Alliance currently in power, along with the
African National Congress and the South African Communist
Party.
By taking on the government in the streets with a show of
militancy and unity, the civil servants have deepened the South
African class struggle. This has won over even the more
conservative sectors of the public service, who now are with
the more militant workers under one collective umbrella.
The thousands of militant workers marched through the center
of Cape Town to the national parliament, where six cabinet
ministers were brought onto a flatbed truck to face the
crowd.
"The so-called final offer of 6.3 percent by the government
is rejected by all of us here," said Andrew Slovo Madola of
NEHAWU. "If we accept the present situation, we will be sending
a message to government that in future they can impose any
conditions they want to on public servants. If we accept this
we will be giving up our hard-won rights as workers and
undermining the very collective bargaining system that we
struggled so hard for."
Calling on the government to stop the process of
unilaterally implementing its final offer, which was 1 percent
below the union's request, Thulas Nxesi, a national SADTU
leader, then read a workers' memorandum addressed to President
Thabo Mbeki.
The six ministers listened and then handed over the
memorandum to Minister Geraldine Frazer-Moleketi, who heads the
Public Service Administration.
The memorandum expressed "concern about market-related
salaries," pointing out that "advertisements on a daily basis
call nurses to Saudi Arabia and London and so on. All of those
countries are full of civil servants who are leaving South
Africa because they think there are greener pastures, and for
how long should that be allowed?"
Won more than wages
In this strike, as opposed to hundreds of other strikes that
occur with regularity in this country, the unions called for
more than an increase in wages. They were laying their claim as
a legitimate stakeholder in this post-apartheid democracy by
calling for a space to be created for meaningful participation
in the negotiations around the budgetary process, service
delivery and fiscal policy.
Coupled with the demand for meaningful consultation on the
restructuring process, in which thousands of jobs are lost to
downsizing, this has opened a new era of political activism by
labor. These militant civil-service workers, many of whom earn
salaries below the poverty line, are calling for involvement as
the labor movement in the political process led by the ANC
government, which has been freshly buoyed by a landslide
election victory.
Speaking for FEDUSA, another labor federation, Eric
Martinsich told the crowd: "This trend of bargaining spells
danger for South Africa's workers and the economy. FEDUSA can
also not allow a trend of sub-inflation salary increases to
establish itself in any of the economic sectors. We also reject
government's claims of an inflation rate of 4.9. They must sell
that to our grocers, medical rates, and local authorities,
whose prices increase much more than 4.9 percent.
"FEDUSA supports the public sector claim for 7.3 percent
average salary increase for all public-sector servants, plus
the additional 1 percent for our teachers who were once
bamboozled with promises which our government didn't keep. We
will not be fooled again."
The new South Africa is struggling to stay afloat under a
$30 billion debt to imperialism left over from the old
apartheid regime. Thus the national budget is the focus of a
major struggle, as in all Third World countries.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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