SOUTH African used tear gas, truncheons and dogs break up demonstration of a thousand black strikers Uitenhage Elizabeth last Thursday.
The strikers work at the USowned Goodyear tyre and rubber couldally and. are among tens of thousands of workers Who have been taking industrial action in South Africa recently.
Unrest The strike wave, coinciding as does with the . schools boycott . CanDaleil. the SLICCL demonstrations, creasing tempo of the guerilla activity, adds another worry to the increasingly frightened racists who run the apartheid system.
Industrial unrest in South Africa is now higher than at any time since 1973. Strike Most of the cold ballick affected multi-nationals. Within the last couple of weeks there have been strikes at plants owned by Volkswagen, Ford, and General Motors. No the the strikes confined motor and related industries.
Black workers al Africa's major meat processing police Port Inplant have now been on strike for over a month.
The Goodyear strike is a. are demanding. ware asking, for ah increase, of South RT.13 to R3 (a rand is currently worth 55p).
£1.50 an hour is hardly likely to drive Goodyear to bankruptcy, the "government They ruled that the claim was 'excessive' *The apartheid regime does. not lust use its industria courts wage rate of just over South runnig industrial court they go on strike Vitenhage plant last week. to back up the multi-nationals.
African law workers cease to be employees used of the company concerned once African › This allowed Volkswägen to all the strikers. at UP by don, In another move against the unions the government recently its. Fund-Raising Act to for ban the Federation of South Trade Unions • tron collecting funds, either inside s of the apartheid system. the country, or externally. it, FOSATU, which has: 13 affiliated unions and a signed.
membersne 50,000, recently called for a minimum wage of just over f1 an hour.
In light of all this, the recent strike wave has taken the aparticularly since there is a high- theid regime by surprise, unemployment rate among blacks which is meant to act as 'disincentive' to industrial action. the township .of for instance, unemployment is over 20 per cent.
Shoot But despite this, and despite the 'shoot to kill' demonstrators policy recently announced General Ce commissioner Geldenhuys. black workers like black students will not be easily cowed.
statement the African National Congress, read last week at a rally in Longrapbically summed up the situation:
Clergy 'South Africa is witnessing throughout the country an upsurge boycott, involving thousands of black students, at schools, colleges and univer sities; the super-exploited black workers in many parts of the country are engaged in strikes higher wages; there are demonstrations and marches by clergy against the iniquities wr The writing is on the wall, and. the South Alrican raciss. can cleatly read it."
Socialist Challenge: 3 July 1980
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..good workers are deman