South Africa the Rise of Black Labor

By Michael Serrill

The police directive was one more pull on the noose of restrictions that make up South Africa's national state of emergency. It stated that 33 community groups, student organizations and labor unions in Johannesburg were forbidden to hold any indoor meetings, their outdoor meetings having already been banned in June. An immediate storm of protest broke loose, the kind that usually inspires the Pretoria government to dig in its heels. Instead, two days later, the Bureau for Information, the sole official outlet of news on the emergency, announced that the government was making an about-face. "Errors" had been made in the original order, the statement said, and the ban on indoor meetings did not apply to labor unions.

The government's backdown reflected the growing strength of South Africa's black labor movement. Pretoria may have the military and police power to quell any serious civil disorder. Last week, for example, the government announced that ten more suspected terrorists had been killed. But prosperity in the country depends in large part on the labor of 6 million black workers. Many of them have become organized just in recent years, and their unions are now the closest thing to black political parties that exists in South Africa. In all, black and black-dominated unions have nearly doubled their membership since 1980, today claiming roughly 900,000 members. This compares with only about 350,000 in all-white unions.

The largest black labor union is the National Union of Mineworkers, whose 150,000 members toil in the vital gold and diamond mines, which provide more than half the country's foreign-exchange earnings. An additional 50 smaller ; black labor groups represent everyone from waiters and metalworkers to supermarket cashiers. Individual unions are grouped into labor federations, the largest of which is COSATU, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, with 500,000 members.

The power of black unions has been demonstrated twice in recent months. Union-backed "stay-aways" on May 1 and again on the June 16 anniversary of the 1976 Soweto riots succeeded in halting most South African business and industrial activity. Continuing wildcat strikes throughout the country have also contributed to a growing sense of unease in the South African business community. Now COSATU has called for another "day of action" this week, testing the government's mettle with yet another nationwide strike.

South Africa first sanctioned black unions in 1979, when thousands of black workers were moving into the cities from the countryside. Since the laborers had begun to get together in informal groups that operated outside the law, the government concluded that the best way to control them was to legalize unions. It set up an organized labor system, including an industrial court that could rule in work disputes. At present, the legal situation is somewhat anomalous. Unions have the legal right to strike once they have gone through the requisite negotiations, but employers have the legal right to fire striking workers.

While union employees are still a minority among black workers, their elected leaders, who unanimously call for changes in the country's apartheid system, wield great political authority. When the state of emergency was declared six weeks ago, union officials were a prime target. According to human rights-monitoring groups, more than 200 labor leaders and 1,300 rank- and-file union members are among the estimated 3,500 people who have been arrested under the emergency powers.

Undeterred, however, labor officials last week joined other black leaders, including the jailed Nelson Mandela, in denouncing a proposed mission to South Africa by British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe on behalf of the European Community. Howe's trip was postponed after both black spokesmen, who want a reluctant Britain to impose sanctions, and State President P.W. Botha declined to meet with him. Botha pleaded that his schedule was full and agreed to see Howe in late Julyonly after a personal message from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Black union leaders are using a variety of measures to further their labor and political goals, filing lawsuits challenging the legality of the state of emergency at the same time that their workers take to the streets. "The detention of union leaders just increases the militancy of the workers," says Cyril Ramaphosa, secretary-general of the National Union of Mineworkers. Ramaphosa says that in the past two weeks, as many as 41,000 of the union's members have participated in work stoppages and slowdowns at twelve gold, coal and diamond mines. Government officials claim that the wildcat strikes and job actions have had limited impact.

The unions have an unexpected ally in some parts of the white business community. Pragmatic executives recognize the black unions' capacity to disrupt South Africa's recession-stricken economy, and have been urging the government to cooperate with them. Many companies, including De Beers, and some top business executives like Raymond Ackerman, chairman of the Pick 'n' Pay retail chain, have called for the release of jailed labor leaders. Last week the two principal South African employer groups, the Federated Chamber of Industries and the Associated Chambers of Commerce, issued a joint statement with the Council of Unions of South Africa, an all-black labor federation, calling for an end to the state of emergency.

Seven years ago, the Botha government hoped that the recognition of black unions would make it easier to keep volatile black workers under control. Instead, it opened the way for a mass movement that has become not only a new source of black economic clout but a ticking bomb in the very foundation of apartheid.

With reporting by Peter Hawthorne/Johannesburg