After the miners' strike RICA steps to block any foreign financial aid to. strike pay. The Reserve Bank had taken among them many ex-miners with the the strikers. Also hanging over their heads was the threat of the sack, and the knowledge that there were lens of thou- sands of poverty-stricken unemployed in necessary skills, rcady to take their jobs. Lesotho, Botswana and the "homelands' Striking miners got SOUTHAF have been sacked with no other means of SOCIALISTS who were united in their solidarity behind the hervic strike of the black miners in South Africa will now be Te would be casy but mistaken to write off the strike in the coal and guid fields as Defeat it certainly was. The miners are back down the mines. 30,000 of them debating the outcome of the dispute. simply a defeat.
aware of. However, reports here did not show the strike fragmenting at the point when the injunction was issued, and the Yet the suM leaders called off the witbout any improvement an employers offer which they had only a few days be- fore ridiculed and seen overwhelmingly NEM members who had solidly backed - in breach of the NUM's Obviously it is not easy to dely the armed power of the South African state. But only recently the rail workers in an stained heavy losses, but made real rejected by a vote of the membership. the union were given no say on the re- even longer dispute did so: they su- army had not yet been called in. strike without explanation, own constitution. pull out 100,000 miners over and above the Gold Fields and Anglovaal mines. But even Anglo-American managed to Despite its growth, and its ability to its signed-up membership, the NUM has only organised about half the mine work- foree. It has great difficulty in organising produce between 10-40 per cent of their normal output during the strike. the strike came to an end by decision of the NUM leaders and without, it seems, not helped to consolidate the strengths livelibond to fall back on, although re- rehired. They did not get the 30 per cent across the board wage increase they de- The chamber of mines, headed by the Anglo-American colossus, was prepared proved package on holidays and death benefits: With the death of more than 60 black workers in the Welkom mining dis- aster the day after the return to work. this latter concession may bring some small compensation to the surviving relatives. But the abrupt way in which reference back to the rank and file has to make some concessions - ports suggest that
gains. If it is really impossible to defy the time to win such major strikes in such sensitive sectors of the South African eco- One crucial factor was, as in the Brit- strike, breaking the isolation strike must have had a radicalising effect leaders kept saying they were in favour of spreading the strike. But the NUM Icaders did not put this to the test by ask- another section of workers — postal workers — called off their dispule while There is no doubt that there will be state then it is impossible at the present of the striking miners, and thus hamp- cring the state's ability to intervenc. The unionists. COSATU ing for supporting