calls for union
By TERRY SMITH
AN urgent call for trade union ac-
tion to isolate Botha's vicious
apartheid regime in South Africa
has been issued by the exiled
South African Congress of Trade
Unions.
In a surprisingly blunt statement
dispatched on July 24, SACTU leaders cut through much of their
usual banal rhetoric about government sanctions, and call on the international trade union movement"* to "take immediate action'" by:
• Refusing to handle all maritime. air or land traffic to or from South Africa
• Refusing to handle any goods to or from South Africa
• Refusing to handle all postal and telegraphic traffic to or from South Africa
• Mounting massive tions at all diplomatic representng the white regime abroad."
SACTU also predictably urges trade unionists to urge their governments to impose immediate, comprehensive, mandatory against the Pretoria regime"
But the call to action is a welcome break from the general line of solidarity work so far.
The massive wave of popular support in Britain for the struggles of South Africa's black working class has not been matched by any adequate initiatives from the Anti Apartheid Movement.
Though regular picketing of the South African Embassy registers a moral point, the size of tivities and the fact that they are largely confined to London offers little as a major focus.
There is an urgent need for a national demonstration and for increased information building union solidarity action.
Anti Apartheid, reflecting the traditional, Communist influenced SACTU line has until now consistently underplayed the fight for trade union solidarity action in Britain and the significance of the newly emerging, politically independent black and non-racial union confederations in South Africa.
Until now, AAM campaigning initiatives have focussed "broad' initiatives, involving largely middle class suport, aimed at moral and individual gestures shoppers' boycotts of South African goods. Another main strand
—Fighting for solidarity:: action aimed at Barclays firms and institutions demonstra- missions minorty calls for "sanctions" apartheid regime cher's government sanctions Labour. trotted arguments supporters of tions" would hurt "the very people [the blacks] we are suposed to be helping": the that trade enables "democratic" im- perialists in London to apartheid rulers: such ac- generalised, cynical argument that tions" have all been exposed by re- cent events. sanctions, big capital is already pull- for trade ing out of South Africa, intensifying a growing economic crisis and mass shows no more interest in preserv- Party- ing South African jobs than he has in any attempt to influence Botha but from the massive scale of British in- vestment in role these holdngs play in the British upon treasonable offence for any South African to argue in favour of sanc- tions, a Sunday Times poll recently such as showed 77% of blacks suported such a policy as a has Socialist Viewpoint, No. 7, September 1985. Page 5
oppressors. tions seek to been the "disinvestment" campaign Bank and other exploitation. tions", if with major holdings in South Africa. At govern- ment level this takes the form of against the - a campaign Of even less rewarding under That- than under motives It goes without saying that the against "sanctions" by the open or covert apartheid But the are The Reagan argument that "sanc- Thatcher argument "influence" by SACTU. The reality is that, irrespective of Southampton up the The Thatcher line flows not from solidarity. theid with Trades Parties And despite the fact that it is a strikes subsidiaries for solidarity.
means of weakening their apartheid
The problem with calls for "sanctions" is rather that it directs away from solidarity action in the workers movement - the unions and Labour Party - towards capitalist institu-
- multinationals, banks and governments - which have no interests in common with the South African workers. Insofar as they
pressurise Pretoria into cosmetic "reforms", - they wish principally to preserve profitable exploitation of black workers.
In practice, when the crisis and mass struggle in South Africa began to hit their profits, these bodies -sanctions or no - will begin to withdraw their capital, and invest in other more "stable" arenas of brutal
The call for "sancdivorced from working class methods of organising to enforce forms of workers control, leaves their options wide open.
course it is correct and necessary to unmask the economic
which bind Thatcher, Reagan and Kohl to the Botha regime: it is necessary to lift the lid on the links between British firms and the brutality of apartheid.
conclusion from such agitation must be the need for work-
trade union action by transport and distribution workers, by computer staffs, bank staff, insurance and finance unions, communications and other sectors to cut off the economic arteries apartheid system as now called for
The fight for this kind of practical, trade union action cements a real African workers: it can be done, as blacking of South African shipping in
San Francisco docks has shown.
In the meantime it is vital to step
flow of information to the shopfloor membership of relevant trade unions, explaining the situation in South Africa and the need for
Where possible, local Anti Apar-
groups possibly working Councils and Labour should publicise the and struggles involving South