For labour movement action to back South
African struggle!
By HARRY SLOAN "THE Labour Party and the trade unions can take a number of initiatives on their own - by working for a total break of economic links. Workers can refuse to load
18A South African cops move in. DE IN YOUR SELF-RELIANCE!
ships or offload ships from
South Africa and they can refuse to buy South African goods."
President of the
Congress, to this year's Labour Party went conterence predictable loud applause.
But this was
Tambo's appeal for specifically working class action; and there is little sign that any of the union leaders present have any Intention of even carry.
ing out this much solidarity action
Indeed courageous
Ireland, who toured the TUC and
Labour conference seeking support
THE 350 strong section of the
British Library Lending
Division Institute of
Professional Civil Servants has voted to 65 to 62 to boycott requests for material from
South Africa.
Garth Frankland, Socialist
Viewpoint supporter and Chair of the Joint Trade Union
Committee, moved the resolution.
He explained that if action was to be carried out in support of the South African
Division supplies around
20.000 pieces of information a year to South Africa. They are mainly in the field of atomic energy, electronics and computers.
The South African regime will not be able to get this information so easily from other sources. Some weeks ago, the South Africans requested information on 19th century British flogging practice! Gradually the boycott is strangling South
Africa's scientific information.
Socialist Viewpoint, No 8, November 1986. Page 3 came
These words from Oliver Tambo.
African National down with the the sum total of of the representatives
Africa.
Dunne's strikers from movement.
not to buy depots action.
workers the time to act is now.
This is
The British Library Lending degree:
the by the struggle, for their 15 month fight and signs of practical British trade union solidarity with the South African workers, away empty-handed and disgusted at the show of hypocrisy they had witnessed
The exiled leadership of the South African Congress of Trade Unions has issued a specific and categoric appeal to the trade union movement in Britain and elsewhere for action to: •Refuse to handle all maritime, air or land traffic to or from South Arica •Refuse to handle any goods to or from South Africa •Refuse to handle all postal and telegraphic traffic to and from South
If these three points were taken seriously by the British trade union
It would scarcely be necessary to mount individual appeals to the conscience of shoppers
South African goods: almost the whole supply could be held up at ports, warehouses and around the country; orders could be obstructed by postal and banking boycotts; and transport links could be severed
There is no doubt that the traditional stance of the British trade union leadership has been to make resounding speeches on such issues and then turn a blind eye both to continued trade, and to occasional appeals from groups of dockers and others for suport in enforcing boycott understandable to some to block such traffic indefinitely is a recipe for a major confrontation with the employers which few union leaders relish - and many workers might shrink from. Indeed willingness of workers to take such action requires a high degree of awareness of the importance of the situation: this can occur from time to time when major events take place and could be much better prepared if there were direct appeals for solidariKirican workers. organised black South
Perhas the biggest indictment of the British union bureaucracy and their lack of elementary solidarity is that despite a massive upsurge of nightly television coverage of vicious racist brutality
against black protestors. despite a categoric appeal for support from SACTU, no union leadership has made any serious attempt to respond with even token supporting action.
It is these same union bureaucrats who are the most adamantly opposed to any direct links between British workplace union organisations at rank and file level and their counterparts in the new non-racial unions which organise hundreds thousands of black South African workers.
The TUC stand is echoed in the main by SACTU and ANC leaders, for whom the very mention of "direct links" has been enough to induce near apoplexy — despite the fact that such contacts can offer the best hopes of securing the kind of practical solidarity the organisations call for.
It is no accident that the same leaders who oppose direct links also hotly dispute any notion that the democratic revolution in Africa in which the driving force is the black working class could and should flow over into the proletarian, socialist revolution to overthrow capitalism
The ANC magazine argues fiercely against any such concept of a "one-stage" theory of the liberation struggle: Tambo, viewed by Labour Weekly, insists on separating the question democratic revolution socialism:
"Some may say our objectives are socialist but socialists within the ANC accept the Freedom Charter in the same way as do non-socialists. reflects the objectives of a broad alliance of forces who are agreed on the destruction of the regime and its replacement with a non-racial, united democratic South Africa."
Tambo has repeatedly (and not least in the recent ANC discussions with white "liberal" South African business leaders made clear the pro-capitalist content of this and
THEY WILL
NEUER
KILLUS
ALL of
South
Sechaba interof the from room for private
ANC-ruled South Africa.
It apartheid ference to it linked the democracy and non-racialism"
"broad
Blocks whipped in the streets while British union leaders dodge action.
bureaucracy links:
genuine abolition scale."
every area.
support alliance" when he has stressed the view that there would be "plenty of enterprise in an
His allies and co-thinkers in the
British trade union bureaucracy were no less clear in their determined etforts to separate the twin aspects of the South African revolution. John
Jones from the CP-led TASS took to the rostrum at the Labour Party conattack the motion on
South solidarity with South Africa because bodies!
word dreaded
"socialism" with "national liberation, ing from
Even worse from the point of view of the rigid concepts of the union
Socialist Viewpoint, No 8, November 1986. Page 4 and the Stalinist-influenced ANC, the motion (from Paisley North CLP) hinted at direct
"only through the building of international links with the workers in South Africa and other countries will internationalism be developed which could lead to the of capitalism and the establishment of socialism on a global
Kinnock's Labour leadership let it be remembered, is not for the abolltion of capitalism in Britain, let alone on a global scalel But the motion was the only one on the agenda, and it was carried on a card vote: it provides a useful basis on which to bulld campaigns and practical solidarity in
In drawing out debate on the actual policies of the ANC, it is useful to point out that there are other politica orces and traditions within the movement of black workers of South Africa, some of which such as the National Forum, hold a much more explicit commitment to socialism and working class politics.
In any event the acute political limitations of the ANC should in no way impede full-scale mobilisation in of the struggles of South Africa's black working class, and in particular the national demonstration now called for November 2.
It is only by our actions in fighting Botha's allies in the British government and British multinationals, by the fight for genuine class action, that the British workers' movement can prove itself to South African workers. • Direct trade union action to block trade, transport and communications to and from South Africal British shop unions follow the Dunne's strikers example! • Direct links between British and
African workplace union • Unmask the British firms profiteerthe superexploitation of black workers in South Africa!