Scandinavian unions
Solidarity action =
By TERRY SMITH THE November 9 Apartheid demonstration was the biggest ever. Tens thousands turned out to register their revulsion at the regime and their solidarity with the struggles of the majority.
But this increased support has still not found adequate reflection in the British trade union movement. which lags shamefully behind other countries in its failure to mobilise solidarity Australian dockers recently mounted a week of action gainst South African goods. Meanwhile. in Scandinavia. trade with South Africa has been all but completely halted by trade union boycotts.
• Finland's transport workers mounted an indefinite boycott on South African trade.
• Norwegian transport workers have decided to boycott imports from South Africa.
•Swedish transport workers joined this action at the end halting an annual flow of trade which totalled E245 million last year. Raw materials for Sweden's steel plants have been hit.
• Danish workers are expected to begin their boycott this month.
But when the Swedish transport union tried to get a adopted by the International Transport Workers Federation they were blocked by West German and British unions!
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The British opposition does not arise rom union leaders attempting to carry such policies and being rebuffed: il arises from their refusal even to try to impose a serious boycott on South
African trade. Far from producing infornation to spell out the case for action to
Iritish workers the trade union leader:
have allowed Thatcher to set the pace or boycott action would Immediately br-
One exception to this has been the
Swansea and Liverpool
Labour dockers to unload cargoes of South
African coal, this time with support from the TGWU and (not surprisingly)
British National Union of
Seamen, as well as the TGWU. have also been invovled in the international issue.
moves by Maritime Unions Against
Socialist Viewpoint No. 9 December 1985 p15
NOW
7 RESOUTH,
Apartheid to boycott shipping and oil companies involved in supplying oil to South Africa - a campaign supported by the United Nations.
The fact remains that determined action by the TGWU. USDAW and a few other unions could rapidly bring South African trade with Britain to a grinding halt. Despite lip service to the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). who have called for action to break all links. there is little sign that British union leaders intend to fight for any such poll Parties, union branches and local campaigns would do well to focus their South African solidarity work on local targets for action, and seeking to force union officials at local and national level into a real fight on the