LABOR

‘Time for concerted action -
against apartheid’ — SACTU

Four years ago black trade unionist
Sipho Pityana was arrested by the South
African security police and held for nine
months without trial for his part in organiz-
ing a strike among Ford workers in sym-
pathy with striking workers at the Firestone
tire plant.

During those nine months, he was bru-
tally tortured by his jailers. As he later testi-
fied before a special UN committee on
human rights, “I was made to strip naked
and forced to stand on two red bricks for
seven days without food, water and toilet
facilities. ..At times I became unconscious
and fell on the cement floor. . the last thing
I remember was being hit with a brick
..- They assaulted me with fists, open hands,
leather belts and sticks. . they shocked me
(with an electrical grill) at intervals of two
and three minutes...two days later they
came again and took me naked on a early
winter morning at | a.m. to the shore where
we took a boat into the sea. ..with my hands
handcuffed behind my back. They dipped
me in the water head-first, suspending me
by my leg irons...”

As he was suspended above the water, he
was repeatedly interrogated about the rela-
tionship between the legal unions in South
Africa and the underground South African
Congress of Trade Unions.

It was only when the regime was unable
to silence the outcry over the death in deten-
tion of white trade unionist Neil Aggettt —
whose body showed clear evidence of
torture — that Pityana, together with four
others arrested with him, was released
although he was banned from any public
activity.

Nothing has changed in the fundamental
structure of the apartheid regime since that
time. The government of Pieter Botha con-
tinues to respond with brutal repression.
Just last week, 17 people were killed when
police opened fire on a demonstration near
Port Elizabeth. Four leaders of the South
Africa Allied Workers Union face charges
of high treason. The list goes on...

Yet the Canadian government continues
to insist that a gradual change in South
Africa can be brought about through a
voluntary code of conduct governing Can-
adian companies operating in South Africa.
And for Sipho Pityana, that is a mockery of
all that he has been through — and a
mockery of his continuing struggle to end
the apartheid system in South Africa.

“Nobody can tow a middle’line,” he told

delegates to the Vancouver and District_

Labor Council Mar. 19. “It is no longer the
time for codes of conduct. It is the time for
action.”

Pityana, now working for SACTU from
London after leaving South Africa in
August, 1982, was in Vancouver this week
with Canadian SACTU Solidarity Com-
mittee representative Ken Luckhardt to
urge stepped-up solidarity from Canadian
trade unionists and to press the Solidarity
Committee’s campaign for Canadian trade
sanctions against the apartheid regime.

The occasion was also the 30th anniver-
sary of SACTU which, despite having had
to work in clandestine conditions for the
last 21 of those years, has more and more
emerged as the united voice of South Africa

solidarity.
trade unionists in the struggle against apar-
theid.

That was demonstrated dramatically
Mar. 10 when SACTU held a conference in
the black township of Springs at which
3,000 delegates from trade union organiza-
tions across South Africa were in atttend-
ance. It was held in defiance of the
two-decades-old ban on the congress
although Pitoyana noted that the arrests of
four unionsts now charged with high trea-
son was probably intended to intimidate
unionists into staying away from the meet-
ing.

“It was a very significant conference,”
Luckhardt emphasized. “It means that
unions are prepared to accept SACTU as
their voice and to bring the organization
into the open.”

Since its founding, SACTU has called for
the unity of all South African unionists and
has urged workers to combine economic
action with political action against the apar-
theid system, Pityana said.

The year 1984 marked a high point for
both, shown particularly in the broad union
opposition to the Botha regime’s tricameral
elections and in the almost total participa-
tion of black workers in the Nov. 5. and 6
general strike around Johannesburg.

More days were lost due to work stop-

- pages in South African than in any other

year in the country’s history.

Fhe affects of the economic crisis have
also been felt in South Africa and the layoffs
due to the recession and rationalization —
some 20,000 jobs have been lost in the auto
industry since 1980 — have aggravated the
exploitation of labor. Many multinational
corporations, notably the Canadian Bata
Shoe Company, have moved to force wages
down by using the pool of cheap labor in the
bantustans. As a result the tempo of trade
union action against the apartheid system
itself has quickened in recent months.

“The trade union movement in South
Africa is clear about where it is going,” said
Pityana. ‘“‘Now we're asking trade unionists
in countries like Canada to accelerate their
support.”

Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, B.C. VSK 125. Phone 251-1186

Postal Code

lam enclosing 1 yr. $140) 2yrs.$250) 6mo.s80

Foreign 1 yr. $200

Bill me later Donations

SIPHO PITYANA (r), KEN LUCKHARDT

...In Vancouver to step up campaign for

Consumer boycotts of South African
goods have been in effect in varying degrees
in several countries including Canada but
increasingly trade unionists are moving to
concerted action and treating South African
commodities as hot cargo. ~

In San Francisco last November, mem-
bers of Local 10 of the International Long-
shoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union
refused to unload South African cargo from
the Dutch-owned ship, Nedlloyd Kimber-
ley and held out for 11 days until the threat
of massive fines forced an end to the
embargo.

In Ireland, the clerks’ union at Dunne’s
chain store voted last July not to handle
South African goods at the checkout coun-
ters.

When several clerks were fired, the dock
workers’ union backed their cause by
declaring their refusal to offload South
African cargo from ships in port, Pityana
said.

In this country, the SACTU Solidarity
Committee (SSC) has been working for five
years, pressing for federal government sanc-
tions against South African and mobilizing
financial support and soldiarity with
SACTU.

Although the Canadian Labor Congress,
echoing the position of the AFL-CIO, does
not officially support SACTU, dozens of
affiliated unions have made their own deci-
sion and SSC now lists 183 local unions
which contribute to the SACTU strike fund,
including 39 who make regular monthly
contributions.

An SSC publication, Trafficking in Apar-
theid, published earlier this year, “deflates
the myth perpetrated by Ottawa” that trade
sanctions would hurt Black workers, Luck-

hardt said. It documents the extensive links _

between Canadian companies and South
Africa and calls for an end to trade with the
apartheid regime.

That document has provided the ammu-
nition for increased trade union action
against apartheid and a conference of
unions in this province last month began
working on a campaign for trade sanctions.
Luckhardt said the one of the immediate
objectives is stepped-up action against the
importation of South Africa fruit, particu-
larly that destined for institutions.

“T urge you: when South African people
are languishing in detention without trial,
when they are suffering torture, it is vital
you increase your solidarity with them,”
Pityana told Vancouver unionists Mar. 19.

“The only way to remove oppression is to
escalate the struggle against it — and with
your help, we will win.”

contracts]
‘cost B.C.”

The Socred government may have
saved a small amount initially on
Expo by turning several contracts
over to non-union contractors but the
province will end up paying more in
the end, a study prepared for the Car-
penters Union stated.

Moreover, the non-union contracts
resulted in reduced economic benefits
— except to provide higher profit
margins for the non-union contrac-
tors.

The paper, produced by Trade
Union Research Bureau, analyzed |
nine contracts awarded to non-union
firms. It compared. the total cost of
these contracts with what the total
would have been with the lowest |
union bidders and found that the dif-
ference was Only $1.36 million or 4.7 }
per cent of the total price.

And that small saving was achieved |
at a high price to the provincial econ- |
omy and to provincial government }
revenues, the study noted.

“Past history proves that in time of }
recession, when there

=

is a large |
amount of unemployment, additional }
wage payments by government have }
spin-off effects which increase the
total income of the community and }
therefore the taxes collected by the }
government, by a much _largel”
amount. This is the multiplier effect,” ]
it said. a

According to the bureau, wages |
constituted 45 per cent of the union
contract price or $13,472,759. The}
non-union contractors pay wages that
are 30 per cent less, putting the non- ‘
union wage figure at $9,430,931.

It is the difference between the two }
figures — $4,042,828 — which would”
have produced the greater economi€ ¥
benefit through the multiplier effect, 7
the study said. 4

According to the provincial govern- J
ment’s own economic formula, a cet- 7
tain percentage of personal income is |
spent on consumer goods and servi-
ces. And that amount, once spent, ~
goes on to initiate succeeding rounds”
of business, until the multiplier effect
is finally reduced to zero.

The bureau did not take the $4.04
million difference in wages right
through to the final round, only to the
eighth round. But even by that stage,
the additional $4.04 million paid out
in wages by union contractors would
have generated $9 million in gross
provincial product, $7.7 million in per-
sonal income and $1.33 million in
increased personal taxes.

“Thus by using contracts paying
union wages, the government would
have incurred an initial increase in
outlay of $1,353,137 but would have
increased the gross provincial product
by $9 million and personal incomes
by $7.7 million,” the study emphas-
ized. “The resulting taxes would have
returned to the government $1,329,543,
effectively cancelling out the extra
costs of the contracts. In addition, the
$9 million in spin-off business would
unquestionably have reduced the
government’s social assistance costs.”

Carpenters Local 452 delegate
Lorne Robson told delegates to the
Vancouver and District Labor Coun-
cil Mar. 19 that the study underscored
the validity of union demands in
pressing for fair wage provisions in
construction contracts.

eypyieerete 77