End of apartheid

aim of African workers

By ALAN BROOKS
Organizing Secretary,
Anti-Apartheid Movement

Since the end of the Second
World War, the labor movement
in South Africa has been divided
between two broad groups. On
one side were those white work-

ers and trade unionists who’

desire — and, helped by the
Nationalist Government, created
—a white aristocracy of labor.
On the other were those who
sought to build a united labor
movement founded on the com-
mon identity of workers, with-
out regard to race.

Initially these two tendencies
co-existed within the South Af-
rican Trades and Labor Council.
But Nationalist politicians, for
their own ends, instigated splits
which soon destroyed the
SATLC. In its place came the
democratic, non-racial move-
ment, SACTU (South African

Congress of Trade Unions),

formed in March 1955, and the
color bar TUCSA (Trades Union
Council for South ~Africa —
originally called SATUC).

The reactionary, pro-apartheid
trade unions, largely white and
exclusive in membership, now
form the bulk of the sadly dep-
leted trade union movement.
They are a monument to racial
prejudice, a warning to workers
everywhere of the dangers of
disunity; divided amongst them-
selves, their number and power
are declining, and their ability to
perform the true functions of
trade unions has all but disap-
peared. They fall into two
groups. The South African Con-
federation of Labor (SACL) is

. openly pro-government, supports
job reservation, denies trade
union rights to Africans, and
practises white supremacy inthe
industrial field. It comprises 33
unions with 195,000 members.

Slightly smaller; but much
more active and influential in the
international trade union move-
ment in its efforts to ‘improve
“the image’ of apartheid South
Africa and to secure its return to
the ILO, is TUCSA. Started in
1954 as a body that excluded
Africans, it has pursued a policy
of the rate for the job as the best
way of preserving white work-
ers’ privileged positions. Not
quite as extreme as SACL, it has
varied its tactics, promoting or
abandoning ‘the existence of
small, splinter, white-controlled
African ‘trade unions’ according
to expediency.

This tactic, an. unwilling ad-
mission of the latent power: of
the African working class, has
proved almost disastrous to
TUCSA. To its right-wing mem-
bers, the tactic has appeared to
be the thin edge of the black
man’s wedge. Faced with this
situation, it is probable that at
the TUCSA conference this
spring, the leadership will once

again switch to an openly racist
policy.

While the white workers
squabble over the spoils, the lot
of African and other non-white
workers gets worse. Their mili-
tant, non-racial trade union
movement SACTU has suffered
severe blows. Its leaders and ac-
tivities have been banned, house
arrested, imprisoned, forced into
exile, even executed by the
Vorster regime. But the ideals
which inspired SACTU and the
dedication which built it live on.

African workers are being
more viciously exploited than be-
fore. Tuberculosis, malnutrition
and other consequences of pov-
erty are rapidly on the increase
among Africans, whereas they
have been virtually eliminated
among the privileged whites. In
the background lies the vast
machinery of oppression, built
over the years, and now being
refined by its fascist architects.

One of the cornerstones is the’

Industrial Conciliation Act of
1956, which ~excluded African
workers entirely from the estab-
lished procedures of collective
bargaining. The Act introduced
“Job Reservation” — whereby
non-white workers are kept out
of skilled jobs. And it achieved
a long standing goal of the ruling
Nationalist Party—the emascul-
ation of the labor movement by
entrenching racial divisions. It
made multi-racial trade union-
ism virtually impossible.

In South Africa, everything is
divided according to race, even
legislation. Thus there is a coun-
terpart — for Africans only — to
the Industrial Conciliation Act.
It is the Native Labor (Settle-
ment of Disputes) Act of 1953.
It makes all strikes and go-slows
by Africans punishable by a fine
of £500 and up to three years’
imprisonment. In the place of
collective bargaining, it pro-
poses works committees, staffed
by white officials, to settle Afri-
cans’ grievances for them.

Coupled with these direct
anti-labor laws are the other
many regulations which force
Africans into migrant labor,
deny them permanence or sec-
urity in the towns, and main-
tain a cheap labor reservoir
which is tapped by labor bu-
reaus throughout the country
according to the demands of
white farmers and industrialists.
The infamous pass laws are a
key part of this system. Twelve
to thirteen hundred African
men and women are fined or im-
prisoned daily in South Africa
under these laws! Every year,
thousands are forced out of the
towns, and made to move to
the over-crowded Reserves.

Thus the African worker,
backbone of the economy, is
reduced to an anonymous labor
unit, defenseless both against
the exploitation of employers
and against the tyranny of the
State bureaucracy.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 13, 1969—Page 8

The international trade union
movement must be on its guard
against the attempts of TUCSA
to undermine the international
opposition to apartheid. TUCSA’s
international activities are more
Sinister than its transparent do-
mestic manoeuvres. It is playing
a major part in the Nationalist
Government’s scheme, announc-
ed by Minister of Labour, Vil-
joen, in June 1968, of sending
workers abroad to present ‘a
factual picture’ of South Africa.

Today, a war of national libe-
ration is being waged through-
out Southern Africa. South
African freedom fighters have
joined with their brothers in
Rhodesia. Mozambique and
South West Africa in a guerilla
offensive that has raised the
anti-fascist struggle dramatic-
ally to a higher plane. This is a
struggle of workers and peas-
ants, and it will continue until
white supremacy has been de-
stroyed. ;

So long as apartheid exists, a

BAN C

By PRAVDA CORRESPONDENT

Academically quiet in the
daytime, the Moscow Scientists’
Club recently was a scene of
unusual animation. Soviet and
foreign journalists, scientists,
and representatives. of public
organizations assembled there
for a news conference, co-
sponsored by the Soviet Peace
Committee and the USSR Aca-
demy of Sciences, and dedicat-
ed to the consequences of the
possible application of chemical
and bacteriological weapons,
and efforts to outlaw them.

Opening the news conference,
Academician M. D. Millionshchi-
kov, vice-president of the
U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences
stressed the tremendous im-
portance for the destinies of all
mankind of the campaign to
prohibit the manufacture of
chemical and __ bacteriological
weapons and research in that
field and the exclusion of these
weapons from the life of society.

The next speaker, Academi-
cian M. M. Dubinin, expressed
the concern of Soviet society
over the preparations in a num-
ber of countries for chemical
and bacteriological warfare.

Professor V. V. Kovanov,
vice-president of the U.S.S.R.
Academy of Medical Sciences
and a Presidium Member of the
Soviet Peace Committee, read
out the text of the following
letter of a group of Soviet
scientists:

“We address ourselves to
scientists on all continents, in
all countries of the world!

“We appeal to all people of
goodwill, to all who cherish
peace and progress: humanity is

NOTICE

DELIVERY BOYS AND
AFRICAN SERVANTS

ENTRANCE IN LANE

Silt eee
ures

walTING ROOM:

BLANKE
WAGK AMER.

‘

*

truly free, non-racial trade
union movement will not take
root in South Africa. This
makes the overthrow of apar-
theid a matter of the utmost
importance to the workers of
that country. Their brothers
throughout the world have an
important role to play. Wher-

#

NON: EUROPEANS & ;

:

“yall i

a.
m
ever the battle for freedony

00g |

waged, from the valleys. of

ty} be
the Cape, the costs will b td

Zambesi to the shop-f0? |
1H

and the need for help gf4) ow
the people of South Africa a
that the prize is beyond st yt
price. They will not ™
it is theirs.

& B WEAPONS

threatened with a new terrify-
ing danger! ‘
“Unchecked perfection of bio-
logical (bacteriological) and
chemical weapons for mass-
scale extermination of people
has been going on these last
few years in secret arsen-
als of many countries. Coun-
tries, which have not subscribed

_to the Geneva agreement on the

prohibition of the use in war of
asphyxiating, poisonous and
other gases of this kind and
bacteriological means, are de-
veloping new pathogenic micro-
organisms, viruses and toxins,
and synthesising new lethal,
psychogenic and irritating agents
of tremendous force.

“The peoples of the world
have always looked with res-
pect and hope to the selfless ef-
forts of scientists to wipe out
dreadful diseases like plague,
cholera and smallpox; to the ef-
forts of science to raise crop
yields, destroy agricultural pests,
irrigate arid lands, rid human-
kind of the danger of famine, and
create new substances and mat-
erials to serve the flourishing of
culture and civilization. Can up-
right scientists look on calmly
at the way the newest achieve-
ments of microbiology and chem-
istry are being used to develop
new virus and microbe infections
and bacterial toxins, to invent
and stockpile new toxic agents
of tremendous toxic power and
compounds causing mass hyster-

‘ia and bringing death to inhabi-

tants of peaceful towns and vil-
lages, destruction to crops, and
annihilation of everything alive?

“Chemical weapons have al-
ready been used on lands of Jong-
suffering Vietnam to destroy ve-

VR 4,

jen
getation and crops and it!
out manpower. co!
States and several othe’ ene?
tries have not signed t
convention to this day- _ ¢oy tif

“Patents and processes "gl | |

manufacture of toxic © y;
developed by nazi Ger repl
being reproduced and wie
now in'the United sanyo
Federal Republic of Ger™
other countries. ge
“We, Soviet scientis™ g@!
greatly worried over this ‘ili
to the human _ racé, a fs
equally with nuclear W itu

threatens to wipe out “di

and civilization. We 4% (and!
nant at the false propae i
about biological and © ye
weapons allegedly beings wat
‘humane’ way of conduct rig

“We call upon all expo
scientists of the world i gt
work being carried oul, "an

secrecy, in the developme?” ai
stockpiling of biologicé y %
chemical weapons, to WI got
plain the horrible conse” 9s
of their application, an aecis™
for a United Nations afl”
banning the elaboratiom, _.f
facture, stockpiling an¢ ee
of chemical and biolog}
pons of all types in oF
all countries of the wor
scribe to it, These #0 sags
mass-annihilation weap0?
be outlawed everywhere: yr of
“We do not doubt that 0” ine
peal will find response "fe of

cal

hearts of millions of peOP ys

the whole world. Reasom
prevail over folly.

to science preparing

destruction.”

ai ali 5 ie ini a ea i ee ein play | pena mee pit ay

eae pean ay git ie pe