elie nha ‘Organize . . . or Starve’ must be read ) Organize ... or Starve! by Ken Luckhardt and Brenda Wall, Lawr- ence and Wishart Ltd., London, 520 pages, paperback $10, hardcover $19.50. Available by mail from SACTU Solidarity Com- mittee, P.O. Box 38, Stn. ‘“‘N” To- ronto, M8V 3S4. “Organize ... or Starve!’’ is essential reading, particularly for active trade unionists who want an inside look into labor’s strug- gles in racist South Africa. Au- thors Brenda Wall and Ken Luckhardt have helped mark the 25th anniversary of the founda- tion of SACTU, the South Afri- can Congress of Trade Unions with the publication of this infor- mative history. The book charts the history of SACTU, founded in 1955 to or- ganize Black workers into mass- based, country-wide trade unions. From the beginning SACTU projected itself as South Affrica’s first non-racial union co-ordinating body with a larger political dimension which goes beyond the economic struggle. SACTU joined the revolutionary Congress Ailiance the broad front of organizations dedicated to end- ing the apartheid regime and re- placing it with a free and dem- ocratic South African government. The recognition of this social and political role is reflected in a BOOKS SACTU statement of 1956. *““SACTU is conscious of the fact that the organization of the mass of workers for higher wages, bet- ter conditions of life and labor, is inextricably bound up with a ~~ Sait. and: Radio Artists. Actors get a hand William Schallert, president of the Screen Actors Guild, Henry “The Fonz” Winkler (1) and Alan Alda of M*A*S*H announce plans for a benefit show for striking Guild members. The strike, nowin Its sixth week, ceatres on actors’ demands for guaranteed additional payment for films, videotapes, videocassettes, etc., distributed through pay TV and home video systems. R the U.S. in support of the 67,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of TV allies and pickets have taken place across — Appeal for African unionists TORONTO — The South Af- rican Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) issued an international appeal, Aug. i4 for workers throughout the world to press their governments to demand the release of all political prisoners in South Africa including two lead- ing trade unionists, recently de- tained. SACTU - general-secretary John Gaetsewe called on trade union organizations around the world to “issue immediate pro- tests through your government to the apartheid regime (in South Af- rica) calling for immediate release of Oscar Mpetha and Leon Mghakayi and all political prison- ers.” In his telex message, Gaetsewe described the two trade union leaders’ arrest as ‘‘another blat- ant attempt to crush the organi- zation and strength of the workers.’ Mpetha is a foundation member of SACTU and presently the organizing secretary of the Af- rican Food and Canning Workers’ Union. Mghakayi, is the organiz- ing secretary of the Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union. The two SACTU leaders were - recently arrested in Cape Town, where for the past 12 weeks workers and the community have protested a fare increase by wag- ing a highly successful bus boycott. : The SACTU general secretary noted that “‘the racist police have used a number of methods to crush the unity of our people. These have not only included intimidation, detentions and the use of pass laws to arrest striking workers’’, Gaetsewe said, ‘‘but they have also tried to prevent private cars from transporting people to or from the townships. The result of this provocation has been an upsurge in violence in which a number of people have been killed and wounded.” The recent arrests mark the ever increasing repression di- rected against Black trade unions by the racist South African government. The current strike PACIFIC TRIBUNE— SEPT. 5, 1980—Page 10 wave sweeping South Africa, over the past few months, ex- poses the phoniness of the apart- heid regime’s well-financed and. much publicized campaign to try conning the international com- munity into thinking recent changes in the country’s labor legislation have improved condi- tions for Black workers. Trade unionists are being urged to press their governments to pro- test this repression against labor in South Africa and to directly protest the arrest of trade union leaders such as Mpetha and Mghakayi to Prime Minister Piet Botha, Union Buildings, Pretoria, South Africa. Financial donations are also urgently needed for the SACTU Strike Fund to help the striking workers and their families to cover legal costs for trials of trade union members, and to help in the organization of the unorganized. Donations to the strike fund should be made through the SACTU Solidarity Committee, P.O. Box 38, Station N, Toronto, Ontario, M8V 3S4. determined struggle for political rights and liberty from all oppres- sive laws and practices. ‘It follows that a mere struggle for economic rights of all the workers without participation in the general struggle for political emancipation would condemn the trade union movement to use- lessness and to a betrayal of the interests of the workers.”’ “Organize ... or Starve!’’ places SACTU’s history within the context of the history and struggles of the South African working class and trade union movement. As SACTU president Stephen Dlamini states in his in- ‘troduction to the book, its pur- pose is to train ‘“‘new ranks of trade union leaders and it is im- portant that they should examine our past and draw conclusions from it for our future. Perhaps we can thus equip them to be better trade union fighters.”’ It is a lively and rich history which poignantly touches every trade unionist who picks the book up to read. Not only do we see echoes of our own struggle with .the boss and the bosses’ govern- ments detailed in ‘‘Organize . .. or Starve’, but a sober reminder of the stakes which South African labor militants have to play with always confronts the reader in the often violent death inflicted upon SACTU militants whose lives are the fabric of the union move- ment’s history. In fact the book is dedicated to many SACTU comrades who gave their lives for the struggle. Through the first country-wide organization of Black workers in 1919, the tough struggles of the African Mineworkers Union dur- ing World War II, and the vicious oppression of trade unionists, democrats and political militants during the 50s under the Suppres- sion of Communism Act, SACTU emerges as both the ipheritor of a militant tradition and the spear- head of the best descendants of those early freedom fighters, in today’s struggles. In the current wave of labor struggles gradually dissolving the chains of racism and oppression in South Africa, SACTU is rec- ognized inside the country and internationally as the leading and unifying force of the countrys underground labor movement. This international recognition is illustrated in the book’s endorsation by 15 general secre taries of the largest trade unionsiN Great Britain. The endorsation states that the undersigned lead- ers “‘recognize SACTU as the workers’ organization and the workers’ voice, the trade union movement that for 25 years has supported and continues to pro- mote the principle of non-racial workers’ unity ... we pledge to do all in our power to ensure iS > use in the education of trade union members about the neces sity of decisive action against apartheid. The SACTU motto 1s our motto — ‘An injury to one 1s an injury to all’.”’ i Of special interest to Canadian union members reading the book are the references to the support given SACTU by organized labor in this country. Among the friends of SACTU listed in the book are the United Electrical workers, (UE), the United Auto Workers (UAW), the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Teachers Federa- tion of Quebec, (CEQ), the Con- federation of National Trade Unions, (CNTU), the Mine-Mill ‘and Smelter Workers Union, Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers, United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union, and the Ontario Federation of Labor. ‘‘Organize or Starve’, gives the reader the real goods on the labor movement’s history in South Africa, and it should be widely read throughout the Cana- _ dian labor movement. : SACTU general secretary, John Gaetsewe, no stranger to Canadian workers, sums it up the best. ‘‘The most striking aspect of this history is the fact that African workers have never ceased to or- ganize, to resist, to commit their lives in struggle against exploita- tion and oppression under apart- heid.”’ Ken Luckhardt and Brenda Wall are to be commended on job well done. : M.P. 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