Mhiidiiigd, Hititer: Gata (OREUEEEE CuennnuTHY Thozamile Botha (top right) is hoisted aloft by fellow workers at Ford’s South Africa plant follow- ing the victory in February in forcing the multinationals to reinstate the 700 striking workers. Black SA strike leader says Canada supporting apartheid “I was banned. I couldn’t work in any factory, I couldn’t go toschool, I couldn’t participate in politics, I couldn’t meet with more than one person at a time, or go out after 6p.m. Under those conditions, I felt I couldn’t live in my country any more and left in May.” With those modest words,- Thozamile Botha, black trade union leader and civic activist summed up his exile forced on him by the apartheid government of South Africa for his role in the historic strikes in the Port Elizabeth auto industry. Botha brought to Vancouver audiences, including delegates at the regular Vancouver and District Labor Council meeting last Tuesday, the same passionate message he had taken to the United Nations following his flight from South Africa. “Black workers are no longer only making economic demands but are making political demands because we want>to be liberated politically and economically.”’ To make his point, Botha told the Wednesday meeting about the events leading up to strike against the Ford Motor Company of Canada (an 88.4 percent-owned subsidiary of the American par- ent, Ford Motor Co.) which swept four of its plants in Port Elizabeth, paralyzing the cor- poration for two months last~ year. It was Botha’s forced resigna- tion from his job at Ford’s Struandale Cortina plant that sparked the first spontaneous walkout by the entire black work force, prefiguring the political intensity of the two- month strike that followed just days later. “The strike started when the Ford management gave me an ultimatum to choose between my work at the plant or my work in the black community with the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organization.” PEBCO, and its secretary Thomazile Botha, gained mass support among Port Elizabeth’s black community, including many Ford workers. Rejecting Ford’s ultimatum to get out of politics, Botha left the plant. ‘‘Immediately after I left, 700 workers followed me the next day and demanded that I be rein- stated. “*They stayed outside for three days, and on the third day, I met with the Ford management, who said something about a ‘misunderstanding,’ and agreed that I should go back to work.” After meeting with the workers once back on the job, Botha said that the workers demanded to be paid for those days they were out. Ford conceded another defeat and paid them, only to find itself confronting a white backlash, . when 200 white workers from all of their Port Elizabeth plants threatened to strike if they were not paid double for those days that the black workers had walk- ed out. The underlying reason for their strike threat revealed itself when they demanded that Ford dismantle its largely cosmetic racial integration program and rehire white foreman, H. J° Welsh. -“‘The white workers were dis- satisfied! with the integration of the canteen and alleged that the black workers were smelly, that they could not behave themselves and that their lives were in danger among anti-government ele- ments,”’ Botha said. On Nov. 13, the black workers walked out again, this time refus- ing to work short time. Again, other grievances emerged, in- cluding their distress at the segregationist attitude of the white workers and the company’s failure to implement its stated policy of equal pay for equal work. — With Ford’s agreement that it would look into their grievances, the black workers agreed to return to work. They gave Ford a 14-day deadline. The long-simmering an- tagonism over shared use of the canteen came to a head, around about the same time that the ‘14-day deadline was up. ‘“‘The black workers walked out a third time, gathered on the lawn and sent a delegation to the manage- ment to find out if their demands had been met. After a swift, bitter exchange, Ford called in the riot police. “While the police were arrest- ing the workers, the management intervened a final time, saying that we had either go back to work or get out. “They made it.clear the minute we left the gates we had lost our jobs,’’ Botha noted. The 500 workers at Ford’s ad- jacent engine plant joined with them in their march into town, and a few days later, 1,200 workers from General Tire and Electric Company and 600 workers from the Adamas Paper. mill conducted solidarity walkouts. Heading thelist of workers’ de- mands was that their respective bosses reinstate rather than rehire them. The United Auto Workers, which had refused to participate in the strike, declaring it ‘‘politi- cal,’’ and therefore illegal, accor- ding to South African labor law, pursued their sellout line when asked to negotiate for the locked- out workers. Ultimately, it was the threat of a national boycott of Ford plants and the one day of solidarity with the Ford workers in the eastern cape of South Africa which brought Ford to its knees, in a re- markable victory for black auto workers. On Jan. 10, 1980 Ford’s man- agement relented and reinstated all the striking workers. Some of the leaders of the strike, like Botha, were reinstated for one day and arrested the next day. Botha was released after a mass protest rally in Zwide township and has been touring as a speaker for the African National Con- gress and the South African Con- gress of Trade Unions. Botha also slammed the phoney human rights campaign which overlooked the hundreds of workers on strike in Port Elizabeth for equal rights and equal pay and then, some months later, riveted the world’s attention on the strikes of the Polish work- ° ers. ; “Tt’s strange that when South African workers went on strike they didn’t receive any foreign help, but when the Polish workers did, support for them was im- PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOV. 28, 1980—Page 10 mediate, and plentiful,’ he said. 3 Publishers’ press council rejected — Delegates to the B.C. Federation of Labor made it clear this week that they don’t really want a press council in this province — at least not one set up:and run by the pub- lishers of the major newspapers. One union, the- B.C. Govern- ment Employees’ Union, has cam- paigned for several months for the establishment of a press council similar to that in Ontario, which hears complaints about biased and inaccurate news reporting. Two BCGEU locals had introduced a resolution to the federation con- vention urging the government to pass enabling legislation ‘‘to in- struct the publishing industry to es- tablish a press council.” Although the resolution was fi- nally referred back to the commit- tee, it was not before several dele- gates criticized it for putting con- trol in the hands of publishers — which would do nothing to allevi- ate the problem of biased reporting which it claimed to address. . “This resolution calls for the publishers to set up a council — but when you talk about publishers in this province you’re talking about Southam and Thomson, ”’ carpent- ers delegate Lorne Robson told the convention. ~ **Are we going to ask Southam to set up a council to investigate it- self?’’ Robson emphasized that any trade unionist who had been in- volved in a dispute ‘‘knows how bi- ased reporting on labor can be. “But this resolution doesn’t do anything about that problem. And it doesn’t mention any role for the labor movement on a press council,’’ he said. Newspaper Guild delegate Jan ‘O’Brien warned that putting pub- lishers in charge of establishing and maintaining a press council would merely be another means by which publishers could make ‘‘the work- ing press the scapegoats for any problems.”’ She urged the convention to de feat the resolution and ‘‘look i stead at the real issue — the ni for broad public access to the media.” Typographical Union delegalé Bill Saunders also noted that biased reporting was amajor problem fac- ing the labor movement but added that unionists should sympathize with reporters ‘‘who see their sto! ies shredded before they appear 12 print.’” Asking publishers to set up 4 council would only give them ai other ‘‘smokescreen” to cover UP ‘the real problem of corporate owl ership, he said. 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