Norm Dixon
On September 16, at least 800,000 government workers, including 300,000 teachers, took part in what the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) described as the "largest strike in South Africa's history". Members of eight public sector unions marched in large numbers in 24 cities and towns across the country in protest at the African National Congress (ANC) government's attempt to impose a three-year real-wage freeze on public servants.
According to the COSATU, the biggest march was in Pretoria, where 50,000 workers clad in red and yellow T-shirts and caps flooded the streets to demand that the government grant a 7% wage rise this year, and allow negotiations for real wage increases in the subsequent two years. The ANC is offering an increase of just 6% this year, which is a meagre 0.5% increase after inflation, and insists that government workers' pay be pegged to the inflation rate in 2005 and 2006. South Africa's consumer price index, upon which inflation is calculated, excludes workers' housing costs.
The marchers stopped outside the treasury buildings in Pretoria to hand their demands to finance minister Trevor Manuel. The crowd erupted when it was announced that Manuel had fled to Cape Town to avoid the demonstration. According to Peter Alexander, a South African activist writing on the Debate e-discussion list, the Pretoria march, which he estimated was 100,000-strong, consisted of "mostly young workers, with women the majority, with a small but visible minority of whites".
Striking workers were particularly angry at the role played by public service and administration minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, who is also a senior leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP). "A visibly upset ... Fraser-Moleketi was booed off a platform by ... striking public servants at the Union Buildings in Pretoria", reported the South African Press Association on September 16. "Despite efforts from union leaders to try and calm the protesters, Fraser-Moleketi was forced to leave hurriedly amid a strong police escort."
In Cape Town, protesting workers carried a cardboard coffin with the words "Geraldine" and a photo of the public service minister pasted on it.
In the days leading up to the strike, Fraser-Moleketi threatened to increase all workers' income taxes if the government was forced to pay public servants more. South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) negotiator Fikile Hugo accused Fraser-Moleketi of attempting to "split and divide" the public sector unions from their private sector counterparts.
"She calls herself a communist, but expects COSATU unions to sign an agreement under which public servants will get almost no increase next year and the year after that", a COSATU official told the September 14 Beeld newspaper.
Incongruously, COSATU president Willie Madisha told the September 15 Beeld: "The minister [Fraser-Moleketi] is my comrade. If SADTU is challenging the government as an employer, it does not mean there is discord in the ANC's alliance with COSATU." Clearly, this view is not shared by others in COSATU. SADTU's KwaZulu-Natal secretary-general Sipho Nkosi bluntly told the September 15 Durban Witness: "We are at war with minister Geraldine Moleketi."
Police estimated that 35,000 workers gathered in Nelspuit, in Mpumalanga province, 20,000 workers marched to the parliament buildings in Cape Town and 20,000 protested in Durban, while thousands of workers turned out in most provincial capitals.
Teachers were prominent in the demonstrations, highlighting the fact that they have not had a real wage increase since 1996. COSATU general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi reminded marchers in Pretoria that many teachers take home just 3500 rand ($875) a month. Their working conditions have deteriorated severely, with many working in schools with no electricity or running water, classrooms that are falling apart and classes with 40 or 50 students. He added that nurses earn less than teachers and must work long shifts, "travel around townships in the dead of night and work through weekends and holidays".
Teachers in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria, defied the ANC provincial government, which declared September 16 a "normal working day" and ordered to tell parents to send their children to school. Sam Shilowa, Gauteng's premier, is an SACP member and a former COSATU general secretary. However, according to reporters who visited Gauteng schools, few parents had sent their kids to school.
The strike was backed by student groups and other social justice activists. The Treatment Action Campaign, which campaigns for government-funded medicines for people with HIV-AIDS, on September 15 called on the government "to avert a public sector strike by meeting the wage and service demands of the public sector unions".
The TAC noted that the public sector had suffered years of "systematic under-funding" that seriously impacted on people with HIV-AIDS. Poor pay and working conditions caused doctors and nurses to go to the private sector or leave the country. "If the government imposes this pay deal on the public sector it will delay improvement [of the health system] and make a mockery of the government's 'people-centred' public service campaign", the TAC said.
Public service unions have threatened two days of "total disobedience and stayaways" on September 27-28 if the government does not meet their demands. The call has been backed by COSATU.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, September 22, 2004.
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