Isolate the Apartheid Regime – Solidarity with South African Workers

Originally published in Inqaba ya Basebenzi No.6 (May 1982)

Inqaba Editorial statement

The unity of the workers of all countries is a necessity arising out of the fact that the capitalist class, which rules over the workers, does not limit its rule to one country… Capitalist domination is international. That is why the workers’ struggle in all countries for their emancipation is only successful if the workers fight jointly against international capital.
Lenin, Draft and Explanation of a Programme for the Social Democratic Party, 1896

For the struggling black workers in South Africa, especially those employed by multinationals, the need to build links of effective solidarity with their fellow-workers overseas is becoming increasingly clear.

Capitalist production, and with it capitalist rule, has spread around the world. All countries depend on trade with each other. Big companies no longer produce for a national market alone, but for a world market. Their factories and their workforce are spread over many countries in a single network of production.

The South African economy forms an integral part of the world capitalist system. It is a major supplier of minerals and other raw materials to the advanced industrial countries, and provides them with a small but invaluable market for manufactured goods.

Also through investment in South Africa, (direct investment alone totalled R23,000 million in 1979), the capitalist class internationally has acquired a huge stake in the apartheid system. For the capitalists, these investments are a “valuable source of dividend income”.[1] One example is the multinational Mitchell Cotts group, whose profits in South Africa shot up by 66% in 1980 and now amount to £4.5 million – half the total profits of the group!

These profits depend completely on the merciless exploitation of black labour. Thus, according to a recent UN report, of nineteen foreign manufacturing companies in South Africa who were willing to give details of their wage-scales, seven paid less than the average industrial wage.

With the growth of the world economy, the class struggle has become international. The capitalist class internationally band together against the workers, creating and manipulating governments to enforce their common interests.

Western capitalist states, despite their democratic shell, actively support the apartheid regime which is the guardian of their interests. This was reflected, for example, in Foreign Minister Botha’s “friendly” meeting with US President Reagan on 15 May 1981 and in the US veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the South African invasion of Angola.

Against the international machinery of the capitalist class, the workers of different countries need to build unity on the basis of their own class interests.

No reliance can be placed on the ‘liberal’ capitalists and their hypocritical ‘disapproval’ of the bloody methods by which their interests in South Africa and elsewhere are enforced. Only the working class itself has the capacity to abolish the vicious repression which capitalism has imposed on working people.

In the struggle against the apartheid regime, real solidarity with the South African workers’ movement can be based only on the power of organised labour internationally.

In the past, South African workers looking for solidarity to the international labour movement have been disappointed by the condescension and failure to respond of the top trade union leaders.

But with the worsening crisis of capitalism and the growing struggles of the workers in every country, the organisations of the working class are being transformed.

The bureaucratic leadership which established itself in the advanced capitalist countries during the years of boom and stability is increasingly being challenged by a militant rank-and-file. Great opportunities now exist of changing the old conservative policies not only nationally but also internationally, and committing the workers’ organisations to a position of active class solidarity.

The potential for international working class unity in action was reflected in the Leyland strike earlier this year. As in 1977, British Leyland workers – themselves facing savage attacks by the British Leyland bosses – immediately proved willing to support their South African fellow-workers.

Shop-floor meetings were held to decide what action to take. At British Leyland’s Cowley plant, Oxford, a resolution was passed calling for maximum support for the strikers and blacking (refusing to handle) goods to South Africa. This call was supported by the local branch of the Transport and General Workers’ Union and the Combine Committee of shop stewards from all the BL plants.

Leading officials of the TGWU, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the British Labour Party expressed support for the strikers and protested at Leyland South Africa’s sacking of the strikers.

Communication

In the meantime, in South Africa, the strikers were standing firm. Support was increasing from other trade unions, from the black population and from sections of whites. It was this pressure, combined with the pressure from the labour movement abroad, that forced the Leyland management to retreat and re-open negotiations with the workers’ union NUMARWOSA.

This rapid response to the Leyland workers’ struggle was only made possible by the channels of communication that have been built-up between independent trade unions in South Africa and the labour movement internationally.

Important lessons can be learned from the Leyland strike and other actions (e.g. the Pilkington struggle of 1976 and the Unilever struggle of 1978) where international working class support was mobilised. The closer and more regular the links between the workers’ movement in South Africa and overseas, the more possible it becomes to organise common action.

South African workers preparing for future struggles should develop and strengthen existing links, and seek new points of contact with the workers in other countries. For our comrades abroad, the task is to gather support for these efforts while building bridges from their own side towards greater international unity.

Fraternal Links

An excellent example has been provided by the Coventry South East branch of the British Labour Party, which put forward a number of proposals to the British Anti-Apartheid Movement for developing greater support for the South African workers’ struggle. These included proposals that the Anti-Apartheid Movement should support the development of fraternal links between South African and British workers – factory-to-factory links, exchange visits between workers’ representatives, and the forming of international combine committees (i.e. committees of shop stewards representing all workers employed by the same multinationals).

These proposals are finding widespread acceptance among the active layers of the British labour movement and have been adopted, for example, by the youth wing of the Labour Party (the Labour Party Young Socialists). An increased awareness of the struggle in South Africa and an increased preparedness to join forces with the South African workers will be the result.

Regrettably, the Executive of the Anti-Apartheid Movement has taken up a different position. In reply to the proposals by the Coventry South East Labour Party, the AAM Executive arrives at the following conclusion:

we do not feel that the AAM should assist in encouraging direct links between British and South African workers, when this is understood to mean the creation of international combine committees and exchange visits.[2]

Direct links, the AAM Executive declares, “can provoke further harassment and in other ways jeopardise [South African] trade unionists’ work”. This is just like opposing a withdrawal of investment from South Africa because it could “jeopardise” South African workers’ jobs. The point of trade union activity, is to build up the forces with which “harassment” can be resisted – including powerful links with our class allies abroad.

The AAM Executive further believes that visits to South Africa, also by trade unionists to meet their fellow-workers, should be discouraged because “there is no need to visit South Africa in order to know the facts about apartheid.”

This is presumably a reference to the fact that leading right-wing trade union officials have made – and continue to make – so-called “fact-finding missions” to South Africa when their real aim is to defend British investments in that country or to use their influence to obstruct or damp down the militancy of the independent unions.

Clearly, we must resolutely oppose and expose such activities, and join with our fellow-workers in the trade union movement in Britain and elsewhere who are struggling to replace the right-wing leaders with genuine class fighters committed to socialism. But it is a dangerously misguided policy to try to counter the activities of the right-wingers by means of a blanket ban on all contact with South African workers.

That would prevent the vital union-to-union, factory-to-factory and worker-to-worker links which are the life-giving oxygen of international solidarity. You might as well have a ‘health policy’ of throttling people in order to ‘save’ them from breathing in pollution with their air supply!

The AAM Executive opposes international combine committees and factory-to-factory links because they are “difficult” and “in South African conditions can be dangerous in the extreme.” But on this basis, should not all other aspects of trade union activity in South Africa be opposed as well, as being “difficult” and “dangerous”?!

It is the task of the workers’ leadership in all countries to fight against wrong ideas and tactics that will hold the struggle back. Undoubtedly the ideas of the AAM Executive – if they find any support – would disrupt the building of international solidarity and weaken the South African workers’ movement.

Sactu

Fraternal links with the South African working class, the AAM Executive believes, should be limited solely to links with the South African Congress of Trade Unions (Sactu).

Many workers will expect a revolutionary lead on the question of solidarity from Sactu, whose exile leaders have had many years to develop, test and refine policies for building the most effective links of struggle with the workers’ movement overseas.

Unfortunately the mistaken position of the AAM Executive is only a faithful reflection of that which is now being put forward by Sactu’s exile leadership itself.

The development towards an international outlook in the pages of Workers’ Unity between 1977 and 1979 has been completely reversed. This change of direction was spelled out in an article in Workers’ Unity (March 1980) dealing with solidarity between British and South African workers.

The article declares that “the solidarity of British workers with their fellow-workers is vital to our struggle…” Yet, as a practical example, it is proudly mentioned that Sactu leaders prevented two British shop stewards from visiting their South African fellow-workers at the request of an unregistered trade union involved in a recognition dispute!

To workers in South Africa fighting to build international support, such action may seem inexplicable. Why do the Sactu leaders, in the name of ‘international solidarity’, propose cutting-off links between workers in South Africa and Britain?

The reason is a somewhat short-sighted – and in our view unnecessary – anxiety on the part of these leading comrades to have Sactu recognised internationally as the sole trade union ‘representative’ of the South African workers.

In reality, comrades, there is no way to gain such recognition in this day and age except by plunging into the real struggle of the mass of the workers inside South Africa and by placing Sactu in the actual forefront of the class battles that are exploding every day.

Inqaba has urged, and would support every step towards, a real effort by the Sactu leadership to build underground foundations within the workers’ movement at home, on the basis of socialist policies. And that very effort, once begun, would immediately reveal to the Sactu leaders the vital necessity of every possible link and mutual support between the rank-and-file workers and their class brothers and sisters in other countries.

Therefore it is all the more strange that Workers’ Unity mentions as a reason against direct worker links that “the struggle … in South Africa cannot be waged in Europe. It must be brought to a successful conclusion by the workers themselves where the struggle exists – in South Africa!” To the extent that this is true, we would have thought it was an argument for links of solidarity to be forged directly with the places where the struggle exists!

No Substitute

Obviously the decisive role in ending South African capitalism will be played by the South African workers. At the same time the workers’ struggle cannot be, and is not, confined to South Africa. This is because of the international nature of the capitalist system.

The point is precisely that the class struggle is not confined to any single country but “exists” between the worldwide forces of capitalism and the worldwide army of labour. South Africa forms one front in this struggle; it cannot be separated from the struggle as a whole.

The present Sactu position, on the other hand, seems to treat the South African struggle as if it were separate. The labour and trade union movement internationally is viewed as an ‘outside’ body, to be asked for support on the basis of sympathy, but with no concern in its own right in the fate of the South African revolution.

This approach leads to all sorts of errors. We wonder whether the comrade of Sactu’s National Executive Committee was reflecting a properly thought-out position when he addressed a meeting of British trade unionists at the recent TUC Conference (which represents twelve million organised workers). “We need nothing from you,” he said, “all we need is money.”

This was in reply to a question on the need for direct links with the South African trade union movement.

Solidarity by British workers, according to this view, should be confined to financial donations and “applying the maximum pressure on the (British) parent companies.” (Workers’ Unity, March 1980). There should be no contact with the South African workers, no direct consultation to co-ordinate action and decide what “pressure” to apply.

‘Solidarity’ with trade unions inside the country, the Sactu speaker at the TUC Conference suggested, could take the form of tape-recorded messages from British trade union leaders. But, Workers’ Unity insists, British trade unions should avoid the “easy [?] solution of sending officials to South Africa or ‘inviting’ this or that trade unionist [??] to come from South Africa.”

Instead, contact should only take place with exile Sactu officials themselves.

That cannot be correct. Nor, we think, is it adequate to ask the trade unions overseas to pay over to Sactu all donations towards supporting strikes in South Africa, on the argument that this is the best means of getting the money through to the SA workers.

Sactu would have to undergo a truly massive development underground in South Africa before its links with the 200,000 workers in the independent trade unions would be equal to such a task.

Inqaba calls for full support for Sactu by the labour movement internationally in any work towards building a revolutionary trade union underground. But we do not believe this this should be an alternative or substitute for massive direct support for the independent trade unions working openly inside South Africa.

The government’s restrictions on trade unions receiving funds must not be tamely accepted, but met if necessary with a head-on challenge, involving the maximum strength of the labour movement internationally.

Nor does ‘solidarity’ mean simply ‘support for the South African workers’. Working class solidarity, in Lenin’s words, means that “the workers fight jointly against international capital” – i.e., struggle together on all fronts.

Joint Organisation

Yet how can this struggle be organised, except through contact between representatives of the active rank-and-file, a constant exchange of views on aims, strategy and tactics, and the fight to develop joint organs there the necessary consultation and decision-making can take place – however long this might take and however “difficult” it might be?

A wrong position on these issues can only disrupt the painstaking efforts by workers inside the country to broaden their struggle internationally. We urge the Sactu leadership to reconsider its position before serious damage is done.

Sanctions must be directed against the bosses and their regime. Real, concrete solidarity must be established between the workers.

Fortunately, the above-mentioned mistaken policies are meeting with growing rejection wherever they are openly debated, and have failed to prevent increasing contact between workers in South Africa and abroad.

Militant workers in South Africa, Britain and all countries will continue to strengthen their links with each other as a necessary weapon in the fight against capitalism.

South African workers should insist on determined efforts by their leaders – both in the country and in exile – to open up new areas of contact and co-operation with the working class movement internationally. We must struggle against all attempts at obstruction by the bosses, the state, as well as by misguided attitudes within our own organisations. There is no other way to defeat the monster of international capitalist reaction.

[1] Financial Times, London, 26 May 1981

[2] Memo dated 27.6.81