The strike that shook South Africa's new elite

[Hannah Bell]

Some 1.3 million South African public-sector workers have suspended their strike after nearly three weeks in a battle that saw the some of the largest police attacks on labor since the fall of apartheid...Brian Ashley, a member of the editorial collective for Amandla magazine in South Africa, talked to Lee Sustar about the background to the strike and its political implications.

WHAT WAS the popular reaction to the strike?

THE STRIKE was under massive public attack from the government, the mass media and the middle classes. Workers are accused of causing death and intimidating people from accessing public hospitals, schools, etc.

But if you listen to the grassroots, and the phone-in shows on radio and TV, it's absolutely clear that there was massive support for the strike. And the strike was extremely militant. In spite of the efforts of the trade union leadership to try and settle it, recent government offers were rejected by members until the strike was suspended.

These are very clear indications of the real level of anger on the ground. Some of the anger has to do with the previous loss of legitimacy of the Zuma administration. But the social movements and the left rallied to the strike. It is a strike that involved many unions inside and outside of COSATU. Even the more conservative public-sector unions haves been in support of the strike.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/09/09/strike-that-shook-south-africa

[Sherman A1]

1. Thanks for Posting