in South Africa in 1999
Anna Weekes
(Media Officer, South African Municipal Workers Union)
1999 has been a year of many contrasts for the labour movement. On the one hand, organised labour under the banner of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) helped sweep the African National Congress (ANC) towards an overwhelming victory in the country's second democratic elections on June 2nd.
On the other hand, the government's Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) macro-economic policy has attacked workers through public sector budget cuts, an imminent review of labour legislation to make it more investor friendly, and the undermining of collective bargaining rights in the drawn out public sector wage dispute.
The lowering of tariffs to far below even GATT levels caused 22 thousand job losses in the textile industry. Horrific stories abound about textile workers arriving at their workplaces only to find the factories closed down and their jobs and pension funds stolen out from under them; and women textile workers being forced into lives of prostitution in order to support themselves.
It has been a key feature of labour media coverage in 1999 that globalisation has not featured as a major issue affecting workers. The SA Clothing and Textile Workers Union's call for the immediate freezing of tariffs at their current levels has not been publicised. The National Union of Mineworkers protest against the European and International Monetary Fund gold sales and accompanying job losses only received major press coverage when a mining boss stepped in and added his voice to the same protest.
The Food and Allied Workers Union's food boycott of Italian multinational Parmalat following a six week strike by workers, was carried by the press as being violent and a move that would discourage investors and ruin the economy. FAWU's complaint that multinationals buy up South African companies and then ignore the labour legislation of the country, was not reflected as valid in the press. The World Bank's foray into direct municipal governance, donating about 5 million US dollars to the City of Johannesburg to implement an unpopular privatisation plan, was hailed by several national newspapers.
A major issue featuring South African workers in 1999 has been the attack by bosses on collective bargaining rights and agreements. This began at the end of July when Public Services Minister Geraldine Fraser Moleketi implemented a pay increase for about two million teachers, nurses, police and other public sector workers that was still under dispute. Bosses in the private sector happily took their cue from the Minister. SAMWU faced a situation where a 30 year water privatisation contract under dispute in Nelspruit, was implemented nevertheless.
The country's biggest union, the National Union of Mineworkers is dealing now with a situation where Canadian Placer Dome plans to retrench 2500 workers in contravention of the Labour Relations Act.
Global union events held in the country have attracted little or no publicity. Recently, the Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR) was held in Johannesburg. This was an important initiative, aimed at uniting workers in the South against globalisation, but was not covered by the mainstream press.
While I was preparing for LaborMedia, a comrade who is an educator in a rural area near the border of Zimbabwe phoned me. I asked him what was new and he said "Nothing, except capitalism picking up speed with the help of its elder brother globalisation." Comrade Ithumeleng went on to say that "the more a lie is spoken, the more it becomes the truth."
What Ithumeleng was talking about was the perception relayed by South Africa's mainstream press that organised workers are a labour aristocracy, carrying only the selfish aspirations of a labour elite. This perception has been boosted throughout 1999 by both business and government, and taken up actively by not only the mainstream press, but also the public broadcaster. This public broadcaster, the SABC, recently held an inquiry into its own news coverage. It invited submissions from the public on the quality and bias of it's news. Although unions submitted that there were many problems with news coverage, the SABC announced recently that the results of the inquiry was that everything was fine. Some of the problems unions had with SABC news was that labour issues were only covered if there was a strike, and then it was in the context of workers making unreasonable demands and damaging the economy. During current affairs programs, only private consultants from the business world are called upon to give expert opinions, whereas there are qualified economists working within COSATU and it's research wings.
Comrade Ithumeleng went on to suggest that COSATU should take the SABC to the Human Rights Commission for violating the rights of the working class to hear news about their own struggles, and for denying the working class access to media.
The hidden agenda behind the portrayal of workers as an aristocracy is of course to build the groundwork for a downward variation on our hard won labour laws. The constant press coverage given to right wing business commentators and proponents of a free market system like the Democratic Party, meant it was no surprise when Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana announced that workers employed by small businesses would no longer enjoy all the rights afforded by the basic conditions of Employment Act.
The press in South Africa also reflects many worker struggles as ideological manipulations by union leaders. SAMWU's own fight against privatisation has been reflected in this light. The media, urged on by bosses in business and government, refuses to portray workers as part of communities who are affected by job losses, privatisation of municipal services, and GEAR and World Bank inspired budget cuts. Recently SAMWU held a mass march of almost 20 thousand Johannesburg workers protesting the privatisation of many of Johannesburg's services. The union was joined by COSATU, the SA Communist Party, a councillor who had been disciplined for speaking against the privatisation, the Civics umbrella body SANCO, and a representative of street traders who had been removed. Yet the next day, press reports reflected a march of two thousand violent and misguided workers, who didn't even know what they were marching for.
Sometimes the press can hardly be blamed for getting labour media so mixed up. Many of the labour journalists are either news reporters with little interest in labour being moved from beat to beat, or genuine committed labour analysts under pressure from their editors to put a worker unfriendly spin on stories. It must surely also be difficult for journalists to keep up with the doublespeak churned out by government and business. "Ideologically driven privatisation" is just one of the phrases that has been introduced to the media lately to detract from the damaging consequences of privatisation on workers and communities. It was one lone journalist that stated that there is no such thing as ideologically driven privatisation. "Privatisation is privatisation," he wrote.
The freedom of expression guaranteed by South Africa's new constitution cannot be celebrated by workers in any meaningful way while the majority of the press continues to be owned by, and reflect the interests of, a tiny sector of the population.
The Way Forward for Labour Media
South Africa has a growing number of community radio stations across the country, some carrying regular labour slots. Most take up issues affecting workers and the community. Some union members have been active in setting up these radio stations and now host their own radio programmes. This is a major achievement in our country, where six years ago this could not have been imagined. The Centre for Democratic Communications - a projected started by COSATU, has now set up a satellite to feed labour news to all 80 community stations across the country. CDC has also embarked upon a project where workers are drawn in to produce short programmes which are also sent out across the country.
Community radio seems set to grow from strength to strength.
Union produced media is also a lifeline for workers to progressive news. Union campaigns are obviously a focal point for workers to produce and receive propaganda. South African unions are slowly beginning to produce more video documentaries although the very high cost of equipment and digital editing and post production equipment is still a challenge at this stage.
In a country where libraries are few, where many schools don't have electricity, where the majority have no access to telephones or offices let alone computers with modems, for most workers, access to the internet is a faraway dream. However, union branch offices are boosting their information technology capacity slowly but surely.
COSATU and SAMWU have also started a daily news service where media officers spend a few hours every day clipping labour news from all major papers and sending this via e-mail to about 400 subscribers across the country and in the international labour movement. Some union offices are faxing this out to locals where there is no information technology. COSATU is planning to hire a full time writer for this news service as soon as funding is available. The vision for this writer is that he or she would grow the service to include worker friendly analysis of mainstream news, gather the stories from unions that don't make the news, and relay international labour news in a way that is relevant and inspiring to the struggles facing South African workers.
The growth of union websites in the country and access to labour news from unions in the rest of the world via the internet has also been very important in building solidarity. SAMWU's own campaign against privatisation has been aided beyond belief through the efforts of comrades in other parts of the world. These trade union internet activists have sent letters of protest to Ministers, written articles and e-mailed them to South African newspapers for publication, and who have untiringly supplied case studies and research via e-mail to us.
Last year there was a situation where a British water multinational, Biwater, attempted to sue a local internet provider for carrying what they alleged was a defamatory SAMWU press statement. Within a day or two, labournet providers, led by the UK's LabourNet and international public sector federation PSI had set up mirror sites in eight countries, presuming that Biwater would not be able to launch global lawsuits against all of us. They were right. The defamatory statement remains online to this day!
Two trade union libraries in Johannesburg and Cape Town have set up internet centres in the past few months. For a small fee of about 5 US dollars per year, workers can go before or after work to the centre to access the internet with the help of a full-time internet trainer and librarian. Several NGO's are also offering short weekend courses on the internet and research possibilities to trade union members. These kind of initiatives need to be expanded by South African trade unions.
A problem faced by South African workers is a lack of time. Between long hours of work, family commitments, overtime, and very long journeys to and from work on public transport, workers do not have time to "surf the net" at leisure.
It would assist if workers could instantly access a place on the internet where unionists would share the stories of their struggles. There are various sites of this nature - LabourStart in the UK which carries mostly mainstream news, various federation websites which carry valuable research material such as the Public Services International, IMF and ICEM websites, and LabourNet in the UK which carries news written by unionists and by LabourNet staffers. There are listserves performing a valuable function in distributing news. But for the walk-in user with no access to a personal computer good quality and relevant global news to inspire and assist in fighting local workplace struggles, list serves are not much help.
SAMWU sanitation workers suffering from acetaldehyde poisoning were featured in the union's publication. This story was sent online to the union website. A few months later, comrades from Kentucky in America e-mailed to say that it seemed that they were facing the same problem. In the months that followed, SAMWU and the Comrades from NAGE exchanged via e-mail doctors reports on the South African workers, details on how to do air tests, and information on the hazards associated with various chemicals.
It would have helped comrades much more if there was one global site where case studies and solutions to health and safety problems, for example, could have been posted. This site could combine the efforts of unionists and labour media comrades around the world to form a vital nerve centre of information and knowledge, that would help workers fight capitalism in their day to day local union struggles. This conference should investigate the possibility of one website for the workers of the world.