AUT: Further strikes loom in South Africa

["FRANCO BARCHIESI" <029FRB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Please note, in particular, the end of the following article. In
fact, the South African police opened fire yesterday against students
members of the Congress of South African Students (allied to
the ANC) marching in Johannesburg downtown. Minister of Education,
Kader Asmal, recommended the police to act "mercilessly" against
"disruptors", while ANC spokesperson, Smuts Ngonyana, said that the
shooting will hopefully teach the students that any time they want to
demonstrate they must consult the government first. Maybe this is an
example of that "revolutionary discipline" whose lack was blamed
on the trade unions by ANC Chair, "Terror" Lekota at the congress of
COSATU last week...

Franco

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Independent Online
http://www.star.co.za/


Cosatu threatens further mass action



Cosatu threatens further mass action

August 25 1999 at 10:08AM


Own Correspondents and Sapa

Disgruntled public servants turned out in their thousands in major
centres throughout the country on Tuesday in an unprecedented joint
labour action to back their pay increase demands.

Union officials warned that further mass action could follow if
their conditions were not met by Government.

While the Government has promised it will talk with union leaders,
there is no indication that the Cabinet intends meeting the unions'
pay demands.

Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi told
protesting workers outside Parliament in Cape Town that the Government would
meet their leaders in the Public Service
Co-ordinating Bargaining Council "within days".

Union officials threatened continued mass action if the Government
did not resume pay talks.

"If it takes months and months of confrontation, we are prepared,"
the secretary-general of the Congress of South African Trade Unions
(Cosatu), Zwelinzima Vavi, told about 40 000 protesters at the Union
Buildings in Pretoria, the scene of the largest march in the
country.

Cosatu president Willie Madisha said: "If we come back, it will be
in another form, and it will be too ghastly to contemplate."

Representatives of the 12 unions are scheduled to meet in Pretoria
again on Friday to plan their next move.

In a statement later on Tuesday, Fraser-Moleketi confirmed the
Government had implemented its 6,3 percent final pay rise offer,
amounting to R3,28-billion.

She offered little indication that her department would entertain
further pay talks with the unions, which are demanding an average
7,3 percent increase.

Cosatu estimated that 570 000 workers took part in the protests, but
police and media estimates were much lower.

Durban's courts and schools seemed to bear the brunt of Tuesday's 10
000-strong march by public servant unions to the city centre.

Although the city centre was clogged by the marchers, health and
police services had few, if any, disruptions.

At the end of the march, South African Democratic Teachers' Union
(Sadtu) provincial secretary-general Ndaba Gcwabaza handed over a
memorandum at the City Hall containing their grievances to
provincial minister of agriculture Narend Singh.

Singh pledged to deliver it to KwaZulu-Natal Premier Lionel Mtshali.

Schooling for thousands of KwaZulu-Natal pupils came to an abrupt
halt on Tuesday.

The hardest-hit schools were in former Indian and African areas,
particularly in the Durban area.

Strike action appeared to have had little or no impact at formerly
white schools, where schooling continued uninterrupted.

The chairperson of Sadtu in KwaZulu-Natal, Daniel Mabuyakhulu, said it would
be back to normal at schools from Wednesday.

Many cases were not heard at the Durban Regional and District courts on
Tuesday due to strike action by interpreters and correctional services
members.

Senior public prosecutor of the regional court, Amy Kistnasamy, said
of the 16 courts, only two were functioning normally on Tuesday.

The strike had a violent spin-off in Braamfontein, Johannesburg on
Tuesday, when police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades during a
Congress of South African Students (Cosas) march, when some of the marchers
went on the rampage and damaged shops and cars.


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