The leaflet discusses overwhelming evidence of South African government persecution of labor unions. Union leaders are frequently detained, arrested, or assassinated; workplace actions called by unions are being swiftly defeated; the African National Congress (ANC) has collected evidence showing that the government is encouraging the formation of vigilante groups in workplaces, townships, and the single-sex hostels in which black workers are forced to live separate from their families. The leaflet says 600 members of the Food Service Workers Union at the Early Bird Farm in Bethel were permanently fired after a week-long, legal strike that began May 19, 1991; they were replaced by workers...
The leaflet discusses overwhelming evidence of South African government persecution of labor unions. Union leaders are frequently detained, arrested, or assassinated; workplace actions called by unions are being swiftly defeated; the African National Congress (ANC) has collected evidence showing that the government is encouraging the formation of vigilante groups in workplaces, townships, and the single-sex hostels in which black workers are forced to live separate from their families. The leaflet says 600 members of the Food Service Workers Union at the Early Bird Farm in Bethel were permanently fired after a week-long, legal strike that began May 19, 1991; they were replaced by workers belonging to the Inkatha Freedom Party, which has been implicated in government-sponsored violence. The leaflet discusses Jay Naidoo, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Alf Woodington, and NUMSA (National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa). The leaflet says union activists have organized local consumer and utility boycotts, launched ANC branches, and led work stoppages to improve workplace conditions, wages, and job security. The leaflet asks people to write Minister of Law and Order Adriaan Volk to condemn the excessive violence by the South African police against labor unions and to call for the disarming and disbanding of bantustan vigilante and police forces. The leaflet asks people to write State President F.W. de Klerk to support the ANC's call on April 5, 1991 to phase out workers' hostels and other labor compounds and transform them into family and single-occupancy units. The leaflet asks people who belong to a union to join the national "Hands Off Labor" Campaign and says for more information contact the Africa Fund.
