The leaflet says The Africa Fund Labor Desk was established in January of 1991 to support expanded contact and communications between South African and US labor at the grassroots level. The Desk works closely with international unions active on South Africa, including ACTWU, AFSCME, the ILGWU, the UAW and the United Mineworkers of America, and with a national network of regional and municipal anti-apartheid labor committees, progressive locals, and union activists to promote solidarity with the 1.2-million-member Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and its affiliated industrial unions. The Labor Desk distributes COSATU Information Bulletins and press releases to activists...
The leaflet says The Africa Fund Labor Desk was established in January of 1991 to support expanded contact and communications between South African and US labor at the grassroots level. The Desk works closely with international unions active on South Africa, including ACTWU, AFSCME, the ILGWU, the UAW and the United Mineworkers of America, and with a national network of regional and municipal anti-apartheid labor committees, progressive locals, and union activists to promote solidarity with the 1.2-million-member Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and its affiliated industrial unions. The Labor Desk distributes COSATU Information Bulletins and press releases to activists coast-to-coast; recent mailings included a report on COSATU's fourth national conference and on the murder of National Education Health and Allied Workers Union organizer Vuyani Mabaxa by the South African Police. The Labor Desk publishes a range of resources on the South African labor movement for activists; current publications include In South Africa The Bloody Campaign Against Organized Labor, exposing the apartheid government's covert war against the unions, and ANC President Nelson Mandela's historic speech to South African mineworkers in April 1991. The Labor Desk is coordinating a national Hands Off Labor campaign to pressure the apartheid government to halt terrorist attacks against the unions and the democratic movement as a whole. It is also working with the UAW, ACTWU and other unions to force the Philadelphia-based Crown Cork and Seal Company to rehire nearly 200 union members fired at their South African subsidiary in October 1991. Making links between U.S. and South African unions organized in the same industry, and often in the same company, is a key priority for the Labor Desk. Earlier this year, the Desk assisted the United Paperworkers International Union in establishing contact with the South African Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union (PPWAWU) as part of UPIU's campaign against the International Paper Company; PPWAWU members at two IP plants in South Africa provided valuable information to UPIU about shopfloor racism and poor working conditions for use by the union at International Paper's shareholder meeting this May. The Africa Fund Labor Desk Coordinator is Mike Fleshman. The leaflet mentions ACTWU (American Clothing and Textile Workers Union), AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), the ILGWU (International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union), the UAW (United Auto Workers), solidarity campaigns, and the ANC (African National Congress). [Note: This document was included in a packet for the "U.S. LABOR AGAINST APARTHEID: A NATIONAL WORKSHOP ON STRATEGIES FOR LOCAL ORGANIZING" held in Philadelphia February 28 - March 1, 1992.]
