Speech to Region 4 of the United Auto Workers (UAW). The speech says when it came to South Africa, the UAW and REGION 4 especially, were as always on the right side, the just side, the human side, and you were a large part of the leadership of that side. The speech says for over a couple of decades, I've worked together with the UAW on many issues - to bring justice to the agricultural fields of California, to labor strikes, the ERA, political campaigns, teaching union leaders at the Walter Reuther center, and many fights against the rightwing. The speech says I look forward to working with Paul Korman and with all of you as together we continue to work for human rights and workers rights -...
Speech to Region 4 of the United Auto Workers (UAW). The speech says when it came to South Africa, the UAW and REGION 4 especially, were as always on the right side, the just side, the human side, and you were a large part of the leadership of that side. The speech says for over a couple of decades, I've worked together with the UAW on many issues - to bring justice to the agricultural fields of California, to labor strikes, the ERA, political campaigns, teaching union leaders at the Walter Reuther center, and many fights against the rightwing. The speech says I look forward to working with Paul Korman and with all of you as together we continue to work for human rights and workers rights - and to diminish the hatred, bigotry, racism and sexism that we see all around us today - in the workplace, in our communities and throughout the U.S. The speech says in none of our past battles have I felt so proud to stand with the UAW as during the struggle to crush the tyranny of apartheid, and the cheap labor system upon which it was based, to unshakable the chains of millions of people and to win a free South Africa. The speech says today, I want to introduce to you Cole Wright (UPWU, UFCW, CBTU, SA); Cole and I went to South Africa in March to visit workers and communities to be able to report to workers here on the status of workers there; I really felt that we were going for all of us in local unions who had worked in the Free South Africa movement. The speech says while we were in Johannesburg, at a meeting of 500 metal workers, I spotted a man with a Local 551 hat on, and made my way across the room to say, "Hey, that's in Chicago!" The speech says in South Africa, we visited three cities - Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg, went to several townships outside those cities, visited worksites and one farm, three schools, some people in their homes, a workers education session, met with officials from several different unions, went to union meetings; a tenants meeting, to several hospitals, to Parliament, met with clothing workers; municipal workers, teachers. and metalworkers. The speech says we visited old friends like Kola Mayekiso and Nomonde Ngubo and Bethuel Maserumule, and Khumbu and Thami, nurses from Durban whom we had brought to Chicago several years ago. The speech says we went to a SA company, B.J. Bison, where they make table tops and cabinets; the WORKERS took us through the entire plant, and gave us a complete tour and explanation of everything in the plant. The speech says South Africa today is in a state of TRANSITION; it's been only 1 year since the election took place to install a temporary national government to begin the transition from apartheid to democracy. The speech says there are many constitutional issues being discussed, as well as much discussion of what should be covered in new Labor Relations bills; one thing that is agreed to by all parties, however, is that there will be NO STRIKER REPLACEMENTS allowed. The speech says in years past, the civic organizations in the townships had boycotted services and fees of the apartheid regime. The speech says under apartheid, jobs, land, property and voting rights were stolen and given on the basis of skin color; whites gained all the privileges. The speech says what the apartheid regime had not foreseen was that a Mass Democratic Movement would make SA ungovernable except through alternative democratic structures created by the anti-apartheid forces inside SA. The speech says it is in our interest to stand with SA unions because it, makes sense; U.S. workers cannot compete with their wages, and SA workers cannot live, with them, and they are organized to do something about it not only in SA but in the entire southern continent of Africa. The speech discusses Nelson Mandela, CBTU (Coalition of Black Trade Unionists), UFCW (United Food and Canning Workers), Region 4, the Illinois Labor Network Against Apartheid, Bill Stewart, Dick Ziebell, R.L. Williams, the Caterpillar strike rally, Mike Elliott, Civil Rights Director Norman Coleman, Evelyn Jones, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), Crown, Cork and Seal (Crown, Cork and Seal), Moses Mayekiso, police brutality, military tanks, the international community, the International Metalworkers Federation, international worker solidarity, John Deere, Ford, GM (General Motors), African-American youth, and unemployment. [Notes: By the time this speech was delivered the Illinois Labor Network Against Apartheid no longer existed. UPWU may be the United Port Workers Union.]
