Union nurses fight for a free South Africa

The report says it has been a year since Thami Skenjana and Khumbu Mtinjane addressed the INA convention, speaking of the plight of nurses in South Africa. The report says in recent communications to the Illinois Labor Network Against Apartheid, of which INA/D21 is a part, Khumbu and Thami gave an update. The report says at Khumbu and Thami's request, the Network will send a video of Chicago anti-apartheid activities for a union conference next month in SA to "boost the morale of health workers." The report says Labor Network coordinator Harold Rogers visited Johannesburg in August; a long-time anti-apartheid leader, Rogers is an aide to Cong. Charles Hayes and on the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists national executive board. The report says leading a tour of 26 Chicago teachers, Rogers took an hour bus ride to SA's largest public hospital located in Soweto; the hospital, according to Rogers, is about ten times the size of Cook County Hospital; the hospital's 3,000 employees were then on strike, part of 30,000 striking public health employees, including nurses, represented by the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU). The report says viewing the strike from across the street, the Chicagoans were about ready to get off the bus and join the protest; strikers were picketing in a circle near the hospital's main gate, surrounded by SA Defense Force hippos (mini armored tanks); the SADF suddenly opened fire with tear gas and started beating people with clubs without provocation. The report says NEHAWU's strike was a major test of the right of SA public health workers to strike; strike issues included wages and an end to the old apartheid practice of classifying non-professional black hospital workers as "temporary," even those with 20-30 years on the job; the classification system keeps black workers wages low and denies them pension rights and job security. The report says NEHAWU is an affiliate of COSATU, SA's major labor federation; in June COSATU launched a campaign of rolling mass action to stop the escalating violence and to force the government to give up white-minority rule; rallies, consumer boycotts and occupations of government buildings have occurred throughout the country; massive strikes and protests continue today. The report says on Aug. 3, four million workers staged a three-day national strike; people took to the streets all over the country and for a few days COSATU occupied the seat of the national government in Pretoria. The report says SA unions ask U.S. unions to exert maximum economic and diplomatic pressure on President De Klerk and U.S. corporations. The report says on June 16, 1976, while hundreds of thousands of children were boycotting apartheid education, the police opened fire on unarmed school children. The report says hundreds were slaughtered; many more were injured. The report says today, in South Africa, many of the local union leaders were part of the 1976 school uprising. The report says young and militant, South Africa's labor activists are determined that their children will not live under apartheid, no matter what price they have to pay. The report discusses INA (Illinois Nurses Association), the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions), F.W. de Klerk, state-sponsored death squads, a peaceful transfer of power to a majority government, privatization, economic restructuring, the right to strike, democratic rights, and the SADF (South African Defence Force). [Most likely this document was created by a member of the Illinois Labor Network Against Apartheid.]