If it is the case that exiled leaders of the ANC and Sactu are implicated in these charges against SALEP, it would not, unfortunately, be the first time that they have set themselves \u2013 under SACP influence \u2013 to try to mould Labour Party policy against the demands of the workers\u2019 movement inside South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the time when independent non-racial unions of black workers re-emerged in South Africa in the mid-1970s, a debate developed within the British labour movement on the most effective manner in which to support them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the beginning, the non-racial unions welcomed international labour movement solidarity and, as they built the strength to cope with the issue in practice, called for worker-to-worker contact at all levels to strengthen this support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite this, for a number of years the ANC and Sactu leadership in exile completely opposed all direct links between trade unionists in South Africa and trade unionists abroad \u2013 as also, under their influence, did the leadership of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Position of Unions Inside SA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The position taken by the democratic unions inside South Africa is reflected in the approach of the Federation of South African Trade Unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At its inaugural Congress in 1979 Fosatu resolved to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026strive to establish and assist its affiliates in the establishment of international worker contact so as to create common rights and conditions of employment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In a recent document (June 1984) Fosatu has spelled out this position more fully:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fosatu believes in international worker contact in order to pursue the following goals.<\/p> 1. To build international worker solidarity in the struggle against the economic, social and political oppression of workers.<\/p> 2. To build effective worker organisation to counter and reduce the power of the multinational corporations (MNC\u2019s).<\/p> 3. To support workers struggles in other countries in whatever way Fosatu can.<\/p> 4. To ensure that the institutions of the international trade union movement are not being used by anti-worker forces to create divisions and a loss of independence within the South African worker movement.<\/p> 5. To assist in increasing the international condemnation of and pressure on the present racist regime.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The position of the exiled leaders of the ANC and Sactu has been entirely different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As recently as April 1982, Workers\u2019 Unity<\/em>, the official organ of ANC-controlled Sactu published an article headlined \u201cDIRECT LINKS \u2013 STINKS!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a position paper submitted in 1982 to the Africa Sub-Committee of the Labour Party NEC, the African National Congress stated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The call of the South African people for the total isolation of apartheid South Africa has been endorsed by the international community and is the policy called for by the United Nations, the OAU and the Non Aligned Movement. Any links with South Africa are a breach of that policy and exceptions inevitably weaken the case for such isolation.<\/strong> [Our emphasis.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The British Anti-Apartheid Movement leadership, despite a struggle waged by many AAM members, has stood for the same position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 27 June 1981, in response to a call by an AAM-organised National Mobilising Conference of labour movement activists, the AAM National Committee stated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026we do not feel that the AAM should assist in encouraging direct links between British and South African workers, when this is understood to mean the creation of international combine committees and exchange visits. <\/strong>[Our emphasis.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Exiled Leaders Oppose Direct Links<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What arguments have these ANC, Sactu and AAM leaders and their supporters in the British labour movement used to defend their opposition to direct links?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The April 1982 Workers\u2019 Unity<\/em> article is a representative example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey try to trick us with a new slogan \u2018direct links\u2019\u201d, it states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They say trade unionists from Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany and other capitalist countries should come to visit us in our South African prison and we should visit them in America or wherever.<\/p> The Special Branch stands at the gate of our prison \u2013 at the borders and at the airport. All who enter or leave are controlled and followed… It is true, not all who visit us are arrested but then we ask the question, why? It is because they are doing what the Special Branch wants them to do and are acting as a lead to us in the underground or because your reformism does not threaten the regime. Why do you visit us? It does us no good and puts us and our organisation in jeopardy.<\/p> It is difficult for some to refuse your invitations to America or Britain. But what can we learn there? What can the AFL-CIO teach us about revolution. We don\u2019t need lessons in class collaboration…<\/p> \u2018Direct links\u2019 are nothing more nor less than a new form of colonialism in which the far Left joins the far Right in opposing the Congress movement in South Africa.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n For them, in other words, direct worker-to worker contact:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, the arguments of the exiled leaders, when boiled down, reveal an unfortunate lack of understanding of \u2013 even a contempt for \u2013 what has been involved in the magnificent rebuilding of trade unions against the brutal repression of the SA state over the last decade. They reveal a clear lack of confidence in the capacities, intelligence and vigilance of the democratically-constituted workers\u2019 movement in South Africa in handling its own affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On all the questions involved the democratic workers\u2019 movement within South Africa has given its own clear answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, at an AFL-CIO-organised conference in Washington in January this year, the President of the Council of Unions of South Africa \u2013 an organisation not in fact noted for being on the \u2018far Left\u2019 of the SA independent trade union movement \u2013 made it clear that CUSA \u201cwill not tolerate any kind of trade union imperialism\u201d. On the platform with him as he said this were AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland and AFL-CIO International Affairs Director Irving Brown: they \u201csat staring straight ahead\u201d.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n A group of American labour movement activists who visited the South African trade unions recently reported how, everywhere they went, they faced the same 15-minute series of questions from workers about who they were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n They couldn\u2019t relax until they had asked their key question.<\/p> \u2018Are you connected to the AFL-CIO?\u2019<\/p> As it turned out, they were not looking for \u2018official\u2019 credentials before they would talk openly. Just the opposite, in fact.<\/p>And yet there is hope: an eyewitness report on South Africa\u2019s Labor Unions, American Labour Education Centre<\/em>, No. 27, 1984<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The African National Congress, in 1985, endorsed the visit of Senator Edward Kennedy to South Africa \u2013 a representative, not just of the class-collaborationist US trade union leadership, but of the ruling class itself<\/strong>. And yet they oppose genuine worker-to-worker contact!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, both in the organisation of workers\u2019 visits to South Africa, and in visits by South African workers abroad, risks are involved. But this is why the democratic trade unions within South Africa have laid down guidelines \u2013 such as those contained in the June 1984 Fosatu International Policy Statement \u2013 for how those visits should be organised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The essential point in these guidelines is that the visits should be by invitation and arrangement with the democratic unions themselves, and under the vigilance and control of the organised workers within South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Workers who have had to fight every inch of the way to establish their organisations against bullets, baton charges, tear gas, bannings, murder and intimidation are perfectly capable of assessing and overcoming the risks involved in exchange visits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, it is a gross insult to workers who have built the most democratic organisations South Africa has ever seen in the teeth of state repression to imply that their democratically-elected leaders are puppets of the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the Special Branch, which stands at the borders and the airports of South Africa \u2013 as well as in the mines, townships and factories \u2013 is unable to prevent genuine direct links, it is for the same reason that it is no longer able to prevent trade union organisation itself: because of the growing power, determination, organisation, and consciousness of the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ANC and Sactu leadership in exile has, to our knowledge, never condemned the international travel of United Democratic Front leaders, or Bishop Tutu, or even Chief Gatsha Buthelezi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet they insist that workers\u2019 leaders with passports are under the control of the regime. At a recent meeting in London, one such exiled spokesman had the effrontery to directly challenge a Fosatu shop steward for travelling on an SA passport: he was thereby, stated this \u201cpolitician\u201d, recognising the legitimacy of the apartheid regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Fosatu worker, needless to say, had no difficulty squashing his arrogant accuser flat!<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Fall-Back\u2019 Position<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Actually, against the contrary pressures from the workers\u2019 movement within South Africa, the ANC, Sactu and AAM leadership in Britain have been unable to sustain the position of complete opposition to direct links which they started with. Recently they have adopted a \u2018fall-back\u2019 position. Direct links, they have argued, should take place only with the permission of the ANC and Sactu leadership in exile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a long time, the ANC, Sactu and AAM leadership argued that, since no genuine trade unionism could exist within the country openly, Sactu were \u201cthe only\u201d representatives, the \u201conly genuine messengers\u201d of the South African working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While it has always been quite correct to support Sactu in any genuine work which it might undertake to assist the development of the trade union movement inside South Africa, these claims were quite impermissible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over twelve years, genuine trade unions have been rebuilt, almost solely as the result of the efforts of workers within South Africa itself. Some 500,000 workers are now organised in democratic trade unions inside the country. Most of these unions would wish to be spoken for only by their own democratically-elected representatives. Sactu-in-exile can in no way claim a right to exercise a veto on their activities \u2013 whether in building direct links or in any other way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent years Sactu-in-exile has been forced to abandon its old fiction, of being the only \u2018authentic\u2019 organisation of the black South African workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it has continued to claim that unionisation in South Africa has been the result of the work of its own \u201cunderground\u201d activists. \u201cSactu is everywhere\u201d, Sactu spokesmen have frequently claimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But now these claims are being tested. In recent months Sactu has in fact re-emerged openly within South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sactu, states the Sunday Tribune<\/em>:[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026has begun organising openly in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and PE… Lawyers point out that while the ANC is banned, Sactu itself is not banned although its leadership was arrested, banned or exiled along with the ANC.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This re-emergence takes place at a time when the overwhelming majority of the organised workers \u2013 in Fosatu, in CUSA, and in other unions including the Food and Canning Workers and the General Workers Union \u2013 are preparing to launch a new federation embracing hundreds of thousands of workers in the course of this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However it is not these unions that are associated with the re-emergence of Sactu. It is rather, states the same report, the SA Allied Workers\u2019 Union, the Clothing Workers\u2019 Union, the Domestic Workers\u2019 Association and the Media Workers Association of South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apart from SAAWU \u2013 which, unfortunately, has withdrawn from the discussions towards the establishment of the new federation \u2013 these other unions are small organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is certainly to be hoped that they do not intend to create divisions in the democratic workers\u2019 movement by forming themselves into a rival minority federation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, whether or not this is the case, through this re-emergence Sactu reveals its actual forces and support on the ground \u2013 and completely undermines the claim of its exile leaders to be \u2018the only\u2019 representative of the South African black workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nor is it correct that any veto over the activities of the democratic trade unions should be exercised by the ANC leadership in exile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No trade unionist in Britain would accept the right of the Labour Party NEC to veto the decisions made by his or her trade union. Why should black South African workers, who are struggling for democracy against a vicious dictatorship, accept any external veto on decisions democratically reached in their own trade unions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Without a doubt, among the members of these trade unions there are tens and even hundreds of thousands who see themselves as ANC supporters. But they take part as union members in the discussion and formulation of policy through the unions themselves \u2013 on the question of direct links or any other trade union matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So long as the ANC is exiled and illegalised, the rank-and-file ANC supporters in SA have no opportunity, in any event, to express their views on ANC policy in any organised democratic way through the ANC itself. All the more, therefore, must the democratic decision-making processes of the unions be taken seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Labour Party Policy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For a considerable time, unfortunately, opposition to direct links was the policy adopted by many left-wingers in the British labour movement, under the pressure of the exiled ANC and Sactu leadership \u2013 and despite the position taken by workers within South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is reflected in the letter we have already quoted, which opposed links between Ruskin College and the Institute of Industrial Education in the name of \u201ctotal boycott\u201d and on the grounds that \u201cthere can be no effective African working class organisation within the present repressive economic and political structure in South Africa\u201d.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n While the re-emerging trade unions were still small, this position while still fundamentally mistaken, was understandable. However it became untenable in the light of the actual growth of the non-racial trade-union movement inside South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because of the contradiction between the position taken by the exiled ANC and Sactu leadership and that taken by the democratic trade unions within the country, the Africa Sub-Committee of the Labour Party initiated, in 1982, an extensive investigation of the question of direct links, consulting directly with the unions inside SA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those on the committee who were under the influence of the South African Communist Party nevertheless continued to oppose direct links. But the eventual committee decision was to support the position taken by the democratic unions inside South Africa. This position was endorsed by the NEC and published as NEC Advice Note No. 7 (February 1983), \u201cLabour Movement Relations with South African Trade Unions\u201d. Quite correctly, and despite the stated positions of the ANC and Sactu leadership in exile, the Labour Party arrived at its own independent decisions on the question, taking into account the broad interests of the working class movement within South Africa and internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a9\u00a0Transcribed from the original by the Marxist Workers Party (2020).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/a> Labor Notes<\/em>, February 1985<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a> 17 March 1985<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a> Guardian<\/em>, 22 March 1975<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Continue to Part 5<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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