South African Unions Set to Strike

<strong>South African Labor Unions Set To Strike<br>
by JoNina M. Abron</strong><br><br>
(Durban, South Africa) -- Some four million people are expected to join in a two-day nationwide strike starting Wednesday to protest the government's plan to privatize several state-owned industries.
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The strike has been called by the 1.8 million-member Congress of South African Labor Unions. COSATU, along with the Communist Party of South Africa, is part of the country's ruling alliance led by the African National Congress.
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The national labor strike comes three days after leaders of South Africa's auto workers temporarily halted a strike for better pay and working conditions. Leaders of the auto workers and management are attempting to negotiate a settlement. According to news reports, the government blames the auto industry strike for the decline in the value of the South African rand.
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COSATU leaders believe that the ANC's plans to privatize such state-run industries as telecommunications, public transport and arms manufacturing will result in a massive loss of jobs for workers in these industries, the majority whom are black.
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Some political analysts say that to embarrass the government, COSATU has timed the strike to coincide with Thursday's opening here of the World Conference Against Racism. Mbeki lashed out at COSATU, a long-time ally of the
ANC, in his weekly column in The ANC Today, the government's on-line weekly publication. "One of the lies they (COSATU) tell is that our government has betrayed policies agreed on by the broad movement with regard to the issue of the restructuring of state assets."
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Gwede Mantashe, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, an affiliate of COSATU, told The Sunday Independent of Johannesburg that the strike would be an example of "popular democracy vs. representative democracy.
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"Our representatives (ANC) think they have the right to make decisions notwithstanding the views of those of us who put them there. Well, we're going to show them that this is not the case."