South African strikes cross racial boundaries

South Africa has a long history of labor activism and strikes here are an annual tradition. But while this year`s strikes have been particularly disruptive, they are noteworthy for another reason: In a country that shed apartheid just over a decade ago, white and black workers are beginning to fight together for the first time - transcending race to join forces through common economic interests.

"For the first time, labor is talking as labor. It`s not a race engagement. It`s a class matter," says Moferefere Lekorotsoana, a spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which represents largely black unskilled miners but is this year negotiating jointly with Solidarity, a union representing more skilled workers, most of whom are white and Afrikaans.

Eleven years into the "new South Africa", the country`s economic prospects are positive. The economy has bounced back from the sanctions and economic stagnation of the last years of apartheid and is now growing at more than 4 percent a year. International investors, like the British bank Barclays, are returning, and the country`s currency is strengthening, giving South Africa greater power in the international market.

But many workers here feel that the benefits aren`t trickling down. This year`s strikes have been harder fought, and in some cases more violent, than in the recent past. Workers complain that the wages of executives and top management are skyrocketing while ordinary workers, many of whom support large families, are struggling to get by on wages whose real value is shrinking. At least one mining executive, unions point out, makes more in one day than most workers make in a year.

                                 

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