South African State Goes ON the Offensive Against Public Sector Strike. More Than One Million Out

The South African government got a judge to issue an injunction yesterday  prohibiting public sector workers from continuing their national strike.  Despite this, trade Union leaders have so far refused to tell workers to return to work. There are more than a million workers off the job  and, according to the BBC "Schools are shut, hospitals barricaded and roads blocked". Although bosses can intimidate and threaten workers every day on the job, commit workplace terrorism really, the injunction also prevents nurses and teachers from intimidating colleagues who refuse to take part in the strike. In other words, we can't effectively stop scabs, they must be free to cross picket lines without hindrance is what this means.

It's in times like these that the mask comes off the face of the enemy no matter which country, which government workers are up against. South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma has defended workers' right to strike as long as its not effective and doesn't obtain their goals; the usual stuff. It is always workers that are blamed for intimidation and violence, but acts of violence come in many forms, taking away ones job, ones means of subsistence is an act of violence.  Kicking someone out of their home is a gross act of violence. It is the bosses and their system that is violent.

More than one million people on strike doesn't warrant much media attention here in the US but South African workers have a long history of militant struggle against Apartheid and the present strike will rekindle some of that historic militancy.  The Unions involved belong to the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) formed in 1984 and that played such a prominent role in the bringing down of the Apartheid system.  The spreading of the strike to other sectors, especially mining would be the best response to the state's injunction.