South Africa Near Anarchy

President Vows Agreement To End Strike Soon

South African President Jacob ZumaJacob Zuma vowed on Saturday to reach agreement soon to end an 11-day strike of public and some private workers that has created chaos in Africa's most successful nation.

More than 1 million workers in critical areas including hospitals, schools and immigration have walked out because the government is offering them a 7 percent pay raise and they want 8.6

Zuma workers have a right to strike but must maintain basic decency and not abandon people depending on them.

The union representing police, traffic cops and prison guards said their 145,000 members would join the strike Saturday. That would be in defiance of a court order, SA24 News reported.

Union leaders said they would call on private workers to join the strike if their demands are not met by Sept. 2.

The mining industry hadn't been hit by strikers, but on Friday union members working for Richards Bay Minerals walked off the job. The National Union of Mine Workers earlier had said it was considering some kind of action next week.

A report received today from a South African who has been working as a volunteer:

“This has been a very upsetting, unsettling week with the strike and it is not improving. There is the possibility of a transport strike next week which could see no fuel. We are in a state of anarchy.

“Bodies can’t be released for burial across the country because those responsible for signing off on death certificates are on strike and you can’t bury anyone without them, so mortuaries are battling to cope.



“Last night at the hospital it was so quiet but for very many soldiers – I have never seen so many soldiers, all with automatic weapons slung across their shoulders walking through the wards and passages. It’s like being in an occupied zone. They don’t really help, I think they are just there for protection.”

The military said it had sent medical teams to nearly 50 hospitals.

The status of police and municipal workers, who are under a court order to stay on the job, was unclear. Soldiers also have a union and it has indicated they will not allow themselves to be portrayed as strike breakers.

Who could have imagined when the apartheid government allowed black miners to unionize in the early 1980s, under pressure from the mining industry, that it would spread into so many areas. The New York TimesThe New York Times called it a "breathtaking development. The companies said that it was too inefficient to have hundreds of thousands of workers coming and going.

Now the trade union movement was threatening to withdraw from its alliance with the ruling African National Congress and determine which candidates to support in the next elections on an individual basis.

A radical ANC youth league leader’s was again making comments that were likely to inflame the situation. Julius MalemaJulius Malema said if white landowners refused to cooperate with a plan to sell their property to blacks it would be seized. South African media, recently under the threat of new legislation to block their coverage, reported the ruling party had spied on former President Nelson Mandela during a leadership squabble.

President Jacob Zuma, meanwhile, has been in China for several days negotiating a trade agreement.

The country appears to be in the worst shape it has been since successfully switching from white-minority rule following elections in 1994.

One reason the transition was so successful was the African National Congress has held back pressure to raise incomes of the black majority. This has helped the country remain attractive to investors.

Rising violence had created concerns among much of the population before the World Cup. The games appeared to have unified the country.

But in recent weeks workers in schools, hospitals, public works, immigration, waste collection, transport, and roads, as well as police and members of the military, have demanded significant wage increases.

The wage demands cross racial lines now.

Union leaders appear unwilling to bend. Warren Nojekwa, a union negotiator, said Zuma should return to South Africa immediately because "the country is burning."

Strikers allegedly forced their way into a hospital and slashed the tendons of a nurse who continued to work.

Volunteers are risking assault by helping wherever they can.

Babies are being born on streets, and corpses are rotting because mortuaries are closed. AIDs victims and others with serious medical problems are unable to get their medications in many cases.

The strikers want a pay raise of 8.6 percent; the government is offering 7 percent.

Information from an anonymous doctor who keeps going to work: http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/readerblog/2010/08/27/the-strike-at-helen-joseph-hospital/