The growth
January
1978, pointed out that the effect of
"net
American in vestment has been to strengthen the economie and military self-sufficiency of South
Africa's apartheid regime."
of anti-apartheid movement
Big firms under attack
Many of the businesses in the USA produce goods the
General Motors and Ford manufacture cars and trucks used by the police and army; IBM sells computers to the government for streamlining population control
For more than six months the US media has reported on a series of demonstrations that focused the spotlight on US complicity with the apartheid regime in South Africa. Since the media is constantly in search
"new" news, with yesterday's story to be quickly swept aside by some newer event, this fact itself indicates the remarkable depth of the sentiment in opposition to any ties the US government or US corporations have with the regime.
Of particular embarrassment to the press has been the development of large-scale student protests across the country. After having concluded that the students of today were definitely not like the students of the the media was totally unprepared for the campus explosions.
Recently the press had profiled students supporting Reagan-like politics - into their careers and personal life, working
"yuppies." When anti-apartheid activity, the media covered it all the more avidly.
The truth of the matter is that in some ways the student protests are similar to those of the 1960s, and in some ways dissimilar. There is the moral indignation that fueled the student protests of a generation ago. Students disrupt the approach and, as part university community, institutions divest themselves of stock companies that operate
Africa. They threw up pickets, renamed campus buildings honor of Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela and organized participated in wide demonstrations in front of South that have taken place since November. On April 24, more than eighty campuses participated in the nationally-coordinated Day of
Such a demand for ending compli-
, as being depoliticized — or the campuses erupted in
Since the Soweto uprising a number of churches, universities and trade unions withdrawn firms and banks doing business in South Africa. By late 1984 forty universities had taken full or partial action. In fact, divestment legislation has passed in five states and twenty All of these successes took place under the pressure of coalitions led by unionists and the Black community. In government workers who were fighting to funds freed from investment with corporations who offices and plants in South Africa.
Thus a solid basis for divestment has campaign against The Polaroid company, of cameras and camera equipment. That grass roots campaign -were involved - exposed the company's dirty business of providing photographic materials to the government and its military apparatus.
data. Major US oil companies - including Exxon, Mobil, Texaco and Standard Oil of California - supply oil to South Africa in violation of the OPEC embargo. Fluor Corporation of California also provided 4.2 billion dollars worth coal-to-oil conversion plants to help the regime withstand the embargo.
Currently US corporations 75% of South Africa's computer market, 23% of the automobile market, the petroleum producers and a large portion of its electronics important building block for key sectors of the economy, especially where advanced technology is subsidiaries in the country. Their average rate of return on investment between 1979-82 ran at nearly 19%. In addition, more than 125 US banks have made loans to either the government or private
Firms such as Phelps Dodge * the seventh largest US investor in South Africa - take advantage of the apartheid system to increase their own profitability. At its fluorspan mine, Phelps Dodge pays its African workers less than forty cents an hour. The workers put in a 60-hour work week and sleep 12 to a room in migrant labor hostels. This is the very same company that has forced the decertification of the union at its copper mines in Arizona, under the protection of state police. have pointed connections. A September 1984 publication put out by the steel-
"The oppressed Black workers of South Africa and American workers are fighting a common enemy - city with the South African regime 15 29 years of operations, Polaroid pulled not new - students at Columbia University in the mid-1960s organized a massive withdrawal of funds from the Chase African government's prime lenders.
There had been flare-ups on campuses such as Cornell University in the aftermath of the Soweto rebellion in 1976. And just as the protests of the 1960s and late 1970s were directly influenced by the struggle taking place in South Africa at the time, today's protests reflect the current level of struggle there. The fact that the movement within the Black community in South Africa is being led by students and trade unionists had also had an impact here in suggesting parallel links. International Viewpoint 15 July 1985
The US Chamber of Commerce in South Africa and a grouping of South African companies have acknowledged that there appears to be a gathering momentum" for US divestment. They took the unusual step of placing a 10page supplement in the October 1984 issue of Fortune magazine, in order to mount a counter-campaign. En Total US financial involvement in South Africa, including direct investment, bank oloans and shareholdings, stands at 14 billion dollars. Since 1970 direct US investment in the country has tripled. A report by the US Senate Subcommittee on Africa, issued in corporate greed. Many of the US firms profiting from apartheid are also guilty of racism here at home."
There are, however, two striking differences between the campus protests of today and those of twenty years - awareness of the connections between a number of foreign and domestic policies in which the government takes the side •of the corporations, against the interests of the majority of working people - organized labor's involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle.
Already unions that oppose economic involvement with South Africa include the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, United Auto Workers, American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), United Steel Workers America, National Education Association, United Electrical Workers, Warehouseman's International Longshoreman and union, District 1199 (hospital workers), District 65 UAW (primarily blue and white collar workers), and the Fur, Leather and Machine Workers Union. Many of these unions have developed links with the independent Black South African unions and have visited South Africa to observe the working conditions of their counterparts.
On their return, they have issued reports and organized tours for South African trade unionists in the US. Last March, for instance, Emma Mashinini, General Secretary of the Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union of South Africa, an unaffiliated Black union representing 50,000 workers in the retail trades; Edward Mogane, President of the Building, Construction and Allied Workers Union of South Africa, an affiliate of the 130,000 strong Council of Unions of South Africa, and Nelson Nthombeni, President of the National Union Textile Workers, an affiliate of the 110,000 member Federation of South African Trade Unions, were all featured speakers at a Labor and South Africa Conference in New York City. Students and working people unite
Given this context, it is not surprising to discover that when 156 students were arrested for anti-apartheid activity at the University of California at Berkeley last spring, 500 longshoremen meeting in San Francisco adjourned their convention in order to go to the Berkeley campus and express their concrete solidarity with the blocakaders. The students' demand: that the university end its 1.6 billion dollars investments in companies that operate in South Africa. The longshoremen, for their part, are refusing to load or unload
Crossroads - Blacks are forced into worst living conditions (DR) TO South African cargo.
Likewise, at Columbia University, where students demanded that the administration pledge to divest the campus of 42 million dollars worth of stock, clerical workers who are still fighting for a union contract worked closely with the Coalition for a Free South Africa. Daily rallies, held at lunchtime and after work, drew many campus workers. Much of the community support work for the Columbia students was organized by trade unionists, often Black trade unionists. A union of teamsters, who had divested their own pension funds, gave an initial check for 1,000 dollars and pledged 100 dollars a day for the duration of what was a 22-day blockade. AFSCME, a large union of government workers, provided the large plastic sheet that, when unrolled, completely protected the area where the blockaders vigiled - keeping -the students dry during the spring rains.
Other unions donated their musical talents, blankets, food and legal assistance. Each day delegations of trade unionists came to the campus, with statements of support.
The pattern at Columbia and Berkeley was repeated at campuses across the country - organized labor gave material support and joined the rallies and picket lines.
During the 1960s the high employment and general economic prosperity blurred the vision of even very committed anti-Vietnam war activists from drawing socialist conclusions. But today the parallels between US foreign and domestic policies are much more apparent. The contrast, too, between US support to the South African regime and US hostility to Nicaragua helps to educate students and working people about the nature of the government.
At Columbia there was a conscious decision to end the blockade last April and sink deeper roots in Harlem, the Black community from which the university remains aloof. A series of fall conferences, where students can develop a functional national network are in the planning stages. Meanwhile city-wide demonstrations around both symbolic, daily civil disobedience takes place in front of South African consulates in major cities like New York and Washington, DC. All these activities indicate the direction of the movement; toward broadening its base of support, fueled by the energy and resources of both students and working people, and toward placing the US government's commitment to South Africa against the desires and aspirations of the majority, both at home and abroad.
International Viewpoint 15 July 1985