South Africa Show of Force

By JANICE C. SIMPSON.

Suddenly, buses, trucks and taxis were scarce in Johannesburg. The service at restaurants and on the supermarket lines in Pretoria was painfully slow. And the factories around Port Elizabeth were strangely silent. The reason: millions of black South African drivers, waiters, supermarket cashiers, office clerks and industrial workers had taken the day off, producing the largest antiapartheid protest in the country's history.

The nationwide "stay-away" was spearheaded by the Congress of South African Trade Unions, a giant federation of 34 multiracial unions, which claims some 500,000 members. The ostensible reason for the work stoppage was the union's demand that May Day, the international labor day, be declared a national holiday. But the underlying purpose was to show the South African government that the nation's 24 million blacks have the ability to bring the country to a virtual standstill.

Last week's action fell short of a total shutdown. According to the Association of Chambers of Commerce of South Africa, between 70% and 100% of the black work force in major urban areas participated in the one-day strike. As many as 1 million students boycotted their classes. Unfortunately, the protest was marred by the deaths of at least seven blacks in widespread rioting at the end of the day.

The demonstration of black power came just a week after the government rescinded the hated pass laws, which had restricted black movement in the country for more than 70 years. That victory inspired many activists to push even harder for the complete dismantling of the apartheid system. In Washington, the Rev. Leon Sullivan, whose well-known guidelines for U.S. corporate conduct in South Africa have encouraged companies to remain in the country and fight apartheid from within, has urged corporations to push even harder. Said Sullivan: "Our signatories have to do more to support the rights of blacks to work where they want, to integrate neighborhoods, to establish common amenities."

There is, however, growing debate within South Africa's black community about how to achieve those aims. A crowd of about 70,000, mostly Zulus, gathered in a Durban stadium to launch the United Workers Union of South Africa. The Zulu leader, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, criticized the other unions for their calls for economic sanctions against the government. Said Buthelezi: "There are people who want to abuse workers by using them to destabilize the economy. Whoever rules in South Africa in another decade or two will need the wealth, which can only be created by a stable economy."

Nonetheless, the daylong protest marked a triumphant milestone in the history of the country's organized black labor movement. Black unions have been legal in South Africa only since 1979. Marshaling the organizational skills needed to achieve a nationwide strike was their greatest challenge yet. Aware that failure would weaken the unions' image as a potent force in the debate over the future role of blacks in the country, the leaders took pains to assure a strong turnout.

They also demanded that employers pay workers for the time off, just as they would on an official holiday. At first, many employers refused and threatened to penalize absent workers. The conservative Chamber of Mines even appealed to the courts to ban the work stoppage. But when judges ruled that the unions had the legal right to call the strike, some employers agreed to pay their workers for the day. Even at the Chamber of Mines, officials allowed striking employees to count the day as a personal day off.

With reporting by Peter Hawthorne/Durban