South Africa Striking Figure

By John Greenwald

The 21-day walkout had just ended, but Cyril Ramaphosa could not slow down. The general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers was in his Johannesburg office at 7 a.m. to arrange for the reinstatement of 37,000 workers who had been fired during the strike. An hour later, Ramaphosa received shocking news: an explosion at the St. Helena gold mine in the Orange Free State had killed ten miners outright and snapped an elevator cable, sending at least 52 other workers plunging to their deaths. For the rest of that day and into the night, Ramaphosa received almost hourly reports on the futile efforts to reach the crushed elevator more than 4,000 ft. down the mine shaft. At the same time, he meticulously planned for Tuesday's negotiating session on the rehiring of the fired workers.

Long hours and deep compassion for his men are typical traits of Ramaphosa, 34, a black lawyer who has emerged as South Africa's newest political star. In the five years since its founding, the black union he heads has grown into the 210,000-member force that last month engaged South Africa's gold and coal mineowners in the nation's longest strike. While the union angered some members by settling for the same package of 15%-to-23% pay raises that the companies first offered, the strike marked a turning point in black-white labor relations. Calling the walkout a "dress rehearsal" for a strike next year, Ramaphosa pledged to "continue our fight for a living wage until all our demands have been met, and 1988 is the year that we will receive what is demanded."

The grandson of a miner and the son of a policeman, Ramaphosa grew up in Soweto, the sprawling black township outside Johannesburg. He says his greatest regret is that he never worked in a mine. Instead, he entered law school in 1972, though he did not graduate until nine years later. In the meantime, Ramaphosa was busy helping to lead the Black Consciousness movement, whose charismatic young founder, Steve Biko, died in 1977 of injuries sustained while in police custody. Ramaphosa headed the university section of the South African Students Organization, a radical umbrella group that gave rise to several militant student factions that remain active today.

Arrested in 1974 for organizing a rally for rebels in Mozambique, Ramaphosa spent eleven months in jail. He was held for six more months in 1976 under the Terrorism Act, one of a battery of South African laws aimed at cracking down on dissidents. Since then, Ramaphosa has moved away from the Biko philosophy that only blacks have a role to play in overthrowing apartheid and toward the view that all racial groups should join in ending the system.

Two years after the government gave full recognition to black unions in 1979, Ramaphosa collected his law degree and joined the legal staff of the Council of South African Unions, a black labor organization that was trying to form a national black miners' union. Ramaphosa became the mine workers' general secretary the following year and learned a string of hard lessons when he led three strikes that lasted no longer than 48 hours each. Yet the union's membership grew steadily, and its tactics became bolder. Said Johannesburg's Business Day of last month's walkout: "The union demonstrated an impressive and growing ability to organize and control large-scale industrial action."

A cool bargainer with a deep, soft voice, the stocky Ramaphosa wears warm-up jackets and open-necked shirts to work and is equally comfortable amid the jumble of miners' hostels and seated at the bargaining table in posh hotels. "I have the highest regard for him," says Johann Liebenberg, chief negotiator for the Chamber of Mines, which represents the mineowners. "He is very astute and sophisticated -- a very capable leader." Liebenberg describes Ramaphosa as a shrewd negotiator who is adept at changing moods, from affability to iciness and back again, as the situation warrants.

Ramaphosa is in favor of a socialist economy and calls for state ownership of South Africa's mines. Though his vigor and visibility would seem to propel him toward the front ranks of antiapartheid politics, he has so far steered clear of such larger aims. He has, for instance, kept the mine workers out of the United Democratic Front, the antiapartheid political organization that includes several other black unions. In any case, the workaholic Ramaphosa might have difficulty finding time for politics. The black daily Sowetan once noted that while Ramaphosa's marriage ended in divorce, "he now seems married to the union, and that is working out."

With reporting by Bruce W. Nelan/Johannesburg