The UCT Workers Forum has been struggling for years to provide a single organisational framework for everyone working at UCT regardless of employer, sector, union and whether unionised or not. However union organisation is fragmented, suffering from the impact of retrenchments and outsourcing, and weakened by a dominant politics of class collaboration. This fragmentation is not an accident. It is easier to underpay and impose bad conditions on workers who are weakly organised.
All of this weighs heavily or friends and family.
When the human rights of prisoners are violated in such an open way, their families are also under a constant threat of chauvinist violence from Sinhala forces.
Sudesh Nandiimal Silva is a typical example. He is a railway worker who was taken into custody on April 27. His aging parents contacted the local police to tell them they, his wife and six month old baby and unemployed sister were being threatened with violence by local goons. Not only did they offer no support, they instead advised that they leave the area.
Through the intervention of the Committee for the Disappeared in support of this and many other families and individuals worse violence has been averted, as it has been made clear that people are watching and such repression cannot take place with impunity. on those providing the labour on which UCT depends. That situation is only going to be changed by their own resistance.
The strikes show the possibilities - the task is to build on them through united organisation and action around unified demands. •Fonathan Grossman is a member of the Socialist Group, and active in the UCT Workers Forum. • This is an edited version of an article from the March edition of The Apdusan, African People's Demo-cratic Union of Southern Africa; Email: [email protected]
The situation has become so extreme that even the normally friendly British government has been shamed into announcing a freeze on foreign aid at the beginning of May.
A British High Commission spokesperson said Britain's debt relief to Sri Lanka was £3 million, but that half of it was being withheld because of "rights concerns".
In this context, it almost beggars belief that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has invited the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to address their conference in Geneva in May-June 2007, as a keynote speaker. A President who bans May day rallies under the emergency powers should be welcomed by the ILO?
Sri Lankan human rights activists and trade unionists are calling for a campaign of protest. Email [email protected] now to add your voice.