On the 22nd January African workers struck in the V.F.P. plants along the Reef. The Gas and Power Workers' Union stated that 4,000 struck for higher wages, for two-weeks holiday with pay every year, and for recognition of the trade union. The workers were earning 16/- a week, living in concentration camp barracks, and were working as slaves. The company made £1 [3/5] million profit during the past year.

The Trade Union Leaders

On the 22nd January African workers struck in the V.F.P. plants along the Reef. The Gas and Power Workers' Union stated that 4,000 struck for higher wages, for two-weeks holiday with pay every year, and for recognition of the trade union. The workers were earning 16/- a week, living in concentration camp barracks, and were working as slaves. The company made £1 [3/5] million profit during the past year.

The Trade Union Leaders

The African workers were at once imprisoned inside the compounds by the military and police. African soldiers, from the Native Corps, were ordered to work the plants and to scab. A number of White workers, according to some reports, were not eager to go on working while their black brothers were out on strike, but the White workers got no courageous lead from their trade union officials. The leaders of the strikers lacked the militant spirit to carry on and to fight the bosses, even though the position of the African soldiers and the white workers made this fight very difficult. And so, after two heroic days, the strikers were forced to go back to work, with the empty promise that their demands would be "considered" (that is put on the shelf) after the Native Wages Commission had made its statements. This means that the strikers will get nothing or next to nothing, because the V.F.P. company is tied up with the powerful Chamber of Mines which refuses to give its workers a living wage. Surely the trade union leaders know this, know that by giving in to the V.F.P. bosses they are losing the fight? Why did they start the strike in the first place? Or was the strike started from below, with the leaders out of touch with the workers? In both cases the trade union leadership is at fault. The workers have a right to demand that the union FIGHT for their demands and does not say JA-BAAS to the bosses.

The White Workers

The trade union leadership is one reason why the strike was broken. The second reason is that WHITE LABOUR DID NOT STAND BY BLACK LABOUR. It was the duty of the White union to come out in support of the black workers. The black workers always support the whites. If the whites had given this support the strike would not only have stood a great chance of success, but would have spread to other industries, chiefly those which cannot work without electric power. No troops could do the work of the skilled White workers in the V.F.P. The company would have had to give in, not only to the demands of the black workers, but to any demands which the white workers themselves put up. By not supporting the black workers, the white workers have lost a golden chance to better their own wages, hours and working conditions.

The African Soldier

The third reason why the strike failed was because African soldiers allowed themselves to be used against their own brothers. The African soldiers were told to join up to fight fascism outside South Africa. Years ago, the 4th International said that the war was not a war against fascism, but a bosses' war for the bosses's profits. Years ago we told the African soldiers that one day they would be used against the workers inside South Africa. We told the soldier that he would be used to put fascism into practice in this country, to break strikes, to murder his own brother. Now this has happened at the V.F.P. plants. African soldiers, workers and peasants in uniform, were used to break a strike, to lock Africans into compounds. This is a bitter lesson to the African soldier. But it will open his eyes to see the truth - that his duty lies with his brothers in the factory and mine; that his struggle is one with their struggle against the boss and the government.

Learn From Defeat!

If the workers of all colours leam these three lessons, then they will be able to go forward to new strikes with more courage and energy and sureness than during the V.F.P. strike. If these lessons are leamt then the defeat at the V.F.P. plants will be turned into great victories in strikes that will still come.

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