South Africans Strike Over Electric Privatisation

Unions across South Africa launched a general strike today against the government's privatisation plans.

"At least two thirds of all workers throughout the country participated in the action, uniting over five million workers," the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) reported this evening. "Most industrial areas were effectively closed down."

Sell-offs challenged by the South African workers include plans for the partial privatisation of Africa's biggest power utility, Eskom.

Called by COSATU, the two-day strike is backed by other South African union federations. Unions taking part include all the South African affiliates of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).

The UN's World Conference Against Racism has not been affected by the strike action, COSATU emphasised. The conference opens in Durban this Friday.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said that about 300,000 of its members were taking part in the anti-privatisation strike.

Privatisation should be opposed because it causes job losses, but also because of its wider social impact, the NUM argued: "The selling off of these assets has a negative bearing on the national development programmes, such as electrification, the installation of and access to telephones, the accessibility of water etc. to millions of South Africans."

Eskom's "competency and efficiency in the delivery of electricity to poor communities is unquestionable," the union said. "Why then should this asset be privatised?"

"This is a strike against poverty," the NUM declared.