Sixteen Thousand Textile Workers Strike in Swaziland

The workers, many of whom are women, are demanding a 12% increase in wages.  As one worker put it “I cannot afford to buy bread” as they earn approximately US$77 per month.  For the second week now they have lead marches and pickets only to be repeatedly assaulted with many ending up in the hospital.  One 23-year-old 8-month pregnant woman was severely assaulted by police ending up in the hospital.  She had been unable to outrun the police and the tear-gas engulfed her and she collapsed only to be brutally beaten when caught.  Several others ended up in the hospital many of them sole bread-winners in their home.  As per usual, capitalism protects only the ruling class machine and cannot cede anything to workers lest there be an entire uprising therefore at the first sign of any dissent oppression is necessary.

This textile factory is owned by a Taiwanese company who, like many Asian-owned companies, had invested in Swaziland due to its favorable trade conditions which began during the earliest part of the decade when the United States enacted the “African Growth and Opportunity Act”.  This act is intended to increase investment and trade with sub-Saharan African countries while furthering access to American technical expertise and credit.  Following this, US President Bush expanded on this Act and made an announcement to spur further‘growth’ in Africa.

“President Bush announced the creation of a $200 million Overseas Private Investment Corporation support facility that will give American firms access to loans, guarantees and political risk insurance for investment projects in sub-Sahara Africa.   He also announced the establishment of a Trade and Development Agency (TDA) regional office in Johannesburg and the TDA Trade for African Development and Enterprise Program, both to provide guidance and assistance to governments and companies which seek to liberalize their trade laws, improve the investment environment, and take advantage of AGOA.”  (www.agoa.gov) African Growth and Opportunity Act

What is ‘growth’, but another word for capital looking to generate more capital by seeking out, developing and enacting trade laws to lower the cost of labour thereby enabling corporations to exploit the labour power more effectively.  With its cheap labour, Africa was a region where the opportunity of global investment could progress, albeit not terminating the perpetual poverty and the immense squalor of the majority of the people.

The textile workers in Swaziland are not only in conflict with their immediate bosses and management but the entire system which favors the global capitalist contamination and contagion, forever branching to new environments with cheap labour and enough corruption to continually undermine any sort of ‘legal’ protection for workers.  The double-edged sword here is that a continued strike at a factory such as this in a country where unemployment levels are at 40%, HIV rate is 40% and life expectancy is a mere 33 years, could very well threaten to move– these threats and in some cases realities can force many unions to compromise regardless of whether the workers agree and certainly regardless whether the workers receive decent living wages.  This is why workers from around the world must recognize that these isolated groups of workers fighting back must receive international solidarity.  Capitalism divides and conquers; therefore we must conquer the division between us.  These workers’ problems are our problems.  We are all united as a class against a global enemy that does not have a heart, rather only an agenda to keep on churning profits.  Each and every worker must recognize our affinity to other workers in other countries and other industries and not be stripped of our ability to fight by bureaucratic unions or management.  From bus workers in Iran, to Autoworkers in North America, to Teachers in Sweden, to Miners in Latin America, to Garment workers in Asia, we must not be divided.  This means that an international, cross-country organization for workers should be developed.  Capitalism is an international system that crosses borders involving linkages of capital through international trade and financial organizations etcetera.  As workers we must do the same and more, mobilize internationally, understand the system and use our power to fight for immediate demands locally while at the same time aiming to end wage-slavery everywhere. 

 
Workers must unite, mobilize and organize globally against capitalism.