S. Africans Protest; Unions Launch Boycott

About 25,000 activists of all races marched Friday to protest the policies of South Africa’s white-led government, and thousands of women planned to defy a government ban and hold another rally over the weekend.

Militant black unions launched a two-week, nationwide consumer boycott of white-owned stores and told their 1.5 million members to refuse to work overtime for the next four weeks.

Union leaders said the no-overtime protest could cut industrial production by 20% or force white employers to hire thousands of additional black workers. The unions are protesting a controversial labor law that was enacted last year despite vehement objections from black unions.

Some of the original, hard-line provisions of the Labor Relations Amendment Act were modified, but unions still object to sections that prohibit sympathy strikes, restrict the frequency of strikes against a particular company, and make it easier for unions to be held liable for strike-related losses.

In Durban, South Africa’s largest port and third-largest city, an estimated 15,000 people, including members of the white city council, joined a peaceful anti-government march to City Hall.

Activists raised the green, black and gold banner of the outlawed African National Congress guerrilla movement on the flagpole at Durban’s City Hall, and police allowed it to remain during the rally.

“We ask (President Frederik W.) de Klerk and (Law and Order Minister Adriaan) Vlok to come down from their ivory towers and join the people,” said Jay Naidoo, secretary general of the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

Meanwhile, about 10,000 protesters led by the Rev. Allan Boesak staged a similar march in Oudtshoorn, a city of about 40,000 people 300 miles east of Cape Town. It was the largest protest ever in Oudtshoorn, center of the ostrich-farming industry and the scene of frequent confrontations between police and activists.

A coalition of anti-apartheid women’s groups vowed to ignore a government ban and march today on government headquarters in Pretoria.

Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee said the government obtained a court injunction to stop the march because organizers did not apply for approval. Two white supremacist groups sought and received permission to hold rallies today in Pretoria.