South Africa After Apartheid: a Whole New Ball Game, with Labor on the Team
r , * ',-,- - i i-.-- : ii ii i -ii,,,c - -. i - 198 Broadway * New York, N.Y. 10038 e (212) 962-1210 Tilden J. LeMelle, Chairman Jennifer Davis, Executive Director MEMORANDUM TO: Key Labor Contacts FROM: Mike Fleshman, Labor Desk Coordinator DATE: June 7, 1994 South Africa After Apartheid: A Whole New Ball Game, With Labor On The Team Friends, The victory parties are finally over and, in the wake of Nelson Mandela's landslide election as South Africa's first-ever Black President, South African workers are returning to their jobs and to the enormous challenges that lie ahead. For the 1.2 million-member Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), whose support for Mandela's ANC was critical to the movement's runaway 62.5 percent victory, the end of apartheid brings new opportunities for South African workers, but also some new problems. One result of the ANC victory is the presence of key labor leaders in the new government. Two high ranking unionists, former COSATU General Secretary Jay Naidoo, and former Assistant General Secretary Sydney Mufamadi, were named to cabinet posts -- Mufamadi as Minister of Safety and Security in charge of the police, and Naidoo as Minister Without Portfolio, tasked with implementing the ANC/COSATU blueprint for social change, the national Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP). Former National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) economist Alec Erwin was named Deputy Minister for Finance. Former Mineworkers head Cyril Ramaphosa, elected General Secretary of the ANC in 1991, will exert great influence on the shape of the permanent new constitution as the chair of the parliamentary constitution-writing body.
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