Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
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In 1986, black workers in apartheid South Africa walked off the job in support of unionists in New Jersey. Their strike marked a rare moment of international labor solidarity at the height of deindustrialization and apartheid.
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in the 1980s, when factory closures were in full swing. At the time, many US unions strongly supported the Free South Africa Movement by boycotting multinational corporations that did business with the apartheid government, like Shell Oil; refusing to handle South African cargo; and divesting their pension funds from companies linked to the country.
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this solidarity went both ways — particularly when hundreds of South African workers courageously staged a brief but powerful sympathy strike to protest a plant closing in the United States in support of New Jersey workers facing layoffs.
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after learning of the struggle of their fellow unionists in New Jersey, on February 28, the entire black workforce at the plant staged an afternoon walkout to protest the layoffs in Freehold, temporarily halting production. Marching and dancing out of the building, they sported T-shirts reading: “Don’t Abandon Freehold, My Hometown” — the same shirts regularly worn by OCAW Local 8-760 members in New Jersey.
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The precondition for international solidarity is you’ve got to be willing to fight,” Leopold explains. “And you’ve got to be willing to support other people who are willing to fight.” “Without fight and risk,” he continues, “international solidarity is just window dressing.”