[DEBATE] : Security guard strike

[Leo Zeilig]

Comrades,
I wonder whether we should engage in a little critical reflection on the 
security guard strike. It was arguably the most significant strike to have 
taken place in the last ten years. Security guards were battling against 
employers who wanted to smash the union. They had the whole world against 
them: who called them by turns greedy, violent and lazy. Each day the strike 
radicalised and each day the left failed to relate to it, and even 
contributed to some of these attacks. There was no intervention in the 
strike, not even a rudimentary petition issued by the country’s 
overabundance of left-wing intellectuals and commentators. This left the 
strikers isolated and suspicious of outsiders. The coast was open for 
opportunists like Zuma to capitalize on this isolation by claiming to be the 
strikers friend – on the day he was acquitted Zuma left the court and 
immediately addressed the SATAWU workers. This seems to be a pitiful state 
of affairs, and helped ensure the eventual defeat of the strike. What good 
are we as radicals and socialists unless we take the side of those fighting 
– sometimes desperately – for their rights and dignity?

Leo Zeilig

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