Police shot two men inside the offices of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in Germiston while breaking up a meeting of striking railway workers yesterday afternoon. The police swoop was part of the escalating violence that has accompanied the nationwide strike by up to 40 000 railmen as it spread to new areas of the country this week. The two men shot in the raid were taken to hospital by ambulance, said Cosatu press officer Neil Coleman. Scores of workers were hurt after being beaten with batons and many required medical attention. A trail of blood, shards of broken glass and shattered doors were left in the wake of the raid. Many members of the SA Railway and Harbour Workers’ Union (Sarhwu), were hurt as they broke through window panes to escape the police.
Earlier in the day eight workers were injured in a clash with police in Germiston while a ticket examiner shot a young woman at the Johannesburg station yesterday morning. Sarwhu says 40 000 of their members are on strike to back demands for a minimum wage of R1 500, the reinstatement of about 400 workers dismissed during a strike in East London last year and recognition of the union. Sats says 20 000 black workers of all grades have downed tools. Last night union lawyers were busy taking statements from injured workers and witnesses to the police operation. The lawyers, who had apparently received an undertaking that police would not interfere with indoor union meetings on the premises earlier in the day, are planning legal action to protect union members from further attacks.
Attorney Halton Cheadle said the commander of the police station in Germiston had informed him that the police acted after receiving reports from a nearby bottle store that workers were planning to make petrol bombs in the Cosatu offices. However, when lawyers visited the bottle store the attendants said they had no knowledge of such a call. Said Cosatu general secretary Jay Naidoo: ”This is part of conscious strategy on the part of the state to smash the strike. Cosatu and Sarhwu are committed to solving the strike.”
Police liaison officer Major Reg Crewe said the police acted because they had cause to believe a crowd of workers outside the Cosatu officers were planning to make petrol bombs. Two officers had opened fire only after they were attacked by knobkieriewielding workers. Six policemen were taken to hospital, including one who was beaten over the head with a club. Five workers were arrested on charges of public violence and a number of knobkierries and steel pipes were confiscated, said Crewe The strike has spread to Cape Town harbour and goods at the huge Sats depot in Kaserne, Johannesburg, piled up. Management resorted to using administrative staff to drive trucks in a bid to clear the backlog. Thousands of commuters on the Reef rode the trains for free as many stations were left without ticket collectors.
Sats has confirmed that arson attacks on railway carriages have cost them at least R9-million. A Tuesday deadline for workers to return to work or face dismissal went unheeded and by yesterday some 1 500 strikers had been fired. The police raid in Germiston followed an earlier, less serious, incident Workers said South African police and municipal police stopped workers who had come by train from the East Rand to attend a meeting at Germiston station. ”The police ordered us to go back and we refused. They told us we only had five minutes to disperse. When we refused, explaining that we were attending a meeting, the police attacked us with batons and we ran into the union offices and they followed us,” a Sarwhu shop steward said. The police then apparently went ·back to the union offices at midday and were refused entry by workers who barricaded the doors. They returned with reinforcements at 3pm and mounted the raid that left scores of workers injured.
Sarwhu general secretary Martin Sebakwane has announced that 17- year-old Elizabeth Rankuwa was admitted to hospital yesterday after being shot in the leg by a white man in plainclothes who fired wildly into a crowded platform while chasing two commuters who had not paid their fares at the Johannesburg station. Sebakwane said armed policemen were being used as ticket collectors at stations where the strike has left commuter exits unmanned and their provocative behaviour was responsible for the spiralling violence at stations.
At Mlamlamkunzi station and Orlando station in Soweto yesterday commuters spilled out of the trains without paying their fares. At the New Canada depot on the outskirts of Soweto, employees outside the gates said work had slowed down dramatically inside the plant Sats public relations officer Frikkie Stevens said many ticket collectors had joined the strike and police were manning the stations to ”enforce law and order”. Police headquarters in Pretoria said an SAP patrol retaliated after being attacked by striking workers at Germiston station yesterday morning and that six policemen were hurt.
The clash erupted after police warned workers, travelling from Springs to the Sarwhu office in Germiston, to pay their fares. Liaison officer Eugene Opperman said a ticket examiner had shot Rankuwa while chasing two men who had assaulted him on the platform at Johannesburg’s Park station. ”The two black males then ran away and it is alleged the examiner then fired a shot into the platform. The bullet riccocheted and hit a passer-by – a black female 17-years-old – in the left leg just below the knee.” The railway strike began on November 1 after talks between Sarwhu and Sats over recognition for the union deadlocked. – Phil Molefe and Eddie Koch
