Word: blacks
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fifth time in two weeks, the black trainee had failed to show up at his job at the Ford Motor Co. plant near South Africa's industrial capital of Port Elizabeth. He had asked for two hours off to answer a summons from the police, but failed to return to work. When a white foreman cautioned Thozamile Botha, 30, an intense former schoolteacher turned black activist who had worked for Ford for less than twelve months, to improve his attendance, Botha snapped, "Why don't you fire me?" He then stalked angrily out of the plant...
That incident last month provoked a strike by 700 skilled black workers at two Ford plants that produce engines and assemble cars. They were soon joined by 800 other black employees of nearby paper and tire factories. The walkout, which continues, stems from no ordinary labor-management dispute. Ford, whose 5,000 employees in South Africa include 1,200 blacks, has been a leader in introducing nondiscriminatory policies like those prescribed in the corporate code of conduct drawn up by U.S. Civil Rights Leader Leon Sullivan. Ford was among the first firms to recognize black unions. Black anti-apartheid organizers...
...Prime Minister has announced proposals for sweeping reforms of the racial-classification laws known as petty apartheid. Besides authorizing companies to negotiate with black unions, Botha has proposed the "improvement" of statutes that forbid interracial sex and marriage and make certain public facilities off limits to blacks. While these contemplated steps have won the applause of business leaders, they have not done much as yet to satisfy the 20 million blacks. There has been no change in the white minority government's long-range plan of dividing South Africa into a "constellation" of nominally independent states, in which blacks...
Instead of concentrating their organizing efforts on black academics, intellectuals or the young, as they have in the past, the leaders of black activist groups in Port Elizabeth and Soweto, the black township outside Johannesburg, are now focusing on factory workers. Because black labor is essential to South Africa's economy, strikes by blacks constitute a potentially powerful weapon. Though Thozamile Botha, who heads the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organization (PEBCO), concedes that Ford is perhaps the "best" employer of blacks in the country, he has been prodding its management to respond to a long list of demands...
...moves to appease black workers, Prime Minister Botha risks the wrath of Afrikaner hardliners, who abhor his apartheid reforms. Soon after Thozamile Botha's walkout, white union members held an angry meeting that led to an outburst of racial slurs; blacks were accused of "fouling" integrated toilets and making insulting remarks about white women. If the government cracks down hard on the protesters, as it did to quell the rioting in Soweto in 1976, it might spark more unrest. Predicts Fred Ferreira, Ford's industrial relations manager: "Inactivity is not going to solve this problem. Whether...