Building an international comradeship of cyber cadre!
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Today is the anniversary of the death of Steve Biko.
00:39 Stephen’s updates
- Video editing using OpenShot and Blender
- Blender rocks! There’s a learning curve, but it’s worth it
- Got a lot of assistance from a fellow listener Julien who is also working on an activist web application project
03:55 Walton’s updates
- Reading a lot of economics – nothing like a crisis to aid your understanding
- The NHS is being privatised
- Did a talk on social media at the Church of Scotland – our union organises there
- Unite Faith workers branch
07:39 We’re doing something different this time
- This show is being recorded on three continents in three time zones
- Eduard is representing for Mzansi from Cape Town – he will tell us something about Social Movement Unionism
- Eduard is an odd character
- Worked for clothing and textile unions SACTWU and also the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC)
- Currently at the University of Cape Town
09:00 TAC and Cosatu
- TAC campaigned against Big Pharma and the South African government
- President Thabo Mbeki believed HIV was not the cause of Aids
- Links with unions and other civil society organisations were critical to support
- Black trade unions became legal in 1979 and were key players in the struggle against apartheid
- Many TAC activists were UDF veterans
- TAC has been very successful: South Africa now has the world’s largest HIV-Aids treatment programme
17:00 Unions and politics
- Comrade Eduard introduces a word we haven’t heard in a while: “cadre”
- South African unions are a lot more explicitly political than UK and US unions
- South Africa has fairly union-friendly labour laws
- We need to make trade unionism political – it’s not just about workplace issues
- South Africa has one of the world’s most progressive constitutions
- Walton misquotes Mao:
“There is great chaos under heaven—the situation is excellent.”
- Stephen has some examples of SMU in the US– Labornotes is worth reading
28:22 Are African unions and social movements using FOSS?
- Union density in South Africa varies widely by sector – agriculture and services not well organised
- TAC’s office in Khayelitsha uses FOSS
- This became a community hub, and allowed activists to make international contacts
- The NHS is moving to Open Office
39:20 Eduard’s iPad rant
- Closed systems like iPads take away the ability to experiment away form kids
- Best way to learn about something is to break it
Some other South African social movements:
- Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
- The Mandela Park Backyarders
- Abahlali baseMjondolo
- Social Justice Coalition
- Landless People’s Movement
- Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee
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