Workers Power seeks to build the culture of trade unionism and solidarity by giving a platform to trade unions and workers to talk about the struggles in their workplace, as well as events and struggles outside the workplace that they are involved in.
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In 1971 the South African rugby union team, the Springboks, embarked on a tour of Australia. South Africa at that time was ruled by a white minority that imposed a brutal system of racial segregation on the black population. This system was known as apartheid. Resistance was brutally repressed. Massacres of unarmed civilians were common. An underground armed resistance developed but it too was ruthlessly crushed. One of its leaders, Nelson Mandela, narrowly escaped the death penalty and was sentenced to life in prison.
The Springboks themselves were a product of this system. A whites-only team, they epitomised white privilege and racialised class domination. During the 1960s, international opposition to the apartheid regime grew. Australian trade unions and small groups of activists joined this groundswell. By the time the Springbok tour of Australia was announced, the basis for a strong Australian anti-apartheid movement was already in place, and from the day the team arrived on these shores, they were dogged by protest.
This week we talk to Jeff Rickertt from the Brisbane Labour History Association about the Springbok tour of Australia and the resistance from the trade union movement culminating in a state of emergency and general strike here in Magan-djin/Brisbane.