On Strike!

When I chose Grahamstown, South Africa as my location for study abroad I was hoping to get an experience of how the "other half" of the world lives. I was interested to become immersed in a culture that was vastly different from my own, who was struggling to overcome a history of racial segregation and slavery. Over the past week, I have become enmeshed in a situation that is more first hand experience than I could ever ask for.

Currently there is a strike going on within the University of grade 1-5 workers. In South Africa job positions (at least within the University) are rated on a grade scale of 1-15, with 15 being the Vice Chancellor (or president of the university) and 1 being the lowest manual labor position. So basically, the people who are striking are basic maintenance, cafeteria workers, and housekeepers. The reason of the strike is because the University is currently undergoing a program of "remuneration adjusment". This means they're trying to move all of their pay grades to the 50th percentile, between the highest and lowest paying universities, to ensure their positions remain competitive.

5million rand (roughly $645,000) was set aside for this purpose. The majority of the money was set aside for grades above 8 (administrative and managerial staff mostly) because they are the furthest from the 50th percentile. Grades 1-5 received the smallest chunk of the money because they are paid within the 50th percentile for the most part. Now, in principle, this all sounds reasonably fair and equitable, right? Now consider the fact that people in grades 8 and above take home between 10,000 and 20,000 rand per month and that grades 1-5 take home around 2,000rand. Keep in mind that 2,000 rand is only about $260 and that the majority of these people have a family of 4 or more people and that they provide the only income. Still seem fair and equitable? I didn't think so.

I'm enrolled in an anthropology class entitled "Power and wealth" and have an amazing professor who is Coloured and who grew up during the apartheid reign. For the past two days she has stepped out of her "professor" title and opened up the class as a place for honest discussion. The class is mix of black, white, coloured, rich, poor, foreign, and native South Africans and the views I have encountered during these discussions and the realizations I have come to about how the University is choosing to handle the situation may be some of the most important experiences I will have during my time here.

When I first arrived here, I was surprised to see how segregated the social bubble of the university remains. You rarely see skin colors mixing in friend groups, and everyone claims that it is simply cultural differences rooted in musical tastes. Aka the blacks like hiphop and rap and the whites like pop so they don't hang out together. Excuse me? The viewpoints raised in my anthro class speak far different words.

There have been two students in particular who completely baffled me. Both are white, one male and one female, both well dressed and obviously from good families. The female expressed an opinion that she " came here to work hard and to end up at the top of the career ladder and make lots of money and that once she's there she doesn't want other people making the same amount as her and that the people on strike have opportunities to move up and should just work harder."

I nearly exploded. These people just need to work harder? They are at work from 5am to 7pm or later, up to 7 days a week. The most promotion they can hope for is to move from cleaning the basement of a house to cleaning the top floor. Not to mention the fact that its because of white people like her that during the apartheid they weren't allowed to get decent education (there was legislation passed called the Bantu Education Act that made it legal for schools to give bad educations to black and coloured people). Now cleaning toilets is the top of the ladder for them and they don't even make enough to survive on and she wants them to work harder.

The male white student made a similar sentiment. He was defending the Universities actions and stated that the dire financial situation of the strikers was "not his problem". The university has completely blown the situation out of proportion and is twisting words and occurrences to try and save their own asses and keep people on their side. In an informational letter that came out yesterday they claimed that the strikers had been marching in and disrupting lectures, threatening students and staff, vandalizing property, and other assorted things. And furthermore that any and all damage to campus property would come out of the strikers paychecks. They also stated that due to this they are filing for a restraining order and keeping police on campus to protect "our safety". And just to end things off on a good note, they let everyone know that students were planning a march this afternoon to protest "the industrial action" and the inconvenience it's causing them. When in reality, the student march is to protest the universities unwillingness to renegotiate and stop the strike, only the university told the student government that they were not allowed to "take sides" and is now spinning the protest in their favor.

One of the black students in our class had actually marched with the strikers and we found out that their "disruptions and intimidations" were no more than singing and marching between buildings. Yet I was locked into every one of my academic buildings yesterday for my "safety". And should I choose to participate in the student protest that is going on this afternoon, I run the risk of being thrown in jail if things get out of hand, just because I am "close to the strikers" and the police will not bother to differentiate.

When I came here I expected to find the " New South Africa". A country that is striving to put behind them the grievances of apartheid rule and create freedom and equality for every South African no matter the color of their skin. Instead I found that the reign of power and wealth are the same in every country. That you cannot trust "news" because it is written by people in power for their own devices. That the truth is buried beneath extravagant lies and people can claim that its "not their problem" because they are not suffering from it. Because these people do not share their status, their privilege, their skin color, their blood. They have so degraded these people that it does not matter that they are someone's mother, that they sleep on cold floors, that they can't feed their children. That they are HUMAN. And that they're basic rights as human beings are being thrown out and trampled on, under the guise of "external equity".

I am a stranger here and do not have a shared history with these people, so why is it that I can clearly see their pain, hunger, and desperation, while their own countrymen have them begging at their feet but merely cross

over to the other side, and keep on walking?