The hidden element in the 2010 public sector strike in South Africa

A hand-lettered placard captured the intensely political implications of the August 2010 public-sector strike in South Africa. The placard read: 'Comrades stay together, just like buttocks. When buttocks separate, 7% (shit) comes out.' Seven per cent was 'the final offer' from government negotiators, which precipitated the strike when teachers and hospital workers rejected the offer despite their leaders. The strike reflected two sets of tensions. First, the strike took place amongst persistent tensions between the trade-union federation Cosatu and the group around Jacob Zuma, the man backed by Cosatu against Thabo Mbeki, in the ruling African National Congress (ANC). It brought the number of strike days for the second year of Zuma's presidency to rival 2007, when public-sector workers last went on strike in the dying days of the Mbeki regime.