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: