South Africa
RADE Union organisations in Germany, Israel and Argentina have urged their governments to impose an arms embargo and effective sanctions against South Africa in line with a United Nations decision. The German trade union federation DGB, the Israeli federation Histadrut and the Argentine Municipal Workers’ Union have stressed the opposition of “the trade union movement to all forms of racial discrimination in letters to their respective governments.
in Barbados, the country with the highest cost of living in the Caribbean area, earns 1.55 West Indian dollars per ton of cane cut. Since he can hardly cut more than 6 tons of cane in a normal day the Barbados cane cutter cannot earn much more than 46.50 W.I. dollars a week, which is only two-thirds of the lowest Australian’ rate. Osmond Dyce stressed that if the cost of producing sugar in the Caribbeans is high, wages are not responsible for this fact.
MALAYSIA —
Borneo Unions
HE leader of an eight-man trade
union delegation from Malaysia to Sabah and Sarawak declared in Jesselton (Sabah) on 17th December, 1964, that the labour laws in these two states were “outmoded and colonialistic in nature.” Yeoh Teck Chye, President of the National Union of Bank Employees, who headed the mission, added that moves to get these laws changed must be initiated as soon as possible. He said that trade unions in Sabah were not allowed to be affiliated to international bodies while Malayan and Singapore trade unions were not deprived of this right. He expressed the hope that the local laws would be changed. . Only then, he stressed, would it be possible to have one national Malaysian body for all the workers throughout Malaysia.
Jan, 27, 1965 — THE WEEK Past 46 a