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- 1976 - (Creation)
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SACTU on the calling of the 3 day "workers strike". Field workers went to work holding public meetings, distributing leaflets in factories and shops, from house to house, at railway stations and bus stops, on trains and buses, theatres, beer halls, schools and hospitals. Stickers and posters were placed on public transport, prominent buildings, including police station, post offices and city halls, on bridges, factories and shops.
As is the customwhen organising such demonstrations, on the eve of the strike we took cover to escape the police swoop that is usually made to forestall the demonstration. Walter Sisulu, Moses Kotane, J.B. Marks, Oliver Tambo, Dan Tloome, Duma Nokwe and I established our headquarters in Orlando. We were in telephonic contact with Yusuf Dadoo and others in the city and with other centres.
Although we arranged no pickets on the first day of the strike we posted men to watch the trains, buses and taxis to see the volume of traffic. Our first shock came early that morning. The day before we slept at the home of a relative of an ANC leader and after making coffee for us he vanished. We discovered that he had gone to work! Late that afternoon reports from all over the country clearly indicated that the demonstration was an anti climax to the successful campaigns of the preceeding year and we promptly issued a press statement calling it off.
Hardly an hour after we had released the statement the South African Broadcasting Corporation told the country on the radio that the ANC had caled off the strike and quoted the statement in full. The