’Asinamali’

From the book: My Spirit Is Not Banned by Frances Baard and Barbie Schreiner

In 1957 a message came through from SACTU that we must organize this campaign for one pound a day so that the workers must earn one pound a day for the work they are doing. It was a national campaign. There were pamphlets and big meetings and demonstrations and everything. We even made songs out of it so they shouldn't forget it and they made slogans on walls. 'We want to have a pound a day.' We used to say 'Asinamali - sifunimali'. ['We have no money, we want money.'] They used to write something about this pound a day on everything!

In Port Elizabeth we first called the meetings in the halls and explained to the workers what this campaign is for, asking if they really want the monies and so forth, and they say yes. And we say, well we have to do this and this. So they started going out to all the areas, organizing more-workers. Whenever they meet they used to tell the workers we are now going for one pound a day. Throughout the whole country it was that thing, a big campaign for one pound a day. I worked on that campaign myself. In Port Elizabeth we had a big strike on Freedom Day to support that call. That stay-away was also to popularize the Freedom Charter, to let everyone know it. In Port Elizabeth it was a very big stay-away. Almost nobody went to work that day. But the one-pound-a-day campaign was one, which must go on for a long time so that the workers must understand what it is for, and more of them must join SACTU, and the employers too must understand what are we working for.