The Long March – a play in solidarity with South African workers

The Long March is a play by the Sarmcol Workers’ Cooperative, performed in both Zulu and English, about the 970 striking workers in South Africa in 1985 who were all fired by BTR, a British multinational corporation. They worked at Sarmcol, a rubber company owned by BTR. The play is based on the experiences of the workers involved, forming a union, campaigning for their rights and what happened when they were all sacked 3 days into the strike.

The Long March toured Britain in 1987 and was performed to a packed crowd in Brixton on 1 November.

You can read more about the Sarmcol strike and the workers’ cooperative that was established during the dispute here http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/the-great-sarmcol-strike

The dispute was finally settled in 1998 when Sarmcol/BTR agreed to pay R11,7m in compensation to the 970 workers they sacked in 1985.

You can read the very informative programme for the play here The Long March