Abstract:
Limited choices were available to
black workers in the auto plants in the late 1960s. Blacks received poor wages for performing the worst jobs, and faced virtually unbridled supervisorial
despotism. For coloureds, the promise of union protection was still some years away, while Africans
were to wait another decade. It was only in the years after 1968 that
African activists at Volkswagen even dared speak privately about unions. Opting out was not an option; the only alternatives were either the false face of the smiling, minstrellike
puppet, or waiting patiently until conditions changed. The 1980 Volkswagen strike was a watershed in the development of the autoworkers' union.
Moreover, the Volkswagen workers' mass action was all the more unusual because workers were
successful. Most unusual of all was that their solidarity crossed the
dividing lines defined by the racial classification system: Africans joined with their
coloured co-workers in industrial action.The
basis of this solidarity is the subject of this paper.
