African Studies Institute - Seminar Papers
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Item A profile of unregistered union members in Durban(1978-09) Webster, E.C.The role and potential of trade unions among African workers has moved over the last five years from a peripheral to a central issue in industrial relations in S.A. Government attitudes have changed from a determination to exclude African trade unions by promoting an alternat. in-plant committee structure, to the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into Labour Legislation with a clear indication on the part of the Chairman that trade unionism is a right for all workers (1). Some employer associations have chanqed from outriaht hostility to support in principle for the right of African workers to negotiate on the same basis as non-Africans (2). Although the antagonism or indifference of the registered trade union movement continues, the decision of TUCSA in 1973 to allow African trade unions to affiliate, signals a growing awareness among the more far-sighted registered trade union leadership that the future of the trade union movement lies with Coloured and African workers (3). The growing internationalization of industrial relations in S.A. through the publication of employers "codes of conduct" as a response to the increasing pressure on foreign investors to withdraw, is further evidence of this change (4).Item The 1913 and 1914 white workers' strikes(1978-10) O'Quigley, A.The gold mining industry on the Rand began in the 1880's and by 1913 there were 63 mines employing about 21 000 white workers and 200 000 black workers. Gold, the international money commodity, had a fixed price. This meant there was a certain constraint with regard to the costs of production because increases could not be passed on to the buyers. The gold bearing ore on the Rand was deep lying and of a consistent low grade throughout the Reef. Because of its depth large amounts of capital investment were required for its exploitation. This was provided by finance houses in Europe through whom groups of gold mining companies were controlled. The profitability of the industry was constrained by the fixed price, the low grade of the ore and the need for large scale capital investment. Because of this the industry depended on cheap labour. The problem of finding and maintaining a supply of cheap labour dominated the policies of the industry. In the early years the great majority of blacks lived in the rural areas subsisting as independent farmers or on white owned land as squatters, share croppers and wage labourers…. As far as the gold mining industry was concerned in the early years some blacks came voluntarily in order to obtain cash to buy European produced goods such as guns. But increasingly black labour was obtained by recruiters who worked for the gold mining industry…. The black labour force thus obtained was lacking in any experience of industrial life and was restricted to unskilled work. In order to develop the mines and carry out certain skilled mining operations the gold companies also needed a supply of skilled workers. These were not available in South Africa. Skilled miners from overseas were induced £o come to the. Witwatersrand because of the relatively high wages. Most of them originated in Britain. Skilled miners tended to be nomadic and some had experience of work in Australia, America and other gold fields throughout the world. These miners' brought to South Africa their trade union experience and soon established branches of British craft unions and an autonomous miners union. As blacks became experienced in gold mining operations the TCM wanted to be able to substitute this labour for the more expensive white workers. Skilled whites were still necessary but where skills could be fragmented blacks could carry out some of the operations…. This is largely an empirical study of the 1913 miners' strike and the 1914 railway strike. I concentrate on events rather than analysis and would be glad of any help from people in the seminar. Although it is impossible to exhaustively state the causes for the 1913 strike I outline some of the factors I see as important. These include the insecurity of white miners because of their fear of being replaced by black and their reaction to general labour condition including their insecurity of tenure and the occupational disease phthisis. The strike itself revolved around the question of the recognition of trade unions which the TCM refused to do.Item Trade Unionism in South Africa: An interview report(1974-02) Greenberg, Stanley"Trade Unionism in South Africa" is a "working paper" of the most preliminary sort. I add that caveat not as a protection against criticism or quotation, but as genuine indication on the state of this research. This paper is based on interviewing still in progress (20 of 30 interviews are completed). The incompleteness is compounded by the mails and distance. Only six of the interview transcripts were available to me at the time of writing. The remainder were reconstructed from scattered notes and memory. Hence, my assessment of the labour movement is based on the roughest sorts of impressions and only limited access to my own data. I have imposed an artificial constraint on this paper which is not a consequence of the mails or incompleteness. I have decided to exclude nearly all historical analysis, choosing instead to concentrate on the interview material. A large percentage of my time in the last year has indeed been devoted to the examination of Trades and Labour Council records, reports and correspondence of TUCSA, various Commissions of Inquiry (particularly into industrial legislation), the role of labour in the Pact Government and subsequent governments, including the post-1948 Nationalist Government. While these materials will prove central to my later work and any future publication, they will little inform this discussion. I am afraid this report is a 'self-interested attempt on my part to make sense of some fairly diffuse, but exciting interviews.