African Studies Institute - Seminar Papers
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Item The re-emergence of political unionism in contemporary South Africa?(1987-03) Webster, E.; Lambert, RobThe racially based South African state has always served to buttress severe forms of labour exploitation. It has been, historically and in contemporary struggles, a cardinal force shaping the form, character and goals of the progressive, non-racial, trade union movement. This is not to imply that the state was, and is, a determining force in this regard. Such theorization would deemphasize the dimension of leadership and the potential choices that emerge within tactical and strategic debates. Our own approach in attempting to assess the direction and potential of contemporary trade unionism in South Africa, would be to assert the critical importance of these tactical and strategic debates. We would argue that fundamental differences in the perceptions of the trade union role exist, differences that have divided the trade union movement since unions first emerged in nineteenth-century Europe....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 Disorganising the unorganised: The 'Black Flood' and the Registered Metal Union responses, Part I, the 1960s, of South African 'development'(1981-05) Sitas, A.This paper arises out of a combination of two factors: firstly, it is out of a dissatisfaction with a reality presented to us of late by a number of articles and more voluminous affairs like books about the role of white-skinned people in the racial division of labour, and through that, South African society as a whole. Secondly, out of a feeling that the ever-recurrent debate about 'inter-racial solidarity' and the South African working classes has been spirited away by some theoretical formulations that like the best of imported machinery started producing a mass of realities that obfuscate rather than clarify real issues that the labour movement is facing at present. (2) Unlike Demag machinery though, the results of the former, produced a reality that in most cases does not exist. These two factors will increasingly become clear as the narrative unfords and need not detain us here. What needs to detain us here though is the plot of the ensuing argument. In the first two parts of this paper, the story of the shifts in the T.U.C.S.A. as concerns African unionisation and their affiliation, disaffiliation acrobatics that characterised much of the 1960s is told. It finally traces two divergent responses vis-a-vis the registered union movement. The one, spearheaded by what have been called 'craft-diluted' unions, the other by 'industrial unions'. The third part, concerns an exploration of the material complexities that characterise the 'craft-diluted' unions with a specific focus on the actual transformations in the metal industry in South Africa throughout the 1960s. The fourth part looks at the unions themselves and how they respond to their new-found reality, not at the point of leadership but rather at the actions and passivities of their respective ranks and files. The fifth part analyses what has been discussed so far in the light of the current debates about the class determination of the white wage-earning classes. The paper closes with the 1972 T.U.C.S.A. Conference and the clear polarisation/accommodatiorithat exists in strategy between registered unions: a year before Potgieter's Zulus took to the streets, their rags barely covering their bottoms but for completely different reasons than he gives or to use Nelson's bad metaphor, the year his Black-worker-Christ resurrects himself despite the washing of the hands of Pontius Pilate (read; colonial administrator; read: registered union movement).(3) The second part, or the second paper, at the moment in preparation, will be tracing the process to the present.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 Independent trade union[s] in the 1970s(1983-08) Maree, JohannThe aim of this paper is to examine democracy and oligarchy in the independent trade unions in Transvaal and the Western Province General Workers Union in the 1978s. The unions considered in the Transvaal comprise the Federation of South African Trade Unions (F0SATU) and the Consultative Committee of Black Trade Unions. The Consultative unions consisted of the Commercial Catering and Allied Workers’ Union (CCAWUSA) and a large proportion of the present Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA). The period this paper covers commences from the foundation of the unions in the early 1970s up to the second half of 1979 for the Transvaal unions and up to the end of 1988 for the Western Province General Workers' Union. The paper is divided into two major sections. The first section deals with theories of democracy and oligarchy in trade unions and starts off by considering Michels' iron law of oligarchy. His iron law is evaluated in the light of two centuries of experience in the British trade unions as analysed mainly by the Webbs, Clegg and Hyman. After deriving a theory of democracy and oligarchy in trade unions based on the historical material, the paper moves on to the second section which examines democracy and oligarchy in the independent trade unions in the 1970s. The stage the unions reached at the end of the period is evaluated and some conclusions are finally drawn.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.Item The Union, The Nation, and the Talking Crow: The ideology and tactics of the Independent ICU in East London(1985-03) Beinart, William; Bundy, ColinIn January 1930 a meeting was held at Headman Koliwe's location in Kentani district, Transkei. It was addressed by Elias Mabodla (or Agitator No. 53 as he was identified in a police report) who had come "to preach ICU amongst you people". He recounted how nine trade union leaders had been arrested in East London where they had called a strike. Their plight evoked strong sympathy in Kentani, especially as one of those arrested was a local man, Dorrington Mqayi. Headman Nkonki summed up the mood of the meeting: "It is for us to see into this matter as our blood is amongst those people in the gaol at East London." Fifty years later, during our research on rural popular movements we encountered Mqayi in his identity as an ICU "agitator" in Kentani. We then retraced his footsteps. In an archival echo of his journeys between the Transkei and the harbour city, we moved from the boxes holding the records of the Kentani magistracy to those of the East London Town Clerk. We had no way of knowing whether Mqayi would resurface in the East London documents, but began our search for him in speculative optimism. We did meet Mqayi again - but not him alone. Mqayi in East London was not the leading actor that he might have been on the smaller stage of Kentani; rather, he had a modest speaking part in a vibrant urban drama - a drama recorded in the vivid and detailed police records* of ICU activity in the Town Clerk's files.