A study in the dual labour market of a South African plant
| dc.contributor.author | Spandau, Arnt | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2011-05-20T10:30:25Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2011-05-20T10:30:25Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 1974-07 | |
| dc.description | African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented July 1974 | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | Legal and customary barriers of racial employment patterns prevent South African companies from optimizing labour input relationships. The result of these barriers is imperfections in the internal labour market which manifest themselves as follows : i) The marginal rates of substitution of White for Black workers do not equal the ratios of the wage rates of the two factors; (ii) Relative to their occupational abilities, Whites are overrepresented in high-graded jobs, while Blacks are overrepresented in low-graded jobs. During the process of the growth of the firms, there are certain intermediate occupations where the replacement of Whites by Blacks does actually take place. This process of replacement has certain elements of inertia. Abrupt and visible changes would be looked upon as being contrary to the ‘South African way of life’ (1). In the past, Black occupational advance in South African manufacturing industries was cut off, by and large, at the level of operative machine minding. During recent years, Blacks have also advanced into certain clerical, sales, supervisory and control positions. With large employers of Blacks, clerical personnel administration' for Non-Whites is largely nowadays done by Blacks themselves. (iii) In the intermediate occupations, Whites tend to be paid wages in excess of their marginal value product, and Blacks below. Racial pay discrimination also percolates into the areas of fringe benefits, such as health protection, annual leave, and into every-day communication. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the factors which prevent the attainment of equilibrium in the labour markets under conditions of South African- racial discrimination. The data were collected during the months October and November, 1972, when the writer spent some weeks on the premises of a bottling plant in the Transvaal. (2) In order to preserve the anonymity of those who freely supplied information - managers, workers, and informed outsiders - the plant in question will be called Company X. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10539/9860 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | African Studies Institute;ISS 404 | |
| dc.subject | Labor market. South Africa | en_US |
| dc.title | A study in the dual labour market of a South African plant | en_US |
| dc.type | Working Paper | en_US |