Stay-aways and the black working class since the second World War : The evaluation of a strategy
Date
1979-04
Authors
Webster, E.C.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
There is a widespread belief, among some who hope for change in
South Africa, that if only all Blacks withdrew their labour, the
whole structure of South Africa would collapse. It is a subject
which has received little academic attention. It is my intention
in this paper to examine this notion in three parts.. In Part I a
brief history of stay-aways between 1950 and 1961 will be given.
In Part II its reemergence in Soweto will be examined. In Part III
the limitations of the stay-away as a tactic of working-class action
will be discussed and contrasted with the more wide-spread plantbased
action of the 1970s. (This is not meant to imply that
limitations do not exist in plant-based action.) The Namibian
general strike of 1971-2 is excluded from this analysis as its
relative degree of "success" demonstrates the uniqueness of that
situation - viz. the existence of a reasonably self-sufficient
rural base to which striking workers could withdraw. Yet even in
Namibia workers could ultimately, says Moorsom, not escape the
major contradiction in their strategy "that although access to
peasant resources considerably expanded their power to prolong
resistance, they could no longer, as a matter of inescapable
necessity, opt out of wage-labour indefinitely - the platform of
the strike committee embodied a tacit acknowledgement of the irrevocable necessity of wage-labour."
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented April 1979
Keywords
Stay-away. South Africa, Working class. South Africa