4. RULING CLASS RESPONSE

The South African ruling class response to SACTU can be summarized in one word: hostility. Like the Transvaal CNETU before, and even more so because of its non-racial theory and practice, SACTU directly challenged the economic base of Apartheid - the cheap labour system. The entire political superstructure that rests upon that base of exploitation was similarly threatened as a result.

It is crucial at the outset to define the ruling class. Far too often, and especially in the case of Apartheid, the ruling class is reduced to the political party in power, in this case the Nationalist Party since 1948. As we will show, such a conception is far too narrow. It is also dangerous in that it creates confused analysis and can easily lead to incorrect practice in the course of struggle. Such thinking also reinforces the liberal theories of social reform that never come close to touching the structural relations of exploitation that are the fundamental basis of Apartheid. Apartheid cannot 'put on a human face' - it can only destroy or be destroyed.

The ruling class encompasses far more than the government in power. It is comprised of two social groupings: firstly, the capitalist class as owners of the means of production and whose members live off the profit derived from exploiting human labour power; and secondly, the entire state apparatus (government, legislature, judiciary, administrative bureaucracy, police and the military). Together, both social forces generally share the same overall interests in maintaining the status quo, and, more specifically, the dominant relations of production under capitalism.

This does not mean that the interests of the state and the capitalist class are identical. Indeed, on many specific issues it is not uncommon to find differences of opinion, even conflict, between and within both sectors. This is true of all capitalist societies and South Africa is no exception.

These intra-ruling class conflicts, interesting and important as they may be in given circumstances, must not divert our attention from the larger identity of interests that all rulers share in relation to the ruled. In regard to SACTU, both segments of the South African ruling class share the common assumption that the organization of African workers into economically and politically effective trade unions is a threat to the state's structure of Apartheid institutions and the capitalist's source of profit.

As a trade union body, SACTU was the only group in the Congress Alliance to directly confront the capitalist class in South Africa, that is, a class 'in and for itself'. The following statement leaves no doubt that SACTU understood the relationship between the state and the capitalist class within the ruling sector:

SACTU is a working class organization representing the interests of working people, more especially that of the homeless, voteless and landless masses of the working class of our land, whose daily lives are at the mercy of the dominating white minority. SACTU conducts a fierce struggle against exploitation.

Capitalism thrives on profits derived from the workers, on the exploitation of workers and the deprivation of human rights. Such is the nature of capitalism and it holds no brief for the aspirations of the producers of its wealth. It rejects everything that stands in the way of profits and uses its power mercilessly to crush its opposition.... It is the nature of capitalism to use many devices to camouflage its naked exploitation of the workers. In South Africa, the device used to create super profits is racial discrimination.... They (white people) perpetuate myths of superiority and encourage workers to remain divided through racial hatred.¹

Here, then, is a precise statement that identifies the ruling class and explains how class exploitation under capitalism is promoted by the Apartheid state through its political structures and ideology of racism. Although the final sentence of this passage generalizes about all 'white people', it obviously refers to White power-holders as they are the only sub-minority of the White population with the means of institutionalizing a given ideology of White supremacy. SACTU has thus given a concrete example of what is meant by the statement, ... the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class'.

Ruling class hostility towards SACTU, its affiliated unions and leaders can now be fully understood. The identification of the profit motive at the root of Apartheid, as the driving force of the system that creates misery, poverty and death for the Black masses, signals to those who rule that SACTU is not a trade union movement willing to accept concessions or compromise. Only the total liberation of the people from the double chains of class exploitation and national oppression will complete SACTUs historic task. The formulation also warns all reformist elements, both inside and outside South Africa, that even without Apartheid South African capitalism remains a fundamentally exploitive system to be struggled against.

Because the state and the capitalist class interact with workers in different areas of social life, each has responded to SACTU initiatives according to its respective domain and interests.

The state response to SACTU was, understandably, in the political sphere, notwithstanding those specific industries where it directly employs Black labour. Legislation and the administrative machinery and physical force to implement it became the dominant method of state intervention against working class unity and progress. This legislation falls into two categories: (a) anti-working class laws affecting Black workers in general; and (b) specific political laws designed to crush SACTU and other Congress Alliance organizations and victimize their leaders and followers. This chapter will outline the former, while Chapter 12 will describe the latter - used primarily in the early 1960s. Together, this 'law and order' strategy constitutes the thrust of the state's response to SACTU.

The capitalist class interacts with workers (and SACTU) within the capital-labour relationship, spatially restricted to the point of production. By and large, employers in South Africa, increasingly multi-national in origin, have always accepted the racist structure of Apartheid society and agreed to work within it. The rush of foreign capital into South (and Southern) Africa, eager to accumulate super-profits by taking advantage of legislated or customary racial inequalities, could be explained in no other way. This gross exploitation of Black labour long predates the existence of specific Apartheid structures as we know them since 1948. As the history of capitalism the world over shows, capital creates these conditions of privilege and poverty rather than only passively accepting them, as though they were natural.

More to the point, there are no laws in South Africa that oblige employers to pay Black Workers starvation wages or force them to labour under slave conditions on the farms, in the mines and in the factories. They choose to do so. No law has ever prevented an employer from negotiating with a democratically-elected trade union representative or a factory committee formed by Black workers, with or without official sanction from the government. Yet, in most cases, they refuse to do so. No law forces employers to break strikes, import scab labour from the reserves or invite the Special Branch police to victimize workers. Yet this is done regularly. These choices are freely made by the employing class who are circumscribed in their individual and collective actions only by the unwritten laws of capital accumulation.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the capitalist class benefits from Apartheid. Even in those given situations where Apartheid laws appear to conflict with the imperatives of capital, new avenues of exploitation (e.g. Border Industries and Bantustan investments) are quickly found. Capitalism and Apartheid, rather than being antithetical to one another, act as harmonious partners in the exploitation and oppression of the Black people of South Africa.

Finally, TUCSA's response to SACTU is included in this chapter to illustrate the role that the White trade union leadership played in assisting the interests of the ruling class. Despite their relatively privileged position within the whole working class, White workers are not part of the ruling class. None the less, it is important to show how the dynamics of racial politics led this segment of the producing class to betray its class interests and identify opportunistically with the forces of oppression. This also allows everyone to better appreciate the entire range of historical opposition to the principled non-racial trade unionism of SACTU.

The Capitalist Apartheid State and Labour Legislation

A strong body of responsible opinion stressed the serious danger which faced the country if Native trade unions were allowed to continue uncontrolled or unguided as at present.

Paragraph 1634, Industrial Legislation Commission, 1951

... the principal function of the trade unions will disappear.... These organizations will not so much be entrusted with the function of obtaining better wages and working conditions; ... they will be mainly entrusted with the task of regulating domestic affairs, as between the employers and employees. And for the rest, of looking after the spiritual welfare of the workers.

B. J. Schoeman, Nationalist Party, House of Assembly Debates, 19 March 1942

A study of labour legislation in South Africa supports the view that a fundamental role of the state is to intervene in the class struggle whenever necessary to maintain the capital-labour relations of exploitation. Successive amendments to legislation passed early in the century, and, in certain cases, entirely new legislation, has been a direct response to two forms of struggle: that between different fractions of capital (e.g. agricultural versus industrial) and that more decisive struggle between capital and labour. The result is a complicated morass of anti-worker legislation which purposefully divides the working class along racial lines and hence creates the conditions for co-opting the minority White workers away from working class solidarity. A divided proletariat also enhances the profits extracted from the production process in general.

This labour legislation is distinguished by (a) those Acts covering ,registered' trade unions consisting of non-African workers (i.e., Whites and Coloureds)² and (b) those Acts of repressive legislation applicable to only African workers and their 'unregistered' unions. The former is largely covered by the Industrial Conciliation Act (hereafter IC Act) of 1924, as amended in 1937 and 1956; the latter consists of many separate Acts which limit the rights of African workers at and beyond the workplace. Such a dichotomy defies a simplistic division of the workforce along lines of racial oppression alone. That is, it is not merely a Black versus White division. For example, there are many cases where Coloured workers in registered unions act in ways contrary to the interests of their fellow African workers in unregistered unions. The point to stress, however, is that these legislated divisions have been consciously created by the state sector to stabilize the labour process and promote the class interests of employers who control production.

SACTU's struggles against the IC Act of 1956 and the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act of 1953 cannot be properly understood without first outlining the 'logic' and parameters of legislation enacted earlier in this century.

Decades before the Nationalists came to power, the IC Act of 1924 provided the legislative cornerstone of a divided working class. It emerged out of a crisis of interrupted production in the mining industry, whereby White miners conducted strikes in 1907, 1913 and again in 1922 against the companies' practice of incorporating cheaper, unskilled African labour into jobs customarily reserved for Whites. The famous White miners' strike of 1922, the Rand Revolt, was the most crucial factor leading to the new industrial relations machinery. For the South African Mine Workers Union (SAMWU), representing White workers, the issue at stake was nothing less than that of 'preserving a White South Africa'. In what became a virtual civil war during the month of March, the Smuts Government came to the defence of the mining industry by calling in the troops. When the strike officially ended on 16 March, at least 214 had been killed and four more were subsequently hanged after being convicted of murder in the courts. Although the Rand Revolt and the White miners' strikes of the previous decade were crushed by force, their reoccurrence was inevitable unless the state acted quickly to devise industrial relations legislation that would satisfy White mining capital and would emasculate the militancy of White labour.

No less important was the expressed fear that African workers, the most exploited, would perceive the value of strong working class organization. Such a threat to 'industrial peace' might well go beyond manageable limits. A Government Inspector voiced these fears before a Commission in 1914:

Some natives are realising that it is in their interests to form a combination. In answer to the question of whether he thought the natives had learnt lessons in combination from the events (of the 1913 strike by White miners), the Inspector replied, 'I am sure of it.... What they learnt in a week last July might in the ordinary way have taken them 15 years to learn.'³

Notwithstanding the White Inspector's underestimation of the learning speed' of African workers, the Smuts Government of the day intervened in the class struggle to enact the IC Act of 1924. The essentials of this Act remain in force today.

The goal was to create institutionalized structures that would remove class conflict from the point of production and install it in the safety of polite discussions convened around government-supervised tables. The 1914 Commission had recommended the advantages of such a system:

Recognition creates responsibility ... experience proves that organization in the open, made sober by recognition, is a very different thing from organization which has to fight against contempt or antagonism.... (Further) the organization of labour is an aid to the authority of a conciliation board, because much labour can then be dealt with as a whole. Moreover, the (trade union) official is more likely to take the business point of view and examine the situation (more) calmly than the workman who has some personal grievance rankling in his mind. (emphasis added) ⁴

Thus, statutory bodies - known as Industrial Councils - representing employers and employees came into being. In full accord with the wishes of mining and other capitalist quarters, the right to strike was essentially lost through a cumbersome procedure which if not followed made the withdrawal of labour power illegal.

Most important, the overwhelming majority of the workforce - the African proletariat - was specifically excluded from the terms

reference of the IC Act. This was done by declaring that all pass-bearing natives' would not be considered 'employees' under the Act. African women workers were, however, covered by legislation until the mid- 19 50s when they were legally required to carry passes.⁵

White workers demanded and received many benefits as the quid pro quo for forsaking hard fought for rights gained through previous struggles. In the context of South Africa, these benefits came inevitably at the expense of the Black, particularly African, workers. The most important gains, however, were reaped by the capitalist class and the state, those who increase profits and power by having a weak and divided working class. Militant actions and strikes by registered unions (those covered by the IC Act) declined from an average of 37 involving over 42,000 workers annually between 1919 and 1922, to an average of 6 involving only 393 White and Coloured workers between 1923 and 1929. Workers in registered unions lost control of and interest in their organizations as bureaucrats who accepted class collaboration and racial discrimination came to the fore as leaders of the majority of such unions.

Within ten years, another Government Commission reported that employers found the IC Act to their liking. Cases were cited where employers' organizations actively encouraged the formation of unions in their factories. The IC Act was a classic case of 'historical compromise', and like all subsequent labour legislation in South Africa, strengthened the power and privilege of the propertied segment of society. It also proved that when direct physical repression is not a viable strategy, the state can also discover 'peaceful' means of maximizing exploitation.

Legislation alone, however, has never curtailed efforts to organize African workers. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, progressive trade unionists campaigned for the inclusion of Africans as employees' under the Act. They also used loopholes in the Act to struggle for extension of benefits to the most exploited workers. Not everyone who opposed the legislation, however, did so for principled reasons. Many White dominated or led trade unions called for changes solely out of sectional self-interest; if Africans were to be a permanent part of the urban working class, the White workers agreed that their organization would eventually be necessary to prevent the bosses' desire to employ cheaper, Black labour as a meaning of lowering production costs. Others agreed that African unions should be registered in order to place greater restrictions on their political activities.

The Second World War, representing another crisis of capitalism but on a world-wide scale, brought with it additional legislative attacks on African workers. In order to ensure continuous production to meet wartime schedules, and to quell the dramatic rise of militant African trade unions, the Smuts Government enacted War Measures Acts No. 9 and No. 145 in 1942. The Minister of Labour assumed the right to intervene in any industrial dispute designated harmful to the war effort. War Measures Act No. 9, allowing for the appointment of an arbitrator and a ban on strikes and lockouts in disputed industries, was withdrawn at the end of the war. Act No. 145, however, remained in effect until 1953, when it was incorporated into the Native Labour Act.

The reason is straightforward: under this extension the provisions covered all industrial undertakings in which Africans were involved. In this way, an ostensibly wartime measure became in fact an outright attack on all African workers and their organizations. A supplementary War Measure No. 1425 further prohibited gatherings of more than twenty Africans on mine company property, an obvious reflection of the government's fear of the African Mine Workers Union that later carried out the famous strike of 1946. Yet during the war years, African workers were never intimidated by these 'emergency' measures; nor were they willing to succumb to ideological pressures to place an inter capitalist world war above that of their own crisis of exploitation within the borders of South Africa. Between 1942 and 1945, no less than sixty 'illegal' strikes of African workers took place.

The large increase in the absolute size of the permanent urban African proletariat, coupled with the unmistakable signs of their incorporation into militant and well-organized trade unions under progressive (often Communist) leadership prompted the state and capitalist class to put their heads together and come up with new legislation to stave off a potentially revolutionary situation. The Smuts Government tabled the Industrial Conciliation (Natives) Bill in 1947, and as the name implies, the goal was to somehow bring together the two separate types of labour legislation that had prevailed since the 1920s. The 'Smuts Bill' envisaged some form of limited or qualified recognition of African trade unions. As in the early 1920s, the main argument for recognition was voiced in a negative manner, i.e. without it, there could be no effective regulation and control.

The 1948 election victory of the Nationalist Party brought all of these gentile discussions of how best to deal with African unions to an abrupt halt. The Nationalists held no brief for such liberal deliberations - their philosophy towards African workers, indeed the whole working class, was spawned in Nazi Germany and had been clearly outlined by the new Minister of Labour, B. Schoeman, while speaking in Parliament back in 1942:

Firstly, (my party) contends that wage control and wage fixation should be entirely in the hands of the state. Secondly, and this is the most important principle - self-government in industry must be eliminated.... (They) are things of the past ... (and) should be eliminated from our economic life.

In regard to the Non-Europeans, the unhealthy economic position which is gradually arising and which will become more and more intense, should be entirely eliminated. My party maintains that this can only be done by fixing a definite quota for Europeans and Non-Europeans in unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled occupations.... 1 want to assure the people of South Africa that when my Party soon takes over the government of this country we intend giving the people the new economic order. ⁶

Shortly after coming to power, the Nationalists appointed an Industrial Legislation Commission of Enquiry to investigate all areas relevant to industrial relations in South Africa. The Enquiry received submissions from all concerned parties and published its findings and recommendations in 1951. Following the lead taken by the 'Smuts Bill', the Enquiry favoured qualified recognition of African trade unions. By 1953, the Nationalists rejected this approach and instead introduced the Native Labour Act.

Before discussing that legislation, it is instructive to summarize the position taken by different fractions of capital in submissions to the Enquiry. Employers' organizations in secondary industry supported recognition of African unions in order to 'bring them under control'; no one favoured granting full equality of rights to African workers under the IC Act. The Motor Industry Employers Association spoke for industrial capital when it said, '. . . the European is the custodian of this country and whatever legislation is introduced must be introduced for European supremacy'. ⁷

Mining and agricultural capital, on the other hand, totally opposed any such recognition, limited or otherwise. Mining capitalists feared the strength of the AMWU, and rural White employers envisaged an exodus of cheap, African labour to the cities with the higher wages and improved working conditions that registered status would bring. Recognition would also be tantamount to admitting that African labour had become urbanized and had certain rights as workers, propositions that were never conceded by Apartheid philosophers or slave-driving White farmers.

African trade unionists, progressive Whites, and liberal organizations such as the South African Institute for Race Relations (SAIRR), all supported unqualified recognition of African unions. Gana Makabeni, representing the CNETU, repeated the long-standing demand: 'Our fight here is for the recognition of African Trade Unions, that is the Amendment of the Industrial Conciliation Act to include Africans as "employees".'

The Enquiry recommendations were, on the whole, gradualist in that they called for a very slow, evolutionary process that might eventually lead to full status for African trade unions that were no threat to the system. Yet the entire Report read as if motivated by a deep fear of the consequences if these liberal reforms were not implemented. The Nationalists, eager to put into practice their Nazi-Eke dogma of racial separation, preferred 'control through repression' as an indication that the 'new economic order' had arrived on South African soil. The decline of African trade unionism following the 1946 Mine Workers' Strike, the move to the right by White trade union leaders in the SAT & LC, the concern of the Nationalists to promote the interests of Afrikaner agricultural capital, the banning of progressive trade unionists under the Suppression of Communism Act - all of these factors taken together led the Nationalist Party to believe in 1953 that they could 'bleed the African trade unions to death'.

Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act No. 48 (1953)

Continuing in the tradition of passing separate legislation for African workers, the Nationalists introduced the Native Labour Act in 1953 to permanently extend provisions allowed in the War Measures Acts of the 1940s. All strikes and lockouts of African workers were illegal, as were actions that might instigate strikes or lockouts. Sympathy strikes were also outlawed. In 1959, the Act was amended to make violators of the Act subject to maximum fines of R 1,000 (£500) or three years imprisonment, or both. These penalties for Africans were far more severe than those allowed for White or Coloured workers under the IC Act.

A further Amendment prohibited an African from representing workers at Industrial Council or Conciliation Board meetings. Also forbidden was the collection of trade union dues or contributions to benefit funds from African workers by means of 'stop orders', unless authorized by the Minister of Labour.

Most importantly, the Native Labour Act established a separate industrial conciliation machinery for Africans. This amounted to an unwieldy, White-dominated bureaucracy consisting of Bantu Labour Officers, Regional Bantu Labour Committees, Works Committees (if desired by workers in establishments with not less than twenty African employees) and a Bantu Central Labour Board. This complicated and highly paternalistic procedure for settling disputes and fixing wages incorporated in the Act was doomed from the outset. Yet, it is clear that the purpose of the Act was not only to deny recognition of African trade unions but to threaten their very existence. As Minister of Labour Schoeman had said in Parliament during the debate on the Enquiry recommendations:

... if we give them that incentive to organize and they should become well organized - and again bearing in mind that there are almost 1,000,000 native workers in industry and commerce today - they can use their trade unions as a political weapon and they can create chaos in South Africa at any time. 1 think that we would probably be committing race suicide if we gave them that incentive. ⁸

Between 1953 and 1963, African workers, their unions and their coordinating bodies successfully resisted the Native Labour Act. Organized and unorganized workers alike effectively boycotted the machinery of Labour Officers, Works Committees and the Central Labour Board. In so far as all basic freedoms of association, collective bargaining and the right to strike were taken away, the legislation soon became known as the Slave Labour Act - to be opposed at all costs.

As early as 1952, the CNETU accused the government of attempting to replace legitimate trade unions with dummy surrogates 'run from the pass office'. This made reference to the system of labour bureaux introduced in 1949 to facilitate the distribution of African labour, i.e. the removal of urban Africans to the countryside for employment as cheap farm labour. The Native Laws Amendment Act of 1952 gave legitimacy to these removals by proclaiming all urban areas subject to influx controls. For example, an African could remain in an urban area for no longer than 72 hours unless he/she carried a work or workseeker's permit. The purpose was clearly to allocate 'surplus' African 'labour units' to agricultural capital, the close ally of the Nationalists.

Industrial capital, however, was not disadvantaged by these measures. Shifting the reserve army of labour to the countryside created no shortage of labour, and it also lessened the potential political threat posed by large numbers of urban, unemployed Africans. Moreover, the constant threat faced by African workers of being endorsed out of the cities allowed the further cheapening of labour-power by the industrialists.

Returning to the Native Labour Act, CNETU National and Regional conferences in 1952, 1953 and 1954 urged African workers to refuse to operate the machinery created and thus prove the unworkability of the Act. To all registered unions, the Council warned that the Act was only the first instance of the Nationalists' plan to attack the entire working class. White trade union leaders were too preoccupied at the time with setting up their new Apartheid trade union structures - e.g. the SATUC (or TUCSA as it was known later) - to heed the Council's advice ⁹

SACTU carried on the tradition of the CNETU and continued to lead the attack on the Act. A pamphlet was prepared and distributed to African workers that explained the Act and advised workers in great detail what to do if harassed by Native Labour Officials. Of particular concern was the close collaboration between these Officials, the employers and the Special Branch police the moment a dispute arose. But it was the workers themselves who soon realized that the Labour Officers could offer nothing more than the status quo on the wage front, and, more commonly, charges of 'incitement to strike' or 'participation in illegal strikes'. The mere presence of the Special Branch also convinced workers that the Act was designed to guarantee their continued exploitation.

African workers were encouraged by SACTU to demand direct negotiations with the employers, either through existing trade unions or factory committees. Whenever possible, SACTU assisted unorganized workers in fighting court cases under the Act. The state collected thousands of Rand in fines from poverty-stricken Africans, and countless man-days of labour were lost to production through the imprisonment of workers. But resistance continued. By 1958, SACTU was able to claim that not a single bona fide African trade union had agreed to work within the machinery of the Act. On the wage front, the £1-a-Day campaign, not the Labour Officers, had brought about wage increases for African workers.

Given these realities, it is easy to understand that the most consistent response of African workers was the strike weapon. By the late 1950s, even the government seemed to realize that the Slave Labour Act had failed to crush the African unions. The result was greater victimization. In April 1958, the Director of Non-European A1Tairs in Benoni circulated a letter to all employers of 'native' labour, reminding them that any African discharged as a result of participation in strikes, demonstrations or absenteeism, was not to be re-hired without official approval. Employers were also instructed to keep separate files on these individuals and send the files to the local Labour Bureau on a regular basis.

Throughout these years, SACTU used the press to counter public statements such as those uttered by S. D. Mentz, Chairman of the Central Native Labour Board (CNLB). In 1956, in Cape Town, Mentz told employers that Africans were 'too childish' to master trade unionism, using as 'evidence' the 150 years it had taken Europeans to do the same. SACTU correctly responded that it had taken that long to win certain struggles, not to 'master' trade union ideas. Furthermore, since the government had attacked all workers, 'it must be concluded that in government circles, no worker is considered ready for trade unionism.... Once workers organize they are ready.'10 The fact that African workers had organized almost total opposition to the Native Labour Act proved beyond any doubt that Mr. Mentz and his many stooges (which included a few African businessmen on Regional Committees) had no conception of the issues at stake.

In 1960, seven years after the Act was introduced, the CNL13 held its first annual conference. In all this time, only ten Works Committees had been formed amongst the one million African workers covered by the Act." Instead, the strength of African trade unionism through SACTU had increased dramatically. Although successful in victimizing thousands of African workers, the Slave Labour Act had not bled their unions 'to death' as promised, nor had it accomplished its overall objective of consolidating the cheap labour system that is the basis of capitalist production under Apartheid. The explanation was given by George Maeka (President, CNETU) in 1954: 'the Native Labour Act cannot kill unions which are based in factories rather than offices'.

Industrial Conciliation Amendment Act, No. 28 (1956)

The Nationalists' new economic order on the industrial relations front was made complete with the IC Act of 1956, first tabled in 1954 and finally published in November two years later. Amending the IC Act of 1924, the new Act significantly changed the machinery of industrial

relations to conform with the general policies of Apartheid being imposed on the society at large. Whereas the Native Labour Act had ensured an inferior status for African workers, the new IC Act attacked the remaining 30 per cent of the workforce in two major areas: (a) the internal structure and scope of registered trade unions; and (b) the racial composition of the workforce by job category.

This two-pronged attack had been predicted and was subsequently examined in an excellent series prepared for The Guardian by Ray Alexander and other progressive journalists. The series ran in late 195 1 and early 1952, before either of the Acts under consideration were officially introduced, but the accuracy of the articles was uncanny in its precision. One article quoted E. S. (Solly) Sachs, veteran leader of the Garment Workers' Union (Transvaal), and gives a good sense of the thinking that prevailed in progressive circles in May 1952:

It is a common tactic of all fascist governments to launch an attack first upon the weakest and most defenceless section of the people (e.g., the Native Labour Act), and having achieved their ignoble aim, then to proceed to deal with the stronger sections. One may state with certainty that if the Native workers are deprived of their freedom today, the European, Coloured and Indian workers will be deprived of theirs tomorrow.

The 'tomorrow' in this case applied to the IC Act and its enforcement of further racial divisions within registered unions with 'mixed' memberships, i.e. combinations of White and Coloured workers.

The principal provisions of the Act that entrenched trade union Apartheid were:

1. no further 'mixed' unions would be registered under the Act;

2. any existing 'mixed' union may separate into uniracial unions if more than half of either the White or Coloured members choose to break away. The funds and property of the original union could be divided by mutual agreement, or by the Industrial Registrar if necessary;

3. any existing 'mixed' union that does not voluntarily divide into separate racial unions must have separate racial branches of Europeans and Coloureds; meetings must be separate and only Whites can serve on the Executives of different branches; mixed meetings of shop stewards and mixed congresses are also prohibited. (Exemptions may be granted by the Minister in cases where such separation would render one of the two branches inoperable due to too few members);

4. the Minister may declare any industry or occupation an essential service and prohibit workers therein from striking; and

5. no union will be allowed to affiliate to a political party or to take any part whatsoever in elections.

Difficulties of implementation led to further amendments to the Act in 1959. 'Mixed' unions were required to state in their Constitution whether in new areas they would cater for White or Coloured workers; in other words, 'mixed' unions could no longer recruit new members on a non-racial basis even if they had complied with internal racial separation. Also, companies involved in 'processing, canning or preserving of any perishable foodstuffs (the food and canning industry) were listed as essential services, and thus all workers in the industry lost the right to strike. This clause clearly was an attack on the Food and Canning Workers' Union (FCWU), one of SACTU's strongest affiliates, as well as an assurance to rural Afrikaner capital that its profits were being cared for by the Nationalists.

Finally, a further amendment prevented employers from deducting subscriptions from African workers where Industrial Council agreements had been extended to cover them. Exemptions would require Ministerial approval. The overall goal of these many amendments in 1956 and 1959 is obvious: to create an even more racially -divided working class and even stronger employers' organizations in the ongoing class struggle.

Not content with amending old legislation, the 1956 Act introduced Clause 77, which legislated statutory Job Reservation (JR). This legal brainchild of the Nationalists reads as follows:

Reservation of work in the undertaking, industry, trade or occupation concerned in the specified area and any portion thereof or in any specified type or class of premises in the specified area for persons of a specified race or for persons belonging to a specified class and the prohibition of the performance of such work by any other person.

In plain English, Clause 77 authorized the Minister of Labour to reserve any job for members of a given racial group. It was explained in Parliament by the new Minister de Klerk as '. . . a precautionary measure to safeguard the standards of living of the White workers of South Africa and to ensure that they will not be exploited [sic] by the lower standards of living of any other race'.¹²

Again, practical difficulties of implementation led to further amendments in 1959. Earlier rhetoric about 'safeguarding the economic welfare of any race in any undertaking . . .' was replaced by wording giving the Minister autocratic power to instruct the Industrial Tribunal to investigate any industry for the purpose of issuing a JR determination. Furthermore, the Tribunal was empowered to use 'any method of differentiation or discrimination it may deem expedient in its recommendations. And, Industrial Council agreements in any industry could now be overruled by the Minister's JR determinations. All of these provisions might now be extended to the mining industry which had been previously excluded.

Introduction of statutory JR for any industry thus made legal what had been customary practice since the earliest days of South African capitalist development. The 'industrial colour bar', ensuring that jobs should be reserved for Whites wherever they are able and willing to work, had its origins in the mining industry. The Mines and Works Act of 1911 restricted certificates of competency in skilled occupations to Whites in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State; Africans were not allowed to hold such certificates until 1956, yet this was nullified in practice.

This in no way meant, however, that Africans did not perform. skilled work - in fact, quite the contrary! It only meant that wages and conditions did not reflect their actual work. Similarly, the Apprenticeship Act of 1922 (as amended in 1944), although it did not formally discriminate against Black workers, in practice prevented advancement because of their impossibility of attaining the educational levels demanded. Opposition from White trade unionists who held controlling positions on Apprenticeship Boards further blocked technical training education for Black workers. In any case, White employers in most trades simply refused to allow Black apprenticeships.

These early Acts and customary discrimination were reinforced by the 'civilized labour' policy originating with the Pact Government of 1924. Applied primarily in the public sector, the purpose was to employ as many Whites as possible, paying them 'civilized' wages commensurate with a 'European standard of living' even if they performed unskilled work. As the SAIRR says, 'White workers were employed in various lower-skilled posts, and were paid at higher rates than those received by Black employees doing similar work in private sectors of the economy. ¹³ For 'uncivilized' labour, i.e. all 'non-Whites', poverty wages were the order of the day.

More recently, the Native Building Workers Act of 1951 was the first Nationalist Party attempt to deal with the fact that thousands of Africans were performing skilled work in the construction industry on the Rand. Under the Act, Africans were prevented from doing such work except in African townships where they were paid one-third less than workers of a different race doing equivalent work elsewhere. At a time when the government was promoting township development as a means of racially segregating the population, this Act also lowered the state's overall labour costs in housing construction.

In addition to these specific pieces of legislation, many Industrial Council agreements included similar colour bars, eliminating the need for statutory Job Reservation.

The 1956 JR legislation and subsequent determinations, although in fact covering a small percentage of the total labour force, 14 served notice to all concerned that the 'civilized labour' policy was in South Africa to stay. Profits for White capital, privilege for White workers, poverty for the majority - the crucial ingredients of Apartheid capitalism were firmly entrenched.

Although JR appears to be an absurd proposition to outsiders, like all South African legislation it is understandable within the imperatives of the Apartheid political economy. Behind the racist ideological rhetoric was the inescapable fact that industrialization had qualitatively transformed the production process. Skilled work previously performed exclusively by White artisans was now increasingly done by semiskilled Black 'operatives'. For example, in the metal engineering industry, Wolpe reports that new technology ... e.g. automatic lathes and drilling machines are turning out work previously done by skilled operatives paid at the rate of 86.5 cents per hour. The non-White operatives are getting the same job done for 22 cents an hour. The same applied to the building industry, where a new 'operator' category for the ,non-White' worker was created between that of labourer and artisan. Wages for these workers averaged 60 per cent of artisan wages.' 5 This process is known in South Africa as job dilution'. The data clearly shows that Apartheid is not contrary to the interests of capital accumulation.

The IC Act became effective on 1 January 1957. By mid-1959, the Industrial Tribunal had investigated twelve industries and published determinations for five of these. Almost without exception the request for investigations came from pro-Apartheid White trade unions and their members.

The first and most notorious case was that of the garment industry, when in 1957 the jobs of Coloured and African (mostly women) workers were threatened by JR for Whites. Coloureds and Africans staged walk-outs to show that the industry could not function without them, while the Transvaal Garment Workers Union took the issue to the courts. The Cape Provincial Division of the Supreme Court sided with the Union; it was this setback that prompted the 1959 Amendment that gave the Minister the power to introduce JR on any basis. ¹⁶ In South Africa it has become common practice to diminish the role of the courts by increasing executive powers.

Aside from the intimidation value to employers considering the promotion of Black workers through job dilution, the simple fact was that JR or not, White workers were not being squeezed out of employment by Black workers. On the contrary, White (especially Afrikaner) workers had voluntarily left their traditional occupations to assume better paying, more prestigious and in many cases overseer positions. The irreversible integration of Black workers into the permanent, urban proletariat was a product of industrial capitalism; contrary to Nationalist propaganda, it had nothing to do with interracial competition between racial groups within the total working class.

Therefore, the JR Clause 77 and the trade union Apartheid clauses of the IC Act complemented one another. On the trade union side, many White members of 'mixed' unions broke away to form their own uniracial unions. Yet the legislation hardly eliminated 'mixed' unions. By 1960, 56 'mixed' unions remained registered under the Act.¹⁷ Although this points to the unworkability of the legislation, most of these unions were exempted for practical reasons rather than for their political opposition. The majority were affiliated to coordinating bodies, like TUCSA, that had no fundamental disagreement with White supremacy.

In sum, history had repeated itself. The original IC Act of 1924 had responded to a crisis of capitalism by buying off the militancy of the White workers and their leaders in return for the privileges of racism and colour-bars. Strikes by registered unions declined accordingly. The major revision of the Act in 1956 tried to solve another crisis, except now the threat came from the Black workers and their political organizations, making the crisis all the more severe to overall structural stability in South Africa. White workers, their unions and federations again opted for White supremacy, and as before strikes by registered unions declined from 39 in 1954 to 10 in 1958. Only SACTU and its affiliated unions remained to fight the IC Act of 1956, legislation designed to disorganize the organized.

SACTU Versus Trade Union Apartheid and Job Reservation

SACTU's attempts to mobilize a united trade union front against the IC Act met with little success. Despite the occasional verbal utterance against the Act, TUCSA and other coordinating bodies further to the right politically, preferred to oppose SACTU rather than the government. Left to its own devices, SACTU was forced to deal with the deepened contradictions and divisions in the trade union movement resulting from the Nationalist legislation. The majority of SACTU affiliates, being unregistered African unions, were unaffected by the Act, yet paradoxically SACTU's strongest and best-organized affiliates were registered unions in food and canning, textiles and laundry and would be forced to decide how to deal politically with the Act.

The SACTU Management Committee (MC) initially organized an educational campaign against the Act, calling on local committees to hold local conferences and gather signatures on a petition to be submitted to the government in Cape Town during SACTU's first Annual National Conference in March 1956.¹⁸ A strongly worded Conference resolution called on trade unionists in South Africa and throughout the world to protest against this 'fascist measure aimed at the destruction of free trade unionism that deprived workers of (a) the right to organize unions of workers irrespective of race, (b) free democratic elections of leaders without state interference, (c) freedom of occupation without race and sex restrictions, (d) freedom to withhold their labour power, and (e) the freedom of trade unions to achieve their aims through political action.'

National and provincial conferences of the FCWU and the NULCDW held following SACTU's conference called upon their members to join the campaign against the IC Act. By mid-1956,ithad become obvious that the Bill would become law in early 1957 and also that a joint conference of trade union coordinating bodies against the legislation was not going to materialize. Only one question remained: what were the correct tactics to be followed by SACTU's registered unions?

Apartheid rules create divisions and conflicts among even the most progressive of trade unionists. For almost two years SACTU was to experience such division and conflict through a prolonged and often heated debate concerning how its registered affiliates should respond to the IC Act.

The debate began at a SACTU-NEC meeting in June 1956, six months before implementation of the Act. Piet Beyleveld outlined the options for registered unions: form separate uniracial unions, divide into racial branches, or in defiance of the law, deregister. All NEC members agreed that the most unsatisfactory solution would be the imposition of all-White executives on separate Coloured branches of SACTU unions with predominantly Coloured memberships. The ensuing discussions set the parameters of the debate that continued for eighteen months.

Leon Levy (SACTU President) reviewed the advantages many African workers obtained by working closely with progressive registered unions in their respective industries - e.g. laundry, food and canning and textiles. These SACTU unions had, in many cases, persuaded employers to extend benefits to African workers in Industrial Council agreements. Leslie Massina (General Secretary) went so far as to say that the only solid African unions were those which worked closely with registered unions, and this point was generally accepted. Don Mateman (TWIU) argued against deregistration: 'What we have we must keep. What we do not have we must fight for.'

Archie Sibeko (SAR & HWU, CT) agreed that trade unions must first bring concrete benefits to African workers before '. . . you could carry them further. If you were too much in advance of the workers you became apart from them.' But unlike other speakers, Sibeko stressed that the issue could be settled satisfactorily only if the workers themselves reached a decision through a 'process of struggle'. This point was accepted and the NEC called for discussions at all levels leading to a special conference to formulate policy.

The first clearly argued case for deregistration was made by Eli Weinberg in the March 1957 issue of Truth, the laundry workers' paper. He maintained that the IC Act, like its predecessor in 1924, would exact a toll too heavy for the progressive trade union movement to pay. Could the benefits of registration still help workers once they had been divided into racial branches? As registration was not compulsory, Weinberg recommended voluntary deregistration in order that: (a) Africans could be equal members of presently 'mixed' unions; (b) union funds, the Constitution and elections could be democratically controlled by the membership; and (c) strike action and political activities would not be so restricted. Admitting that many trade unionists were still enamoured with the 'benefits' of the IC Act, Weinberg concluded this article as follows:

... The African workers are on the move again, and they, no doubt, will again prove to the members of registered trade unions that the most effective way to secure benefits is workers' unity and not some kind of nebulous 'recognition' which is bound up precisely with the sacrifice of working class unity.

In response, Ray Alexander, writing under the pen-name of E. R. Braverman, wrote in the April issue of Workers' Unity that Weinberg had erred by focussing on the registration issue. Rather, in her opinion, the major threat was the Job Reservation clause and trade unionists should be discussing 'how to defend the workers' right to work'. Alexander agreed in principle that working class unity could be best served by deregistration, but in practice such a strategy required support from workers of all racial groups to be effective.

Can Eli Weinberg quote one union in which the White workers are likely to follow their 'non-White' fellow workers in rejecting the Act? And if White workers refuse to adopt this course of action must the non-White workers act on their own account, leave the White Executive registered union, to negotiate industrial council agreements, submit memoranda to the industrial tribunal, sit on apprenticeship committees ... 1 should like to know what guidance E. Weinberg has for the Indian, Coloured and African garment, bus men, leather and building workers?

Whether one agrees that JR was the largest threat in the Act or not, this exchange between veteran trade unionists reflects the differences of analysis and opinions that emerged early in the SACTU debate.

The NEC meeting held on 11 April 1957, one day before the Second Annual Conference records a significant shift from the discussion of the previous June meeting. Two specific proposals prepared by the MC read: '(a) (We appeal) ... to all registered Trade Unions to resist all efforts to split their organization on racial grounds and if necessary to forgo registration under the IC Act;' and (b) '(we call) upon newly formed Trade Unions not to register under the IC Act, but to form broad multi-racial Trade Unions.' When asked whether the consequences of deregistration had been considered, Massina is minuted as saying, '. . . we must not fall into the trap of being super Trade Unionists. We must go to the workers and let them decide.' Uriah Maleka (A-FMBWU) added that failure to support deregistration would reduce SACTU's criticism of the Act to the reformist position of the SATUC. ¹⁹

The Second Annual National Conference was opened by Ben January (NULCDW) with warnings that great sacrifices would have to be made by SACTU unions as all other coordinating bodies essentially supported the Nationalist legislation. The first full delegate debate on the IC Act and MC proposals was then initiated by Oscar Mpetha (AFCWU, CT) who boldly stated that unless trade unions mounted a counter-offensive they would soon be nothing more than 'cogs in a Nazi-like Labour Front'. In opposition to the proposals for deregistration, Don Mateman (TWIU) offered a vaguely-worded amendment that argued against such open defiance.

Militant African leaders, by and large, strongly opposed Mateman's amendment. Mpetha put the case this way: 'Must we beg that a piece of paper will negotiate for us? Let us have the confidence in our workers and let us not underestimate our strength. 1 ask Conference not to accept the amendment.' John Gaetsewe (A-LCDWU) reminded delegates that when African workers were first confronted with the Native Labour Act they had boycotted the legislation and still managed to gain victories through struggle and collective strength. Although Mateman and other TWIU delegates argued that the amendment was not a compromise to the Nationalists, the tone of the discussion continued to support the original motions.

Examples were given of how Coloured workers in the Cape had won wage increases only after unregistered African workers had joined them in unity. Other delegates pointed out that for many years the old SAT & LC and registered unions had campaigned for inclusion of Africans as 'employees' under the Act; the campaign not only failed but African women lost their 'employee' status and were instead given passes. Maleka and Mpetha captured the sense of the discussion in their closing comments: 'A trade union exists because it has members, not because it is registered,' and 'We must reject the Act in toto for it is our doom to accept it.'

Despite the heated discussion, delegates realized that no alternative wording to either the original motion or the Mateman amendment would resolve the basic disagreement. Thus, as a temporary compromise, it was agreed that the incoming NEC would study both proposals and re-convene a special conference to be held in December 1957. In September, the FCWU held its 16th Annual Conference and called upon SACTU to publish a pamphlet to the workers, explaining the provisions, application and effects of the IC Act. Reiterating its total opposition to the Act, the FCWU agreed that until such time as greater unity within the whole trade union movement had been achieved, it would comply with the Act and alter its constitution to confine membership to Coloured workers. Within the context of the Act itself, this decision made sense in that it reflected the racial composition of the union members.

With all registered unions required by law to implement the IC Act by 1 January 1958, and with only the unaffiliated National Union of Distributive Workers (NUDW) in support of SACTU's Conference to discuss the IC Act, SACTU could not wait for the Conference to issue advice to registered unions. The October-November issue of Workers' Unity carried a lengthy but ambiguous statement by President Levy. While recognizing that circumstances varied greatly in each industry, Levy advised unions to refuse to comply with the Act in those situations where the unity of the workers would otherwise be smashed. He added that fears of losing sick funds and other benefits should not be an obstacle as these benefits had come from struggle, not government benevolence. Even if Industrial Councils were lost, private agreements between capital and labour could still be negotiated outside the Act. The strength of the deregistration argument had, however, lost a great deal of practical importance by this time. Following the FCWU, the TWIU also agreed to form separate uniracial unions, with the TWIU amending its constitution to cater for only Coloured workers, the vast majority of its membership.²⁰

Therefore, the SACTU Special Conference held in December 195 7, was predictably anti-climactic. With the three strongest SACTU registered unions complying with the trade union Apartheid clauses of the Act, the previous debate dissolved into a general resolution calling on new unions consisting of 'employees' under the Act to refuse to register and instead incorporate African workers into their ranks. Presently registered unions were advised to follow the path most appropriate to their respective situations. Separate uniracial unions were considered preferable to separate branches with all-White Executives (as TUCSA advised). Finally, in working for eventual deregistration, registered unions should establish multi-racial federations of uniracial unions in a given industry, conclude private agreements outside the Act whenever possible and campaign for repeal of the Act.

In sum, this debate reveals the divisions created even within the progressive trade union movement by Apartheid legislation. While there were exceptions, African leaders clearly favoured the deregistration strategy and thought the registered unions should defy the Act to correspond with the African trade unions' resistance to the Native Labour Act. Even African leaders of unions in food and canning and laundry, where the registered unions had been crucial in advancing the organization and interests of African workers, spoke out in favour of deregistration. African textile union leaders constitute the (Recent interviews with SACTU African leaders in exile suggests that this position regarding the IC Act is still strongly held.)

Patterns are more difficult to find among the registered union leaders. Factors that came into play were numerous. Regional variation may have made JR more important than the registration issue in certain areas - e.g. the Western Cape. There is also the legacy of experience of working within registered unions and the associated industrial conciliation machinery that certain leaders appeared unwilling to forgo. To others, compliance may have seemed a practical necessity because their memberships would simply not accept the short-term sacrifices associated with the loss of registered status. Yet there is no evidence to show that these registered unions seriously attempted to educate their Coloured members on the long-term political advantages of deregistration. The exception was the FCWU which under the influence of Ray Alexander carried out a full discussion. On the other hand, the TWIU Executive, it seems, never really discussed deregistration as a serious possibility. And to some, the unwillingness of registered unions to follow the lead proposed by their African brothers and sisters was reflective of the structural or political limitations on trade unions as revolutionary organizations. That is, trade unions are regarded as essentially defensive capitalist institutions organized to protect workers and are thus inherently reformist.

These larger theoretical questions cannot be resolved in abstract discussions but only in the course of the class struggle itself. In South Africa, the issue rested squarely on the progressive trade unionists' perception of the IC Act. Was it beneficial to the workers' struggle (if only extended to include all workers) or was it a restriction? John Gaetsewe, General Secretary of SACTU, sees the Act as a definite obstacle when he says,

Unity is the only way to push forward. Those that have some benefits from the registration should throw that away and come back to those who are not registered and be unified and fight together for the benefits of all workers.... Registration has got strings ... the set up in South Africa means that registered workers continue to benefit from the suffering of African workers.²¹

SACTU opposition to Job Reservation was far less controversial. The garment industry determination prompted Workers' Unity to run feature articles exposing the threat that JR posed to Black workers in all industries. As on many issues, TUCSA and FOFATUSA unions, whose members were also threatened by JR in many cases, refused to cooperate with SACTU's efforts to build a united labour front against Nationalist legislation. Lucy Mvubelo's Garment Workers Union of African Women (GWU-AW) was a case in point. Yet when garment workers staged walk-outs to protest against JR, SACTU-FCWU workers who had been recently retrenched and encouraged by the authorities to fill the garment vacancies, refused to scab on their fellow workers.

Without a united labour opposition, most actions were rearguard and defensive in nature. A 1961 JR investigation of the textile industry brought a quick response from the TWIU, which represented 3,453 Coloured workers. The TWIU memorandum pointed out that the most important jobs - spinning and weaving, for example - were performed by members of all racial groups. The decline of White workers in the industry (from 28 per cent in 1939-40 to 13.3 per cent in the late 1950s) resulted from a voluntary departure and not inter-racial job competition. The TWIU warned, however, that imposition of JR quotas would lead to inter-racial conflict; it would also lead employers to relocate in border industrial areas thus jeopardizing the very jobs of White workers that legislation was designed to protect. No JR determination was ever scheduled for the industry.

In addition to the Nationalists' obsession with keeping Black workers 'in their inferior place', JR was also devised to protect and provide employment for White workers in a period of capitalist recession. In practice, Coloured ,workers in the Western Cape - workers who were skilled tradesmen largely responsible for the development of secondary industry in that area - were the most affected by JR. This explains the importance accorded this aspect of the IC Act by Ray Alexander in Cape Town. The SACTU Local Committee attempted to educate and mobilize the relatively conservative Coloured workers through a pamphlet entitled, 'Has Your Union Pulled Its Weight?' The TUC leadership of Coloured unions was attacked for conceding to the principle of White supremacy, and Coloured rank-and-file workers were encouraged to make a stand for trade union independence and unity. Many Coloured unions did become disenchanted with TUCSA during these years but, for the most part, were unwilling to join the ranks of SACTU.

Although the SACTU NEC promised to issue a pamphlet on JR, the urgency of explaining the implementation and effects of Clause 77 led Ray Alexander and her husband Jack Simons to publish at their own expense a forty-page booklet, entitled 'Job Reservation and the Trade Unions'. The booklet covered the history of the colour-bar, reviewed the current IC Act in its entirety and carefully assessed the position taken by various trade union coordinating bodies. Coloured workers were encouraged to break from their White-executive controlled TUCSA unions and form new, independent unions that would represent their interests and those of African workers. Although Ray had been banned for six years, her 1959 pamphlet provides an excellent example of the invaluable leadership role she continued to play in the Western Cape.

SACTU as a coordinating body continually attacked the silence of other federations on the JR issue. Failing to achieve bilateral cooperation with other bodies, SACTU's 1960 Conference resolved that new initiatives be undertaken to organize an All-In Conference in Cape Town. The Sharpeville-Langa massacres of 1960, and the removals under the Group Areas Act had politicized a certain portion of the Coloured community and brought them closer to the Congress Alliance. The SACTU MC and the Cape Town Local Committee were thus able to obtain assistance from some unaffiliated Coloured unions in organizing the J11 Conference which was held on 2-3 June 1962. Cardiff Marney and Norman Daniels served as Secretary and Chairman respectively.

Alex Hepple, former Parliamentary leader of the Labour Party, opened the Conference by reviewing the history of the colour-bar in South Africa, reminding delegates that JR was an outgrowth of the mining capitalists' treatment of Black labour. Specific instances of JR determinations under the 1956 Act were discussed and delegates rallied around the slogan: 'We do not want borrowed jobs.'

Seven of the unions sponsoring the JR Conference were SACTU affiliates. Ninety delegates, representing forty-six unions with nearly 60,000 workers, attended the proceedings; thirty-four of these were SACTU unions. Among the nineteen observers was a representative from Mvubelo's GWU-AW (FOFATUSA). TUC SA, however, refused to send any official delegates or observers, again betraying the interests of working class unity against Nationalist legislation. A Continuation Committee consisting of SACTU, TUCSA and independent unions was struck to organize post-Conference activities, and subsequent SACTU MC meetings suggested forming a Johannesburg JR Committee. Further initiatives against JR failed to materialize in the wake of heightened state repression in the early 1960s.

The Wage Boards

Another vital component of the state's legislative stranglehold on African workers is the Wage Act. Originally passed in 1918, the Act was changed in 1925 and became a supplement to the IC Act of 1924; further amendments in 1937 and 1957 increased the power of capital over labour.

The Wage Act, theoretically, is designed to protect African workers against exploitation by unscrupulous employers and serve as the principal means of increasing their wages. It operates in industries or areas where employers and employees are unorganized, although farm workers, domestic servants and government employees are excluded from the Act. The Act authorized the establishment of a Wage Board, whose members are appointed by the Minister of Labour and whose purpose is to recommend minimum wage rates and working conditions for undertakings not covered by Industrial Council agreements under the IC Act. If the Minister approves the Board's recommendations, a Wage Determination is then published. African workers, again in theory, are protected under the Act against retrenchment, demotion or punishment for membership of a trade union or active involvement in trade union work outside the workplace.

In practice the Wage Boards have acted to maintain starvation wages and assure industrial capitalists high profit margins. Employers commonly use low minimum wages set by Wage Boards as arguments against wage increases demanded by African workers. Agricultural capital simultaneously benefits as low urban wages keep exploited slave labour in the rural areas.

Wage Board policy was to recommend wages which would not endanger the supply of labour to the farmers, that is, to keep wage levels as close as possible to the abominably low standards of the rural areas. The Board also exploited a provision of the Act which made it compulsory for it to take 'payability' of an industry into consideration when fixing minimum wages. Hence, employers consistently attempted to present the image that they were on the brink of bankruptcy, and here it was SACTU's efficient research work that exposed these deceptions.

Wage Board investigations often dragged on for lengthy periods, at times taking three to four years before wage determinations were set in place. The effect of such delays was to make increases, even if scheduled, hopelessly out of date in relation to the rising cost of living. Moreover, there were intervals of ten to fifteen years between investigations in some industries.

Over the years, it was common for registered trade unionists to make submissions to Wage Boards in support of African wage demands and also to sit as additional members when specific expertise could be provided. In 1957, trade unionists were denied the right to automatically sit on the Boards or have their memoranda considered. Also, unions lost the right to request Wage Board investigations, now the exclusive preserve of the Minister.

These restrictions complemented the grand design of the Nationalists to crush legitimate working class action and organization. The Amendments must also be regarded as a response to the momentum developing around SACTU's national minimum wage (£1-a-Day) campaign. During the 1957 Alexandra Bus Boycott, the Minister promised to investigate forty-five industries, the majority of which lacked any minimum wage limits. By 1959, SACTU reported that only twelve, or about 25 per cent, had been undertaken.

More importantly, many of these wage determinations had not recommended wage increases, and in the case of the food and canning industry had actually called for wage cuts on the basis of alleged difficulties for the industry during the recessionary years of the late 1950s. This attack on already below subsistence wages coincided with the 1959 Amendment to the IC Act which made food and canning an ,essential industry' and thus prohibited strikes.

Early indications of the government assault on FCWU came in 1957 when Liz Abrahams (Acting General Secretary) was prevented from sitting on the Wage Board investigation for the industry. The Union was described as 'unrepresentative', an absurd statement as it represented more than 51 per cent of the workers (as required by law) and had participated in wage determination and Industrial Council agreements already in effect. The reason for this decision was made clear in 1958 ' when Wage Determination No. 179 and No. 180 signalled wage cuts of up to £1 6s. 6d. per week for certain categories of workers. Only the strength of the FCWU and support from the Congress Alliance prevented the Afrikaner monopolies from imposing these wage reductions (see Chapter 8).

In 1959, SACTU called for an end to these state-controlled Wage Boards and their replacement by a national, legislated minimum wage for all workers of £1-a-Day. The Ninth Annual Conference in 1963 passed a resolution that was subsequently submitted to the government, stating:

(SACTU) is convinced that the Wage Board is used by employers and the government as a smoke-screen to prevent direct negotiations with workers and their trade unions and also as a means to create the false impression that something is being done about poverty wages.... Having noted the Chairman of the Wage Board's statement that non-White workers will have to wait another 15 years before they can get a living wage, Conference calls upon the government to dissolve the Wage Board and forthwith replace it with legislation providing for a national minimum wage and the protection of working standards.

Bantu (Native) Laws Amendment Acts

It was stated at the outset that repressive legislation against African workers was cumulative. This is so in two respects: firstly, in the straightforward sense of laws piled on top of previous laws, each a greater restriction on the freedom of the people. Secondly, the laws were cumulative in the sense that laws directed against Africans as workers affected their lives as citizens beyond the workplace, and laws increasing national oppression also could be used to counter their collective struggles to improve working conditions and increase wages. The Bantu Laws Amendment Acts, passed successively since 1937, qualify as cumulative in both meanings of the term. In general, these Laws consisted of blanket legislation which blocked loopholes and/or created tighter controls over and above specific Acts passed through the decades. In specific cases, the Laws attempted to refine the system of migrant labour and influx control that rules the day-to-day life of every African in South Africa.

Insofar as the migrant labour system guarantees a cheap, dependable supply of sweated Black labour for capitalist production, many of these Amendment Laws affected Africans as workers. It is only those aspects of the Laws which will concern us here.

Nationalist Party Amendments in 1952 and 1957 sped up the process of removing Africans from urban areas unless they were employed there. As we have seen, in 1952, all urban areas became 'proclaimed areas' subject to influx controls; previous to that, the 1937 legislation merely allowed local authorities to apply for 'proclaimed' status voluntarily. Along with the mandatory restrictions on the rights of Africans in urban areas came the establishment of labour bureaux where African workers and work-seekers were forced to register. These bureaux ensured that Africans remained 'temporary sojourners' when they were not serving the needs of the White man; they also provided an administrative means of removing 'undesirables' as defined, for example, by the Native Labour Act discussed above. This included the African unemployed. Between 1953 and 1963, there were 334 local and 353 district labour bureaux established, with over one million African workers registered.

Tighter controls were implemented in 1957 as a response to the popular momentum of Congress Alliance mass campaigns. There is little doubt that the Amendment Laws were directed against the ANC and SACTU. Meetings attended by Africans in urban areas could be prohibited. Africans could be prevented from entering places of entertainment in 'White areas' if their presence might be a 'nuisance'. The definition of 'undesirable' persons was further broadened to allow for more forced removals, and new reference books were issued, incorporating all of the separate documents Africans were required to carry at all times. Dr H. F. Verwoerd, Minister of Native Affairs, explained the government policy regarding these changes as follows:

Our attitude is that when the Native is employed in the White area (i.e. the urban area) - even if he has been there for one or two generations - then he is here in the service of the White man whose territory it is.... They cannot have permanent rights in Johannesburg or Cape Town or in any other White city. They are there as long as they are employed there and as long as the White community continues to accept them there ...²²

SACTU campaigned against these 1957 Amendments for the obvious reason that the right of freedom of association for African workers was virtually destroyed. Factory committee meetings, employer-African employee meetings, protest meetings - every possible type of contact between racial groups in the urban areas could be outlawed by the legislation. It was under the constant threat of legal intimidation that SACTU organizers were forced to work in their daily struggles to communicate with African workers and respond to their economic and political aspirations.

The Amendment Act of 1963 was passed during the period of heavy repression and victimization of SACTU and the Congress Alliance activists. Extensions of earlier restrictions and the deletion of old clauses that gave Africans some form of minimal protection reflected the strength of the government vis-a-vis the liberation forces in the early 1960s. The 1963 Amendment Laws:

1. interfered with the previous right of Africans to live in their place of origin. A Labour Officer might deprive an African of the right to work or live in an area if such employment is in excess of a maximum quota determined by the Minister of Bantu Affairs;

2. further directed and controlled African labour. An African might not be allowed to perform his work if a Labour Officer did not consider that work bona fide, i.e. in the interests of employers, employees, or 'in the public interest'. This was applicable to continued employment as well as new employment. Furthermore, the Minister of Bantu Affairs might arbitrarily set Job Reservation quotas for given areas, thus transferring control of African work-seekers from the Department of Labour to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. An African domestic might be prevented from living on his/her employer's premises (previously unlegislated) and the definition of an 'idle' person subject to removal from an urban area was changed to include all those convicted of offences related to any of the repressive political legislation passed in the early 1960s - e.g. the Unlawful Organizations Act, Sabotage Act, etc. (see Chapter 12);

3. disrupted African family life. The 1963 legislation deleted old clauses of the 1945 Urban Areas Act that had guaranteed the right of African women to reside with their husbands in urban areas where the latter had been employed continuously for two or more years. New clauses were added to restrict African families living together in rural areas, unless all family members/dependants directly laboured in farming operations.

4. authorized the removal of unhealthy African workers from urban areas. Workers suffering from diseases could be sent to rural areas where few facilities were available. Treatment was not compulsory. (The effect would obviously be an increase in mortality amongst Africans and a greater threat to the general public health);

5. established labour depots for Africans seeking work and or not having approved accommodation. These were nothing short of detention camps where African workers were kept until directed to jobs selected by the authorities;

6. further diminished the rights of African women. In addition to all the restrictions placed on African male labourers, African women seeking work in urban areas had to have a reference from either the rural chief, headman, or Bantu Authority. The purpose was to keep the African women in the permanent status of a 'child' vis-a-vis the law (and subordinate vis-a-vis the male population).

These are merely the main provisions of the Act which, 'seeks absolute power over the lives of all African people in South Africa' . . . (and) 'seeks to ensure that the lives of Africans, from birth to death, will be controlled by officialdom'. ²³

SACTU was in virtually no position to fight the 1963 Act as much of its leadership was being held in prison under the 90-day detentions. One large SACTU-NIC protest meeting was convened in Durban in mid March 1963, where over 1,200 persons signed a petition against the enactment of the legislation. Of all the clauses contained in the draft Bill, SACTU focussed its attack on (b) above. The total power of decision given to the Labour Officer meant that trade union organizers and officials might be endorsed out of the urban areas if their work was not considered bona fide employment. In actual fact, the state chose detention without trial, torture and long-term imprisonment rather than endorsement out of urban areas as the main weapon against SACTU activists.

This lengthy review of state-introduced and enforced anti-working class legislation - both before and after the ascension of the Nationalists to power in 1948 - clearly illustrates the role of the state in guaranteeing and maintaining the availability of a cheap, unorganized Black labour force. Far too often the critique of Apartheid ends with an analysis of the state alone, but as pointed out above, the state never acts in a vacuum. It acts to promote the general order and structure of the basic relationships that define social life - the most decisive being the capital labour relationship in the process of social production. Although the Apartheid state bears the brunt of domestic and international criticism, the capitalist class is that sector in South African society whose interests in capital accumulation are best served by Apartheid. In the following section and subsequent chapters we will demonstrate the bosses' response to the official Apartheid policies established after 1948.

The Capitalist Profit Motive and Apartheid

Those who arbitrarily separate the state from the capitalist class also argue that if capitalism were only allowed to develop 'freely' in South Africa, Apartheid would be gradually undermined. The suggestion that Black workers stand to gain from a capitalism unfettered by racial legislation, makes a mockery of serious social analysis and is an affront to the oppressed peoples who, long before the Nationalists came to power, suffered exploitation at the hands of mining, agricultural and later industrial capital. All fractions of the propertied class have survived through profits reaped from the expropriation of wealth produced by the Black working class. SACTU expressed its understanding of this fundamental fact when it said that capitalism'. . . holds no brief for the aspirations of the producers of its wealth ... in South Africa, the device used to create super profits is racial discrimination' (quoted above).

Having examined the legislative 'devices' of racial discrimination above, this section will begin to unfold the other half of the equation: capitalism plus Apartheid ensures exploitation of the Black working class. Whereas Chapter 6 will document capitalist exploitation by industry, the purpose here is to look at one specific area where there would appear to be a conflict between the profit motive and racial segregation. Also, we will briefly illustrate a case where capitalist ,concern' for the fate of its African workforce is shown to be a mere illusion.

Border Industries

As SACTU has already stated, the economic reality of class exploitation in South Africa is camouflaged by the racial legislation of Apartheid. For example, Job Reservation, would appear to interfere with the continuous flow of labour power into capitalist production insofar as jobs are allocated by racial quotas. The ability of capital and labour to exchange their commodities in the marketplace, according to the ideal model of capitalism, is thus directly affected by state intervention. Indeed, there were many concrete examples of employers' organizations objecting to JR following introduction of the 1956 legislation for precisely this reason.

In order to explain this paradox it is necessary to think of all capitalists as a whole and not simply a single company or even industry. While it is definitely the case that JR interfered with the momentary imperatives of given companies in given industries, this does not necessarily mean that the class interests of capital in relation to those of labour were negatively affected. This would be so only if the value of labour power increased. In fact, we shall see that JR allowed the value of labour-power to be further reduced and hence served the interests of the employing class.

With JR determinations being introduced in the mid- 1950s, an outlet for capital to realize its goal of uninterrupted accumulation was simultaneously required. This came in the form of Border Industrial Areas. Similarly the Nationalists' preoccupation with removing ,unproductive' African labour from the urban areas necessitated the creation of alternative or supplementary productive areas for Africans so affected. Border industries thus satisfied both profit and racial motives.

In 1956. the Tomlinson Commission recommended the establishment of industrial production centres adjacent to and/or within the African reserves. Four years later, a government memorandum on decentralization of industry defined border industries as

. . . those localities or regions near the Bantu areas, in which industrial development takes place through European initiative and control but which are so situated that the Bantu workers can maintain their residences and family lives in the Bantu areas and move readily to the places of their employment.

A Permanent Committee for Location of Industry, consisting of senior bureaucrats and officials of agencies concerned, was formed to implement this decentralization scheme. Renamed the Decentralization Board in 1971, this body assumed many of the functions previously performed by the Industrial Development Corporation created during the Second World War.

Prime Minister Verwoerd spoke of these White-owned industries on the perimeters of reserves as a means of utilizing (exploiting) African labour without causing social problems in the White cities. The production process would be labour intensive, with African workers ideally returning to the reserves nightly or on weekends. Trade union organization would also be easier to control, so the argument went.

But how did the Border Industries scheme satisfy the interests of capital? Companies were enticed by a long and impressive list of concessions to locate or re-locate their factories in border areas. These concessions included: cash grants towards the cost of removal; low interest loans to cover land costs, factory buildings, plant and equipment, operating capital and erection of housing for White personnel; tax concessions in relation to wages paid to Africans and the book value of the plant; price preferences on state-purchased goods produced in the border areas; and transportation rebates - both rail and harbour. Furthermore, the government would undertake to provide infrastructural developments such as water and power, road transport and industrial townships.

As if this were not enough to lure capitalists to border areas, the government promised to intervene in current and future Industrial Council agreements and Wage Determinations to ensure that lower wages could be paid to the Black (predominantly African) workers. Where necessary and desirable, the state would provide technical and vocational training for African labour. Exemptions from other racially-based statutory differentiations would be made on a case by case basis, on condition that Black and White workers would not be employed at the same level of work, that facilities were racially segregated, and that no White would be under the authority of or be replaced by a Black worker.

Before outlining the implementation of border industries, let us pause to consider the capitalist logic of what first appeared to be an ,economically irrational, Apartheid' measure. By forcing Africans to labour in 'White areas' and to reside in 'Black areas', the latter could be expected to provide a portion of the means of subsistence for the African worker and family. Thus, the overall cost of labour power (the wage) could be proportionately reduced. Whether or not the reserves could actually provide that portion of subsistence was irrelevant (at least to the capitalist) - it was sufficient to assume this to be the case. In fact, they couldn't. But for the employer class as a whole, any lowering of the value of labour power allows a maximization of surplus value extracted from the process of production. Border industries, in theory, could not have been more to the liking of the South African capitalist class.

In practice, the same was true. Between 1960 and 1970, border industries were encouraged in Rosslyn, Brits, Rustenburg, Mafekeng and Zeerust (near the Tswana homelands), Pietersburg and other towns in the Northern and Eastern Transvaal; in Harrismith in the Orange Free State; in Hammarsdale, Pietermaritzburg, Newcastle, Ladysmith/Colenso and Richards Bay in 'Natal; and East London/Berlin, Kingwilliamstown, and Queenstown in the Eastern Cape. 14 As Hepple points out, however, the original image of factories erected on the borders of large reserves proved incorrect. Instead, many factories sprang up near the 236 'Black spots' or separate areas scattered within 'White areas', i.e. Black areas not incorporated into the larger homeland-reserves.

The effect was to merely extend existing metropolitan areas and thus reproduce the prevalent conditions of exploitation, albeit at a higher rate. Writing in 1969, Hepple contends that only 189,541 jobs had been created for Africans, perhaps even an overestimate in that increased unemployment resulted in the urban areas where existing companies closed down their operations. Also, large numbers of Whites and Coloureds were drawn closer to African areas in the process. In other words, the government propaganda about job creation for Africans was largely a myth after only the first decade.

Where Nationalist promises were kept was in the area of greater exploitation of African labour power. Again to quote Hepple, 'Employers are usually left to pay their African employees whatever they please.²⁵' The clothing industry was the most obvious example, where a machinist in the Hammarsdale border area received R10.50 a week, compared with the legal minimum of R15.00 in Durban, twenty seven miles away, or R17.73 in Port Elizabeth and East London. General labourers in the same clothing factory had their wages reduced to R6.75 a week, as compared with R 10.50 in Port Elizabeth. The irony of the clothing industry example is that the reactionary White workers who had called for a Job Reservation determination found their employers resettling in cheap labour border areas. (See Chapter 8 on strikes at Hammarsdale.)

Lower wages were also the rule in the textile, motor, engineering and canvas goods factories located in border areas. By 1969, the Minister of Labour had arbitrarily intervened to lower statutory wages in six Industrial Council agreements. The exploitation of African workers in border areas was furthered with Proclamation No. 74 of March 1968, which limited employment to annual contracts subject to renewal through tribal labour bureaux administered by government-appointed chiefs and headmen. Thus, the border areas scheme falls within the general policy stated by Mr. Froneman, Deputy Chairman of the Bantu Affairs Commission in 1968:

We are trying to introduce the migratory labour pattern as far as possible in every sphere. That is in fact the entire basis of our policy as far as the White economy is concerned, namely a system of migrant labour:²⁶

While the government Minister thinks in terms of 'Black' and 'White' economies, the capitalist class does not need to enter into such banalities. Notwithstanding specific cases whereby a given company or industry might be adversely affected by Apartheid labour legislation, the overall schema of Apartheid not only maintains capitalist interests but it promotes them to higher levels of profit. Subsequent capital investment inside the homelands themselves - especially by foreign (imperialist) capital - would only serve to strengthen the general point that Apartheid is good for capitalism.

The Clydesdale Disaster

These workers have built the wealth they have never earned. They have made South Africa glitter with gold but they have not a rag to cover their body in. How does that happen?²⁷

Some facts to consider:

An estimated 32,000 African mine workers died between 1900-1960. This was an average of three deaths per shift.

On 28 December 1959 African mine workers complained of rumblings in the Clydesdale Colliery. One day in early January 1960 at 4.20 p.m. miners on the day shift smelled gas and rushed to the pithead, only to be ordered to return to work below. Twenty African miners going to work on the late shift smelled gas as they went underground. When they refused to go to the coalface, mine officials gave them the choice of returning to work, or being arrested by mine police. Two were arrested and eighteen went down under. At 7.20 p.m., three hours after the warning by the workers, the Clydesdale cave-in occurred, killing 429 Africans and 6 Whites.

On 16 August 1960 another cave-in at the Village Main Reef Mine claimed the lives of another 11 Africans and one White.

These mining disasters can only in part be attributed to natural forces. The underlying cause of the deaths of these 447 miners and countless others in similar disasters was the profit motive in an industry notorious for the leading role it has played in exploiting migrant African labour in South Africa.

An underground African mine worker, in most cases a foreigner to South Africa imported on contract, received 3s. per shift in 1959-60. His White counterpart. usually working in a supervisory position, earned £3 per shift, or twenty times more. But the lion's share of the value of production went to the mining companies. In 1959, profits for that year alone were as follows: Anglo-American (£7.7 million); De Beers (£21.4m); Consolidated Gold Fields (£2.3m); and Rand Mines (£3m).

Compensation paid to the dependants of the Clydesdale victims was equally deplorable (see Chapter 9). Payment of the pitiful sums further depended on the companies being able to trace the families of the migrant workers from Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania and elsewhere. One of the most shocking aspects of the Clydesdale disaster was the fact that the mining company took weeks to provide a list of the full names of its African labourers. They had been known only by their Christian names and clock number - e.g. Jim, Clock No. 3. As SACTU said in a press release: 'Only in South Africa, where Africans are regarded as numbers and not men, could such a state of affairs arise.'

When pressed for a list of the slain workers, the company spokesman stated, 'There's not a hope of getting a list today. It's a lot of checking. We're too busy.' This failure to maintain above-ground an accurate record of workers was in contravention of the Mines and Works Act of 1911. In contrast, the White miners' names were released immediately following the disaster. Two months later, some of the Africans listed by the company as among the dead were discovered living in Basutoland (Lesotho).

Finally, in such a clear case of culpable homicide - where workers' warnings went unheeded and they were ordered to return to obviously unsafe conditions and eventually their death - the state decided to lessen the charge to simple negligence under the Mines and Works Act. The charge's and fines eventually levied were astounding:

- for failing to report the subsidence on 28 December (nearly a month before the fatal accident)

Company £50
Officials £50 (or 14 days)

- for committing acts or omissions likely to endanger the safety of the men working underground (e.g. cutting pillars and top-coaling in Section 10 of the mine) 

Company £100
Two Officials £22 10s. 0d. (or 47 days)

- for undermining the house of a Mr Muller

Company £10
Official £5 (or 7 days

- for undermining the Vereeniging-Heilbron Road

Company £10
Official £5 (or 7 days)

- for undermining the Wolwehoek-Oranjeville Road

Company £5
Official £2 10s. 0d. (or 7 days)

In total, only £260 in fines were issued against the company and its officials for the death of 435 miners at the Clydesdale mine, an average of twelve shillings per worker. The Magistrate in passing sentence said that he had taken into account that the company had suffered the 'loss of a valuable mine and many thousands of pounds'. The murder of 435 men was incidental. It is upon this bedrock of exploitation of African labour for capitalist profit that Apartheid squarely rests.

TUCSA Accepts Trade Union Apartheid

African workers could always see who were their friends and who were their enemies.²⁹

TUCSA³⁰ hostility to SACTU came from two sources, one passive and the other active. Firstly, the average White rank-and-file workers belonging to TUC SA unions chose to cling to the relative privilege they received under Apartheid rather than promote the solidarity of labour. Secondly, the TUCSA leadership, which had emerged from the dissolution of the Trades & Labour Council in 1954 as clearly on the right-wing of trade union politics, strongly objected to the political trade unionism that SACTU promoted. This section will review some of the major strains in the TUCSA-SACTU relationship, while Chapter 11 exposes TUCSA's attempt to destroy SACTU through the creation of FOFATUSA.

All trade union coordinating bodies in South Africa must ultimately be judged according to their position on African workers and their trade unions. Only in this way it is possible to determine their respective attitudes towards Apartheid trade unionism. TUCSA, to its credit, is not one of the ultra-reactionary bodies but rather stands more in the 'middle' of the political spectrum. Yet such a statement should not be misinterpreted. TUCSA owes its creation in 1954 to the fact that it betrayed the cause of working class unity. From that historic decision, its concern for African workers was always circumscribed by its more fundamental concern that White workers needed protection from unorganized Africans who were easy prey for the employers. But instead of promoting working class unity, TUCSA chose the path of paternalism and opportunism in its relations with the African workforce. TUCSA was fully complicit in the Nationalist Party's attempt to crush legitimate trade unionism in South Africa.

Although excluding African unions from affiliated status, TUCSA still could not openly support the IC Act of 1956 and all of its ramifications. As Alexander and Simons pointed out,

The TUC can claim with justice that it made strenuous efforts to stop the passage of the Bill. At no point in the campaign, however, did the Council argue that workers of all colour groups should be allowed free access to any trade or calling. Its whole case rested on the contention that the Bill would be less effective than existing arrangements in safeguarding the standards of White workers. It disagreed with the Government on a question of method, not principle.³¹

As already mentioned, the SACTU Management Committee sent a letter to the TUC Executive in June, 1955, urging maximum cooperation and unity in opposing the legislation. The TUC response was indicative of the position it would take towards SACTU over the months and years to come: the General Secretary told SACTU that it (TUCSA) '. . . would determine its own policy and prepare its own campaign'. The letter also mentioned that the TUC would be meeting with the Minister of Labour soon.

This rejection of unity was a highly calculated move by the TUC Executive as Mr T. C. Rutherford, President, offered the government one of its many historic compromises. If the government would introduce Job Reservation as a special piece of legislation to be put into effect prior to Apartheid trade unionism (i.e. the splitting of 'mixed' unions), and if it was shown to be practicable, then the TUC would 'discuss ... its (the government's) further proposals under the IC Bill.³² In short, the TUC accepted White supremacy on the one hand, and paternalistically attempted to protect the position of its White executive in 'mixed' unions on the other. The government was obviously pleased to see that registered unions were thinking and willing to act along racial lines. The compromise was rejected, however, and the Nationalists pushed ahead with their legislation.

TUC credibility was further reduced by statements made by Rutherford and the TUC's so-called opposition to the Bill. For example, 'We appealed to the Minister to allow us to keep our organization intact so that we could co-operate with the Government in devising ways and means of preventing the ever-increasing Native labour force from continuing to menace the European standard of living' (emphasis added).³³ And, in his opening address to the 1956 TUC Conference, Rutherford promised that '. . . the TUC will not do anything contrary to the laws of the land' .14 Delegates then resolved that there would be no strikes against the IC Act, and that White workers should be protected against African competition. Thus, despite the occasional liberal rhetoric against Job Reservation, the TUC in the space of two short years had clearly shown itself to be one more enemy of the African workers.

The TUC also began its programme of undermining SACTU at about this time. While on the one hand rejecting SACTU initiatives for workers' unity, the TUC on the other hand attempted to 'liaise' with the very same African workers it would not accept as constitutional equals. This was clearly a rearguard action necessitated by SACTU's increased popularity.

The TUC approached African unions and paternalistically offered to use its resources and energies to assist those unions to gain strength and efficiency. This programme was assisted by Lucy Mvubelo, the renegade African unionist who broke with SACTU in 1957. The eventual outcome of this attempt to woo African workers into the reformist camp was the formation of the Federation of Free African Trade Unions of South Africa (FOFATUSA) in 1959. Because the underlying TUC motive in this action was to improve its international image by being able to claim African 'membership', we therefore discuss FOFATUSA and its failure in Chapter 11.

At one of the TUC-sponsored 'liaison committee' meetings held in late 1956, Dulcie Hartwell (General Secretary) had the audacity to tell African workers that the TUC had only temporarily sacrificed its principles, and that the 'liaison committee' would hopefully evolve into a coordinating body of African trade unions. Leslie Massina, SACTU's General Secretary, countered Hartwell on every point from the audience. He told Hartwell that African workers firstly did not need the TUC's self-serving help as it would only lead to an acceptance of Nationalist legislation; secondly, SACTU already existed as a coordinating body for African workers and if the TUC seriously wanted to 'liaise' why had it rejected all of SACTU's offers for unity?

SACTU's Special All-In Conference on the IC Act was, as reported previously, rejected by the TUC. Meanwhile, at the TUC's 1957 Rutherford was still warning delegates, we must not be provoked into disobeying the law, however distasteful [sic]'.

For SACTU, unity of all workers was more than a rhetorical slogan, but the prospects for such unity in the 1950s were another matter entirely. Workers' Unity of October-November 1957 carried a lengthy editorial written by Ray Alexander in which she argued,

... the White workers are joining hands with the Nationalists as though the real enemies are not the bosses but their Non-White fellow workers. The tragedy in our country is that with very few exceptions White workers have put racial solidarity before working class solidarity ... (F)or them the sole purpose of Trade Union organisation and industrial legislation is to preserve the White man's privileges and standard of living. 

Alexander gave additional evidence showing that White unions had objected to the IC Bill only because they believed that 'non-White' workers were becoming more competitive and threatened to oust White workers from privileged positions. Her conclusions reflected the thinking of the majority of SACTU leaders, particularly the African trade unionists:

Therefore to base a policy on the assumption that in the present set up of trade unions there is a possibility of real working class unity - does not correspond to reality ... (and) does not reflect our own present situation.... We must win him (the White worker) over. We must explain to him again and again that his identifying with the bosses on a racial basis will lead him to disaster. An important factor to bring about workers' unity will be the strength of organisation amongst the African, Coloured and Indian workers. ³⁵

This position was reinforced by the fact that early investigations into JR had been requested by the White workers themselves. Also, by March 1958 the TUC had joined the South African Confederation of Labour (SACOL), a central organization formed to facilitate interaction between White coordinating bodies and the government. SACOL represented the pinnacle of the White labour aristocracy.

Despite these many examples of TUC hostility, certain SACTU leaders, seemingly those with more involvement in the registered trade unions, continued to call for the impossible. Leon Levy's Presidential speech to the 1958 Conference stated this position as follows:

Our efforts in the past have been rebuffed. The SATUC has refused to join with us in any action.... As a result, many of our affiliated unions have hardened in their attitude toward having any dealing with this body, but we cannot agree with them. The struggles of the workers requires unity of all workers.... No matter how often our overtures are rejected, we must look for ways of establishing our ideal - unity.

In principle, of course, all SACTU activists supported workers' unity, but in practice the question was one of emphasis, especially given the limited resources available.

The National Union of Distributive Workers (NUDW) often played a broker role between the TUC and SACTU. The NUDW had remained unaffiliated to any co-ordinating body, yet its leadership always supported the principles advanced by SACTU. In 1958, J. R. Altman brought NUDW greetings to the TUC Conference in this way:

A genuine desire to further the interests of the trade union movement must lead your Council to seek closer collaboration with those unions and organizations which have steadfastly upheld the principles of the old SATLC (i.e. SACTU), rather than those who rejoiced at the untimely demise of that Council. ³⁶

The contradiction was, of course, that Altman was addressing many delegates actively responsible for that 'demise' and that the reiteration of principles ad nauseam had little to do with the struggle in practice. By the late 1950s, only the naive could fail to see that TUC policy, in consultation with the ICI7TU, was to crush SACTU through whatever means were necessary and available.

The TUC's disregard for African workers reached an all-time low in 1960 when it refused to assist SACTU in its campaign for adequate compensation for the victims of the Clydesdale mining disaster. The TUC refused to send a representative to the SACTU-convened memorial meeting held in Johannesburg, attended by church officials, political organizations and even the White mine workers' unions, the bastion of' White Baaskap in South Africa.

But the winds of change were in the air. Nationally and internationally, SACTU had become the organization recognized as representing the aspirations of South Africa's Black workers. At ILO Conferences, the TUC was increasingly humiliated by the international community for its colour-bar that prevented affiliation of African trade unions. Something obviously had to be done to salvage TUC credibility abroad.

The Eighth TUC Conference, held in East London, in March 1962 agreed to: (a) change the name of the organization to TUCSA; (b) to open its membership to 'all bona fide trade unions'; and (c) to call for a national minimum wage of R40.00 per month for all workers. Thus, for the first time since its creation in 1954, the new TUCSA dropped its official colour-bar and offered equality in affiliation status to African trade unions. No one could deny the progressive nature of this move, although again the motivation behind it was questioned by observers at the time. In addition to the international pressure, the TUC President L. C. Scheepers hinted at another reason when he told delegates that it was necessary to persuade African trade unions '. . . to adopt a moderate policy . . .' Sectional self-interest and paternalism are obviously difficult qualities for liberal White trade unionists to shed. Statements attributed to Johanna Cornelius (TUC Executive member) that these changes would 'put SACTU out of business' added to the suspicions concerning TUC motives.³⁷

Although African trade unions failed to rush to TUCSA's 'open door', the non-racial constitution once again forced SACTU to come to terms with TUCSA's role in the trade union movement. The SACTU NEC had anticipated this reversal of policy and discussed its implications for SACTU work. Most agreed that it was nothing more than a face-saving move and any temptation to believe that TUCSA had changed its fundamental politics should be carefully guarded against. Speakers recounted the 'imperialist connections' of TUCSA (referring to its ICFTU ties) and strongly argued against unity at any cost: 'We wanted the unity of workers on realistic terms - not on terms which would reduce the workers to impotency as had been done with workers in unions affiliated to the TUC.' There was also no evidence to suggest that TUCSA had modified its anti-SACTU stance. Because SACTU-NEC representatives from the Western Cape and Natal were absent from this meeting, it was resolved that informal discussions must take place before an official position was recorded.

TUCSA's policy changes brought to the fore the entire range of ambiguities and contradictions regarding' practical unity in South Africa. SACTU discussions between February and October 1962 reflected these problems. Prior to the SACTU National Conference in April, two MC meetings grappled with the formulation of a correct political position to be taken to delegates for debate. Was this the time for unity with TUCSA and on what basis? What did the TUCSA amendments really mean?

A tentative agreement was reached by the MC on the following points: (a) previous objections to TUCSA were not primarily associated with its colour-bar constitution but rather its support for the colour-bar in the economy generally; thus, unity could be achieved if and only if TUCSA extended its opposition to colour-bars at the point of production; (b) TUCSA must end its no politics' position and agree with SACTU that the African workers' struggle is fundamentally a political struggle (as had been the White workers' struggle earlier in the century); and (c) no meeting of joint executives could occur unless approved by the Conference delegates.

Mark Shope, Acting General Secretary, addressed Conference delegates on the TUCSA issue, stating:

We know that whilst there are some White workers who genuinely believe in working class unity, we are forced to state that the majority of White workers treat the non-White workers with disdain. To them, the non-White worker is a 'boy' or a 'girl'. The capitalist class has deliberately fostered these attitudes among the White workers by making them the aristocrats of the labour force. The non-White workers and trade union leaders will no longer accept an inferior position. In SACTU they have found a home where true equality is practised. Non-White trade unionists are no longer prepared to have the official titles of trade union secretaries while they are, in fact, glorified messengers.

The policy statement prepared by the SACTU-MC was then read to the delegates. Congratulating TUCSA for dropping its constitutional colour-bar, and repeating SACTU's pledge to strive for the unity of all workers, the document hastened to point out that a common policy between the two bodies had not yet been attained. SACTU would only unite on the basis of the strength it had developed amongst African workers, and if TUCSA agreed to:

1. fight for full and equal workmen's compensation, unemployment insurance, guaranteed annual leave on full pay for all workers, including those on the farms, in domestic service and on the mines and also for the right of every worker, African, Indian and Coloured, as well as While, to engage in skilled occupations and to advancement in industry (emphasis in original);

2. campaign for the right of African workers to take strike action to protect their living standards (i.e. campaign for the repeal of the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act and the Masters and Servants Act); without this the admission of African trade unions is of no practical value; and

3. to campaign for full political equality of all South Africans and to end all racial discrimination - e.g. pass laws, influx controls, etc.

If and only if TUCSA met these conditions would SACTU agree to unity. The document concluded on the ambiguous note that SACTU ,will at all times stretch out the hand of friendship to the TUC to cooperate on specific issues'.

Leon Levy's Presidential Address, read in his absence as a banned person by George Monare, repeated the essential position and posed the problem this way: 'The question is which policy is right for the trade union movement: colour bar, job reservation, baaskap, Apartheid OR equality of rights and status for all workers regardless of colour and a united fight against capitalist exploitation.... SACTU believes the latter is the right policy for the trade union movement.'

Don Mateman (TWIU) led the discussion amongst delegates, who by and large were more outspoken in their criticism of TUC SA and more suspicious of any interaction with that body than the executive. Stephen Dlamini (TWIU, Durban) reminded everyone that no trade union movement could be considered progressive unless it was totally supported by African workers. The luxuries accorded the TUCSA unions had been gained by the sweat of African workers, and the TUC was a

white mamba which had thrown out the African workers ... (and) though the mamba was toothless it still had poisonous fangs.... If the TUC was sincere ... why didn't it dissolve itself and join SACTU? They didn't do this because they are still white mambas.

Although many speakers opposed any talks between SACTU and TUCSA, Uriah Maleka (A-FMBW1J) proposed that the best way to expose the latter would be to publicly challenge it to carry out specific actions as outlined in the policy statement. This position and the policy statement were then accepted by the delegates.

Following the Conference, however, minutes of SACTU meetings record confusion over the practical application of the policy statement. A meeting was convened with Mr O'Donoghue, TUC General Secretary, but TUCSA expressed no greater interest in cooperation with SACTU than before.

None the less, certain SACTU executive member(s) proceeded with the drafting and distribution of an 'Open Letter to White Workers'. The Letter, contrary to the spirit of the Conference discussion, went unnecessarily out of its way to appease the fears of White workers. For example, phrases like, 'We do not hate you', 'We do not want to take your jobs as some of you fear', and 'Our demands are the same' were reflections of a strained desire for unity that had little or no basis in reality. Although subsequent Management Committee minutes suggest that relations between African and registered unions in a few industries may have improved slightly, the overall reaction by SACTU comrades was one of severe censure of this 'Open Letter'. As Uriah Maleka said, 'it is hard to work with someone who is trying to get rid of you'.

As for TUCSA, it continued its anti-SACTU activities as before. In June 1962 TUCSA refused to send an official delegate to the All-In Conference against Job Reservation held in Cape Town and discussed above. More importantly, at a time when the entire international community was condemning the Sabotage Act and repression being carried out against SACTU leaders, TUCSA distinguished itself with silence.

In 1964, the TUCSA Conference called for the recognition of African trade unions under the IC Act because, in the President's words, lack of such status would render African workers 'tools of the politically unscrupulous'. As evidence, T. P. Murray referred to the Sabotage Trials that were part of the state's repression against SACTU and the Congress Alliance. Two years later, after SACTU had been virtually forced to go underground, President Scheepers callously reminded everyone that South Africa was still a 'free democracy'. As for African workers, TUCSA's paternalism sounded like a voice shouting from the debates of the 1920s:

Unless responsible leadership is provided now, the African workers will eventually create their own organizations ... if these organizations fall into the wrong hands the consequences could be disastrous for the whole nation.... It is because TUCSA sees these immediate and long-term dangers that it favours the organization of all workers under responsible [sic] leadership.

And speaking of the past, the 1966 TUCSA Conference recorded what must be one of the most incredulous comments in the history of South African trade unionism: 'South Africa has had industrial peace for the past forty years, due in large measure to our sensible legislation' (emphasis added). ³⁸

Such statements speak for themselves. Can there be any doubt as to why Black workers in South Africa turned to SACTU as the only trade union body to lead their struggle against class exploitation and oppression? Working class unity under Apartheid, although in principle correct, is indeed a difficult objective to achieve in practice!

The purpose of this chapter has been to outline the breadth and depth of hostility to SACTU between the years 195 5 to 1964. The ruling class - consisting of the state and the capitalist class - and the co-opted White trade union bodies, each in its respective sphere, combined to place obstacles in SACTUs path in every conceivable manner. The fact that SACTU survived these attacks and went on to build the first powerful non-racial trade union coordinating body in South African history is testimony to the tremendous dedication of SACTU activists. Even more to the point, SACTU successes in the final analysis can only be explained by the fact that its campaigns and objectives were fully supported by the exploited masses themselves. With this necessary background, we can now turn our attention to the real work of SACTU - organizing the unorganized African workers.

NOTES

1. Mark Shope, Acting General Secretary, Report to Seventh Annual Conference,1962, p. 2.

2. In the legislation, and hereafter in the text, 'Coloureds' refers to Coloured and Indian persons.

3. Quoted in R. Davies, 'The Class Character of South Africa's Industrial Conciliation Legislation', South African Labour Bulletin, vol. 2, no. 6 (January 1976), p. 6.

4. ibid., p. 11.

5. Prior to the Second World War, the most important legislation affecting African workers was as follows: various Masters and Servants Acts passed in the four territories (Transvaal, Orange Free State, Natal. and the Cape) between 1856 and 1904; the Native Labour Regulation Act, No. 15 of 1911; the Mines and Works Act of 1911; the Mines and Works Amendment Act of 1926; and the Apprenticeship Act of 1922 (re-enacted in amended form as Act No. 37, 1944). These Acts deal almost exclusively with the conditions of employment, yet they are only a small proportion of the laws affecting Africans, Indians and Coloureds as citizens of South Africa. See Laws Affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 1948-1976, op. cit., for greater detail.

6. Quoted in SACTU, First Annual National Conference, 1956.

7. L. Welcher, 'The Relationship between the State and African Trade Unions in South Africa, 1948-1953', South African Labour Bulletin, vol. 4, no. 5 (September 1978), p. 18.

8. Quoted in Brian Bunting, Rise of the South African Reich, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1964 (rev. ed.), p. 35.

9. P. Beyleveld, A. Gelb and B. Lan, three progressive trade unionists, were defeated in attempts to get a resolution against the Native Labour Act passed at the 'Unity Conference' of White coordinating bodies in May 1954.

10. New Age, 17 May 1956.

11. In 1978, only 24 Works Committees could be traced, according to Laws Affecting .... op. cit., p. 241.

12. Quoted in Cape Times, 7 February 1956.

13. Laws Affecting .... op. cit., p. 248.

14. Between 1956 and 1976, twenty-eight Job Reservation determinations were gazetted; only thirteen were still in effect in 1976. Exemptions to these determinations further reduced the actual numbers of workers affected. Ibid.

15. Harold Wolpe, 'Class, Race and the Occupation Structure', Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries, vol. 2, 19 70-197 1, pp. 98-118.

16. Minister of Labour de Klerk had once served as Secretary of the White Afrikaner union - Die Blankewerkersberskermingsbond - which had led the attack on Black garment workers and the Transvaal Garment Workers Union for many years. Another J11 determination imposed on the industry in 1960 was qualified by many exemptions granted due to a growing scarcity of White workers.

17. Thirty-one unions had complied with the Act by forming separate racial branches; six were exempted for not having enough members of one racial group to form separate unions/branches; twelve were exempted from having all-White executives; seventeen were exempted from holding separate meetings; and eighteen were not required to form separate branches.

18. One month prior to the SACTU Conference, the Cape Town Local Committee staged protest demonstrations outside the House of Assembly during night sessions debating the Bill. Police took away placards, recorded the names of participants and inspected the pass books of Africans participating. A SACTU leaflet condemning the Bill was distributed at the demonstrations.

19. The Minutes also record that Natal SACTU unions were not concerned with registration, but rather more concerned with fighting the capitalists than the government.

20. An exemption had been requested and rejected. White workers joined the Afrikaner union - Blanke Tekstielwerkers Nywerheidsunie van Suid Afrika. B. du Toit, op. cit. The NULCDW also divided into separate uniracial unions, with the larger Coloured union retaining the name and the new White union being known as the LC1)WU of South Africa. Both remained SACTU affiliates (the former until 1963), but eventually joined TUCSA following repression against SACTU.

21. Interview, John Gaetsewe.

22. Quoted in A. Hepple, A Trade union Guide for South African Workers, SACTU Publication, Johannesburg, 1957.

23. SACTU Memorandum on the Bantu Laws Amendment Acts, 1963, submitted to the Bantu Administration and Development. 7 March 1963.

24. South Africa: Basic Facts and Figures, SAIRR, Johannesburg, 1973, p. 29.

25. A. Hepple, South Africa: Workers Under Apartheid, International Defence and Aid Fund, London, 1969, pp. 59ff.

26. ibid., p. 24.

27. Moses Mabhida, quoted in New Age, 11 February 1960.

28. SACTU, Seventh Annual National Conference, General Secretary Report, 1962.

29. Interview, Stephen Dlamini.

30. The SATUC changed its name to TUCSA at its Eighth Annual National Conference in 1962. Hepple says this decision was made to distinguish the SATUC from SACTU. Hepple, 1966, op. cit., pp. 244-5.

31. Alexander and Simons, Job Reservation and the Trade Unions, Woodstock, Cape, 1959, pp.28-9.

32. Quoted in Morning Star, March 1956, and A. Hepple, 1966, op. cit., p. 243.

33. Quoted in Morning Star, November 1955.

34. SATUC, Second Annual Conference Report, 1956.

35. E. R. Braverman (Ray Alexander), Morning Star, vol. 3, no. 25 (October/November), 1957.

36. SATUC, Fourth Annual National Conference, East London, 10-13 March 1958.

37. Quoted in New Age, 15 February and 29 March 1962.

38. Hepple reports that only seven African unions were affiliated to TUCSA by 1966. Of those, the National Union of Clothing