The movement and the nation can derive advantage from a National Socialist trade union organization only if the latter be so thoroughly inspired by National Socialist ideas that it runs no danger of falling into step behind the Marxist movement . . . It must declare war against the Marxist Trades Union . . . It must declare itself hostile to the idea of class and class warfare and, in place of this, it must declare itself as the defender of the various occupational and professional interests of the German people. HITLER in Mein Kampf
'We know one person only to whom we owe an explanation, and that is the White worker in South Africa who has brought the National Party to the position it occupies today and who will keep it in that position in the future.'
So spoke B.J. Vorster, now Prime Minister, in the House of Assembly in February 1956. And he spoke the truth. The Nationalist Party is a typical bourgeois nationalist party whose leading members have never shown any reluctance to enter commerce and industry and make profits just like their counterparts in other national groups. Nevertheless, it has always masqueraded, in the same way that the Nazi movement did, as the party of the workers - though only the White workers, of course. And there is no doubt that it has won the support of many White workers by following policies which have buttressed their economic and social position, if at the expense of the rest of the community.
The trade-union movement, as the main bastion of the rights and liberties of the working class, has been a target for Nationalist attack ever since the thirties, when the Broederbond decided that the volk as a whole should make a special effort to win over the workers. With the increasing urbanization of the Afrikaner people, tens of thousands of Afrikaners were being drawn into the ranks of the trade-union movement, which had been founded and traditionally led in South Africa by non-Afrikaners, mainly English elements. It was intolerable to the Nationalist leadership that the Afrikaner worker should be subjected in this way to unnational and alien influences, exposed to the debilitating effects of English humanism and liberalism, embroiled in the class struggle. Unless a strenuous effort were made to win him back to the fold, he would be lost for ever and become a convert to the ideologies of the enemy.
The Nationalists attacked on two fronts. In the first place they wanted to win over the Afrikaans worker and bring him into the ranks of the Nationalist Party, or at any rate subject to Nationalist Party influence. In the second, they wanted to bring about a separation of White and non-White in the trade-union movement and in all spheres of employment, so ensuring that the White worker would never be threatened by competition from the non-Whites. The story of the Nationalist conquest of the trade-union movement is one of internal subversion coupled, after the Nationalist advent to power in 1948, with direct and blatant government intervention. It is a story which is not yet complete, because there is still a great deal of fight left in the trade unions and in the working class as a whole, though a once mighty and influential trade-union movement has been sadly crippled by Nationalist interference in the last thirty years.
With Broederbond backing and guidance, the attack on the trade unions was mounted by the whole host of volksorganisasies, including the Church, cultural and economic movements, political parties, and splinter groups operating inside the trade unions themselves. One of the first shots in the campaign was fired by the Nederduitse Hervormde Kerk Algemene Kerkvergadering of May 1937, which appointed a commission of inquiry into 'Communism and the trade unions'. The commission reported that the South African Trades and Labour Council, the premier trade union coordinating body in South Africa, was working in close collaboration with 'The People's Front', which had been established to counter the fascist menace in the Union, and the Friends of the Soviet Union, both dubbed out-and-out Communist organizations.
'Your commission declares with the greatest emphasis
(1) that Communism is a deadly enemy of the Christian religion . . .
(2) That Communism is a threat to Christian civilization because it (a) propagates a bitter class struggle, and (b) agitates strongly for equality between Black and White.'
The commission recommended: (1) that the N.H. Kerk should warn against the danger of Communism; (2) that the Algemene Vergadering should protest very strongly to the government and the Chamber of Mines against the 'closed shop principle', because thereby many Afrikaners in conflict with their consciences were forced to become members of one of the trade unions, namely the 'Mineworkers' Union'; and (3) that the government and the Chamber of Mines should be earnestly requested to leave the miners free to join without any restrictions the Bond van Afrikaanse Mynwerkers because (a) the Bond stood on a Christian National foundation, (b) it operated outside party politics, and (c) would do as much and infinitely more for the workers.
The findings of the commission were set out in a pamphlet entitled Communism and the South African Trade Unions by Dr H.P. Wolmarans, which launched a vicious attack on the leaders and methods of the orthodox trade-union movement in South Africa and described the Trades and Labour Council executive as consisting largely of Jews and the English-speaking, in the main Communist or Communist-orientated. Once again the main crime of the Communists or so-called Communists was held to be that they advocated equal rights for Black and White. Dr Wolmarans found that this ideology had spilt over into the T.L.C. 'The innocent boeredogters [boer, or Afrikaner, daughters] in the Garment Workers' Union have to pay 6d. a week to a central fund, part of which is used to pay a native secretary of the native trade unions.' The Secretary of the Garment Workers' Union was called 'The Communist Jew, Solly [E.S.] Sachs' - a reference which was to prove somewhat expensive for Dr Wolmarans, who ultimately had to pay heavy damages to Sachs for libel. The company which printed the pamphlet, Die Voortrekker Pers, also paid heavy damages, not only to Sachs, but to a number of other trade-union leaders who had been defamed.
The pamphlet by Dr Wolmarans referred to a conference of the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurverenigings (F.A.K., the main public front for the Broederbond) where representatives of all the Afrikaans Churches had been present. 'The congress felt that the next task of the F.A.K. lay in the sphere of industry, where the numbers of Afrikaner workers were steadily growing and where the danger was daily growing that the Afrikaner worker would be led away from the national and religious basis of his people and where many of the trade unions to which Afrikaners belonged were being exploited by conscienceless foreigners to harm the Afrikaners and win them to Communism.' The solution proposed was to organize 'pure Afrikaans trade unions which can protect the interest of the Afrikaner workers on Christian-National lines'.
Dr Wolmarans claimed that shortly after the Bond van Afrikaanse Mynwerkers was formed its membership had been greater than that of the Mineworkers Union itself. Certain members of the union had then protested to the Chamber of Mines against the formation of an Afrikaans union, and the closed shop had been introduced. As Dr Wolmarans saw it, the mine bosses had shown their antipathy towards the Afrikaner workers by agreeing to this.
The next large-scale attack on the trade unions was launched by the Economic People's Congress (Ekonomiese Volkskongres) of the Reddingsdaadbond held at Bloemfontein in October 1939. The Reddingsdaadbond had been the brainchild of the Rev. J.D. Kestell who, appalled by the fact that one sixth of the White population, mostly Afrikaners, were classed as poor Whites, had issued at the time of the Voortrekker celebrations in 1938 an appeal for a tangible tribute to the memory of the Voortrekkers, declaring that they would be honoured if 'something were done for their "sunken" descendants'. Reddingsdaad committees had been formed in all parts of the country to raise half a million pounds, and the Economic People's Congress was held to decide what to do with the money.
The conference was quietly taken over by the politicians, prominent amongst whom were Dr Verwoerd, Dr Donges, Dr van Rhyn, Dr Hertzog, and Dr Diederichs - all later to be Nationalist Cabinet Ministers. Two main courses of action were decided upon - on the one hand to promote Afrikaner capitalist enterprises (surely something that the Rev. Kestell never dreamt of in his philosophy) and on the other hand to reform the trade unions on Christian-National lines. According to a report in Die Vaderland of 6 October 1939:
Dr Hertzog, who spoke on labour organization, pointed out that the trade unions in this country collected £290,000 annually. He wished to embrace these organizations in the objects of the congress and so put an end to the trade unions 'completely ruining the Afrikaner in the cities' . . . he warned against the control of trade unions by foreigners who had considerable financial self-interest at stake. The congress approved Dr Hertzog's proposal that a 'large portion' of the Reddingsdaad (fund) should be used for reforming the trade unions.
The conference set up the Reddingsdaadbond to promote the 'economic independence of the Afrikaner'. Among its objects the new organization proposed 'to make the Afrikaans labourer part and parcel of the Nationalist life and to prevent the Afrikaans workers developing as a class distinct from other classes in the Afrikaans national life'. It even established a special labour section, the Chairman of which for many years was Dr Diederichs.
Dr Donges described the mission of the R.D.B.: 'The foreign influences must be removed from our trade unions, and they must take their place foursquare on a national basis.... It is the task of the R.D.B. to keep the Afrikaner worker, in the midst of foreign elements, in his Church, language, and national environment.' At a later stage the Blankewerkersbeskermingsbond (White Workers' Protection Society) was called into being as an organization functioning specifically in the sphere of labour. Its constitution stated:
The society is founded on the Christian-National traditions of the people of South Africa (a) to study carefully the social problems and evils, especially those that affect the workers' community on the Witwatersrand: to find ways and means to combat those evils and to bring pressure to bear, where necessary, on responsible bodies, so that the necessary measures can be taken to adopt legislation which will promote the best interests of the workers.
Membership was open to ' White persons only who are members of the Protestant Church', and the organization aimed, amongst other things, (j) to support and propagate the undermentioned relationship between European and non-European workers: (1) that there should be a clear determination of which occupations must be reserved for Europeans and which for non-Europeans; (2) that no undesirable contact between European and non-European workers should be tolerated in their employment; and (3) that mixed membership of trade unions of European and non-European worker shall be prohibited.
Prominent members of the Blankewerkersbeskermingsbond included Jan de Klerk, present Minister of National Education and of Information, B.J. Schoeman, later Minister of Labour and present Minister of Transport, J. du Pisanie, and Dr Diederichs.
These were the main instruments by which the Nationalist poison was injected into the trade-union movement, with special attention paid to unions in which Afrikaner workers predominated, but which were not under Nationalist control, such as the Mineworkers' Union, the Garment Workers' Union, and the Building Workers' Union.
The campaign against the Mineworkers' Union was stimulated by a donation of £10,000 from a wealthy Afrikaner landowner, Mrs Jannie Marais, to rescue Afrikaner miners from 'the evil materialistic influences of the Witwatersrand'. On 4 October 1936, Die Nasionale Raad van Trustees was formed. It provided all the funds for the Afrikaner Bond van Mynwerkers which was established on 7 April 1937, and later changed its name to Die Hervormingsorganisasie (in die Mynwerkersunie) - more popularly known as the Reformers - with Dr Albert Hertzog as the guiding spirit.
The Reformers rapidly gained ground amongst the rank and file of the mineworkers, aided by the bureaucratic methods of the union leadership which relied upon the closed shop instead of democratic discussion to maintain its influence with labour. As with similar leaderships in other countries, an entrenched trade union bureaucracy is extremely difficult to displace, and the Mineworkers' Union leaders proved to be no exception. At times passions ran high. In June 1939, Charlie Harris, Secretary of the Mineworkers' Union, was assassinated outside his office by a young Afrikaner, who had no doubt been convinced by the Reformers that Harris was an enemy of the volk. The youth was tried for murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
By 1941 the Reformers had created a situation which could no longer be ignored, and the government appointed a special commission to inquire into the matter. The commission reported itself fully satisfied that the powers behind the Reformers are much less actuated by an honest desire to reform the affairs and administration of the Union in the sole interests of the mineworkers, and to establish a bona fide trade union along recognized and accepted trade union lines, than by other and less admirable reasons. . . . The Commission has no hesitation in placing on record its findings that the Reformers and the powers behind them, of which they are the puppets, constitute a subversive movement which is detrimental to the interests of the mineworkers, the mining industry, and the Union of South Africa as a whole.
The commission declared that 'if the Nasionale Raad van Trustees had not been established and not supplied the sinews of war, there would have been no Reformers'. Furthermore it reported that the Reformers had openly declared it their objective after getting control of the Mineworkers' Union, ' to make a start with the Garment Workers' Union and carry out the same tactics there, after which they would tackle trade union after trade union in the same manner '. The Nationalist offensive against the trade unions was by now in full swing.
The stinging rebuff administered by the commission did little to stem the enthusiasm of the Reformers, and even less to awaken the Union leaders to a realization of the serious threat that faced them. They relied more and more on strong-arm methods, and the good will of the mining bosses, to maintain themselves in power. Eventually in February 1947 the Reformers led some 6,000 miners on strike, not against the mine owners, but against 'the corrupt clique in control of the Union'. After a seven-week stoppage of work, the government ordered elections to be held for officials and also set up a three-man commission to inquire into the administration of the affairs of the Union. Those working under the control of Die Nasionale Raad van Trustees, including D. E. Ellis and Jan Gleisner, amalgamated with an Action Committee and formed the so-called United Mineworkers' Committee. In 1948 this committee got its candidates elected to the General Council of the Union and thereafter appointed Ellis as Secretary in place of B. Brodrick, who had been sacked following the report of the commission that 'the present seething discontent is in no small measure due to the wrongful conduct of B. Brodrick, Secretary of the Union . . . neither the Executive Committee nor the General Council is free from blame for permitting a paid official to dominate the Union'.
The General Council, acting on the report of its delegates to the Trades and Labour Council conference at Port Elizabeth in 1947, gave three months' notice that it intended to disafflliate from the T.L.C. because '. . . the T. and L.C. conference is now dominated by Communistic influences and the conference was comprised of a record number of Coloured and native delegates'. After the Nationalist government came to power, an executive meeting of the Union in April 1949 declared several Nationalist Party M.P.s to be 'honorary mineworkers' - Dr Albert Hertzog, Dr N. Diederichs, M. J. van den Berg, de Villiers Visser, Ben Schoeman, Professor A.I. Malan, Frank Mentz, Dirk Mostert, J. du Plessis and A.J.B. Deysel. The executive committee also announced that 'a vigilance committee is to be formed for closer cooperation with the head committee of the Nationalist Party, to promote the interests of the mineworker. . . . The parliamentary sub-committee consisting of Nationalist M.P.s who will look after the interests of the mineworkers while in Cape Town was also approved by the Council. They have already declared themselves to be prepared to undertake this special task.' This announcement was received with mixed feelings by the Nationalist politicians, who had for years campaigned to keep politics out of the trade unions. Schoeman later casually denied that he had accepted the position of 'honorary mineworker'. Whether the other members ever agreed to serve in that capacity is not known.
The advent of the Nationalist leadership to power in the Mineworkers' Union did not bring the benefits which the majority of the rank and file had probably expected. In 1951 the government appointed another commission of inquiry, this time to investigate among other things, the purchase of a building, Transafrika House, by the Mineworkers' Union for £176,000, a transaction on which a certain Dr Kritzinger made a profit of £23,000. The commission reported:
We have no doubt that Ellis was promised a reward by Kritzinger if he were to use his influence to bring about the purchase of Transafrika House.... We are unable to determine the exact terms of the original promise, as obviously neither Ellis nor Kritzinger will tell the truth on this subject; but it is clear that the interest in the bottle store was given in pursuance of some promise.
The commission suggested that the Union should decide what action to take in the light of its findings. The Union decided to take no action, but in March 1953 Paul Visser, the ex-President of the Union, brought a private prosecution against Ellis on a charge of falsitas. Ellis was found guilty of accepting a bribe and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment with hard labour. The conviction was set aside on appeal, however, on the grounds that Visser himself had no title to prosecute.
The echoes of this scandal had hardly died down when a further commission was appointed in 1953 to investigate the Union's financial affairs. The commission had some scathing things to say about the administration of the Union. Yet the same leadership remained in power, and the government never at any time felt it necessary to take steps against it comparable with those it was employing to 'clean up' the non-Nationalist trade unions.
The methods which had been tried so successfully in the Mineworkers' Union were adopted also in the Garment, Building, and Leather Workers' Unions, but with less success, probably because the leadership was more closely in touch with the workers and so less vulnerable than that of the old Mineworkers' Union had been. Tactics reminiscent of those employed by the Nazis were used, particularly against the Garment Workers' Union which was subjected to all forms of verbal and physical pressure by the Nationalist group in its bid to dislodge the Sachs leadership. Sachs himself was brutally assaulted on more than one occasion, and meetings of the Union were forcibly disrupted by gangs of weapon-wielding thugs. The Nationalists founded a special publishing company to issue their propaganda to the mine, building, and clothing workers, but the company soon fell foul of the laws of libel and went into liquidation, owing large sums of money to a number of trade unionists who had been defamed.
The attack on the Garment Workers' Union reached its climax at a general meeting of the No.1 branch of the Union held at the Johannesburg City Hall in September 1948, to discuss an arbitration award. In his book The Choice Before South Africa, Sachs writes:
While I spoke on the Arbitration Award the audience listened attentively. Then came, from outside, sounds of great commotion. Suddenly a mob from the street gained forceful access to the meeting by storming the doors and, once inside, blazed a trail of violence: men and women were assaulted, furniture was broken, the loudspeaker smashed, bottles were broken on people's heads, the Arbitration Award was torn up, unbridled threats were shrieked and, from what had been order, chaos was created; and, from what had been tranquillity, terror.
The following morning the Union's President wired the Minister of Justice demanding a public inquiry into the incident. The government, now in the hands of the Nationalists, responded by appointing a commission to inquire, not only into the disturbances at the City Hall, but also into the affairs of the Union itself, including the expulsion and loss of employment of various members, notably leaders of the Nationalist opposition. The commission's report was by no means complimentary to the administration of the Union, but also revealed how the opposition came to be organized by the Nationalists:
As a result of the expulsion of Mrs Moll and Mrs Nel an Action Committee was established, consisting of members of the three Afrikaans Churches in Taw. Rightly or wrongly, this Committee deplored the expulsions and felt that a grave injustice had been done. On 6 March 1944, the Action Committee was merged into a larger committee called the 'Brei Kerklike Komitee', consisting of ministers and well-intentioned members. This committee was in turn replaced by the Blankewerkersbeskermingsbond.
The Nationalists, who have never ceased to attack the Anglican Church for meddling in politics, did not scruple to harness the D.R.C. in their campaign to rid the trade unions of the 'Jewish Communist' element - personified, in their eyes, by the Garment Workers' Secretary, Solly Sachs, who had done a great deal to uplift the thousands of workers of all races in the industry but who was distrusted by the Nationalists for his parentage and ideology alike.
The Nationalists no doubt hoped that with the commission's report Sachs would disappear from the scene, just as Brodrick had been eliminated from the Mineworkers' Union. But this did not happen, and it was not until sweeping powers were placed in their hands by the Suppression of Communism Act that the Nationalists were able to get to grips with their enemies in the trade-union movement. The Act was passed in 1950. Two years later a total of fifty-three trade unionists had been named as Communists. By September 1953, thirty-three of these had been removed from office, and soon afterwards a further fifteen were removed; the Minister simply served notices on them, ordering them to resign, failing which they would render themselves liable to long terms of imprisonment without the option of a fine. Among the victims, in addition to Sachs, were Ray Alexander, founder and general secretary of the Food and Canning Workers' Union, Piet Huyser, secretary of the Building Workers' Union, six other national secretaries, a national organizer, a president and vice-president. The membership of the unions whose leading officers were eliminated in this way totalled 80,000. On their advent to power, the Nationalists set about the task of revising the country's labour laws in accordance with the policy of apartheid. They had made no secret of their intention to do this. The draft constitution had outlined their plans. Schoeman, later Minister of Labour, speaking in the House of Assembly on 19 March 1942 said:
First, we contend 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. ... Self-government in industry and collective bargaining are things of the past . . . the time has arrived that in the interests of the State, in the interests of employers and employees, self-government in industry and collective bargaining should be eliminated from our economic life. ...
In regard to the non-Europeans, the unhealthy economic competition 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 in industry.
On 4 July 1944, Schoeman said again: 'There must be changes in the foreign British system, which does not conform to the character and traditions of the Afrikaner . . . the present [labour] system must be destroyed and a new one created....' On 1 October 1948, the government appointed the Industrial Legislation Commission of Inquiry with comprehensive terms of reference to cover the whole field of labour and race relations in industry, and a specific mandate to report on the desirability of having separate trade unions for the different races and whether existing wage regulating legislation operated as an adequate protection for all races. The commission completed its work with dispatch, and by 1951 its report was in the hands of the government.
In some respects the commission did everything that the government required of it. In others, its report must have been a disappointment. It recommended the establishment of a National Labour Board to coordinate wages and other conditions of employment - but declared that 'the principle of self-government in industry should, subject to certain safeguards, be retained'. It opposed the introduction of general compulsory arbitration in disputes, and stated that no action should be taken to prohibit closed-shop provisions in agreements resulting from collective bargaining. It recommended a form of recognition for African trade unions and even proposed to give them the right to strike in certain circumstances. All this could be regarded as something of a slap in the face for Schoeman, considering his remarks in parliament only a few years previously.
On the other hand, the commission produced a host of proposals for stricter supervision of trade unions, and recommended that industrial councils, trade unions, and employers' organizations, together with their officials, should be prohibited from taking part in party politics - an obvious hit at the practice of some unions which were affiliated to the Labour Party or supported it in elections. Even the right of a union to issue a publication was to be subject to governmental veto.
Though asked to recommend something like job reservation, the commission failed to do so, stating that it lacked sufficient information to enable it to frame concrete proposals and recommending further study of the subject by the National Labour Board.
But the kernel of the report was undoubtedly the recommendation that 'it should be the policy of the government to achieve the organization of European and non-European workers in separate racial trade unions', even though, the commission admitted, the weight of evidence which had been presented to it 'was overwhelmingly against the introduction of legislation compelling the segregation of the various races into separate unions, and the witnesses who advocated the retention of mixed unions included both employers and employees'. Just how anxious the commission was to find for separate unions may be measured from a study of its findings on the mixed ones. On the one hand it found that mixed unions retarded non-White development. 'Generally Europeans have the leadership of mixed unions, even of some of those whose membership is predominantly non-European, for the purpose of protecting the European standard of living'. But in the next breath it maintained that 'the increasing tendency on the part of non-Europeans to exercise leadership in mixed organizations constitutes an economic threat to Europeans and consequently to industrial peace'. Anyway, whatever the reason, mixed unions were to go. The commission recommended formally that no new mixed
The Trades and Labour Council called a special conference to discuss the report on 12 and 13 January 1952. And this conference expressed itself convinced that the report and recommendations of the Industrial Legislation Commission of Inquiry are designed not to improve the conditions of the workers, nor to promote industrial peace, nor to increase the national production of the country.... The report and recommendations, if enacted in law, will deprive all workers in South Africa, European and non-European, of the elementary rights of freedom of organization and the right of collective bargaining.... The political doctrines enunciated in the report are inspired by Nazi-Fascist philosophy, and so-called economic theories, presented at great length in the report, are merely a collection of anti-Labour doctrines which the enemies of the workers have presented as 'economic science' for generations.... Conference rejects the recommendations in their entirety.
The government, of course, adopted those recommendations of the commission which suited it and rejected all the others. In particular, it wanted nothing to do with the recognition of African trade unions in any shape or form. Already in 1951 it had passed the Native Building Workers Act, ostensibly to provide facilities for the training of Africans as building workers, but in the process to establish complete separation between the training and employment of African and non-African building workers. In terms of the Act, no African might be employed as a skilled building worker outside of an African area, while the training and rates of pay for African builders bore no relation to those laid down for non-Africans. The act extended to the building industry the statutory colour bar which had previously existed only in the sphere of mining.
In 1953 the government passed the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act, completely outlawing strikes by Africans and establishing a cumbersome machinery for the settlement of disputes. Explaining why he had rejected the recommendation of the Industrial Legislation Commission that African trade unions should be recognized, subject to strict controls, Schoeman, Minister of Labour, declared:
I think the Hon. Members must realize that if we give that incentive to natives to organize - and we must bear in mind that they are primitive and illiterate natives who have not the faintest conception of the responsibilities of trade unionism, that they are people who cannot even read the constitution of a trade union, who know nothing about negotiation or the industrial set-up of South Africa - 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 given time. I think that we would probably be committing race suicide if we gave them that incentive.
African trade unions were not outlawed by the Act, but they were not to be recognized and would therefore be unable to use the machinery for collective bargaining provided by the Industrial Conciliation Act. Schoeman said he hoped that as a result of his new measure all African unions would 'die a natural death'.
His strictures on the African workers had been contradicted by his own commission, which had expressed itself 'satisfied that a sufficient number of native workers in commerce and secondary industry know enough about trade unionism to make the recognition of native trade unions a practical proposition, provided suitable measures for the guidance and control of those unions are introduced'. The commission had further added:
Notwithstanding the unsatisfactory features characterizing the native trade union movement, the commission is satisfied that there are a number of unions which are well organized and are conducted on correct lines. The leaders of some of these unions have in the past rendered considerable assistance by advising against, and restraining their members from taking drastic action; they are able to place the case for the workers before wage-fixing bodies, and some of them have shown indications of a measure of ability to negotiate with employers.
Such a pronouncement, however, spelt ruin, not progress to Schoeman, who throughout his career, and especially at the time of the bus boycott in Johannesburg in 1957, used all the forces of the State to smash any sign of resistance and organization by African workers.
'I appeal to employers', he told the annual conference of the Federated Chamber of Industries in November 1954, 'to use only the machinery of this Act in connexion with native labour disputes and to carry out its intentions and not do anything to embarrass its functioning. I do not want what is happening in Rhodesia to happen here. ... Employers must in their own interests stand firm . . . must on no account discuss or negotiate with native political organizations such as the African National Congress.' The Act provides for the establishment of a Central Native Labour Board, consisting of Europeans only, appointed by the Minister; Regional Native Labour Committees, of which the chairman is a European and the remaining members 'natives appointed by the Minister'; and works committees elected by the workers in any establishment under the supervision of the Native Labour Officer for the area. (Despite the name, a 'Native Labour Officer' must be a European, again appointed by the Minister.) The function of a works committee is to be consulted by a Native Labour Officer, who must report to the Regional Native Labour Committee, which must settle the dispute somehow and make a recommendation to the Central Native Labour Board, which in turn must make a recommendation to the Minister, who can do as he pleases, unless the Board is unable to reach a solution, in which case the matter can be referred to the Wage Board.
When he introduced his Bill in Parliament, the Minister proclaimed that it was essential to create machinery and appoint officials 'in whom the natives will have confidence'. Not surprisingly, however, the workers have had no confidence whatsoever in the cumbrous, bureaucratic machinery set up under the Act. By 1955 only four works committees had been established in the whole of South Africa, by 1959 only eight. On 16 May 1967, the Minister of Labour said that fifty of these committees had been set up; but on 4 June 1968 he admitted that the works committee system was not proving satisfactory in regulating African wages and conditions of work, and pronounced himself willing to discuss the matter with representatives of the Trade Union Council of South Africa (Hansard, 16 May 1967 and 4 June 1968).
Just how inadequate the government machinery is was revealed by a new agreement for the steel industry negotiated in 1968. While White workers, through their union and using the means provided by the Industrial Conciliation Act, were able to secure substantial increases, hundreds of jobs to be filled by Africans were downgraded - one from R31.95 to R9.90 - and many Africans were left with wages below the accepted breadline figure. In a statement, the Trade Union Council remarked that the Central Labour Board, appointed by the government to look after African interests, was completely ignored when the final agreement was reached. The Board had appealed for better conditions for African workers.
The negotiations had shown, said TUCSA, that the Board was inadequate and offered no protection to Africans. Appeals to employers which were not backed by vigorous action failed to secure any response. The agreement strongly indicted the policy of paternalism advocated as the only suitable policy for the African labour force, said TUCSA (Rand Daily Mail, 27 June 1968).
Trade unionists have also expressed concern over the activities of the Wage Board, which is supposed to fix wages in industries not covered by Industrial Conciliation agreements. A report in the Rand Daily Mail of 28 May 1968 stated:
Unions have complained that of the tens of thousands of workers who rely for their increases on the Board, thousands have to wait five years or more for a hearing. They have also complained that the Board recommends wages below the poverty line. Sometimes the recommended 'increases' amount to less than workers are getting already.
The only section of the Act which can be said to have worked is the one prohibiting strikes, and that has been invoked with unfailing regularity. When a dispute breaks out, the employers have been instructed to send out an immediate SOS to the Labour Department, and in a trice Departmental officials and the police, including members of the Special Branch, descend on the scene. If the dispute has reached the point where the workers have stopped work, the Labour Department officials warn them that they are breaking the law and must return to work immediately. Absolutely no attempt is made to negotiate on the actual grievances or demands of the workers. No undertakings are given. The men are told to go back to work, or else. ... Not unnaturally, the men often refuse, insisting that they have had good reason to stop working and that they want their demands discussed. This is usually the signal for police to arrest all the strikers on the spot or to launch one of their vicious baton charges. In most cases it can be stated categorically that police and Labour Department intervention has actually prevented the conclusion of a peaceful agreement between the workers and the management, and been the direct cause of the subsequent violence.
Neither force nor blandishments, however, have prevented Africans from going on strike since the Act was passed. In 1960, according to official figures, thirty-three strikes involving 2,199 Africans took place; 364 Africans were prosecuted and 294 convicted. In 1961, twenty-six strikes involving 1,427 workers took place, and in five of these strikes the workers were convicted for striking illegally. Nor do these figures provide an accurate reflection of the true position. Some employers have found out that the swift retribution meted out to strikers is not always beneficial for business. When your entire labour force is removed in police vans to the cells, your factory production comes to a stop; and if hundreds of workers are involved, it is not always possible for the government's labour bureaux to replace them. At Randfontein in 1955, for example, 169 textile workers went on strike and were fined £10 each. The firm employing the workers paid the fines itself, but the court ordered that the money be deducted from the pay packets of the workers, with the entire amount to be paid over a period of eight weeks. Similar examples have occurred elsewhere. The result is that frequently employers are reluctant to use the official machinery for the settlement of disputes because of the disruption it may entail.
Nor do the official statistics of strikes include stoppages which were not due to disputes between employers and employees. In 1960, the year of Sharpeville, for example, tens of thousands of workers took part in a political stay-at-home. Economic life in the Western Cape, particularly, was almost totally disrupted by the absence from work of the African labour force for between two and three weeks. None of this is reflected in the official figures, since these apparently deal only with domestic disputes of which the Labour Department had been officially informed.
A strike by African workers at Hammersdale in 1959 provided an illuminating insight into the labour policies of the Nationalist government. The owners had closed down their factories in Johannesburg and Durban and opened a factory at Hammersdale - about thirty-six miles from Durban - instead, because they would be able to pay their workers lower wages (in the urban areas the levels are laid down by an industrial agreement which does not cover the rural areas). About 500 workers were employed there at wages ranging from 15s. a week for women to £1 for men, and the labour force included an ex-principal of a school, ex-schoolteachers, and matriculants.
In spite of the low wages paid, there was a surplus of labour in the area, and each day scores of workers seeking employment were turned away. For when the factory was first established at the beginning of 1958, the local Native Commissioner, using the despotic powers vested in him under the pass laws, had blockaded all labour in the area and in the neighbouring Reserves and prevented it from going into the larger industrial centres of Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Pinetown to seek work. The result of the strike was that wages were increased immediately by from 5s. to 7s. 6d. a week; but even at the new level they constitute less than thirty percent of the monthly figure laid down by the Institute of Race Relations as the bare minimum required by a family of five for the maintenance of health.
Thus the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act, supported by the pass laws, constitutes the means by which the wages of the African workers are maintained at rockbottom level. Unions and union officials are hounded, strikes outlawed, and the African worker forced to make do as best he can.
The Nationalist government's main assault upon the trade union movement was mounted in the Industrial Conciliation Act which, after being redrafted several times, was introduced in the House of Assembly in May 1954 and, after its second reading, referred to a select committee. The amended Bill was then introduced in the Assembly during January 1956 and became law during the same session.
The Act provided for the creation of separate trade unions, or separate branches of existing unions, for White and non-White workers. After the passage of the Act, no further mixed unions were to be registered, though the Minister was given the power to grant exemptions in instances where the number of White or non-White workers was so small that they could not form an effective separate union. Existing mixed unions were given twelve months to provide (1) separate branches for White and non-White workers; (2) separate meetings for each branch; and (3) an executive committee consisting of Whites alone.
After the expiry of the twelve-month period, no non-White worker would be permitted to attend a branch of White members, and vice versa. Furthermore, no non-White worker might attend or take part in a meeting of the all-White executive committee except to answer a complaint against him.
Should over half of the White or non-White workers in a mixed union wish to break away and form a separate racial union, they could apply in terms of the Act to the Industrial Registrar for registration. The Registrar would then have the power to order the original union to become uni-racial as well. Provision was made for the splitting of assets in the event of the break-up of any mixed unions.
Section 77 of the Act introduced the notorious concept of job reservation -and for this purpose the term 'employee' was deemed to include Africans, otherwise excluded from the provisions of the Industrial Conciliation Act. If the Minister considered that steps should be taken to safeguard the 'economic welfare' of employees of any race in any industry, he was authorized to instruct an Industrial Tribunal set up under the Act to investigate the industry and make recommendations as to whether certain types of work should be reserved for any racial group. The Minister could then accept the Tribunal's recommendation (he could not vary it) and issue it as a determination, but no determination would be binding where an industrial council agreement was in operation, unless the industrial council itself agreed.
Following reverses in the courts over the first determinations promulgated by the Minister the law was amended, and the industrial council veto abolished, so that the Industrial Tribunal may now recommend job reservation on any basis, and the Minister may allocate jobs to workers of different racial groups without restriction.
In theory, the Industrial Conciliation Act is supposed to be non-racial. The splitting of trade unions and the reservation of work is supposed to benefit the various racial groups equally. In fact, of course, this was never the government's intention. Boasting of his Bill in 1955, the Minister of Labour, Senator Jan de Klerk, said: 'In practice [the Bill] meant that the European's economic position in the industrial world could never be lowered by the non-European. It was also a guarantee that he would never be ousted and that intrusion into his field of work could be prevented.' And this is exactly how it has been employed.
The South African trade-union movement has been fragmented by the Bill into its various components. At the end of 1956 there were 184 registered trade unions. Of these fifty-five catered for Whites only, sixteen catered for non-Whites only, and 113 were registered for both White and non-White. Of the 113 trade unions registered as mixed, however, only fifty-nine possessed in fact a mixed membership, the remainder being uniracial though their constitutions contained no racial restrictions and membership was theoretically open to all.
At the end of 1960 there were 186 trade unions registered. Of these ninety-two catered for Whites, thirty-eight catered for non-Whites, and only fifty-six were mixed, with six of them in the process of splitting. According to the Minister, thirty-one of the fifty-six mixed unions had separate branches and meetings and were controlled by all-White executives. Thirty-three of the mixed unions were predominantly White, and twenty-three predominantly Coloured, with a total of twenty-four possessing fewer than fifty members of the minority group. Six unions had been completely exempted from the provisions of the Act because they had very few members of one or other race, and partial exemptions had been granted to a number of other unions for similar reasons.
According to an investigation conducted by Muriel Horrell for the South African Institute of Race Relations, by July 1961 a further eleven of the mixed unions had divided racially, five were about to do so, and one had de-registered as a result of the 1956 Act. The polarization of the South African working class along racial lines was well under way.
On 16 May 1967 the Minister of Labour told the House of Assembly that the position relating to registered trade unions was as follows:
Membership
Type of union Number of unions Whites Coloureds/Asians White unions 89 278,931 - Mixed unions 46 81,245 84,680 Coloured/Asians 37 39,255 Totals 172 360,176 123,935
As for job reservation, the various determinations issued up to the end of 1962 reserved for Whites the driving of motor transport vehicles in the Durban municipal cleansing department, reserved for Whites the posts of firemen and traffic policemen above the rank of constable in the Cape Town area, and placed restrictions on the employment of Coloured ambulance drivers and attendants and traffic constables; reserved for Whites the operation of lifts in certain types of buildings in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Bloemfontein; reserved for Whites all skilled work in the building industry in urban areas in the Transvaal and Orange Free State; prohibited the percentage of Whites, or of Whites and Coloureds employed together, in any unit of the clothing industry from falling below the percentages that obtained at certain dates; reserved for Whites the driving of refuse and night-soil removal vehicles in Springs; laid down that at least eighty-four percent of the drivers and conductors employed by the City Tramways Company in Cape Town should be White; reserved for Whites the driving of vehicles of an unladen weight of 10,000 lb. or more on the Free State goldfields; reserved for Whites various types of skilled work in the wholesale meat trade.
Two determinations reserving certain types of skilled work in the iron, steel, and metallurgical industry for Whites were suspended until December 1962, because a new industrial council agreement had been made in terms of which considerably higher wages were prescribed for the work concerned. The Minister of Labour said that if wage rates were fixed at a level sufficiently high to attract Whites, then 'the White man, with his superior knowledge, must be able to retain that work against the non-White with his inferior civilization'.
Seven skilled crafts in the building industry were reserved for White workers from 13 May 1963, in certain areas of the Western Cape, where seventy-five percent of building artisans are Coloured people. Coloured workers now practising these crafts will be allowed to continue with their work in White areas, but no new Coloured workers may be trained.
'This latest form of job reservation has raised no objections from White workers, but a spokesmen for 3,000 Coloured men yesterday described the new determination as "slavery".
"'They are allowing politics to interfere with our bread and butter," he said' (Cape Times, 30 April 1963).
By the end of 1966, a total of nineteen determinations had been published, but since the Minister has granted 817 exemptions to these determinations, it is difficult to assess how widely the job-reservation clause is being applied. Asked what percentage of the country's total labour force was (a) potentially affected by job reservation determinations, and (b) actually affected in view of the large number of exemptions granted, the Minister told a questioner in the Assembly on 8 March 1968 that the answer to (a) was 3.08 percent, and to (b) 3.06 percent.
Nevertheless it is clear that the main preoccupation of the Industrial Tribunal so far has been to safeguard the position of the White workers at the expense of the non-Whites - just as the Minister promised in 1955. The determinations issued to date have been designed to protect the higher paid White (and sometimes Coloured) workers against the competition of the Africans.But perhaps the worst effect of the Industrial Conciliation Act - and, for that matter, of the government's whole labour policy - has been the splitting of the trade union movement into a number of separate and opposing groups based on differences of political and racial outlook.
Until 1947 the Trades and Labour Council was the premier coordinating trade union body in South Africa, representing the vast bulk of organized labour. There were other coordinating bodies operating within a more restricted sphere - like the Western Province Federation of Labour Unions, the Transvaal Council of Non-European Trade Unions, and the railway staff associations -while a number of unions remained independent, affiliated to none of the coordinating bodies. But the T.L.C. spoke for organized labour, and its ranks were open to all unions registered and unregistered alike.
We have already seen how the White Mineworkers' Union broke away from the T.L.C., alleging that it was dominated by Communists and kafferboeties. (Literally 'kaffir-brothers', a common term of abuse for those whose attitude to Africans is considered too friendly or liberal) In 1947 there was a further split, following on the defeat of a motion -introduced at the T.L.C. annual conference by L. J. van den Berg of the S.A. Iron and Steel Trades Association and George McCormick of the S.A. Engine Drivers' and Firemen's Association - that African unions be excluded from membership. Delegates from five unions withdrew from the conference altogether, alleging that the slogan of equality for all races emanated from the Communists, resulted in the exploitation of the African, and undermined the position of the White worker. A new organization, the Coordinating Council of South African Trade Unions, came into being with a constitution which debarred mixed unions from membership. A further three unions withdrew from membership of the T.L.C. in precisely similar circumstances during 1949.
The Suppression of Communism Act, under which many trade-union leaders were directly threatened, provided the next opportunity to disrupt the T.L.C. Rather than help defend their colleagues who were under attack, the right-wing unions abandoned them to the mercies of the government and withdrew from the T.L.C. to set up the South African Federation of Trade Unions in 1951. The Federation refuses membership of African unions.
Then came the Industrial Conciliation Bill, presenting to the whole trade-union movement a threat which was recognized by right and left wing alike. But reactions were very different. The left wanted militant action by the whole trade-union movement to defeat the Bill. The right hoped to defeat the danger by compromise. In 1954 the majority of Trades and Labour Council unions joined with the Western Province Federation of Labour Unions to form the Trade Union Council of South Africa. This was the sort of unity for which trade unionists had been working a long time. But it was achieved at a price - the exclusion from membership of African unions and even unions which accepted Africans as members. Thirteen T.L.C. unions refused to accept this bar and joined with the Transvaal Council of Non-European Trade Unions to form the South African Congress of Trade Unions (S.A.C.T.U.), the only trade union coordinating body with no colour bar in any shape or form.
The T.L.C. majority which had helped form the T.U.C. had hoped that by excluding African unions from membership it would be able to win back to the fold the right-wing unions which had broken away and thus present a more united front to the government over the Industrial Conciliation Bill. A few unions did return from the South African Federation of Trade Unions, but for the most part the stratification in the trade-union movement persisted, and at no time has it been possible to present a united front on any issue.
In 1957 the South African Federation, the Coordinating Council, and the Federal Consultative Council of the South African Railways jointly formed a South African Confederation of Labour to comprise twelve unions representing approximately 150,000 workers, all except a handful of them White. The basis of their unity is acceptance of the government's racial policies and in particular of the Industrial Conciliation Act.
In the centre stands the South African Trade Union Council, comprising in 1961 about fifty unions, which together represented some 165,000 workers (110,000 White, 44,000 Coloured, and 11,000 Asian). Under the T.U.C.' s wing at that time was the Federation of Free African Trade Unions, comprising seventeen unions with a membership of 18,000. FOFATUSA decided to disband in January 1966, advising its member unions to affiliate to the T.U.C. if they had not already done so. The T.U.C. approach to politics is pragmatic and opportunist. Its right wing is not very far from the position adopted by the South African Confederation of Labour.
In fact, the Industrial Conciliation Act was the product of cooperation between the Minister of Labour and right-wing trade unionists. In 1953 the Minister appointed a committee of employers and trade unionists to assist him in drafting the Bill. One of the members was George McCormick, Chairman of the South African Federation of Trade Unions, who declared in May 1954:
We accepted the responsibility to assist the Minister in drafting the Bill. The Minister could be excused for thinking that the representatives on the Ministerial Committee expressed the view of their organizations. We made it clear that we were against certain clauses, including Section 77 of the Bill [the job reservation clause]. It could be interpreted that we were in agreement with the rest.
T.C. Rutherford, President of the South African Trade Union Council, giving evidence to the Select Committee on the Bill on 8 March 1955, indicated, however, that 'Clause 77 was inserted in the Bill as a result of a memorandum sent in at the time by our Coordinating Body of Trade Unions. That Coordinating Body represented inter alia the South African Federation of Trade Unions and the South African Trades and Labour Council. I was the Chairman.' The right-wing trade unionists, representing in the main the skilled White labour force, have a lot to answer for at the bar of history. Even when the final terms of the Bill became known, the T.U.C. leadership felt unable to fight it on grounds of principle. It opposed the Bill, certainly, but for the wrong reasons. Reporting on the results of a T.U.C. interview with the Minister, asking for the Bill to be dropped because the Council was against the splitting of the trade unions on racial lines, Rutherford said at a conference of the Boilermakers' Society in 1955: 'An appeal was, therefore, made to the Minister to allow us to keep our organizations intact so as to be able to cooperate 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.' In the interests of preserving White supremacy, providing it was done in 'the traditional way', the T.U.C. leadership was prepared to betray the mass of South African workers. Not surprisingly, the Nationalist government felt that it could safely ignore representations which were not based on solid principle. In insisting on rigid trade-union apartheid, it knew that it could rely on the support of the majority of the White workers.
When, at its 1961 conference, the International Labour Office decided, by 163 votes to nil with eighty-nine abstentions, to advise South Africa to withdraw from membership until such time as it abandoned its apartheid policy, the T.U.C. conducted a rapid about-face. At its March 1962 conference it decided to amend its constitution so as to enable African unions to affiliate themselves. It went even further and nominated a non-White, Edgar Deane, to be the South African workers' delegate at the next I.L.O. conference - the first non-White in South African history to fill this role. Once again the reasons for the about face were mainly opportunistic. The credentials of the T.U.C. delegates had been repeatedly challenged at I.L.O. conferences on the grounds that African unions were excluded from T.U.C. membership. The T.U.C. leaders had reason to fear that unless they eliminated the colour bar from their constitution they might fall under an I.L.O. ban against the apartheid-ridden South African trade-union movement. (The South African government withdrew from the International Labour Organization in March 1964, in anticipation of the rebuff it was to suffer at the I.L.O. conference in June, which adopted constitutional changes enabling it to expel any country following 'a declared policy of racial discrimination such as apartheid'. The I.L.O. conference also unanimously approved a declaration condemning 'the degrading, criminal, and inhuman racial policies' of the government of South Africa, and called upon the government to renounce these policies without further delay.)The T.U.C.'s colour policy continued to be a source of controversy amongst affiliated unions, and in April 1966 the 22,000-strong Amalgamated Engineering Union decided to disaffiliate because the majority of its members refused to continue association with a federation which permitted equal membership of White and Black unions. At one stroke, the T.U.C. was deprived of more than twenty-five percent of its White membership.
Towards the end of 1967 the Minister of Labour, Mr Marais Viljoen, mounted a sustained attack on the T.U.C. and warned repeatedly that he would take steps against the organization if it persisted in pressing for the recognition of African trade unions. The Minister also criticized the T.U.C. for organizing African workers into trade unions and for proposing that South Africa should rejoin the I.L.O. In following these policies, said the Minister, the T.U.C. and its general secretary showed that they were 'out of touch with South Africa's traditional viewpoints'.
Under growing pressure from its right wing, and fearful of Ministerial action against it, the T.U.C. called a special conference to discuss the race issue in December 1967. After two days of anguished debate, in which delegates of several right-wing unions made it known that they were contemplating disaffiliation the conference decided to recommend that African unions be excluded from membership. T.U.C. leaders justified the decision on the grounds that it was better to sacrifice the dozen or so affiliated African unions than to preside over the disintegration of the whole organization.
The recommendation was provisional because, in terms of the constitution, it could only become effective if endorsed by the next annual conference of the T.U.C., due to be held in April 1968. In the meanwhile, counter-pressures began to operate. In January 1968 the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions expressed 'deep regret' at the T.U.C.'s decision to exclude African unions, describing it as a 'backward step'. A report in the Sunday Times of 21 January 1968 quoted trade union opinion that if the April conference endorsed the decision of the December 1967 conference the ICFTU might be compelled by pressure from its own membership to expel the T.U.C. on the grounds that it could not admit an organization which voluntarily accepted the apartheid policy of the South African government.
A strong ICFTU delegation attended the April 1968 conference of the T.U.C., together with diplomatic observers from a number of countries. By a surprisingly large majority, the conference reversed the decision of the December conference; only eighteen delegates voted in favour of excluding African unions, while seventy-six voted against and three abstained. On a card vote, the figures were 32,871 for exclusion of African unions, and 123,566 against.
The Minister of Labour replied by warning that the T.U.C.'s registration might have to be reconsidered, as it was contrary to government policy that trade-union organizations which admitted Africans to membership should receive official recognition. Early in May 1968 the South African Electrical Workers' Association, with 8,000 members, decided to withdraw from the T.U.C., and other right-wing unions were reported to be reconsidering their position.
To dispel any illusion that it was standing firm on principle, the T.U.C. issued a statement on 26 April 1968 regretting that the Minister of Labour should believe the T.U.C. defiant toward the government on the issue of African trade unions. The T.U.C.'s stand was not one of defiance, but one of realism, said the statement. The increasing influx of 'cheap African labour' into all sectors of industry and commerce continued to pose a very real economic threat to organized labour.
'The threat posed to the established standards of White, Coloured and Indian workers can only be removed through acceptance of proven and responsible trade union methods.' In other words, the decision to continue African affiliation was taken in the first place to protect the interests of the privileged White minority, and not primarily to promote the interests of the 'cheap African labour' who constitute the bulk of the South African labour force. (At its annual conference in February 1969 the TUC decided once more, by 87 votes to 2, to exclude African unions from membership.) The only coordinating body which can claim to be completely non-racial in fact as well as in theory, and which, ever since its foundation has unwaveringly upheld the banner of racial equality, is the South African Congress of Trade Unions, representing about 50,000 workers of all races, the majority of them Africans.
SACTU has closely identified itself with the Congress movement in South Africa, believing that there can be no separation between the struggle for higher wages and the fight for political rights. In consequence, it has incurred the bitter hostility of the Nationalist government, always ready to place obstacles in the way of multi-racial organizations. Its leading officials have been banned, and the organization itself was proscribed for a period of three months in 1961. In terms of the blanket ban imposed on named and banned people under the Sabotage Act, its general secretary and eight other officials were forced to sever their connexion with the organization by 1 February 1963. Furthermore, the government has refused to accept any representations from SACTU, stating that 'there are recognized trade union federations which are representative of and entitled to speak for organized workers in South Africa. The so-called South African Congress of Trade Unions does not fall within this category.'
*
In her booklet Racialism and the Trade Unions, issued by the South African Institute of Race Relations, Muriel Horrell concludes: 'It has become clearly apparent that because of racialism and the disputes caused thereby, labour, at one time a coherent, vigorous force of much significance in South African affairs, is now completely disunited, and has lost the power it once exercised.' The blame for this unhappy state of affairs must be placed where it belongs - on the shoulders of the Nationalist Party, which deliberately imported racialism into the trade union movement as a weapon in its bid for political domination.