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Wage Board investigations and determinations

Literature › Primary sources
Kind commission or official report
Producer Wage Board
Coverage 1926-1990s
Works using it 7

Debates

Debate Works
Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth? 3
Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves 2
The job colour bar, white labour and its erosion 2
The state and capital: instrumentalism, autonomy and fractions of capital 2
Unemployment: causes, measurement and labour market institutions 2
Did the apartheid economy fail? Growth, productivity, investment and the post-1970s crisis 1
Homelands, separate development, decentralisation and removals 1
Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement 1
Black trade unions: growth, wage effects, Wiehahn and strategy 1
Racial wage gaps, wage convergence and wage determination 1
Worker consciousness, strikes and conflict on the mines and shop floor 1

Works using this source

Work As cited Period How used
Bell (1973) Wage Board reports (clothing industry 1961, stockings 1963, other industries) 1961-63 Illustrates wage-setting criteria and regional differentials.
Horrell et al. (1972) Gazetted Industrial Council agreements, Wage Board determinations and Wage Board report on unskilled labour in the Cape 1971 Illustrates wage regulation and minimum wages.
Lewis (1984b) Wage Board reports (furniture 1930; garment making trades No. 358, 1935; textile determination No. 55, 1937; preserved food industry 1943; textile King William's Town 1952; clothing 1961) 1928-1961 Evidence on deskilling, apprenticeship, juvenile employment, occupational structure and wages by race and sex in consumer industries.
Moll (1996a) Wage Determinations (Wage Board minimum wages) for unskilled workers, minimum-wage data from SALDRU 1970s-1990s Series (iv), the median across sectors of Wage Determination minima, is used as an uncovered-sector wage series falling over time.
Nattrass (1990) Wage Board Report for 1940 (UG 45-1941) and Report for 1939 (UG 36-1940) 1939-1940 Documents the Board's wartime paternalist commitment to unskilled wages on a 'civilised basis' and its contrast with the prior year's policy.
Nattrass (1990) Wage Board Report for 1948 (UG 50-1950) 1948 Shows Wage Board hostility to the 3 pound weekly minimum and its shift to efficiency arguments by 1948.
Nattrass (1990) Wage Board Report for the year 1954 (UG 17-1956) 1937 (manufacturing wage share); 1954 Supplies the 1937 manufacturing wage share estimate of 48% and Department of Labour comments on white wages rising beyond productivity.
Nattrass (1990) Wage Board/Labour Board report for 1954 (UG 46-1954) 1954 Shows the Board's position that wage equality is desirable only if it raises productivity.
Sitas et al. (1984) Wage Board Investigations of 1926 and 1934 into the Natal clothing/garment trades 1926, 1934 Documents bad conditions, low wages and piecework in the Durban clothing industry.
Spandau (1972) Wage Board, Report upon the Work of the Board for the Three Years ended 28th Feb. 1929 (Three Year Report) 1926-1929 Used to rebut Pursell's reading that high minimum wages were the main civilized labour instrument and to show the Board's aim of widening the gap.