Apartheid and the Organised Labour Movement¶

Literature › Works

Francine de Clercq (1979). Apartheid and the Organised Labour Movement. Review of African Political Economy, No. 14 (Jan.-Apr. 1979). ROAPE Publications Ltd. / Taylor & Francis.


Type	journal article
Scope	Economics and economic history of apartheid
Method	synthesis review
Period studied	1920s–1979
Regions	South Africa, Durban, Witwatersrand
Themes	unions strikes, labour markets wages, business and state, origins segregation, resistance social movements, politics ideology elections, sanctions divestment, mining migrant labour
Citation key	`clercq1979`

Argument¶

South Africa's industrial relations system developed on a dual basis. The state incorporated white, coloured and Asian registered unions into its control machinery and gave African workers only management-dominated in-plant committees. This gave employers a cheap, racially divided African labour force, in return for material concessions to a shrinking stratum of better-paid workers. After the 1973 Durban strikes and the 1976 uprisings, the state and capital faced a crisis of labour control. The Wiehahn and Riekert commissions are read as an attempt to co-opt a black middle class and labour aristocracy, answer big business's labour bottlenecks, and defuse foreign pressure, without fundamentally changing apartheid. De Clercq also criticises past union leaderships, including the wartime CNETU and the nationalist-oriented SACTU, for diverting workers' organisation. She ends by surveying the four union responses to the 1979 amended Industrial Conciliation Act.

Evidence and method¶

Secondary literature (Stein, Ensor, D. Lewis, J. Lewis, Horrell, Innes & Plaut, Warwick seminar papers), plus union membership figures and percentages for 1951-1977, strike numbers, and details of legislation and commission reports. No archives or interviews are cited in the text.

Place in the debates¶

Cheap labour thesis / racial division of the working class (see Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves). Argues that the dual system guaranteed employers a cheap, racially divided labour force, with concessions to a shrinking white, coloured and Asian stratum. This is a radical, class-based reading of segregation.
Nature of state reform (Wiehahn/Riekert): concession vs co-optation (see Black trade unions: growth, wage effects, Wiehahn and strategy). Treats reform as a strategy of co-optation and control that does not envisage fundamental change in the apartheid framework. It responds to labour militancy, business pressure and international codes of conduct.
Role of union leadership and nationalism in the 1940s-60s (see Black trade unions: growth, wage effects, Wiehahn and strategy). Holds that the leadership's wartime subordination to the war effort and SACTU's subsuming of workers' interests into nationalist politics weakened shop-floor organisation, alongside state repression.
Registration vs independence for African unions after 1979 (see Black trade unions: growth, wage effects, Wiehahn and strategy). Favours democratic, shop-floor-based independent unions. She is sceptical of TUCSA's 'parallel' unions and of registered unions' motives of control.

Findings¶

The state gave African workers only management-controlled in-plant representation, while registered unions were absorbed into official control mechanisms. (p. 2)

while devising alternative channels of industrial representation for African workers in the form of in-plant management-dominated committees.
African unionism has risen and fallen in waves; by 1976 membership recovered to about 110,000, or 15% of African industrial workers. (p. 3)

It rose again in the 1970s, reaching membership of about 110,000 or 15% of the African industrial work force in 1976.
Racial divisions in the working class originate in the different proletarianisation of racial groups, especially in gold mining. (p. 3)

The divisions of the South African working class along racial lines derives from the different ways the racial groups have been proletarianized especially in gold mining.
The 1924 Industrial Conciliation Act excluded African unions from registration and from the industrial councils, institutionalising the divide. (p. 4)

African workers were represented by a State Labour Department official, while their own trade unions were prohibited from registering in terms of the Act although they were not declared illegal.
The 1946 African mineworkers' strike was the peak of wartime militancy and was crushed by the state. (p. 4)

reached its peak in 1946 with the largest African industrial strike on the mines which involved more than 80,000 workers.
The 1953 Act aimed to undermine independent African unions by offering in-plant committees instead. (p. 5)

This Act sought to counter the development of independent African unions by offering an alternative forum for consultation only in the form of in-plant committees
The 1973 Durban strikes marked the resurgence of African worker militancy after a quiet 1960s. (p. 6)

This urban unrest culminated in the 1973 Durban strikes in which more than 60,000 workers took part.
The state's liaison-committee response of the 1970s had limited legitimacy among African workers. (p. 6)

By 1976, 2,000 liaison committees had been imposed in factories employing about 600,000 Africans
The Wiehahn and Riekert commissions are interpreted as a strategy of co-opting a black middle class and labour aristocracy. (p. 7)

The state was seeking to broaden its social base by creating a co-opted leadership from the black middle class and a labour aristocracy who could be won over through the granting of some privileges
Wiehahn is read as meeting big business demands over skilled labour shortages and inefficient use of labour. (p. 8)

the Wiehahn Commission must be seen as acceding to the demands of big business which had suffered since the mid-60s from serious labour bottlenecks
Foreign codes of conduct are presented as an alternative to sanctions that fed into the reform response. (p. 8)

In fact, these Codes were intended as an alternative to sanctions and other boycott campaigns.
The 1979 amended Act extended union rights only to a minority of African workers, reinforcing divisions among them. (p. 8)

enshrined in law the rights of only a proportion of African workers with urban rights and fixed employment

Evidence ledger¶

Sources used¶

Source	Kind	Period	How used
Union membership statistics for registered white, coloured and Asian unions, 1951, 1960, 1977 (non-agricultural sectors)	official statistical series	1951-1977	Shows that registered unions organised only a small and shifting proportion of white, coloured and Asian workers.
African trade union membership figures (CNETU 1945, 1950, 1961, 1969, 1976)	union or movement records	c.1945-1976	Establishes the boom-and-bust pattern of African unionisation linked to waves of militancy and repression.
Estimate of black unemployment in the early 1970s	official statistical series	early 1970s	Supports the claim that falling real wages and unemployment drove the early-1970s unrest.
Strike participation figures for 1946 mine strike, 1973 Durban strikes, and 1973-76 strike numbers	secondary literature compilation	1946-1976	Quantifies peaks in African worker militancy and the break from the 1960s.
Stein's work on CNETU and Communist Party wartime policy (Warwick Southern Africa Programme papers)	secondary literature compilation	World War II	Supports the claim that union leaders held workers back from strikes during the war.
Botha Commission of 1951 (Industrial Legislation Commission)	commission or official report	1951	Evidence that the state sought to bring African unions under separate conciliation machinery.
Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924 and Wage Act	legislation gazette	1924	Shows the legal institutionalisation of racial divisions in industrial relations.
Bantu Labour Settlement of Disputes Act 1953 and Industrial Conciliation Act 1956	legislation gazette	1953-1956	Shows state strategy to channel African workers into in-plant committees and enforce racial union splits.
Bantu Labour Relations Regulation Act 1973 and liaison committee figures	legislation gazette	1973-1976	Documents state/employer response of imposing liaison committees.
Wiehahn Commission and Riekert Commission (1977), Wiehahn Report	commission or official report	1977-1979	Interpreted as strategy to co-opt a black labour aristocracy and restore stability.
Amended Industrial Conciliation Act of September 1979	legislation gazette	1979	Shows the limited extension of union rights to urban Africans and exclusion of migrants etc.
Union membership counts for 1976-79 federations (TUCSA-affiliated African unions, SABLATU, FOSATU, Cape unions)	union or movement records	1976-1979	Maps the post-Wiehahn division of the organised labour movement.
Reports of March 1979 Mine Workers Union strike and Chamber of Mines stance	newspapers periodicals	March 1979	Illustrates white worker resistance to relaxation of the colour bar.
Foreign government Codes of Conduct for multinationals (1977)	legislation gazette	1977	Used to argue Wiehahn responded to external pressure.
Secondary labour history literature and Warwick seminar papers (Horrell, Webster ed., Ensor, Lewis, de Clercq etc.)	secondary literature compilation	1969-1979	Listed as the most useful sources on unions, underlying the narrative.

Inference¶

Quantification: Illustrative figures.

Historical-interpretive narrative in a Marxist political-economy frame, periodising union development and state labour legislation, supported by scattered membership and strike figures; no systematic data analysis.

Key claims¶

Claim	Basis	Strength
Registered unions organised only a small and changing share of white, coloured and Asian workers, because of recruiting concentrated on skilled strata. (p. 69)	Union membership percentages for 1951, 1960, 1977 (source unspecified).	Partial data
African unionism rose and collapsed in cycles tied to militancy and repression, never sustaining large organisations until the 1970s. (p. 70)	Membership series for 1945, 1950, 1961, 1969, 1976, unattributed.	Partial data
The Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924 institutionalised and reinforced racial divisions among workers while regulating conflict. (p. 71)	Reading of the Act's provisions on registration and industrial councils.	Partial data
The early-1970s strike wave stemmed from falling real wages and unemployment among black workers. (p. 73)	Unattributed price increase and unemployment estimates plus strike counts.	Illustrative or anecdotal
The collapse of the non-racial unions in the 1960s resulted from state repression combined with misdirected union leadership. (p. 73)	Narrative of Sharpeville and SACTU leadership; no data cited.	Asserted
The Wiehahn Commission responded to big business labour bottlenecks, internal unrest and international pressure by seeking to co-opt a black labour aristocracy. (p. 75)	Interpretation of the commissions' remit, the Codes of Conduct and the MWU strike; no report text quoted.	Asserted
Independent unions organised more workers on a more solid basis than parallel unions, whose paper membership rests on funeral benefit schemes. (p. 74)	Assertion; affiliation figures given only for 1979 groupings.	Asserted

Gaps in the evidence¶

The article gives almost no source attribution for its membership, unemployment, strike or committee figures, so none can be verified. Claims about state and employer motives (Wiehahn, Codes of Conduct) would need commission evidence and testimony, employer association and Chamber of Mines records, and Hansard debates. Department of Labour registrar-of-unions returns, Department of Statistics employment series and strike records existed then and now sit in archives; they would allow systematic tests of the unionisation and militancy patterns.

Replicability: Data poorly documented.