State Control Over the Labor Market in South Africa

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Anthony Lemon (1984). State Control Over the Labor Market in South Africa. International Political Science Review 5(2). SAGE for the International Political Science Association.

Type	journal article
Scope	Economics and economic history of apartheid
Method	synthesis review
Period studied	1849–1980
Regions	South Africa, Western Cape (Eiselen line), Transkei and Ciskei, homelands (KwaZulu, Bophuthatswana), Lesotho, Malawi and Mozambique (labour source areas)
Themes	origins segregation, mining migrant labour, agriculture land, bantustans removals influx, labour markets wages, business and state, demography urbanisation, inequality poverty unemployment
Citation key	lemon1984

Argument

Lemon argues that South Africa controls its labour market more than any other avowedly capitalist country. Race-based job reservation has eroded under economic pressure, but movement controls (influx and efflux control, labour bureaus, the Eiselen line) continue to stop Africans selling their labour freely. He reviews the legislation from 1849 to the Riekert reforms, then looks at farm labour, mining-company recruitment and stabilisation, and the effects on the homelands. His conclusion is that the emerging system splits black workers into privileged urban insiders, frontier commuters and a large outsider mass of homeland and farm dwellers. He reads this as an efficient adaptation of apartheid to capitalist needs: social costs are shifted to the homelands while the white economy draws on rural labour as it needs.

Evidence and method

Secondary literature (Morris, Baldwin, Wilson, Lipton, Knight, Spandau, Horner and Kooy) and statutes; the Riekert Commission report and 1979 White Paper; Du Plessis Commission; SAIRR Survey of Race Relations; wage, recruitment and removal statistics drawn from these sources; De Wet's Ciskei village case study; two figures (the Eiselen line map and a map of frontier commuters).

Place in the debates

• Cheap-labour (Marxist/capitalist-development) vs ideological (racial) explanations of labour controls (see Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves). Sets out both views and accepts that they often coincide. He sees ideology as paramount but modifiable where it conflicts with economic aims. His conclusion that the new system is an efficient adaptation of apartheid to capitalism leans towards a functional reading.
• Causes of state intervention in the farm labour market (Baldwin's apartheid ideology vs Morris's capitalist development) (see Agrarian transition to capitalism and the fate of the African peasantry). Treats both as partly valid: concern over the blackening of the platteland coexisted with restructuring that permitted capitalist agricultural expansion, with Morris's account given more weight.
• Liberal vs revisionist view of apartheid and growth (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Notes that job reservation and training restrictions are economically wasteful and reduce efficiency, while other controls reinforce capitalism. He holds that controls both hinder and serve growth.
• Role of mining companies in the migrant labour system (see The mine migrant labour system: origins, recruitment, foreign labour and stabilisation). Argues the companies' own recruitment policies constrain a free labour market, but that in the 1970s they shifted from foreign to domestic supply, higher wages and partial stabilisation. Anglo American pressed for policy change.

Findings

• The Eiselen line coloured-labour preference policy began in 1962 and was extended in 1971. (p. 7)

  This policy began to operate in 1962 and was extended to a further 22 magisterial districts in 1971.

• The 1952 Native Laws Amendment Act was the foundation of postwar state allocation of labour between town and country. (p. 6)

  it laid the basis for all state intervention to control the distribution of labor between town and country, and between towns, from 1952 onwards.

• Farm workers' pay was a fraction of mining and manufacturing pay in 1976. (p. 7)

  In 1976, the average annual income of black agricultural workers was only R 114.20 (Rl = £0.65 approximately), equal to 18.8% of their counterparts in mining, 13.2% of the average wage in manufacturing

• Labour tenancy was eliminated by mass removals in the 1960s and 1970s. (p. 9)

  but the policy of eradicating squatters and abolishing labor tenancy went ahead in the 1960s, when 340,000 labor tenants and 656,000 squatters were removed, together with 97,000 people from

• Domestic African employment on the mines fell sharply in the 1960s as manufacturing competed for labour. (p. 10)

  Thus South African blacks employed on mines affiliated to the Chamber of Mines fell in number from a 1962 peak of 157,00 to only 86,500 in 1971.

• The white-black mine pay differential narrowed sharply after the 1970s gold price rise. (p. 10)

  with the overall white:black pay differential declining from 18.6:1 in 1972 to 8.08:1 in 1976 and 6.72:1 in 1979

• Mines cut their dependence on foreign labour by 1979 through higher wages and easier domestic recruitment. (p. 11)

  enabled mining companies to reduce the foreign component of their labor force to only 35.7% by mid-1979.

• State rules on stabilisation were so restrictive that almost no mineworkers were stabilised. (p. 12)

  Since 1952, the gold mines have been allowed to stabilize up to 3% of their labor force, but only if the authorities can be fully satisfied by the circumstances in each case.

• The Riekert reforms widened the gap between urban insiders and rural outsiders. (p. 15)

  Rural blacks, whether living on white farms or in homelands, thus come at the end of the queue for access to the job market.

• Homeland population growth and land betterment increased dependence on migrant labour (Ciskei village case). (p. 16)

  the population increased by 49% whilst the land area under cultivation was reduced by more than half in an attempt to check soil erosion; 41% of families were left landless

• Frontier commuting was concentrated in two fragmented homelands. (p. 17)

  KwaZulu and Bophuthatswana together accounted for 78% of the total in 1979.

• The new control system is judged to serve capitalist needs while pushing social costs onto the homelands. (p. 19)

  The new labor control system which is emerging thus appears to be a highly efficient adaptation of apartheid policies to the needs of the expanding capitalist economy.

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source	Kind	Period	How used
Riekert Commission Report (Commission of Enquiry into Legislation Affecting the Utilisation of Manpower), RP32/1979	commission or official report	1979	Supplies the official statement of government labour-market objectives and doubt about commuters acquiring Section 10(1)b rights.
White Paper on the Riekert Report, WP T/1979	commission or official report	1979	Documents the government's concessions on family rights, job mobility and transfer of Section 10 rights, and the new condition of non-availability of local workseekers.
Second Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Agriculture (Du Plessis Commission), RP 84/1970	commission or official report	1970	Quoted to show official intent to reduce white agriculture's dependence on non-white labour.
Ministry of Indian Affairs statement on 'Interprovincial movements of Indians', Fiat Lux, June-July 1975	official statistical series	1975	Cited for restrictions on Indian movement into the Orange Free State and northern Natal.
General Circular No. 27 (1967) on black housing in white urban areas	legislation gazette	1967-1968	Used to show that local authorities needed government approval for new black housing schemes, pushing housing into homelands.
Wilson, Migrant Labour in the South African Gold Mines 1911-1969 (data on mine wages)	secondary literature compilation	1911-1969	Supports the claim that mining wages had not changed in real terms since 1911.
Spandau (1980), note on black employment conditions on South African mines (wage differentials, stabilization)	secondary literature compilation	1972-1979	Provides white:black pay ratios and black mine wage relative to manufacturing, and the stabilization agreement.
Chamber of Mines figures on mine labour supply (foreign share, South African black employment on affiliated mines)	chamber of mines or recruiting records	1962-1979	Establishes the shift from foreign to domestic labour supply in the 1970s.
Horner and Kooy (1976), Conflict on South African Mines 1972-1976, SALDRU Working Paper 5	secondary literature compilation	1973-1976	Source for deaths and incidents of mine conflict and their explanation by compound conditions.
Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1980 (SAIRR), ed. Gordon	secondary literature compilation	1970-1980	Source for numbers of labor tenants removed in the 1970s.
Baldwin (1975), 'Mass removals and separate development'	secondary literature compilation	1960s	Provides numbers of labor tenants, squatters and black-spot residents removed in the 1960s.
Knight (1977), Labour Supply in the South African Economy, SALDRU Working Paper 7	secondary literature compilation	1969-1976	Source for cane-cutter wage rise and use of black workers in open-cast mines.
Lipton (1980), 'Men of two worlds: migrant labour in South Africa', Optima	secondary literature compilation	c.1980	Source for proportions of stabilized labour at Phalaborwa, Kimberley and Rand Mines coalfields and hostel redesign.
Morris (1977), Apartheid, Agriculture and the State, SALDRU Working Paper 8	secondary literature compilation	1920s-1970s	Interpretive account of state intervention in the farm labour market.
Nattrass (1976), 'Migrant labour and South African economic development'	secondary literature compilation	1976	Source for 90% migration rate at a given education level.
De Wet (1980), study of land betterment in a Ciskeian village	secondary literature compilation	c.1980	Case evidence for landlessness and dependence on migrant labour.
Smit (1979), 'Urbanisation in Africa: lessons for urbanisation in the homelands'; Smit and Booysen (1977)	secondary literature compilation	1976-1979	Source for squatter population figure north of Pretoria; also the frontier commuter data in Figure 2.
Average annual income figures for black workers by sector, 1976	official statistical series	1976	Compares black agricultural wages to mining, manufacturing and non-agricultural averages.

Inference

Quantification: Illustrative figures.

Historical-legislative narrative and descriptive synthesis of secondary studies and official reports, with scattered statistics. The argument rests on interpretive reasoning about the interaction of state controls, employer interests and homeland effects, with no systematic data analysis.

Key claims

Claim	Basis	Strength
State control of the black labour market, via influx/efflux controls and labour bureaus built from 1923 to 1952, was uniquely extensive for a capitalist country. (p. 193)	Narrative review of legislation (Urban Areas Acts, 1952 Native Laws Amendment Act) and Morris's secondary account.	Partial data
Black farm workers earned a small fraction of mining and manufacturing wages, and the state removed hundreds of thousands of tenants and squatters to stabilize a smaller farm workforce. (p. 194)	Unattributed 1976 income figures; removal numbers from Baldwin and SAIRR Survey; Du Plessis Commission quote.	Partial data
In the 1970s mining companies shifted from foreign to domestic labour, raised wages sharply and narrowed the racial pay gap, driven by loss of foreign supply and the higher gold price. (p. 197)	Chamber of Mines-affiliated employment figures, Wilson, Spandau wage ratios.	Partial data
Mine labour stabilization was restricted by government policy (3% cap since 1952, under 1% stabilized by 1970), while non-gold mines stabilized more. (p. 199)	Spandau (1980) and Lipton (1980) citations.	Partial data
Post-Riekert reforms widen the gap between urban insiders with Section 10 rights and rural outsiders, extending the Western Cape preference policy nationwide. (p. 202)	Riekert Report and the 1979 White Paper, read interpretively by the author.	Asserted
Labour controls shift the costs of reproducing and housing labour to homelands, expanding frontier commuters and squatter settlements. (p. 203)	Frontier commuter figures (Figure 2), Smit's squatter estimates, De Wet case study, Wilson's argument.	Partial data
The emerging control system is an efficient adaptation of apartheid to the needs of capitalist expansion. (p. 206)	Author's synthesis of the preceding discussion and Wilson's argument; no direct test.	Asserted

The author's caveats

The author notes some uncertainty about how the White Paper concessions will apply (e.g., whether Section 10 rights can be inherited) and assumes the more liberal reading. No explicit caveats are given about the quality of the statistics.

Gaps in the evidence

The argument draws mostly on secondary working papers and lacks primary archival or microdata evidence on how controls actually operated, such as labour bureau records, influx control prosecutions, or farm and mine wage payrolls. Several key figures (1976 sectoral incomes, frontier commuters, mine employment) are not traced to a specific official series. Chamber of Mines recruiting statistics, Department of Statistics wage data and census-based homeland population counts existed then and could test the claims on wages, stabilization and cost-shifting; the dual explanations (ideology versus capital) are not tested against each other.

Replicability: Data poorly documented.