Industrialisation and Trade Union Organisation in South Africa, 1924-55: The Rise and Fall of the South African Trades and Labour Council¶
Jon Lewis (1984). Industrialisation and Trade Union Organisation in South Africa, 1924-55: The Rise and Fall of the South African Trades and Labour Council. African Studies Series 42. Cambridge University Press.
| Type | book |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | archival narrative |
| Period studied | 1924–1955 |
| Regions | Transvaal/Witwatersrand, Pretoria, Western Cape, Natal, South Africa (national) |
| Themes | unions strikes, labour markets wages, manufacturing industrial policy, politics ideology elections, business and state, origins segregation, mining migrant labour, comparative theory, bantustans removals influx |
| Citation key | lewis1984a |
Argument¶
Lewis argues that the rise and fall of the Trades and Labour Council (TLC) is explained by South Africa's pattern of industrialisation and by changes in the labour process and division of labour, not by race or Afrikaner ideology alone. Genuine craft unions, whose monopoly of skills meant they needed no legal colour bars, allied from 1930 with non-racial industrial unions in the consumer-goods industries, where deskilled, newly proletarianised workers of all races needed numbers to bargain. Wartime dilution, mass production and scientific management destroyed the craft unions' control at the point of production. The craft unions reconstituted themselves as 'pseudo-craft' unions that used industrial-council demarcation and the closed shop to exclude Africans on racial lines, and they left the TLC in 1950. Racially exclusive state-oriented unions (mines, railways, steel) formed a separate right-wing tradition, and the weakened industrial unions then joined the craft unions in SATUC (1954), excluding African unions. The argument is built through union-by-union archival case studies (IMS, AEU, GWU, ISTA, MWU) set against state commissions and management journals.
Evidence and method¶
Trade union archives (Ironmoulders' Society, AEU, Garment Workers' Union, TUCSA/TLC conference and executive minutes and correspondence); union journals and the left and communist press; Department of Labour records to 1930; Wage Board, Board of Trade and Industries, Industrial Tribunal, van Eck, Fagan and Smit commission reports; SAR reports; employer and management journals; Union statistics; interviews (1977) with IMS officials. Records of the ISTA/MWU and African unions, and post-1930 Controller of Manpower files, were unavailable.
Place in the debates¶
- Liberal vs revisionist/Marxist explanations of colour bars and white labour (see The job colour bar, white labour and its erosion). Rejects the liberal view (Horrell, van der Horst) that white unions' racial prejudice caused colour bars and union division, calling racism an 'ahistorical' explanation. Builds on Johnstone's class analysis of mining but argues that secondary industry had a different division of labour from the mines.
- Incorporation of the white working class (Poulantzian/neo-Marxist school: Davies, Wolpe) (see The job colour bar, white labour and its erosion). Argues the white working class was not 'neutered' in 1924. Incorporation was uneven and lengthy, and was completed only with the break-up of the TLC and the formation of SATUC; craft and industrial unions kept militant, non-racial practice for two decades.
- Why the TLC broke up: Afrikaner nationalist conspiracy vs structural change (see Black trade unions: growth, wage effects, Wiehahn and strategy). Against Horrell, Walker and Weinbren and the Simons, who stress nationalist penetration. The decisive blow was the 1950 disaffiliation of the English-speaking craft unions, caused by deskilling and the shift to demarcation by race, with anti-communism as the precipitant.
- Labour-process/deskilling thesis (Braverman) applied to South Africa; Greenberg's open, closed and exclusive unionism typology (see The job colour bar, white labour and its erosion). Adopts Braverman and Hyman's emphasis on labour process but adds historical change, in which closed craft unions become 'pseudo-craft' unions. Critiques Greenberg for neglecting change over time.
Findings¶
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Central thesis: union divisions and the TLC's collapse are rooted in the pattern of industrialisation and the division of labour. (p. 13)
lie in South Africa's pattern of industrialisation and the consequent development of work organ-isation and the division of labour in particular industries and sectors
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Structural change in craft unionism, not nationalism, is identified as the main cause of the TLC's demise. (p. 16)
It was this structural change in the position of the old labour aristocracy which more than anything caused the demise of the TLC.
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Methodological critique of liberal historiography: racism treated as explanation rather than object of study. (p. 17)
The point is that racism has been used in an ahistorical way as an explanation for division rather than a subject for investigation.
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The 1922 defeat sharply cut union membership; the Pact did not deliver a complete triumph for white workers. (p. 41)
membership fell from 108,242 to 81,861
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The war drove manufacturing expansion on which the restructuring of labour rested. (p. 100)
the value of gross output in the manufacturing sector rose from f140,587,000 to f304,083,000
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Wartime war-contract profits strengthened engineering employers and cushioned craft-union concessions. (p. 102)
Between 1939 and 1943 profits for foundry products and general engineering increased by 400%
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African operatives remained marginal in engineering and metal, so demarcation protected white operatives. (p. 116)
by 1946 only 3,643 out of 63,545 Africans employed in the engineering and metal industries held operative or skilled jobs
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White semi-skilled operatives enjoyed very high pay relative to unskilled black labourers, creating a pseudo-labour aristocracy. (p. 118)
White non-artisan workers were able to gain these exceptionally high rates of pay at a time when the wages of unskilled (black) labourers were only 15-20% of those of the artisan.
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State pressure and union acquiescence made incentive schemes the norm by 1955. (p. 127)
fourty-four industrial agreements specifically provided for the introduction of incentives; 39 contained no specific provision
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Clothing: the white share of the Rand workforce fell sharply as employers shifted to black labour, eroding the union's racial basis. (p. 86)
88.7% of the workforce on the Rand was European in 1936, By 1946 the percentage had declined to 54% and in 1955 the figure was 32.6%.
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Under the Nationalists, labour bureaux rationalised the supply of African labour for capital. (p. 139)
responsible for placing over one million work-seekers during that year
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Furniture: registered unions bargained over job fragmentation, with tasks shifted to unskilled (increasingly African) workers. (p. 152)
thirty tasks were separated from artisans'work and assigned to unskilled workers
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Terrington's evidence on skilled versus unskilled real wage growth supports a racialised wage hierarchy. (p. 148)
the rate of increase in the real average weekly wages of skilled [predominantly white] occupations exceeded the rate of increase in the real average weekly wages of unskilled and semi-skilled [predominantly African] occupations
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The left won a TLC majority in 1948, but the TLC's affiliated membership then collapsed. (p. 182)
reflected in the decline in affiliated membership from 184,000 to 82,000 between 1947 and
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The TLC dissolved in 1954 to make way for SATUC, which excluded African unions. (p. 187)
voted to dissolve itself by 53,683 to 23,412 on a card vote, thus securing the two-thirds majority required
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Union statistics for fifty years, Jubilee issue 1910-1960 (tables G-7, G-8, G-18, L-3, L-6, L-9, L-12, L-15, L-20, L-21, L-25 etc.) | official statistical series | 1910-1960 | Supplies employment, establishment and output figures for manufacturing by industry and race, and trade union membership, used in Tables I, II, V, XVI and in the text. |
| Annual reports of statistics of production (1924/5 to 1929/30) | official statistical series | 1924/5-1929/30 | Provides manufacturer complaints and employment figures for sweets, clothing, shoes and furniture in the 1920s. |
| Board of Trade and Industries Report No. 94, The engineering industry in South Africa (1929) (Bosman enquiry) | commission or official report | 1929 | Establishes the 'jobbing' character, rule-of-thumb management and restrictive labour structure of pre-war engineering and the push for mass production. |
| Board of Trade and Industries Report No. 282, Investigation into manufacturing industries (first interim report, 1945) | commission or official report | 1945 | Evidence that government favoured reclassification of labour, operative labour and scientific management. |
| Board of Trade and Industries Report No. 286, Investigation into the iron, steel, engineering and metallurgical industries (1946) | commission or official report | 1946 | Source of Tables VI-VIII on employment by race and industry 1939-45, wages of moulders, and evidence on dilution and operative grades. |
| Board of Trade and Industries Report No. 303, The clothing industry (1948); Report No. 323, The textile manufacturing industry (1951); Report No. 2, footwear and tanning (1922) | commission or official report | 1922-1951 | Used for capital requirements, structure and labour force of consumer products industries and textile racial composition. |
| 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) | commission or official report | 1928-1961 | Evidence on deskilling, apprenticeship, juvenile employment, occupational structure and wages by race and sex in consumer industries. |
| Report of the Industrial Tribunal reports (furniture 1959; clothing 1957 and 1960; wage incentive systems 1960) | commission or official report | 1957-1960 | Source of Tables XII-XV on racial composition, apprentices and supervisors, and survey data on incentive schemes; author notes bias since set up to investigate job reservation. |
| Report of the Native Economic Commission 1930-32 (UG22-1932) | commission or official report | 1932 | Evidence on urbanised Africans, wage disparities and job fragmentation. |
| Transvaal Indigency Commission report (TG13-1908) | commission or official report | 1908 | Evidence on black competition for skilled work, poor white unemployment and the case for technical training. |
| Select committee reports on European employment (SC9-1913) and on the Apprenticeship Bill (SC9-1921) | parliamentary debates | 1913, 1921 | Employer and union evidence on apprenticeship quotas and the origins of the 1922 Act. |
| Unemployment Commission (UG17-1922) and Industrial Legislation Commission (UG37-1935; UG62-1951) | commission or official report | 1922-1951 | Used for views on apprenticeship, female displacement of men, and trade union revival after 1924; 1948-51 commission evidence used on furniture and leather. |
| van Eck Commission (Industrial and Agricultural Requirements Commission, Third interim report, UG40-1941) | commission or official report | 1941 | Shows state strategy of reclassifying skill, expanding African semi-skilled use and training whites. |
| Reports of SAR&H: General Manager's annual reports, Special Bulletin No. 135, 1934 commission, Encroachment Committee 1935, 1947 committee on unskilled workers (UG29-1947) | commission or official report | 1924-1951 | Evidence on deskilling, promotion of white labourers, piece-work, bonus work and encroachment on railways. |
| Reports of Department of Native Affairs commissions: Smit Report 1942, Fagan Commission 1948, annual reports 1950-7 | commission or official report | 1942-1957 | Shows state policy on recognition of African unions, labour bureaux and influx control. |
| Report of the Ministerial Committee on Apprenticeship System Revision (1950) and Commission on Technical and Vocational Guidance (UG65-1948) | commission or official report | 1948-1950 | Evidence on state restructuring of training, new trades and reduced apprenticeship. |
| Garment Workers' Union commission of enquiry 1948-9 (UG16-1950) and Mineworkers' Union commission (UG52-1951) | commission or official report | 1948-1951 | Supports detail on Germiston strike, Afrikaner nationalist activity within GWU, and MWU irregularities. |
| Department of Labour archive files (ARB series, e.g. ARB 210, ARB 1362, ARB 10), Union Archive Pretoria | state archives | 1924-1930 | Documents ASA registration dispute, mass production conference and employers' demands for dilution in the 1920s. |
| Ironmoulders' Society (IMS) archive: Executive, quarterly general meeting, Pretoria Branch, Conference minutes 1921-54 | union or movement records | 1921-1954 | Main evidence for craft controls, apprenticeship quotas, resistance to and acceptance of dilution and production moulders. |
| Garment Workers' Union (GWU) Archive and Witwatersrand Tailors' Association minutes | union or movement records | 1923-1958 | Evidence on factory section growth, parallelism, Coloured No. 2 Branch conflicts and the Germiston nationalist revolt. |
| TUCSA Archive (TUC/TLC/SATUC records): conference minutes 1925-57, NEC minutes, correspondence, memos, monthly reports | union or movement records | 1925-1958 | Establishes chronology, affiliation numbers, card votes, motions on African unions and the breakup of the TLC; basis for Appendices A-E. |
| Trade union and labour journals and newspapers (The Crucible, S.A. Worker, The Steelworker, Power, Garment Worker, Forward, Guardian, Inkululeko, South African Worker etc.) | newspapers periodicals | 1920s-1956 | Evidence on union ideology, ISTA rhetoric, strikes, African union activity and anti-communism. |
| Minutes of the Annual Convention of the Federated Chamber of Industries 1921-58 | employer association records | 1921-1958 | Shows employer positions on tariffs, recognition of African unions and control. |
| ISTA Archive (published material) and ISTA pamphlets | union or movement records | 1936-1978 | Used for the ISTA's history, membership and strategy; unpublished records were closed. |
| Personal papers: SAIRR Library, Rheinallt-Jones, Ballinger, Champion, Smuts (industrial legislation commission evidence), McGregor, C.S. Richards papers | state archives | 1930s-1959 | Material on African unions, Merkel's furniture evidence and Table XIX-XXI membership estimates. |
| Author's interviews 1977 (Barnard, Plunkett of IMS; SEIFSA official) | interviews oral history | 1977 | Supplements IMS minutes on racial composition and negotiation practice. |
| Press cuttings collections (JPL, Rand Daily Mail, Star) | newspapers periodicals | 1920s-1950s | Evidence on employer statements, wartime engineering unrest and ISCOR dismissals. |
| Secondary data: Alexander and Simons, Job reservation and the trade unions; Terrington thesis on occupational wage structure; Davies, Capital, state and white labour; Barker thesis; Salomon in Butler | secondary literature compilation | 1936-1960 | Provides Table IV, Table IX, Table X and occupational and wage structure data used to argue racial restructuring. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Descriptive tables.
Historical case-study and comparative analysis by union tradition and industry, guided by labour process theory, using union minutes, official commission reports and journals to trace links between changing work organisation and union strategy; supported by descriptive tables of employment by race and industry.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Craft unions in engineering resisted deskilling and, lacking a racial exclusion strategy, allied with non-racial industrial unions to sustain the TLC until the 1940s. (p. 29) | IMS, AEU and TUCSA minutes; Department of Labour files; Board of Trade report No. 94; encroachment committee report. | Partial data |
| Consumer-product industries expanded rapidly in the 1920s with semi-skilled, newly proletarianised black and white workers, producing open non-racial industrial unions. (p. 46) | Union statistics (Tables I-II), Wage Board reports, annual production statistics, GWU and TUC records. | Partial data |
| Wartime dilution, mechanisation and scientific management broke craft control and produced 'pseudo-craft' unions that used demarcation to exclude Africans by race. (p. 88) | IMS and AEU minutes, Board of Trade reports 282 and 286, engineering journals, van Eck commission. | Partial data |
| Between 1939 and 1945 African employment in manufacturing rose sharply while white employment fell except in metal and engineering. (p. 89) | Union statistics G-3 and Board of Trade Report No. 286 Tables XIV-XV. | Systematic data |
| In clothing, furniture and similar industries, changes in racial division of labour after 1939 produced white and Coloured withdrawal or racial strategies within the industrial unions. (p. 132) | Industrial Tribunal reports (furniture, clothing), Terrington thesis, Alexander and Simons, GWU archive. | Partial data |
| Incentive schemes, work study and personnel management were accepted by registered unions and reinforced racial hierarchy. (p. 116) | TLC conference minutes, union journals, Industrial Tribunal 1960 survey, management journals, NIPR material. | Partial data |
| Afrikaner nationalism did not cause the TLC's division; christian national unionism only captured the MWU and ISTA's racial exclusion rested on its structural position. (p. 68) | MWU and ISTA journals, O'Meara's research, GWU archive, TLC minutes. | Partial data |
| The TLC dissolved in 1954 and SATUC formed excluding African unions, after craft unions left in 1950 and the left failed to take the initiative. (p. 157) | TUCSA conference and NEC minutes, card vote counts, Richards Papers membership tables, press. | Systematic data |
The author's caveats¶
Acknowledges that official government sources cannot be accepted uncritically (the Industrial Tribunal sought evidence of racial competition), that management journal material must be disentangled from ideology, that post-1930 Controller of Manpower records and Department of Labour files were restricted, that management organisations and the MWU/ISTA did not release unpublished records, and that no records of unregistered African unions survive; the study is mainly of registered unions and the Transvaal.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The argument that structural change in the labour process caused union strategy is largely inferred from union minutes and commission rhetoric; it would be better tested with firm-level data on occupational structure, wages and union membership by race over time and with employer records. The African union side is thinly documented, so claims about African unions and the left's isolation rest on secondary accounts; oral histories and later-released Department of Labour and Manpower records could now address this. Much of the occupational-race data are from partisan Industrial Tribunal reports and a single thesis, so independent census and establishment data would strengthen the claims.
Replicability: Data described but not public.