The Fighting Port: Capital Accumulation, Working Class Struggle and the Making of Apartheid, 1946-1963¶
Gary Minkley (1990). The Fighting Port: Capital Accumulation, Working Class Struggle and the Making of Apartheid, 1946-1963. History Workshop, 'Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid', University of the Witwatersrand, 6-10 February 1990. University of the Witwatersrand, History Workshop.
| Type | conference paper |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | mixed |
| Period studied | 1946–1963 |
| Regions | East London, Border region, Ciskei, Transkei, Eastern Cape |
| Themes | manufacturing industrial policy, labour markets wages, bantustans removals influx, mining migrant labour, unions strikes, business and state, resistance social movements, inequality poverty unemployment, origins segregation, demography urbanisation |
| Citation key | minkley1990 |
Argument¶
Minkley uses East London, a weakly industrialised port city, to ask how a manufacturing working class was made in the 1950s and how apartheid shaped that process. Local manufacturers located there to exploit supposedly cheap and docile African labour. They found a migrant workforce that was only partially proletarianised and that resisted factory discipline through turnover, absenteeism, kin networks and pilfering, while white workers resisted de-skilling and substitution. Productivity stagnated and a 'crisis of production' followed in 1956/57. Capital responded with more capital-intensive methods, and the state responded by tightening influx control (the labour bureau, Section 10, and suppression of unions). Together these stabilised the labour force by the early 1960s. Race became the main way class was lived and experienced in the factories, so apartheid's ideology 'corresponded' to practice on the factory floor and workers acquiesced without collective class organisation. The paper argues from a regional, workplace-level, E.P. Thompson-influenced perspective.
Evidence and method¶
Border Chamber of Industries (BCI) files and boxes, company archives and records consulted 1986-88 (e.g. Wilson Rowntree), Daily Dispatch, municipal records, a Rhodes M.Econ thesis on labour organisation (H.H. Smith 1949), oral interviews with 1950s workers (1987-88), Mayer's Townsmen or Tribesmen, Hobart Houghton (ed.) 1960, Barker 1966, Pauw, Duka's autobiography, and unpublished census statistics.
Place in the debates¶
- Cheap labour thesis / functionality of migrant labour for capital (see Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves). Qualifies it. Manufacturers sought cheap African labour, and migrancy cut wage and reproduction costs for many firms. But migrancy's instability and uncontrollability, and workers' rural attachments, undermined productivity. Many 'free labour capitalists' wanted a stable workforce and a break with migrancy.
- Race versus class in the making of the South African working class (see Worker consciousness, strikes and conflict on the mines and shop floor). Argues that race 'fused' with class. The workplace experience of black workers promoted a racial consciousness largely devoid of tangible class content, so the working class made itself in racial form.
- Liberal vs revisionist on whether capital and apartheid were aligned (see Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth?). Takes a locally nuanced revisionist position. Capital was fractionalised and apartheid practices (influx control, labour bureau) only gradually served the needs of local manufacturing capital, which then adopted apartheid ideology to legitimise racial divisions of labour.
- Proletarianisation and resistance to wage labour (see Worker consciousness, strikes and conflict on the mines and shop floor). Holds that proletarianisation was partial and contested, with pre-industrial work habits, kinship and rural ties shaping resistance. Rural decline plus state coercion eventually stabilised labour.
Findings¶
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Manufacturing in East London expanded rapidly after 1945, with the number of industries rising sharply. (p. 3)
In East London the number of manufacturing industries increased from 135 in 1945/6; to 223 in 1959/60.
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Private-industry employment roughly doubled, driven by black operatives and semi-skilled workers. (p. 3)
The labour force in private industry increased from 6 325 [2 526 white] in 1946 to 13 002 [4 281 white] in 1960.
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East London's industrial base was nationally marginal despite fast growth, so local industrialisation was weakly integrated with national policy. (p. 5)
In 1960 it produced barely 2% of national output, despite having registered the highest growth rate in S.A. in the 1946-1954 period.
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Black manufacturing wages in East London were well below national averages. (p. 5)
Black wage levels were lower than national averages by about 20%.
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Manufacturing growth slowed in 1956/57, which industrialists attributed to labour quality and discipline. (p. 15)
In 1956/57 the growth of manufacturing capital slowed considerably and contemporary industrialists began to talk of a crises of production.
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Capital responded to the productivity problem with higher capital intensity, though much of the machinery was second-hand. (p. 16)
In all the major sectors the level of capital intensity increased in t&e 1956-1963 period, in places marginally, but in other factories, dramatically.
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Weak early enforcement of influx control: the local labour bureau only functioned significantly from 1957. (p. 17)
the local or district labour bureau, although established in 1952 under the 'Native Laws Amendment Act', only began to 'function' significantly in 1957.
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Section 10 and the pass system tied workers to jobs and stabilised and segmented the labour market. (p. 18)
Section 10 was seen as the 'law that compels a man to remain in his job for at least 10 years', and the law that 'marries us to our employers'.
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High unemployment disciplined workers and held down wages in the late 1950s. (p. 19)
This massive presence of 'so many workless' people kept wage levels low and 'tied' workers to the jobs out of a real fear of becoming,
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Labour stability rose markedly by the early 1960s as a settled core of workers grew. (p. 21)
had risen to close on 70% in the. early 1960's. By 1962 labour turnover had correspondingly declined to approximately 60%.
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Workers' experience of factory work reinforced racial rather than class consciousness. (p. 22)
Experience seemed to belie structure, as these processes promoted a racial consciousness largely devoid of tangible class content in the 1960's in E.L.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily Dispatch, East London (newspaper coverage, 1937, 1946, 1950s incl. Feb 1951, Dec 1956, Sept 1955, June 1956) | newspapers periodicals | 1937; 1946-1956 | Documents the 1946 dock strike chronology, worker voices and local events of the 1950s (job-leaving reasons, women, repression). |
| Border Chamber of Industries (BCI) archive: numbered Files and Boxes (e.g. Files 15, 23-28, 34-43, 55-63; Boxes 4-13, 19, 21, 33), correspondence, reports 1940-1961 | employer association records | 1940-1963 | Main source for manufacturers' ideologies, views on native labour, migrancy, industrial conflict, turnover and the production 'crisis' of 1956/57. |
| BCI Reports for the years 1940-1961; Company Archives consulted December 1986 and 1987 | company records or reports | 1940-1961 | Supports the claim of stagnation of manufacturing after 1957 and productivity problems. |
| Company records and archives of East London firms (Dec. 1986, Dec. 1987, Dec. 1988), incl. Wilson Rowntree unpublished history (1961, E.L. Museum) | company records or reports | 1940s-1960s | Shows management attitudes to white and black labour, mechanisation, de-skilling and racial supervision. |
| Interviews with companies (Jan. 1987) | interviews oral history | 1987 | Supports claims about consent and benefits for white labour in the workplace. |
| Worker interviews (Interviews 2, 3, 4 series, 1987-1988, with workers of the 1950s) | interviews oral history | 1987-1988 (recalling the 1950s) | Evidence for worker experience of migrancy, rural ties, job-seeking, pass laws, housing and racial identity. |
| Smith, H.H., The Development of Labour Organization in East London, 1900-1948 (M.Econ thesis, Rhodes University, 1949) | secondary literature compilation | 1900-1948 | Source for 1946 strike links with the Communist Party, CNETU and ICU, and labour organisation history. |
| Barker, J.P., Industrial Development in a Border Area, 1966 | secondary literature compilation | 1945-1963 | Source of manufacturing statistics on industry count, output, sector shares and employment. |
| Hobart Houghton, D. (ed.), Economic Development in a Plural Society, 1960 | secondary literature compilation | 1920s-1960 | Source for sectoral statistics, wages and white working-class occupational history. |
| Unpublished census statistics (manufacturing/industrial census data) | industrial mining census | 1945/6-1960 | Underpins employment, net output and wage statistics by sector and race. |
| East London City Council and SAR&H Administration brochure, 1950 | commission or official report | 1950 | Evidence of boosterist perception of cheap, abundant non-white labour. |
| LIE (Labour/Native Labour) file EL 4/8/7/3 – local Native Labour Committee/Board records | state archives | 1950s | Evidence for state regulation of union activity, works committees, and statements that East London was not a city of strikes. |
| Mayer, P., Townsmen or Tribesmen (Oxford, 1961) | secondary literature compilation | 1950s | Source of ethnographic quotations on work, wages, theft, influx control and migrant attitudes. |
| Duka, N., From Shantytown to Forest (LSM Press, 1974) | secondary literature compilation | 1950s | Autobiographical evidence of policing, job-seeking and unemployment. |
| Letter from unspecified source to G.O. (personal archive) | other | c.1957-58 | Source for popular views on Section 10 and the pass system as unholy alliance between employers and authorities. |
| Native Laws Amendment Act (1952), Natives Urban Areas Act s.10, and Native Labour Act of 1953 | legislation gazette | 1945-1953 | Frames the labour bureau, influx control and restriction of union activity in East London. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Descriptive tables.
Regional case study of East London combining a structural sketch of manufacturing growth, sectoral composition and employment from secondary and unpublished statistics, with qualitative reading of employer-association and company archives, interviews and press to infer class formation and the racialisation of consciousness.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| East London's manufacturing grew rapidly in 1946-56 (industries 135 to 223; net output up 211%) and then stagnated after 1957, with small national weight (about 2% of output). (p. 3) | Barker 1966, Hobart Houghton 1960, unpublished census figures and BCI/company records; no tables or sources shown per figure. | Partial data |
| There was a racial restructuring of the workforce: black operatives substituted for white artisans and operatives, white men moved into supervision, and black wages were about 20% below national averages. (p. 5) | Employment and wage statistics from Barker, Hobart Houghton, unpublished census and BCI records (note 8), plus company records. | Partial data |
| Manufacturers saw cheap black labour as the key location advantage, but were split over migrancy and white labour, with a 'mass production' faction dominating the Chamber by 1952. (p. 8) | BCI files, boxes and correspondence, company archives and interviews with firms, read qualitatively. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Migrant black workers resisted proletarianisation through rural ties, job-changing and absenteeism, producing high turnover and a 1956/57 'crisis of production'. (p. 11) | Worker interviews (1987-88), BCI files, a turnover figure (25% under three months), Mayer, and an industrial report. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| After 1956/57 tightened influx control, Section 10, labour bureau enforcement and Native Labour Act machinery, together with high unemployment (25-35%), stabilised the black workforce and kept wages down. (p. 19) | Interviews, Daily Dispatch, municipal records, LIE/Native Labour Committee files, Mayer and Duka; unemployment figure quoted without source. | Partial data |
| By the early 1960s the stable core of black workers rose from about 30% to nearly 70% of the labour force and turnover fell to about 60%. (p. 20) | BCI Files 41 and 42. | Partial data |
| Racial identity and an accommodative 'African' consciousness, rather than class organisation, became the modality of class experience in the 1960s, aligning with apartheid. (p. 21) | A small number of oral interviews and company interviews/records, interpreted theoretically. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
The author's caveats¶
The author notes that statistics are drawn from secondary and unpublished sources and that many workers' reasons for changing jobs are 'indetectable'; he also describes company records as showing 'tension and contradiction' rather than a uniform view. No formal discussion of data reliability.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The argument needs systematic establishment-level data (the Census of Industrial Establishments by race, wages and occupation) and labour bureau registers to verify the substitution, turnover and stabilisation claims; these existed then and survive in archives. The unemployment and turnover figures are given without clear provenance, and interview evidence is small, retrospective and unquantified. Evidence on how typical Chamber and company statements were, and on the workers' own consciousness in the 1960s, is thin; a wider sample of oral histories and union or police records would test the 'silent consent' claim.
Replicability: Data poorly documented.