Urban Social Movements under Apartheid (Les mouvements sociaux urbains et l'apartheid)

Literature › Works

Mark Swilling (1985). Urban Social Movements under Apartheid (Les mouvements sociaux urbains et l'apartheid). Cahiers d'Études Africaines, Vol. 25, Cahier 99 (Ségrégation spatiale, ségrégation sociale). EHESS.

Type	journal article
Scope	Wider apartheid literature
Method	mixed
Period studied	1976–1985
Regions	Transvaal (Vaal, Soweto, East Rand), Eastern Cape (Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage)
Themes	unions strikes, resistance social movements, politics ideology elections, demography urbanisation, inequality poverty unemployment, business and state, macro fiscal finance debt
Citation key	swilling1985a

Argument

Swilling argues that the 1984 Transvaal and 1985 Eastern Cape stayaways were urban social movements in Castells's sense, uniting unionised workers, students, township residents and unemployed youth against apartheid's urban system. The post-1976 Riekert reforms recognised permanent urban residence but made townships self-financing through illegitimate Black Local Authorities, which pushed up rents and service charges and produced mass mobilisation. In the Transvaal unions joined community and student groups; in the Eastern Cape union-community divisions (African/coloured, employed/unemployed, workerism/populism) kept unions out of the stayaway. He concludes that the state's repressive reform ('Bonapartist') project and the movements' hegemonic project are in stalemate, with the unions' shop-floor structures and community grassroots organisations likely to survive the 1985 state of emergency.

Evidence and method

Labour Monitoring Group surveys of 71 unionised factories (Transvaal) and employers, unions and community organisations in Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage; press reports (Rand Daily Mail, Financial Mail, Sunday Express, etc.); strike statistics; official figures on casualties and arrests; the author's interviews with youth congress leaders; Castells's theory of urban social movements; and a COSAS pamphlet appended.

Place in the debates

• Workerism vs community/national-democratic politics (union-community alliances) (see Black trade unions: growth, wage effects, Wiehahn and strategy). Sees the Eastern Cape split between 'workerist' FOSATU unions and populist community organisations as damaging. In the Transvaal he sees the union-community alliance as a source of strength, and he does not endorse the unions' claim that the Port Elizabeth stayaway was against working-class interests.
• Nature of the post-1976 reform strategy and the state's response to crisis (see Why apartheid ended: reform, transition and elite bargaining). Reform (Riekert, Black Local Authorities, Regional Services Councils) is a repressive 'reform from above' that creates new contradictions. Capital and reformers back accelerated reform; the state combines repression with restructuring.
• Voluntary participation vs intimidation in stayaways (see Resistance and liberation movements). Finds evidence of substantial shop-floor support for collective action but concedes that workers also feared the consequences of not striking, and says the truth is hard to ascertain.

Findings

• The Black local government system largely collapsed under attack. (p. 4)

  34 were introduced in I983 and I04 were due to be established by I984; by April I985, there were only 3 still functioning.

• Strike activity rose sharply in 1984 despite recession. (p. 5)

  whereas in I982 and I983 tlhere were 394 and 336 strikes respectively, in I984 there were 469.

• The November 1984 Transvaal stayaway was the largest to date. (p. 5)

  calculated that between 300,000 and 8oo,ooo workers did not go to work, and 400,000 students boycotted classes.

• Survey showed strong, sustained participation, including by migrants, in the Transvaal stayaway. (p. 8)

  70% of the sample had a participation rate of over 8o%.

• The state's response to the stayaway included mass dismissals and detentions, while capital counselled restraint and pushed for reform. (p. 8)

  5,ooo to 6,ooo workers were dismissed at Sasol.

• Unemployment and recession in the Eastern Cape shaped the divergent strategies of unions and community organisations. (p. 10)

  ii,ooo motor workers and a further 20,000 in related industries were laid off during the last three years.

• Black township unemployment in Port Elizabeth was very high and fuelled militant youth organisation. (p. 11)

  With unemployment as high as 56%,9 and alarming levels of poverty,'0 militant community organizations with a substantial base among the young unemployed have emerged.

• In Port Elizabeth-Uitenhage African participation was very high, but coloured workers largely stayed at work, reflecting apartheid-imposed divisions. (p. 13)

  Of the African workers, 98% did not go to work on Thursday, and 97% on Friday.

• The author judges the state's repression-plus-reform project costly, and the outcome a stalemate. (p. 17)

  neither the Bonapartist reformist project of the ruling classes, nor the hegemonic project mounted by the urban social movements have succeeded in gaining the strategic advantage.

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source	Kind	Period	How used
Labour Monitoring Group, 'Report: The November Stay-away', South African Labour Bulletin X(6) (1985a)	author survey or fieldwork	November 1984 stayaway	Provides the estimate of workers and students stayaway participation and the 71-factory survey results for the Transvaal stayaway.
Labour Monitoring Group survey of 71 unionized factories (Transvaal)	author survey or fieldwork	November 1984	Interview results establish participation rates, day-two persistence, migrant participation and employer responses.
Labour Monitoring Group, 'Report: The March Stay-aways in Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage', SALB XI(1) (1985b)	author survey or fieldwork	March 1985	Supplies stayaway participation rates, short-time data, poverty conditions and the history of racial separation in the region.
Labour Monitoring Group employer/union/community study, Port Elizabeth–Uitenhage (sample of firms from Midland Chamber of Industries Directory)	author survey or fieldwork	March 1985	Establishes short-time prevalence, stayaway percentages by day, and employer responses and predictions.
Rand Daily Mail, 11 March 1985 (strike statistics)	newspapers periodicals	1982-1984	Source for the number of strikes and working days lost in 1982-84.
Sunday Express, 18 Nov 1984; Finance Week, 15 Nov 1984; Financial Mail, 15 Nov 1984	newspapers periodicals	November 1984	Document state, business and cabinet reactions to the November stayaway, including detentions and calls for restraint.
Eastern Province Herald, 13 June 1985	newspapers periodicals	1985	Source for Langa township's racial composition (about 3,000 Coloureds of 42,000).
'Eastern Cape Hidden Horror', State of the Nation, special edition, May 1985	newspapers periodicals	1982-1985	Source for motor-industry layoffs in Port Elizabeth/Uitenhage.
Business Day, 21 Aug 1985 (unemployment rate)	newspapers periodicals	1985	Source of the 56% township unemployment figure.
FOSATU Worker News, 37, May 1985	union or movement records	May 1985	Source for the FOSATU vice-president's critique of the stayaway and who benefited.
Pillay, 'The Port Elizabeth Stayaway', Work in Progress 37 (1985)	newspapers periodicals	1985	Cited for the competing claims about worker intimidation versus support in the March stayaway.
Weekly Mail, 13 Sept 1985 (Minister of Law and Order figures)	official statistical series	June 1984-Oct 1985	Provides figures on deaths, injuries, arrests and detentions during the unrest and state of emergency.
Commission of Inquiry into Legislation Affecting the Utilisation of Manpower (Riekert Commission)	commission or official report	late 1970s	Described as the source of the state's urban reform policy to give urban Blacks permanent residence rights.
Black Local Authority Act of 1982	legislation gazette	1982	The legislative basis for the new black local government bodies whose illegitimacy sparked protest.
Interviews with stayaway participants (PEYCO president, Chris Dlamini, personnel manager, employers)	interviews oral history	1984-1985	Quotations from leaders and employers illustrate motives, perceptions and the success of the stayaways.
Stayaway Committee and COSAS documents (appeal pamphlet; initial stayaway pamphlet)	union or movement records	October-November 1984	Reproduces the COSAS appeal and demands to establish movement aims and student-worker links.
Webster (1984) and Lodge (1983) as secondary compilations	secondary literature compilation	1950s-1984	Used for the workplace-control argument and for 1950s racially mixed residence in Port Elizabeth.

New data

Labour Monitoring Group surveys (co-conducted by the author): interviews with 71 unionized Transvaal factories (Nov 1984), and a sampled employer study in Port Elizabeth (50 of 235 firms) and Uitenhage (75% of firms) plus commercial employers (March 1985). Only summary percentages are reported here.

Inference

Quantification: Descriptive tables.

Comparative case study of two regional stayaways (Transvaal 1984, Eastern Cape 1985), interpreted through Castells's theory of urban social movements, combining survey percentages, press reports, interviews and movement documents.

Key claims

Claim	Basis	Strength
The November 1984 Transvaal stayaway was the largest to date, with hundreds of thousands of workers and students participating. (p. 366)	Labour Monitoring Group 1985a estimates plus organizations' own claims and press reports.	Partial data
Industrial conflict rose sharply in 1984, with more strikes and working days lost than in earlier years despite the recession. (p. 366)	Strike counts from Rand Daily Mail report (1982-84).	Partial data
Participation in the Transvaal stayaway was high and sustained across factories, including among migrants, and did not weaken on day two. (p. 369)	LMG interviews with 71 unionized factories.	Partial data
The new black local authorities lacked legitimacy and a tax base, so rent increases triggered mass protest and the collapse of the local state. (p. 365)	Cited election turnout, counts of councils and resignations, and the argument about fiscal burden; sources mostly unspecified.	Illustrative or anecdotal
In Port Elizabeth–Uitenhage the March 1985 stayaway was strongly observed by African industrial workers but divided unions from community organizations along racial and employment lines. (p. 373)	LMG survey of employers, unions and community organizations, plus interviews with leaders.	Partial data
Economic recession, retrenchment and unemployment in the Eastern Cape fuelled radical township youth organization. (p. 372)	Press-reported layoffs, unemployment rate and LMG poverty indicators.	Partial data
The state is combining repression with reform, producing a stalemate in which the urban movements may survive the state of emergency. (p. 377)	Theoretical reading via Castells plus Minister of Law and Order figures and observed consumer boycott.	Asserted

The author's caveats

The author notes that it is extremely difficult to ascertain whether workers participated because of intimidation or genuine support, and that the Uitenhage situation was less clear because of short-time work. He also notes that the stayaway estimates are from different sources whose figures vary widely (300,000-800,000).

Gaps in the evidence

The argument relies on summary percentages from the group's own surveys, without sampling frames, questionnaires or response rates, so representativeness cannot be judged. Worker-level data (for example, surveys of participants on motives and intimidation) and official strike and unemployment statistics would test the claims better; these could have been collected at the time. Systematic data on local council finances, rent levels and turnout, which existed in municipal and government records, are cited only in passing.

Replicability: Data poorly documented.