There can be no doubt that the most significant factor that has facilitated the profound growth of South Africa’s mining industry and, indeed, its economy over the last century and a half has been the exploitation of a cheap, unskilled and subjugated labour force.

From the earliest days of commercial mining, the process of extracting the country’s abundant mineral resources, particularly diamonds and gold, proved to be an expensive undertaking. There were a number of factors that militated against inexpensive mining, not least of which were the remote locations in which ore deposits were discovered; the exorbitant cost of importing the necessary mining equipment and machinery as well as skills from the US and Europe; and the cost of transporting the commodities to distant markets.

One of the cost aspects of mining within the mines’ realm of control and that could be kept as low as possible was the cost of unskilled black labour. (Essentially, unskilled labour was required to undertake the heavy manual work on the mines, including sinking shafts, breaking and loading rock underground, sorting waste rock from the reef, and performing various other tasks according to the nature of the crushing and treatment plant.)

Indeed, organised mining capital was only able to control this aspect because South Africa’s indigenous population had, by the time diamonds and gold were discovered, been subject to more than two centuries of conquest, dispossession and discrimination by white settlers.

Significantly, the mining companies further entrenched the subjugation of the black working population by maintaining a migrant labour system, which prevented black mineworkers from becoming urbanised and acquiring specialised skills; by forcing black workers to live in ethnically segre- gated, overcrowded and unsanitary mine compounds; and by barring them from assuming skilled and certain semiskilled positions.

While such organised control would have been difficult enough to bear, black workers also had to contend with incredibly low wages, which ranged from £2 to £3 a month. Meanwhile, their skilled white counterparts were paid at least £20 a month.

However, this is not to say that black miners did not rail against the injustices of such a discriminatory labour structure and the exceptionally poor levels of pay they received for such back-breaking and dangerous work.

At first, their dissatisfaction with low wages and poor working conditions was expressed through deserting their jobs and seeking better employment opportunities. Certainly, during the earliest days of diamond and gold mining, the rate of desertion among black mineworkers was exceptionally high. But, as black migrant workers became increasingly coerced – through a combination of pass laws, hut taxes and strict contracts – into the labour structure of the mines, they began to protest in other ways, particularly by boycotting mine compound stores and deliberately working badly.

It was only in the 1910s, however, that black mineworkers began to mobilise and express their grievances through protest action. The first such action was undertaken in the immediate wake of the 1913 white miners strike, when roughly 9 000 black workers went on strike for three days over low wages and poor living conditions in mine compounds.

While the protest was quickly quelled, the efforts of the strikers did have some positive repercussions – in the aftermath of the strike, mining companies took collective action to improve food rations, medical facilities, accommodation and working conditions. A marginal wage increase of one shilling per shift was also granted.

Discontent may have been briefly alle- viated by the introduction of such reforms, but, by the end of 1915, in the midst of a world war, rising inflation and working costs, rationing, deteriorating working conditions and unrest among black workers began to mount again.

On December 20, 1915, a strike involving 2 800 black workers broke out at the Van Ryn Deep mine, in Benoni, on Gauteng’s East Rand. That protest was followed in late January and early February of the following year by strikes in the Government Areas South and New Modderfontein mines.

Although the strikes were put down just as quickly as they had flared up, black miners continued to seethe over the mining companies’ continued refusal to increase wages and further improve living conditions. Resentment and agitation continued to mount in the closing years of the decade as prices rose rapidly on the back of rampant postwar inflation while wage rates remained stagnant.

That anger eventually spilled over in February 1920, when 70 000 black miners working along the entire extent of the Rand went on strike. The strike started on February 16, when two Zulu miners were arrested on the Canon section of East Rand Propriety Mines (ERPM) operation for moving from room to room in the compound, urging fellow workers to strike for higher pay.

The following day, a vast majority of the Canon compound – 2 500 out of 2 800 men – went on strike, demanding the release of the two arrested miners and an increase in wages.

From the Canon section, the agitation spread quickly to other mines on the East Rand and, within four days, the strike had spread from ERPM to Germiston East, Johannesburg Central and Roodepoort.

By the following week, 37 000 workers had downed tools and, on February 26, the strike had reached its peak, with a record 46 000 employees being listed as being absent from work.

However, the following day, the Chamber of Mines, with the assistance of armed police, managed to bring the situation under control, with strike numbers dropping to 10 000 and then 5 000 and only two of the Randfontein mines being completely involved.

The strike was finally suppressed on February 28.

Of the 35 gold mines along the reef, 21 were affected by the strike and almost half the entire black workforce participated at some stage.

However, unlike 1913, no effort was made to address the grievances of the miners in the aftermath of the 1920 strike.

Interestingly, that industrial action was the last major strike undertaken by black workers until 1946.