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The Rand’s first strike

5th July 2013

By: Jade Davenport

Creamer Media Correspondent

  

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South Africa’s trade union movement, which is today the largest on the African continent, has, for more than a century, played one of the most influential roles in determining labour market and industrial relations policies.

One of the very first examples of the power of trade unionism in influencing industrial relations, at least in the gold mining sector, was the 1907 miners strike.

In the aftermath of the South African War, the Witwatersrand gold mining industry was confronted by a number of challenges, not least of which was a debilitating shortage of unskilled and semiskilled labour.

While numerous attempts were made to lure unskilled workers to the Rand, such initiatives proved largely futile, and a significant dearth in the labour pool continued to burden operations during the earliest years of the twentieth century. The reluctance of black unskilled workers to work on the Witwatersrand mines can partly be explained by the fact that most young black men in Southern Africa had had first-hand knowledge, or were at least cognisant, of the poor working and living conditions, the low wage rate and the dangers of travelling the road to the Rand. It was in that context that the somewhat desperate mine owners looked to Asia to meet their labour needs.

Although the proposal generated significant opposition, the mine owners, inevitably, had their way and a resolution was passed in December 1903 allowing for the importation of indentured Chinese labourers to work on the Witwatersrand gold mines.

The first shipment of Chinese workers arrived in May 1904 and, over the next three years, more than 60 000 men were brought from the Orient to the Transvaal. For the most part, they learnt various mining skills very quickly and soon became excellent and efficient workers. In fact, such was their level of efficiency that they were able to facilitate a reduction in working costs by more than four shillings a ton and, through their efforts, gold production began to soar from 1904 onwards.

However, the very industriousness of the indentured workers inevitably had a dramatic impact on the labour market, both white and black. With regard to white labour, the historian Peter Richardson has noted that importation of Chinese workers did not only “ help the companies greatly in the elimination of white unskilled labour but it also helped to undermine the position of skilled labour as well”.

It was, in fact, that process of subverting the position of skilled white miners that caused the 1907 strike, the first major industrial action on the Witwatersrand gold mines.

After working on the gold mines for two years, the Chinese mineworkers had become quite skilled in the art of rock drilling, a skill that had originally been the preserve of white miners.
Until May 1907, the accepted practice on the mines was for white miners to run, or supervise, a maximum of two rock-drilling machines. Labour Policies However, having realised that the Chinese were now proficient in this skill, being capable of drilling without any supervision at all, and that it would be no great hardship to keep an eye on half a dozen drills, mine managers decreed that each white miner must supervise more drills than were the quota of the day.

Such an order was nothing more than an attempt by management to increase output and reduce costs.

Inevitably, the white miners protested against such an overhaul of labour policies, fearing that it was the thin end of a wedge that might force white skilled labour out of the mines altogether.

Although the white trade union, the Transvaal Miners Association, protested against the new decree and attempted to negotiate with mine management and government, no satisfactory settlement could be reached and the union was compelled to call for a general strike.

The response of the miners was excellent and the strike spread rapidly to every mine along the Reef. Though a trickle of scabs managed to evade the pickets and continued working, there were 4 171 white miners on strike before the end of May and, by June, another 900 had joined the strike. All told, some 5 000 men participated in the extensive strike, which lasted three months.

But, in the end, the strikers lost the day on the basis of two factors. In the first place, many of the skilled workers who were not members of a union stayed at their jobs and kept things going, with the help of the increasingly skilful Chinese workers. Secondly, the strike coincided with a severe slump in the Transvaal’s agricultural sector. Such a slump meant that hundreds of young Afrikaners were barely making a living and, as a consequence, were forced to migrate to the Rand in search of work. Eager to earn a living, they were only too anxious to take the jobs that the strikers had turned their backs on, at a wage rate that seemed to them beyond the dreams of avarice. They flocked to the mines in droves and were taken on. Thus, the young Afrikaners were effectively used by mine management as strike breakers.

By the end of July, the strike was officially over and hundreds of loyal strikers found themselves workless and victimised. It was at this time that many of the foreign miners left South Africa and the white workforce on the mines became increasingly dominated by young Afrikaans-speaking men.

Ultimately, the number of white miners employed in the gold mines was reduced by about 10% and the cost of breaking rock reduced by about a quarter.

Another interesting outcome of the strike was that it facilitated the founding of the South African Labour Party, in which HW Sampson, a printer, William Andrews, a fitter, and Peter Whitesdale, an Australian engine driver, played a leading role.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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