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MAKING APARTHEID WORK: AFRICAN TRADE UNIONS AND THE 1953 NATIVE LABOUR (SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES) ACT IN SOUTH AFRICA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2005

ALEX LICHTENSTEIN
ALEX LICHTENSTEIN
Affiliation:
Rice University
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Abstract

Most analyses of apartheid labor policy focus on the regulation of the labor market rather than the industrial workplace. Instead, this article investigates the administration of South Africa's 1953 Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act to examine shop-floor control rather than influx control. The article argues that in response to the threat of African trade unionism, apartheid policymakers in the Department of Labour addressed the problem of low African wages and expanded the use of ‘works committees’. By shifting the debate about capitalism and apartheid away from influx control and migrant labor, and towards industrial legislation and shop-floor conflict, the article places working-class struggle at the center of an analysis of apartheid.

Keywords

South Africaapartheidlaborlaw
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , July 2005 , pp. 293 - 314
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The research for this article was conducted in conjunction with a Fulbright Fellowship in South Africa at the University of the Western Cape. I would like to thank the entire UWC history department for making my initial foray into South African history so stimulating. The article's first incarnation was as a paper given at UWC's South African and Contemporary History Seminar. I have subsequently received comments on this work from the Houston Area African Studies Group and at the 2004 Historical Association of South Africa Meeting at Stellenbosch University. Special thanks in South Africa to Bill Freund, Martin Legassick and Leslie Witz, and in Houston to Greg Maddox, Atieno Odhiambo and Kerry Ward.