Abstract
M.A.
As a way of demonstrating the truth of the argument that war is a catalyst
for social change, the Second World War added impetus to the
transformation of the social standing of South African Blacks, black
workers in particular. Although the war was not necessarily being fought
for their benefit, but because of South Africa's political allegiance to the
allied forces and consequent entry into the war, black workers were all the
same affected by it.
The outbreak of the Second World War, placed immense pressure on the
black workers, especially between 1941 and 1947. Shortage of skilled
white labour, as a result of their (whites) enlistment for the War effort,
created a situation of labour necessity in both mining and manufacturing.
As such, hundreds of Blacks migrated from the rural areas to the cities,
especially the Witwatersrand in search of better paying jobs that could
offer better social conditions. The emphasis on the need for labour and the
resultant abundance thereof also influenced the emphasis on the need for
cheap labour, more than skill, as a precondition to getting employment.
The bottom-line was availability of labour for War production.
Furthermore, in order to ensure availability of labour, the pass laws were
temporarily suspended.
Because of the objective of expending every effort to winning the War
against Germany, War-time considerations forced the state and employers
to preach about the suspension of pass laws for the sake of lesser
restriction of movement of Blacks into towns. As a result, War-time
necessity of labour also saw black women increasingly joining the labour
world from the rural areas; that is if they succeeded in acquiring work.
Failure to acquire work did not necessarily force women back to the rural
areas, because they usually opted for alternatives to formal labour to
survive War-time inflation and poverty: in other words to at least make
ends meet. The alternatives were already familiar to them, maybe this
explains why they opted for them. These were domestic labour, beerbrewing
and prostitution, among others. Men also chose domestic labour,
hawking, the canteen business, as alternatives in the event of failing to
benefit from the job opportunities availed by the War.
However, the opening up of job opportunities that resulted from the
outbreak of the Second World War also had an influence on the issue of wages and conditions of work. War-time economic conditions caused the
wages to remain static, increased overtime work and contributed to
employment reduction. As War-time inflation continued to bite, the
majority of the black population suffered from adverse poverty and
shortage of civilian commodities aggravated the situation. These
circumstances forced black workers, although it was illegal, to adopt trade
unionism as a weapon to fight for better social conditions.
The "rebirth" of the black trade union movement was, however, instigated
by the inherent objectives of the Communist Party of South Africa
(CPSA) and the African National Congress (ANC), which took advantage
of the War time social discrepancies that influenced the lives of black
workers. The success in revitalizing black trade unionism, after the
Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) had closed shop in the
1930's, can be measured by the success in unionizing, not only
manufacturing workers, but mineworkers as well, who were handicapped
by being confined to the compounds, where activism was actually
prohibited.
The success of the trade union movement can also be measured by Wartime
socio-economic grievances that were translated into a number of
strikes that culminated in the mineworkers' strike of 1946. Although the
strike of 1946 was not a great success in realising workers' demands, it
certainly shook the government and employers from their ideological
numbness, and made them aware that black workers were not to be
necessarily taken for granted.