From fatalism to mass action to incorporation to neoliberal individualism: worker safety on South African mines, c.1955–2016

Abstract

The article resurfaces ‘tacit knowledge’ to periodise developments in worker safety in South African mines. ‘Tacit knowledge’ evolved over time, is orally transmitted, learned on the job, and is central to worker safety; it lay behind acts of resistance and demands for a safer mining workplace which underpinned unionisation, and which won worker safety representation under apartheid. Under democracy, a modern consultative tripartite legislative safety regime was instituted. With worker representation institutionalised, health and safety legislation enacted and tripartite institutions established, procedural compliance eclipsed workers’ ‘tacit knowledge’. The right to refuse to do dangerous work, state-initiated safety work stoppages and the impact on safety of inter-union rivalry are currently in the spotlight and are noted below. With the state firmly in neoliberal mode post-Fordism, this article concludes by noting the emergence of the individualisation of safety – ironically motivated by a behaviourist construal of ‘tacit beliefs’ underpinning a major industry safety initiative.

How worker health and safety representatives are captured and outdone by production on South African mines

“…There are up to five members of the branch health and safety structure, a chair and deputy, secretary and deputy and treasurer. This structure first appeared on South African mines at the end of the 1980s, where NUM had successfully demanded workplace safety stewards and committees (Stewart and Nite, 2017). Although this structure is not described under the MHSA, the arrangement is perpetuated on large mines.…”

“…Although the arrangements between the employer appointees and HSRs are associated with the self-regulation fashioned in the UK in the 1970s (Robens, 1972), this is a widely held misnomer, and arrangements for worker representation in OHS rely on the strength of trade unions (Nichols et al, 2007). South Africa is no exception to this (Stewart and Nite, 2017). When the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) commissioned a report into mine safety towards the end of the apartheid years, mine fatalities stood at approximately 600 per annum (Leger, 1985).…”

The return of the labour process: race, skill and technology in South African labour studies

“…We identify a return to labour process studies (or at least to re-centring the world of work) in recent research in South Africa. Some of this research, in fact, has continued from earlier research, for instance, that on the organisation of work on the mines (Van Onselen, 1976;Moodie and Ndatshe, 1994;Stewart, 2016;Stewart and Nite, 2017).…”

The depoliticization of health and safety committees and representation: The Ontario case

“…Some scholars have pointed instead to 'unintentional' bureaucratization and excessive auditing as major factors constraining committee and rep. effectiveness (Blewett and O'Keeffe 2011;Dekker 2014;Størkersen et al 2020), while others have argued that these constraints are not entirely unintentional and instead reflect the outcomes of specific strategies and tactics used by management to capture or undermine committee impact (Coulson 2018;Facey et al 2017;Gray 2002Gray , 2009Hall 2021;Olle-Espluga et al 2014, 2015Stewart & Kumar Nite 2017;Tucker 1995;Walters & Wadsworth 2019). Some have gone further to argue that the original framing and subsequent structuring of JOHSCs as advisory technocratic partnerships were hegemonic efforts to extend management control over workers and occupational health and safety (OHS) disruptions by shifting more responsibility to self-regulating workers and control to risk management systems (Gray 2009;Hall 1999Hall , 2021Nichols & Tucker 2000).…”