South African Gold Mining in 1974: ‘The Gold of Migrant Labour’

Fathers’ Employment and Sons’ Stature: The Long-Run Effects of a Positive Regional Employment Shock in South Africa’s Mining Industry

“…Some commentators maintain that the industry only prospered because it was able to utilise a source of cheap unskilled labour (Wilson 1972, Leys, 1975, Crush et al 1991, Feinstein 2005). When the industry was unable to satisfy labour demand locally it expanded its catchment area to other countries/colonies in southern Africa where the British and Portuguese colonial authorities were accommodating (Prothero, 1974).…”

“…Simultaneously the mining industry's reputation suffered from its poor safety record (Leys 1975). The industry defended its low wage policy by claiming that domestic labourers had families based in the homelands that were supporting themselves through subsistence farming.…”

“…However, given the high levels of poverty in all homeland regions, I believe that the poorest homelands still provide some information on living standards in the homelands in general. Furthermore, Leys (1975) notes that South African government policy was that each homeland would send the majority of its workers to one specific industry. The choice of industry each homeland contributed to was independent of the stature or strength of the inhabitants.…”

The geopolitics of dependent development in Central Africa: race, class and the reciprocal blockade

“…Sobered by diminishing post-war returns from SCEs and disillusioned by the failed promises of Oswald Pirow's Nazi fringe New Order and Ossewabrandwag (Ox Wagon Sentinel) home-grown fascism, Afrikaner nationalism ebbed, becoming reconciled to British capital while remaining hostile to 'multiracial partnership' or 'liberal imperialism' (implicit references to the CAF) that might threaten apartheid (Leys, 1975;Dunbar Moodie, 1988;Henshaw, 1996). Conglomerate capitalism deepened and by 1987, four groups controlled 83 per cent of firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (Minter, 1988: 74;Iliffe, 1999: 97).…”

Changing Patterns of Labour Supply to the South African Gold Mines

“…Minimum industry-wide wages rose further from 72 cents per shift at the beginning of 1974 to R2,20 in June 1975 andto R2,50 in June 1976. The background to these unprecedented wage increases, small as they were, was internal labour unrest and the increasing insecurity of foreign labour supplies. Between 1973 and 1975, violence erupted on the mine compounds throughout South Africa in response to low wages and poor working conditions (Leys 1975). In April 1974 -following an air crash in which over 70 Malawi workers were killedthe Malawian government prohibited further recruitment of Malawian' labour which at the time constituted almost one third of the African labour force at the mines.…”