Capital, African labour and housing at South Africa's gold mines

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Periodical article

Title:	Capital, African labour and housing at South Africa's gold mines
Author:	James, Wilmot
Year:	1992
Periodical:	Labour, Capital and Society
Volume:	25
Issue:	1
Pages:	72-86
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	miners workers' housing trade unions mining
Abstract:	This article examines the housing policies of South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in the context of post-Wiehahn industrial relations and collective bargaining. The author argues that the collective bargaining processes introduced by the Wiehahn Commission in the 1980s facilitated the expansion of the mines' housing programmes, but at the same time proved to be a limited device by which the NUM could achieve its goals in the housing and accommodation arena. Although the NUM exerted considerable pressure in its campaigns against hostels and the mines' restrictive housing programmes, housing itself was kept off the collective bargaining agenda by the mining companies and the Chamber of Mines, and as such was outside the direct policy reach of the NUM. In the light of this, the NUM has turned to the political arena to remedy its inability to move the mining companies towards a fundamental change in housing policy. In its alliance with the ANC, the NUM urges that new State policies be used to compel the mining companies to alter their housing policies towards migrant workers. Notes, ref., sum. in French.