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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Grounds for a Strike: South African Gold Mining in the 1940's |
Author: | James, Wilmot G. |
Year: | 1987 |
Periodical: | African Economic History |
Volume: | 16 |
Pages: | 1-22 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | strikes 1946 gold mining Economics and Trade Labor and Employment Ethnic and Race Relations History and Exploration |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/3601267 |
Abstract: | The argument developed in this article is that the strike of about eighty thousand African gold miners in South Africa in August 1946 should be seen against the background of particular developments in the gold mining industry during the Second World War. These developments, which included a labour shortage and a growing profitability crisis, prompted an already obdurate Chamber of Mines to steadfastly resist any improvements in the conditions of work and life for African miners. The response of the mine houses and individual mines was, variously, to seek greater mechanization, to rationalize work rules, and to establish more disciplined supervision. They also rationalized and reduced food rations and resisted any increases in African wage rates, even as white wage rates rose. These, in turn, generated a cluster of acutely experienced grievances among African miners, upon which the African Mine Workers Union built and mobilized worker support. That the strike occurred just after the war is, therefore, not accidental nor solely the product of worker militancy. Note, ref. |