Metal that Will not Bend. Kally Forrest
falling real wages, formed the backdrop. Additional pressure for migrants, who made up 30 per cent of the East Rand workforce, was the devastating drought in rural South Africa and the more stringent application of the pass laws by ERAB.52 A further spark was the new metal industrial council agreement in July 1981, which set a minimum of R1.13 per hour. This was a 20 to 23 per cent increase on the previous year but was well below the inflation rate which, for black workers, stood at 30 per cent.53 A worker poet on the East Rand sang this lament:
Benoni, Boksburg, Springs, Egoli,
we make you rich.
We hostel people make you rich.
You send us back home to die with empty
pockets,
empty dreams and dust in our lungs, chopped-off hands and your machines grinding in our brain.54
The right of the industrial council to set wages for the industry went to the root of Mawu’s battle for power. By demanding increases above council rates, it was challenging the council’s right to set wages and the right of the white establishment to control African workers’ lives. Seifsa instructed metal companies to resist pay demands, and most strikers were forced back to work without increases. The hard-line employer association did however acknowledge that ‘it would have to become more responsive to the shop floor if it were to survive’.55 It began urging companies to recognise unions which agreed to join the council, negotiating only grievance and disciplinary issues at the plant.
Management control was at issue in more than half the strikes, while job insecurity was a strong concern for contract workers. ‘Management prerogative’ over dismissals, retrenchments, conduct of foremen, shift changes and workloads featured prominently among demands, and in these areas many concessions were won. At Telephone Manufacturers of South Africa, for example, workers refused to work because they considered production demands too heavy, and management relaxed the schedule. At Mine Steel Products in Boksburg, a stoppage forced the reinstatement of workers dismissed after refusing to carry an unreasonably heavy load. At Scaw Metals, six workers dismissed for rejecting the closed shop were reinstated and allowed to join Mawu.56
Some 25 of the metal strikes revolved around dismissals, often at the hands of racist and capricious white foremen, and in more than half strikers were reinstated.57 At Scaw Metals, for example, black workers were fired after a fight sparked by racist abuse, but reinstated after a four-day strike. Management issued a warning to Seifsa employers that companies could ‘no longer get away with dismissing a black worker when he assaulted a foreman who called him “kaffir”’.58 Some white workers in lower supervisory positions, threatened by black job mobility, became deeply unhappy as companies made concessions to militant co-workers and extreme right-wing groups on the East Rand emerged. On such matters as warnings and dismissals, Mawu shop stewards began to use grievance procedures to bypass immediate supervisors and undermine their control, and appealed directly to top management.59
Sometimes, as at Boksburg Foundry, workers struck over the dismissal of union leaders, and at Vaal Metals, Boksburg Foundry and Nickel Chrome they successfully demanded the dismissal of worker representatives who were ‘bought off’ by management. Increasingly, managers tried to dampen the militancy by offering to promote workers’ leaders or send union representatives on company training.60
Employers who hoped that the Christmas break would serve as a cooling-off period were disappointed. As the economy slid deeper into recession and job cuts became more common in 1982, the strike wave intensified. Wadeville, in particular, became a war zone, with strikes by 14 000 workers. Exclaimed Andrew Zulu, a Mawu shop steward and Fosatu vice president: ‘I never dreamt workers would show so much interest in union activity, because when I started people believed they would be arrested as we were involved in what they [government] called communism.’61
The 1982 strikes were more narrowly focused on wages, perhaps reflecting Mawu’s growing success in winning recognition in factories. Recognition agreements, and particularly their grievance and disciplinary codes, also seemed to give migrants the greater security and dignity they demanded.
The 1982 industrial council talks were again a spark to the tinder, but for a different reason. The deadlock between employers and white artisans delayed the implementation of the main agreement, so that black workers did not receive their annual increase at the usual time. By September at least 45 strikes had erupted,62 and 4 000 workers rejected the industrial council system at Mawu’s AGM.63
Turning point
As in the 1980 VW strike, unplanned strikes led union officials to respond tactically. The industrial revolt on the East Rand was a product of both organised and unorganised labour, as a survey of East Rand employers underscored.64 A third of factories had a majority of Mawu members and five had no members at all. The systems of representation also varied: 53 per cent of factories had works councils, 18 per cent had shop stewards committees, 12 per cent had no shop steward representation, 5 per cent had ‘boss-boy’ committees, and 12 per cent had both works councils and shop stewards.65 Clearly, strikes occurred both in organised factories, where they were planned, and spontaneously amongst unorganised workers who then contacted the union. The wildcat strikes were however influenced by Mawu’s organising drive on the East Rand. Its mass mobilisation campaign, and the Katlehong local which metal stewards dominated, created fertile conditions.
And yet, the scale of the unrest startled union organisers and employers. ‘Management didn’t know how to handle the unions and they usually gave in,’ commented Fanaroff during the 1981 strikes. Few workers were fired, and in their anxiety to resume production many companies took workers back. In numerous cases negotiations followed and grievance procedures were installed, while police intervention, arrests and prosecutions for illegal strikes were few. ‘In effect,’ said Bonner, ‘workers provisionally won a de facto right to strike,’66 which according to Fantasia is a global phenomenon: ‘The right to strike has always and everywhere been won by striking’.67
The impromptu nature and the scale and frequency of strikes meant that workers ran ahead of the union. With the workers taking the lead and the union lagging behind,68 as Mayekiso put it, the shop stewards councils, especially the Katlehong local, played a critical role. Originally, workers pioneered the council to help with recruitment, education and building factory structures but now it became a true organ of workers’ power as it responded to the strike wave. Former organiser Jeremy Baskin recorded in 1982:
A crowd of about 500 workers make up the audience at the DH Williams Hall in Katlehong … The mood is positive and militant. The chairman opens the meeting with a brief speech: ‘The struggle has come a long way. But we should remember that we are not fighting only for a 20c wage increase, but for our rights and for our country.’ Workers in the audience shout their approval. Then the organiser’s report begins. Mayekiso of Mawu reports that Mawu membership in the area is 10 000. Factory after factory gets reported. The details of the various strikes are given. The problems of strikes are the main concern. The speeches are all different. Most are militant, some are cautious. But overall the message is very much the same. The strike is our only weapon. We are fighting for our rights and we need strong organisation.69
The power of the shop steward councils lay in their flexibility and ‘action-oriented, task-based approach’, according to Greg Ruiters.70 Standing outside constitutional structures, councils were unfettered by the normal chain of union accountability where factory representatives reported to the BEC, which in turn reported to the NEC. Their power lay in the commonality of factory grievances which allowed for the formulation of shared strategies and the building of unity.
As actions continued to erupt, the Katlehong council began organising solidarity action for striking workers and new factory struggles. An organiser explained: ‘The council is not to solve individual factory problems like a dismissal … we discuss disputes like strikes … how can we help those workers.’71
At times the council focused