Originally published in Inqaba Ya Basebenzi No. 9 (February-April 1983)
by D. H.
The dispute of the 2,000 African migrant workers at Coronation Brick & Tile Co., outside Durban with their employers in January 1973 was over pay.
As events turned out, their action marked the beginning of the Durban strikes – the biggest post-war explosion of industrial struggle in SA up to that time.
The Coronation workers demanded that their minimum wage of R8.97 per week (which had not been raised for five years) be increased to R20. The cost of subsistence for the average African family in Durban was R78 per month at this time.
Management responded by blaming “Communist agitators” and threatening the “ringleaders” with punishment.
The strike began on 9 January and was ended after two days by no less a person than the Zulu King Goodwill Zwelethini. A week later management pressurised the workers into accepting a R2.07 increase.
But by this time strikes had begun to spread, first to other factories in Durban, then to other parts of the country.
Outstanding were the struggles of the workers employed by the textile millionaire, Frame. Some of them were earning only R5 per week. At the end of January, every single Frame factory was at a standstill, with 8,000 workers on strike.
In the Hammarsdale industrial area the strike became general, involving 7,000 workers from twelve industries. Also in the forefront were Durban’s municipal workers: 16,000 laid down their tools, including many Indian workers.
By the end of March there had been at least 160 strikes, involving over 61,000 workers, in every sector of industry. Because of the mass nature of the movement, the bosses in most cases were forced to make concessions. This, in turn, encouraged more workers to join in.
What were the reasons for the eruption of large-scale industrial struggle at this time? Answering this question will help us to understand more clearly what is involved in building the workers’ movement today.
Objectively, in SA as elsewhere, the post-war capitalist boom had been financed increasingly by inflationary credit and state spending. Production was being expanded beyond the limits that the capitalist system – hemmed-in by private property and the nation-state – could sustain.
Worldwide Recession
With profitable markets being flooded and rates of profit falling, capitalism was heading for the first worldwide recession since World War Two, that would open up a whole period of crisis and decline.
But the general problems of society do not immediately confront the working class in their entirety; they appear first of all as a series of specific unconnected problems. For the workers in Durban and elsewhere, the deepening contradictions of the capitalist economy were expressed first and foremost in rapidly rising prices.
For workers earning starvation wages, without the democratic right of free collective bargaining, this left no choice except struggle to defend their very existence.
At the same time the African working class had been enormously strengthened by the massive growth of industry during the 1960s. The despair that had followed the crushing defeats of the Sharpeville period had worn-off. A younger, more militant generation had taken their place in the factories, docks and mines.
Significant strikes by black workers, notably the Durban dock strike of 1969, had already begun to reflect the changing mood. The Durban strikes, however, brought a fresh, militant proletariat onto the national scene as a mass force struggling independently for its own demands.
This historic class movement, therefore, was based on the concrete problems faced by large numbers of workers, in the context of a changing political climate; and it ushered in a new period of industrial and political turmoil affecting every layer in society.
The bosses and the state were shaken and pushed on the defensive. As Graaff, the then leader of the white parliamentary opposition, put it: “I think we all realise that a new era in industrial relations in SA has been rung in as a result of what has happened.”
The employers were compelled to concede wage increases. Before 1973, increases for African workers averaged less than 10% – i.e., less than the rate of inflation. But such was the impact of the workers’ struggles that the average increase for 1973 was 18%; for 1974, 22%; and for 1975, 21%. (At the same time, inflation has forced the workers to continue the struggle for a living wage.)
These wage gains are all the more impressive when we recall that trade union organisation was almost non-existent among African workers at the time, and all strikes were illegal. The strikes were ‘organised’ by the workers’ spontaneous class consciousness and independent underground activity; all the gains were won through the workers’ own courage and initiative.
In the face of this wave of class struggle, even the state retreated. No “ringleaders” were arrested. Instead the law was amended to ‘legalise’ strikes by African workers under restrictive conditions similar to those faced by other workers.
But the great and lasting significance of the Durban strikes has lain in the new confidence it gave black workers in their ability to struggle and, in this climate, the rapid growth of trade union organisation among the mass of workers.
From only a few thousand in 1972, African trade union membership rose to some 40,000 by July 1974 and 60,000 by August 1975. While only a small part of the total African workforce, this represented a giant step forward out of the terrible repression of the 1960s.
It has created a basis for later waves of struggle and the further growth of the independent trade unions, which will form the key to the mass organisation of the working class in the coming period.
The struggles of the workers have given encouragement and a clearer sense of direction to other sections of the black oppressed. In 1976, there followed the magnificent upsurge of the black youth, who quickly sought ways of linking up with the workers.
By the late 1970s, industrial struggles were becoming a focus for students, community organisations and even shopkeepers to support (as at Eveready, Rowntree, etc.). This has provided a foretaste of future revolutionary upheavals, when the mass organisations of the black working class, led by the workers’ ANC, will head all the oppressed in battle.
Many other aspects of the struggles that face us were foreshadowed by the Durban strikes.
Crucial to the success of the strikes was the skilful combination of mass and underground organisation. Correctly distrusting the bosses and the authorities, workers used their own mass meetings to negotiate with employers. Workers’ leaders only stepped to the fore when it was considered safe for them to do so.
As a result, the strike movement was highly democratic, with the leadership under the direct control of the workers, and all important issues decided by mass meetings.
These same methods enabled the workers to carry out their decisions in a disciplined way and bring their collective ingenuity to bear on the problems they came up against. For instance, a system of ‘flying pickets’ was developed by municipal and building workers to involve workers who were scattered over many sites.
Unity in action was created between African and Indian workers, despite occasions of past conflict. Remarkable also was the effect of the mass class movement on white workers. According to a survey, 60% of white manual workers blamed the bosses for the strikes, and almost 90% believed that African wages were too low.
The Durban strikes showed that the class movement of the workers can only be based on their own understanding and experience. Workers will organise and fight to solve their commonly-felt problems, provided they can see some prospect of success.
Only out of the confidence and the organisation built on these foundations will come the power to struggle for the workers’ fundamental aims – an end to exploitation and racial oppression, and a free, democratic SA ruled by the working people themselves.
Discussing and learning the lessons of the Durban workers’ struggles as a guide to future action is the best way to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the strikes.
© Transcribed from the original by the Marxist Workers Party (2019).
