More mountains
to climb for
black workers
The 1970s
W
hile the government was doing much to protect and
advance the domestic industry, apartheid legislation
was putting all sorts of obstacles in the way of black
worker advancement. Year after year, SEIFSA campaigned for
changes to this legislation.
At the beginning of the Seventies, for example, business concerns
began to emerge about the way the Physical Planning and
Utilisation of Resources Act was being applied. The aim of this
Act was to limit the number of black workers in specified areas
without the prior approval of the Minister of Planning. SEIFSA
called for the Act to be applied in a more flexible manner as it
was placing artificial restraints on the mobility and recruitment
of black labour.
Furthermore, the Act inhibited the progress of black workers into
more skilled job categories in an industry which had long been
inhibited by a shortage of skilled white workers. SEIFSA continued
working within the limitations of the law to try to overcome
the skills shortage, and screened would-be white immigrants
applying for skilled jobs in the industry. However, the intake was
nowhere near enough. In 1972, an agreement was reached with
the industry’s trade unions to allow black workers to advance
into higher-skilled (previously white) operative jobs. This was to
become an evolving trend.
At the same time, South Africa needed all the skills it could get.In
1974 SEIFSA, working in terms of the Department of Immigration’s
assistance framework, introduced a pilot immigration scheme that
it hoped would attract 1 000 artisans. The scheme failed.
Again, the industry turned to untapped domestic talent and, in
1976, the small step forward for black workers taken in 1972 was
extended to included activities just below artisan level.
in Afrikaans, the anger exploded. On 16 June 1976, thousands of school
children rioted. In Orlando West, a police bullet killed 13-year-old Hector
Petersen. During the ensuing anger, government buildings and beerhalls
were burned. Rioting spread across the Rand and to the Western Cape, and
by early 1977 more than 500 people had died. The government responded
with more bannings. Many young blacks went into exile to fight the system
– and world hostility mounted.
Towards the end of the Seventies, the economic tide was beginning to turn,
albeit slowly, against the hard-line proponents of “separate development”.
In the industrial arena, a far-reaching development took place in 1977. It was
the appointment of a commission of inquiry into labour legislation, called
the Wiehahn Commission.
One of its commissioners was Errol Drummond, then Director of SEIFSA.
He told the commission that the dual labour relations system should be
scrapped as a matter of urgency and that black trade unions should be
permitted to take part in the industrial council collective bargaining system.
He was supported by the SEIFSA President Dr JP Kearney, who stressed
in his annual address that all discrimination needed to be removed from
labour relations.
The Federation became a signatory to the Urban Foundation Code of
Employment Practice in 1978, and consequently negotiated the removal
of all job discrimination and racially-based provisions from the industry’s
Main Agreement.
This was soon followed by a call on the government to translate into law
the findings of the first Wiehahn Commission report. Key recommendations
were that:
• Full freedom of association be granted to all employees;
• Trade unions be allowed to register, irrespective of composition;
and
• Statutory job reservation be phased out.
In Soweto, resentment towards the government was rising. After
an instruction that half the black school syllabus had to be taught
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