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The Role of the Labour Department in the Birth of African Trade Unionism in Northern Rhodesia1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

J. R. Hooker
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Where possible, European minorities in Africa during this century have sought to insure their favored position, especially their economic position, through political action. The trend of labor legislation in Southern Rhodesia after it became a “self-governing Colony” in 1923 is a case in point. But this was not always possible. In Northern Rhodesia, for instance, the color bar was far more difficult to introduce, especially after Lord Passfield's 1929 revival of the native paramountcy doctrine for east and central Africa. The history of the white miners' trade union is apposite.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , April 1965 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1965

References

page 1 note 2 The quote is taken from a letter which the general manager of the Broken Hill mine, MrPickard, T. R.., wrote on 6 April 1948Google Scholar. See Sec./Lab./125.

page 2 note 1 Cf. my article “The African Worker in Southern Rhodesia: Black Aspirations in a White Economy, 1927–56”, in: Race, Oct. 1964.Google Scholar

page 3 note 1 See Herald, Rhodesia (Salisbury), 9 June 1936Google Scholar. The best definition of color bar I have encountered, is supplied by Busschau, W. J. in his Report on the Development of Secondary Industry in Northern Rhodesia (Typescript, Lusaka, 7 January 1945)Google Scholar, paras 41 and 44: “The colour bar may be defined as a process whereunder the African workers are prevented from (1) acquiring skill, (2) exercising skill and (3) obtaining the full reward for the exercise of skill. It may operate through agreement, custom or law and may consist of any combination of the three elements in the definition… The effect of colour bar arrangements is to decrease the supply of skilled labour and to increase the supply of unskilled labour as compared with the supply of both types of labour that would be forthcoming in the absence of such arrangements”.

page 3 note 2 Chronicle, Bulawayo, 15 January 1938.Google Scholar

page 3 note 3 It should be borne in mind that the ratio of white to black workers was about 1: 20.

page 4 note 1 Malcolm, Baron Hailey, Native Administration and Political Development in British Tropical Africa, 1940–1942 (Confidential), pp. 281–82.Google Scholar

page 4 note 2 (Salisbury Archives) RA 1/1/1. Henry Rangeley to Mr. (now Sir) Andrew Cohen of the Colonial Office. Cholo, Nyasaland, March 1938.Google Scholar

page 4 note 3 Rhodesia Railway Review, June 1941Google Scholar. See Julius Lewin's prophetic pamphlet, The Colour Bar in the Copperbelt (South African Institute of Race Relations, 1941), based on his May 1940 trip. In the case of Nyasaland the situation was even more delicate, for there some saw Welensky's party as a potential threat to native paramountcy in the lake Protectorate, too. See the Anglican Bishop's challenge to Welensky for a statement on color bar in Sec./Nat./92, clippings from Nyasaland Times of 27 December 1941 and 8 January 1942.

page 5 note 1 Franklin was an “official” member, i.e. a Government official appointed to the Board, not a representative of the “settler” community. The Board was advisory only, though its representations usually went to the Executive Council. It theoretically represented all interests dealing with labor matters, all that is except the Africans themselves.

page 5 note 2 Sec./Lab./33, 26 August, 4 September and 1 November 1941.

page 5 note 3 Report of the Commission Appointed to Inquire into the Unrest in the Mining Industry in Northern Rhodesia, 1956Google Scholar. Paragraph 37 of Appendix (Management Case). Hereafter, the Branigan Report.

page 5 note 4 EA 51, Vol. I, Hudson, 's diary, 17024 November 1941Google Scholar. Clause 42 is discussed in the 1951 agreement in Box 421, Hb/63.

page 5 note 5 EA 51, Vol. I, 25–30 August 1941.

page 5 note 6 Box 421, H/22, report by Howe, G. dated 29 April 1940, p. 27Google Scholar. Also Sec./Lab./137 for interviews with striking Africans. A decade later the Central African Post editorialized: “We have been told by Europeans employed on the mines and railways that Africans do so little work to justify their employment, and yet when they strike, work is paralysed to an astonishing degree.” II January 1951.

page 6 note 1 Box 421, Hb/63; J 4/5 2/20, 9 November 1945. For the possibility of communist penetration, see the tantalizing letter which MrHarrison, A. Royden., manager of the Rhokana Corporation, wrote the Chief Secretary early in May 1942Google Scholar, enclosing a clipping from the (South African) Guardian of 2 April. An anonymous correspondent described the manner in which Africans were denied trade unions in Northern Rhodesia: “Try to start a trade union among the African workers on the copper mines, and see how long you keep the job! Tell the workers how much they have to gain by organization – and see how long you are allowed to remain on the Rhodesian side of the border!” The writer was perhaps “one John Victor Daniel, who was persuaded to leave this territory last December, as he was regarded as a potential agitator, as he wished to form a native trade union at Luanshya”. Sec/Misc/73, 25 April 1942.

page 6 note 2 Major Orde Browne was the Colonial Office expert on tropical labor. He was the author of the report for Northern Rhodesia, as well as others, including one done on education in French Africa.

page 6 note 3 In Northern Rhodesia, industrialization early produced a class of African employees called tribal elders, which was supposed to mediate between labor and management, that is to say between the governed blacks and the governing whites. Within a year of actual production at the Roan Antelope mine these persons were noticed on the copperbelt, and while subsequent closures halted the experiment, by 1956 there was agreement that “elders in compounds should be part and parcel of the compound organisation and be dependent on the compound manager”. The first compound manager at Roan Antelope mine had argued for a council of tribal elders functioning as a “workmen's committee” until it withered away before the inroads of “detribalization”.

Nat./M/13, 9 December 1932; also memo by Mr. H. L. Brigham in Ja/17; Sec./Lab./34. Report of subcommittee of the Native Industrial Labour Advisory Board; Sec./Nat./4, 19 January 1942; Spearpoint's article in the supplement to the Journal of the Royal African Society (1957); W./6/28, 10 March 1941; also see G. St. J. Orde Browne, Labour Conditions in Northern Rhodesia (Colonial Office 150 of 1938) for a statement of the position shortly before the war; and Acc. 52/18, 13 May 1941.

page 7 note 1 Ibid., 3 December 1941.

page 7 note 2 Acc. 52/17, 3 July 1941; Sec./Nat./4, Kitwe, August 1941. An examination of the names of leaders, even in the variant spellings of police reports, demonstrates that very often the same person figured in a welfare association, an advisory committee, a boss-boys' group and even an elders' committee. Considering the paucity of literate persons it is surprising that simony was not more prevalent. It was charged by Europeans that these men entered such groups for self-advancement; I should think rather that these bodies offered liberation for so many village Hampdens, who were quite prepared to espouse various causes, with equal enthusiasm.

page 8 note 1 Sec./Lab./45. Vol. I, Nkana inspection, 12–14 November 1941.

page 8 note 2 Sec./Lab./45, Roan Antelope mine, July 1942; Ibid., Mufulira, July 1942. Memorandum on Racial and other Aspects of the Industrial Conditions on the Copperbelt (South African Institute of Race Relations, 20 April 1942).

page 8 note 3 Ibid., Roan Antelope, 19–21 November 1941, Mufulira, , February 1942.Google Scholar

page 8 note 4 Memorandum on the Forster Commission Report (September 1941). Report cited as Report of Commission Appointed to Inquire into Disturbances… (Lusaka, 1940).

page 8 note 5 Sec./Lab./45, March 1943.

page 9 note 1 Ibid., Nkana, Mindolo, 22–5 Match 1943. For an early European miners' union view of boss boys, see Acc. 52–18 for notes taken 2 October 1942.

page 9 note 2 Sec./Lab./45. Luanshya, , July and August 1943Google Scholar. See Box 2758 h/26 for a complete file devoted to racial fights on the mines.

page 9 note 3 Sec./Lab./45, Mufulira, , April 1943.Google Scholar

page 9 note 4 Ibid., September 1943.

page 9 note 5 Acc/52/18, 9 September 1942; Sec./Lab./45, Nkana and Mindolo, 5 October 1942.

page 9 note 6 Ibid., October 1942.

page 9 note 7 Ibid., Nchanga, , 5–9 December 1942Google Scholar. The tone of business community comment was sounded most authentically somewhat later by the Rhodesia Railways. “The African labour situation in both Rhodesias can be regarded only with grave concern. Communistic elements are increasingly influencing subversive activities among the politically immature African leaders,…” General Manager's Report for the Year Ending 30 September 1947 (Bulawayo, 1 May 1948).

page 10 note 1 Sec./Lab./45, 12 February 1942.

page 10 note 2 Sec./Lab./48. For an excellent discussion of Congolese developments in this period, see Jean Ryckbost, “Essai sur les origines et le developpement des premières associations professionnelles au Congo (1940–44)”, Université Lovanium, Institut des recherches économiques et sociales (IRES), February 1962.

page 10 note 3 Sec./Lab./34, 1 October 1943.

page 10 note 4 J 4/52/20, 18 August 1943; Bulawayo Chronicle, 27 August and Northern News, 1 September 1943.Google Scholar

page 11 note 1 Sec/Misc/67, 6 September 1943.

page 11 note 2 J 4/52/20, 15 September and 24 October 1943.

page 11 note 3 Sec./Lab./34, 1 October 1943.

page 11 note 4 Acc. 52/18, 30 August 1945; J4/52/20, 24 November 1947.

page 12 note 1 Acc. 52/18, 17 September 1946 and Branigan Report (1957), paragraph 37.

page 12 note 2 United Empire. The Journal of the Royal Empire Society, Vol. 37 (1946), pp. 236–40.Google Scholar

page 12 note 3 Northern News, 5 June 1956. The then president was Mr. Jack Purvis, of recent years an Africa specialist for the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

page 12 note 4 J4/52/20. 4 June 1948.

page 12 note 5 Box 432. N/2709/4, 6 January 1955 (also released to London press).

page 12 note 6 Box 430. Hi 2, Vol. I, diary of strike, 12–13 January 1943.

page 13 note 1 Ibid., 5 February 1943.

page 13 note 2 Ibid., 15 February, 9 March and 12 April 1945.

page 13 note 3 Sec./Lab./45, October and 29 December 1942.

page 13 note 4 A body frequently composed of elders or at least chiefly representatives who were supposed to deal with the manifold problems which township Africans wished to bring to Government, and explain the numerous points which administrators hoped to get across to Africans. They had nothing to do with the mines, had no police powers, were not traditional authorities but instead a sort of spokesman cum mouthpiece.

page 13 note 5 Sec./Lab./45, October and 29 December 1942.

page 14 note 1 Sec./Lab./31. Entire Shop Assistants' File.

page 14 note 2 Ibid., 9 May and 12 June 1946.

page 14 note 3 Ibid., 8 November 1943. Typically, workers were paid by the piece, given the right to sleep in the shop, charged against work produced for this permission, provided food, which also was charged against production, given fuel or on occasion money in lieu of firewood, but in any case for an illiterate to keep abreast of charges was most unlikely. Workers usually pushed for commutation to wage payments and shop keepers normally resisted. One draws certain conclusions.

page 14 note 4 Sec/Lab./31, 4 and 9 May 1944.

page 15 note 1 Ibid., 18 and 29 September 1944.

page 15 note 2 Sec./Nat./86, Vol. II, Ndola, March 1943.

page 15 note 3 See Sec/Misc/73 for John Meshack Chamalula, who in 1946 was attending a trade union course offered by the Communist Party in Johannesburg.

page 15 note 4 Acc. 52/17. Memo of 19 April 1943 on “Boss Boy Associations and Representation Generally”, also entries for 13 August, 26, 28, and 30 October, 29 November and 11 December 1943.

page 16 note 1 Ass.52/17, memo of 28 December 1943 and notes of 22 April 1944.

page 16 note 2 Sec./Nat./311 and Sec./Nat./448, 15 November 1945. Curiously, until the last year of the war, neither boss boys nor tribal representatives thought of industry-wide groupings. Sec./Lab./45.

page 17 note 1 Sec./Lab./125 and Acc. 52/17, 13 May 1946. Bevan's harsh summary of the African position perhaps should be in the record for the benefit of those who thought the entire Labour Government naively pro-African. He found Africans had “no settled occupation, no civic sense, no community of interests as workers, no real understanding. There can be little doubt that the tendency would be for trade unions to be started as personal enterprises conducting their affairs without any sense of responsibility or leadership in the true sense of the word, and exercising no real control or authority.”

page 17 note 2 Acc. 52/18 and Sec./Lab./125.

page 18 note 1 Ibid., 18 February 1947; Acc. 52/19, 17 March 1947; Sec./Lab./175.

page 18 note 2 Sec./Lab./125, 30 October 1947; Sec./Lab./31, 29 October 1947; Acc. 52/19, 29 September 1947. Two years later the Labor Department decided its members “should studiously avoid conveying the impression to the public that they have adopted the ‘security approach' of the Police towards labour problems, that they regard workers' organizations as potentially criminal or spy upon them, or that they use other than direct, open approach”. Copperbelt Labor Officers were unhappy about the police “almost creating scares of industrial unrest”. Box 419. Ha/I, Kitwe, 16 September 1949. It appears that the mines were considered as discrete universes and that the various tribes employed on them retained their identity far longer, perhaps because far lorger numbers of tribesmen congregated there than in the townships of Lusaka and Livingstone. Too, the mines initially trained up far fewer white collar types. The whole ethos of violence and self-help militated against a feeling of solidarity. Where shop assistants might combine, miners tended to brawl away their resentments in beerhalls.

page 18 note 3 Sec./Lab./31, 3 November 1947; Sec./Lab./126, November 1947; EA 51, Vol. I, 13 November 1947. Later stages of the story are less pleasant to record. By 1950, it had organized clerks, coming by 1950 to be known as the African Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers' Union, based on Ndola. As late as 1957 the Registrar of Unions had not received a copy of their constitution and in April 1958 they were advised to disband and reform. Their finances were in confusion, their officials in politics, and they remained unregistered. In May the Registrar threatened to take action if they contravened the regulations covering unregistered unions. In October he refused them registration, which meant they had to dissolve within six months. A final reference to them in December 1960 describes them as deregistered, which is somewhat confusing. See Ja/3.

page 19 note 1 Sec/Lab./125, 13 June 1948.

page 19 note 2 Acc. 52/17, 30 December 1947.

page 19 note 3 See the African Weekly for 4 February 1948.

page 19 note 4 J4 52/20, 24 November and 17 December 1947.

page 20 note 1 Sec./Lab./125, 16 and 19 January 1948.

page 20 note 2 Ibid., 14 and 16 January 1948; J4 52/20, 13 January 1948.

page 20 note 3 Sec./Lab./125, meeting of 22 January 1948.

page 20 note 4 Sec/Lab./126, Comrie's reports of November 1947 and July 1948; J4 52/20.

page 20 note 5 Sec./Lab./126, 31 January 1948; J4 52/20, 12 February 1948. Since little sympathy is accorded the European mineworkers today, perhaps reference to the effect of one of Comrie's moral arguments is in order. Though I cannot measure it, I believe his charge that the union and certainly not management had an obligation to assist in the birth of an African union took effect in the minds of Mr. Goodwin and others on the executive body.

page 21 note 1 Sec./Lab./84, Vol. II, 3 February and letters of 4 March 1948.

page 21 note 2 Sec./Lab./125, Executive Council meeting of 16 February 1948 and Bulawayo Chronicle, 20 February 1948.

page 21 note 3 Sec./Lab./125, 16 February 1948.

page 21 note 4 Box 432, N/2709/I; ZA 51, Vol. I, 22 November 1948.

page 22 note 1 See Epstein, A. L., Politics in an Urban African Community (Manchester, 1958), pp. 98–101Google Scholar; C/1820/I, Vol. II, 28 May 1957; C/1808/I, Vol. I; Acc. 52/19, 15 June 1950. Also Lomas, P. K., “African Trade Unionism on the Copperbelt”, in: South African Journal of Economics (June 1958).Google Scholar

page 22 note 2 C/1820/1, Vol. II. NRMWU annual report, p. 29 (1956).Google Scholar