Growing importance of black labour in S.A.

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33433, 15 January 1974, Page 16

Growing importance of black labour in S.A.

i By

TONY VAN DER WATT)

PRETORIA. Last sear dozens of South African construction companies nere prosecuted for allowing African employees to do artisans’ vsork when, as labourers, they should have been shovelling rubble.

This year, an agreement now being negotiated between white' tuilding employers and their white employees’ unions will make it possible for the Government to allow blacks to take artisans' jobs outside the black homelands. This is typical of the way South Africans are quietly changing their society as economics dictate. What is forbidden one day becomes ronditionally permitted the lext. and will be unconiitionally accepted before ■nany years, if the pointers in this dynamic but undramatic process of change are :orrectly read True, the African artisans under the new agreement

will be able to work in certain areas only, and only do certain work. Bricklayers will be able to do work which is to be covered with plaster (that is not face brick work), painters will be barred from applying the final coat, and carpenters will do the “rough” work in roofs. but not skirting boards, doors and cupboards. Their pay will start to approach that of their White counterparts who do the finishing work. The new settlement was reached after much painful negotiation between White employers and employees. In practice, however, it will only make legitimate what was already being done on a wide scale illegally. JOB RESERVATION This process, and what it implies for all South Africans, illustrates a difference between the two main external camps of South Africa-watchers and activists — those who claim that foreign investment in South Africa is "bolstering apartheid". and those who conversely claim that it is in fact undermining discrimination. Job reservation, the legally enforced determination of which jobs may be taken by members of specific race groups, was formally instituted (though based on a previous informal “tradition”) after the National Party Government took power in 1948. Its quite blatant aim was to keep Whites in work. Growing post-war prosperity, however, led to a scarcity of workmen, a gap which even White immigration and rising wages could not close. Faced with the alternative of reduced production. White employers started to illegally employ non-Whites — Africans, Coloureds (mixedrace people) and Indians — on “White" work If they were caught by the Government’s inspectors, pavment

- of their fines was more than compensated for by the additional production secured. -[ Then the Government I found. embarrassingly, that ’ it too had to employ nonWhites on more skilled jobs [to keep the railways and • post office functioning. This i it quickly rationalised, justiI fied and legalised — which added steam to the process by helping White private en- • terprise to break the law . with a clearer conscience and more blatantly. > Now there is scarcely an > industry, from building to j lens grinding, which does , not depend on Black hands ' and brains to keep going. LIVING STANDARDS : Most important, sociolo- > gically to the Blacks them- • selves, is that their income; Jlevel and living standards, are rising out of all recognition, even though there is 5 still wide scope for further [ improvement in relation to

'white levels. A big factor in this process is foreign investment in South African industry. As factories mushroom ail over the country, the demand for semi-skilled and in some industries even skilled labour, which only the Blacks can supply in further significant numbers, increases daily. ’This in turn can only increase the bargaining power of the Blacks, at present; economically but in due, course politically — a fact which is widely recognised in South Africa. This is why demands from external South Africa-activ-j ists for foreign disengagement from South Africa by industrial investors fail so very largely on unhappy ears among South Africa’s Blacks — and unheeding ones overseas. Most Black political and economic leaders in South Africa reject their foreign "friends’’ negative idealism a> totally mistaken, and instead appeal for stepped-up foreign investment in the country, particularly in their own Black homelands. GOVERNMENT WORRIED Opinion-makers in a number of European and American countries, predominantly France, Germany. Italy. Brit-, ain and the United States, have expressed themselves similarly. One of the most outspoken of these, and a big force in his country, is, Mr Antoine Pinay. a former Prime Minister of France, who is actively advocating French investment in South Africa, from the twin points of view of what France can gain out of it and the social and human improvement it can thereby promote in South Africa What does the South African Government feel about this? Obviously, it is less than happy at the prospect of grow ing non-white power. But it is even less enchanted with the prospect of Black revolution through Black unemployment and social

distress. Recognising that change will come about, violently if not peacefully, it is going along with the tide, at least keeping control of the developing situation. The Prime Minister, Mr Vorster, issues periodic warnings to Right-wing unions, on the need for “adjustments” to the traditional labour patterns and the need for a higher growth rate involving the greater use of Black labour. So far, they have always heeded him, even if sometimes reluctantlj r and late. And the steady change coming about in South Africa as a result, often undramatically and unheralded, is as spectacular to those who know this country as it is encouraging to the more peacefully-inclined of South Africa’s non-white leaders and “ordinary” citizens of all race groups.