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Unit 6.2 Non Migrant Labour & Joburg - Coggle Diagram
Unit 6.2
Non Migrant
Labour & Joburg
.
Mine owners strictly divided jobs according to race.
Tried to avoid black & white uniting for better wages.
Even whites arriving without skills, were trained as supervisors, because they were white.
Apparently: Whites = "skilled", blacks = "Unskilled".
White & black did not work as equals.
Anti-Indian Legislation
Saying white merchants just wanted them out.
Well-constructed & good arguments, but gov. ignored it.
Indian merchants petition against new law.
Indians couldn't vote & small part of workforce.
Intended to move Indian business to 10km outside Joburg.
Not seen as valuable to economy.
1885 - Law 3 in Transvaal. High fee to register new business.
Easy for gov. to ignore their petition.
New laws & regulations, harder for Indians to trade.
Number of Indian traders grew, white traders feel threatened.
Forms of labour resistance
They did not see all of them were being exploited by mine owners.
1892 - Witwatersrand Mine Employees & Mechanics Union founded.
A lot of competition between white & black workers on the Rand.
Only for whites, demanding better wages & conditions, 8-hour day.
Harder to organise resistance.
No attempt for black mineworkers to join.
Short contracts, different cultures & parts of the country.
White miners went on strike to protect superior wages & postions.
Mine owners used race to divide workers, but only cared about profits.
Black workers not organised & didn't know of trade unions.
Zulu "amawasha" washed peoples clothes in the rivers near Joburg.
Preferred domestic or shop work over mining.
1907 - 4'000 white workers strike, black workers allowed more skilled work.
Only resist together to run away or get new job.
White miners scared to lose work to black miners, they lost the strike.
City of Johannesburg
Work in: shops, hotels, offices.
Thousands from Europe, came as businessmen, skilled miners & managers.
Build: buildings, houses, roads, railways.
Some came hoping for work, bricklay or build.
Workers were needed, not just for mining.
Fast growing city, work was abundant, many make good living.
City grew very quick after gold discovered.
First diggers had tents, soon houses built. 1880 - about 2000 people
Earliest settlers were Venda descendants, north of Soutpansberg, 1000 years ago.
1890 - 100000 foreign people, 100000 African workers.
Before gold discovered, there was no Joburg.
Over time more black people moved & settled permanently in the city.
1904 - Africans forced to move 17km southwest, Klipspruit - first African township.
Skilled & Unskilled white workers
Black workers started to learn skills for these jobs.
White workers tried to stop them from getting these jobs, they could be replaced for lower wage workers.
Could demand higher wages, skill was harder to replace.
Local Boers called them Uitlanders (Outlanders).
Engineers, Carpenters, Plumbers, Blasters, Drillers, experienced ones were Supervisors.
White English foreigners employed for skilled jobs.
1911 - Mines & Works Act set 32 "skilled" jobs aside, for white workers, e.g. Blasting & engine drivers.