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Labor Reform and Security Repression in South Africa: Botha’s Strategy for Stabilizing Racial Domination in the 1980s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Pearl-Alice Marsh
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Extract

South Africa’s white minority government faced a severe crisis in the 1970s as it attempted to support major industrial expansion and a dynamic economy while maintaining its separate development policies. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the South African economy had been described as ready to “take off” as manufacturing moved to the dominant position in the economy. At the same time, the economy suffered from labor shortages, suppressed wages, restricted product markets, and inflation, as a direct result of the government’s restrictive labor policies. In a speech to industrialists and academics, Harry Oppenheimer of the Anglo-American industrial group stated that these industrial and economic problems were a direct result of governmental policies which limited the use of African labor and therefore throttled back the entire economy.

Type
Insight
Information
African Issues , Volume 12 , Issue 3-4 , Fall/Winter 1982 , pp. 49 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1982 

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References

Notes

1. Grenville-Grey, W., “The Argument that Economic Growth Will Produce Fundamental Change,” “The Oppenheimer Thesis,” and Leo, Katzen, “The Debate about Growth,” in The Policy Debate , prepared by the Study Project on External Investment in South Africa and Namibia, Africa Publications Trust, Uppsala, Sweden. 1975 Google Scholar.

2. Ibid., p. 188.

3. Greenberg Stanley, B., Race and State in Capitalist Development: Comparative Perspectives, Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 1980, p. 177 Google Scholar.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. A. N., Pelzer, ed., Verwoerd Speaks: Speeches, 1948-1966, APB Publishers, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1966, p. 612 Google Scholar.

8. Shirley, Miller, Trade Unions in South Africa, 1970-1980, SALDRU Working Paper No. 45, South African Labour and Development Research Unit, Cape Town University, South Africa, 1982, pp. ii–ix Google Scholar.

9. Figures are summarized from table, “Details of Strikes and Work Stoppages, All Races, 1970-1981,” in Survey of Race Relations in South Africa, South African Institute of Race Relations, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1982, p. 183 Google Scholar.

10. Jill, Nattrass, “The Narrowing of Wage Differentials in South Africa,” South African Journal of Economics, vol. 45(4), 1977, p. 420 Google Scholar.

11. “Decentralization: Fewer New Jobs,” Financial Mail, September 20, 1974, p. 1132.

12. Butler, , Jeffrey, , Rotberg, , Robert, I., and Adams, Johns, The Black Homelands of South Africa: The Political and Economic Development of Bophuthatswana and Kwazulu, University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles CA, 1977, pp. 130-42, 201-18Google Scholar.

13. Figures are averaged from sections on “Manpower Shortages” from Survey of Race Relations in South Africa (vols. 1970-1980), South African Institute of Race Relations, Johannesburg, South Africa.

14. “Labour Trends: Peak Share,” Financial Mail, September 20, 1974, p. 151.

15. See note 10, p. 418.

16. Survey of Race Relations in South Africa, 1972, p. 252.

17. Survey of Race Relations in South Africa, 1973, p. 216.

18. See three studies produced by the Black/White Income Gap Project, University of Natal, Durban: (1) Morris, N. C, Investment in South African Manufacturing, 1978; (2) Nattrass, Jill, Narrowing Wage Differentials and Income Distribution in South Africa, 1978; (3) McGrath, M. D., Racial Income Distribution in South Africa, 1977.

19. Marsh, Pearl-Alice, interview with Industrial Relations Manager, major South African auto manufacturing firm, 13 April 1982Google Scholar.

20. Institute of Industrial Education, Human Beings with Souls: The Durban Strikes, 1973, Durban, Natal, 1974 (see introduction)Google Scholar.

21. Survey of Race Relations in South Africa, 1973, p. 285.

22. See note 8, p. viii.

23. Hansard (verbatim Parliamentary Record), South African Government Documents, Pretoria, South Africa, February 1982 Session, p. 1013.

24. Survey of Race Relations in South Africa, 1981, p. 84.

25. See note 24, p. 88.