POLITICAL AND CLASS STRUGGLE
Early mine compound
At more or less the same time that black populations in Ekurhuleni were being herded into the new locations, the political temperatures among the black communities of the area were on the rise. In 1910 the Act of Union had been passed, unifying the four formerly separate provinces of South Africa, which disenfranchised all Africans at central, provincial and local government level (outside the Cape). In response, the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) was launched in 1912, whose first (and only) major national campaign for the next 50 years was mounted against the Land Act of that year which denied Africans the right to own land in 92% of the Union.32 Thereafter, mainly due to the outbreak of World War I in 1914, which the SANNC loyally vowed to support, it sank back into a posture of political passivity. The campaign against the Land Act had been focused mainly in the countryside and reserves, and tapped into impressive chiefly support.33 Meanwhile, however, in the towns, serious unrest was stirring which, for the course of the war (1914–1918), largely passed the SANNC by. Its site was the Witwatersrand, and especially the black workers on its mines. The first indications of the increasingly hostile mood of black miners came as white workers went on strike in June 1913. The following month on 8 and 9 July, 1 300 African workers followed suit. Part of the explanation for this action lies in the demonstration effect of the white strike. As one report noted:
‘Some had actually followed the lead [of the white strikers] … urging natives to strike and picketing and threatening those that did not comply.’34
But the new mood also grew out of a deeper complex of problems – a 50% cut in wages since 1906, and the strangulating hold of a new web of regulations set in place by the Native Labour Regulations Act of 1911 which closed off most avenues of escape from or evasion of oppressive mine conditions (as, for example, deserting). As a direct consequence of the strike an unprecedented Native Grievances Enquiry was appointed which recommended a wide range of reforms (rations, medical facilities, working conditions, accommodation) but which did not address the fundamental issue of wages.35 From 1915 unrest over wages once more began to stir and mounted steadily until the outbreak of the massive black mine workers’ strike of February 1920. In most of this the Ekurhuleni miners took the lead. On 26 December 1915, for example, a black workers’ strike broke out at Van Ryn Deep Mines, to be followed in early February 1916 by strikes at Government Areas South and New Modderfontein Mines. ‘The trouble,’ as a panicked Sub-Inspector of Police in Benoni wrote, ‘has been spreading from one compound to another; the natives are meeting, resort to picketing and are in fact organising as the [white] miners did in 1913 and 1914.’
In the latter years of the war the price of goods leapt upwards. Inflation accelerated especially rapidly in 1917, and Ekurhuleni was again the site of a major demonstration. This took the form of an exceptionally disciplined and well-organised stores boycott which exploded within 48 hours across the length and breadth of Ekurhuleni. Starting at Van Ryn Deep on 10 February 1918, it spread to Kleinfontein, Modderfontein, Modder, Geduld, Springs, Government Areas, Brakpan and then after a brief pause to Cason compound on the near East Rand. ‘Their organisation is perfect,’ a report in the Rand Daily Mail read, ‘What happens at one point, is known throughout the circuit very soon afterwards.’36
Police action and the promise of a Commission of Enquiry brought the movement to a halt. Three months later the harsh treatment of striking bucket boys (i.e. night soil removers) in Johannesburg brought the Transvaal Native Congress (TNC) (the more radical Transvaal provincial wing of the SANNC) into the fray. Angry meetings were held all over the Rand, in which Ekurhuleni workers featured prominently, and preparations were undertaken to organise a strike.37 Again Ekurhuleni workers were at the fore with one TNC militant being directed to canvass the idea in Springs, and another between Cleveland and Block B. The influenza epidemic of 1918 briefly drew the sting out of the agitation – out of 157 614 black miners working on the mines in the fateful month of October 1918, 52 489 were hospitalised and approximately 1 600 died – but a fundamental shift in both behaviour and mood was plain for all to see. What was particularly noticeable and significant at this point was the extent to which town locations and mine compounds were connecting and interacting especially via the agency of the TNC.38 Storm clouds were mounting; thunderbolts were waiting to strike.
A core problem identified by both workers and the leaders of the TNC was the pass system which shackled workers to their jobs. As Benjamin Phooko, a clerk representing 5 000 City Deep workers explained: ‘Allowing prices to rise alarms us because we have entered contracts that cannot be broken, so as to demand a higher price for our labour.’
Another was its wage depressing function. As R.M. Tladi, a leading TNC radical from Benoni declared:
When a Native, after being forced to come out of his kraal, got to the Mines or the towns, the Pass Law forced him to get work as soon as possible. That is when the 6-day pass was instituted. When it expires the Native is afraid he may be arrested. He has not sufficient time to find more remunerative employment, and is perhaps forced to accept £1 or 30/- a month. The first white man who hires him gives him as little wages as possible because the unfortunate Native is forced by the Pass Law to take anything that is offered to him. His Pass is marked £1 or 30/- and thus his first employer is his valuator. He cannot get more’.39
Yet another was the character column on passes. As H.S. Mgqano, another among Benoni’s nucleus of radicals told the Superintendent of Native Affairs Benoni:
A native works under a white man for 5 years or more. He by mere misfortune breaks a glass or any article in the house. His master gets annoyed and forgets this man worked for such a long time under him. He discharges him and on his character he writes ‘bad boy’. This character disables the man to obtain work anywhere and in some cases even if engaged by another white man, when registering him at the Pass Office seeing his character on the Pass the Pass Officer turns to the employer and states ‘I advise you not to take this boy’, then the man is stranded.40
Finally the opportunity passes provided for harassment by police gave rise to another burning grievance. As R.M. Tladi again declared in a speech at a TNC meeting in May 1919:
The pass persecutes and disappoints you … In the first place when you meet a Policeman you’ll have to take off your hat and then produce your pass otherwise you will be knocked about and after all you will be arrested and charged for resisting or failing to satisfy the Police and you will be convicted accordingly.41
Meeting of ANC leaders in the 1920s
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