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Labour Recruitment
This
section continues the story of how the mines got their labour. We have
already seen how black farmers were weakened by the loss of land,
and how they had to work for wages to pay for taxes. Yet the labour shortage
continued.
This
section describes why and how the mine-owners organised a system of
collecting labourers from all over southern Africa and made quite
sure that these migrants reached the gold mines. This was the system
of labour recruiting.
‘At
the Transvaal borders and for the succeeding hundred miles (there
is) scarcity of
food and
shelter; from the borders to the Rand,
on all the main footpaths, can be seen the evidences of this evil;
skeletons of those who died are frequently seen, and at almost
every store and
dwelling near the road can be found those whom sickness or fatigue
has compelled to give up the road and to either find a friend or
perish.’ (Extract from the Chamber of Mines Annual Report, 1894.)
‘ The black people are crying because of taxes.
The end will be that we will just die on the road.’
(Chopi
Song.)
In the early years,
travelling to the Witwatersrand was dangerous, especially for blacks. The
distances were great, and most blacks travelled on foot. They had
to walk many miles through cold winter winds or the heavy rains of summer.
Hundreds of men arrived at the Witwatersrand tired, hungry and with bleeding
feet. Many men were so ill that they had to be put into hospital for
a few days.
OTHER DANGERS
But natural hardships were not the only reason for the suffering of
these migrant workers. Many dangers were man-made.
Along the dangerous road to the Witwatersrand mines were crooks and highway
robbers, both black and white, waiting to get as much as they could from
innocent black travellers.
Migrants
were often arrested by Free State or Transvaal police and made to pay
a fine before they could continue along their way.
Often, these
fines went into the policemen’s pockets. Other whites would pretend
to be government officials on the road. They would demand money for ‘taxes’,
or they would pretend that the migrants had done something wrong and
make them pay a ‘fine’.
In those days migrant workers had to pay a shilling, (ten cents) for
a travel pass. Sometimes these migrants were stopped by white employers
who tore up their passes and forced them to work for new passes. They
also had to buy goods from these crooks.
Some
crooks pretended to be policemen and demanded two pounds (about four
Rand) from each traveller for passing through a ‘small pox
area’. Others pretended to be doctors and gave ‘vaccinations’ costing
a shilling each.
Many blacks knew that they were being crooked and robbed. But it seems
that most of them felt that they would not be able to win against these
crooks. They could never be sure whether they were being robbed by
real government officials and policemen or not.
Some
migrants never reached the mines at all. They were kidnapped on the
way by Free State and Transvaal farmers who were looking
for cheap
labour.
When the traveller reached the mines at last, he still had the worry
of the dangerous journey back home. Miners carried their wages and presents
for the family. People were robbed and even killed by gangs who lived
in the veld and the koppies of the Transvaal. These robbers lived on
what they could steal from passers-by.
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Dangers
on the Road
‘At
Viljoen’s drif, trainloads of natives were given vaccinations
at a fee of a shilling, passed over the river on their way to the
fields and were again vaccinated on the Transvaal side at Vereeniging,
this
time for one shilling and sixpence (15 cents). Certificates which
they had received at the drif were destroyed and new ones supplied,
for
a further shilling fee.’ In this way, officials and policemen
made extra money for themselves from black migrants on their way
to the mines.
In 1894 a Chamber of Mines report complained:
‘It is in many places the custom of the farmers forcibly
to stop any native found resting or sleeping on their farms. If these
natives are coming to the
(mine) fields, and have no money in their possession, they are compelled to
work without payment for a few days before being allowed to proceed.’
‘Natives on their way home from the East Coast to the Witwatersrand mines
are being turned back by the police and sent to work on the Transvaal section
of the Delagoa railway.’
‘Many travel without a pass, not having the necessary shilling to buy
one, and are forced to work for their greatest foes, the Boers and the railway
construction contractors, who do not, we are told, scruple to use the sjambok
freely, and often refuse to pay the natives even after three or four months’ service.’
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THE
TOUT SYSTEM The
Chamber of Mines was very worried about these stories of what was happening
to migrant workers. They realised that people were not willing to take
the dangerous road to the mines, and the shortage of labour would get
worse.
In 1890 an article in the Chamber of Mines Annual Report advised: ‘The
supply of native labour would be much improved if the difficulties met with
by the kaffirs in the course of their long overland journeys, could be done
away with.’
From 1889 - 1899 the mine-owners tried out a system of paying agents to bring
black workers to the mines. These agents were called ‘touts’ But
the tout system was not a success.
Touts were paid R2 or R2,50 for every worker they sent to the mines. These
touts were so eager to collect their pay that they often lied to the men in
the villages. They made promises to the men to get them to leave home and work
for the mines. They promised them high wages and good working conditions. (We
shall see in a later section what these working conditions were really like.)
To this day, in Lesotho, touts are called dikalatsane, or ‘deceivers’.
Many blacks complained about this trickery to the district commissioner when
they got home again. For example, one district commissioner in the Cape reported:
‘Native
Madave along with 28 other workers at the City and Suburban mine
was promised three pounds and ten shillings a month. They received only one
pound and fifteen shillings.' In other words, they got half of
what they were promised.
The
Chamber of Mines began to realise that the gold mines were getting
a bad name with many blacks.
‘The touts have only one object,’ said one Chamber of Mines report, ‘(that
is) to collect “boys” in order to deliver them to companies at
the highest obtainable premium. Later, the native finds he has been deceived
with
regard to wages, which are often far below what the tout promised, and naturally
becomes discontented; but for this he blames, not the tout, but the mines;
and makes the fact speedily known in the district from which he came.
- The
Chamber of Mines also realised that touts were cheating the mine-owners
as well.
‘A
few of the powerful companies spend thousands a year in
paying touts who seize upon natives actually on their road
here,
and get paid ten
shillings or one pound per (person) for escorting them to the mine.
Touts do not bring
a single boy here. There is an abundance of labour in this
country and it is our duty to induce that extra labour
to come, and not to fritter away thousands
every year in escorting boys who were coming anyhow.'
Mine-owners
were paying the touts a lot of money to help ease the shortage
of labour, yet the tout system seemed to be
making things
worse. The
shortage of labour continued.
NOTICE:
To Strong Boys
I
wish to make it publicly known that Sesioana of Maseru
and myself have stopped flogging at Picaninny Kimberley Compound,
Pretoria. Today it is your time to earn money.
Wages are from 3/- to 12/- a day, according to your strength.
I shall pay Huttax for you and shall also pay railway fares
for you to Maseru to ‘picanniny
Kimberley’. I can also get good work at ‘New
Rietfontein’ where
you may receive wages from £3 to £6 a month.
I shall also pay Hut-tax and railway fares for you from Maseru
to ‘New Rietfontein’. We
have agreed together with the compound managers that if a
person is sick he must be sent home with the Company’s
money and the railway fare to Maseru; they have thus bound
themselves. Now my friends it is time for you to come
to your friend in order to understand. The cattle have udders,
come and milk them!
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‘ SHORTAGE
OF CHEAP LABOUR
There
was one main reason why the mines were always short of labour. The
wages of mine labourers were lower than the wages of other labourers.
The railways, the municipalities, factories and the diamond mines all
paid higher wages than the gold mines. Migrants would often make their
way to the mines, but find better paid jobs before they got there.
The Chamber of Mines realised this - but they insisted that they could not
afford to raise the wages of unskilled workers. So the shortage of mine labour
continued.
The shortage of labour brought two problems to the mine-owners.
- The
first problem was that there were not enough workers to produce the
gold that was in the mines as fast as the mine-owners required.
- The
second problem was that unskilled workers were beginning to get higher
wages. Some mines began to offer unskilled workers higher wages than
other mines, to get them to come and work for them.
The tout system had failed to ease the shortage of labour on the mines. So
the Chamber of Mines decided to organise its own system of collecting labour.
The mine-owners realised that;
- they
could get more workers to the mines by making sure that they travelled
safely;
- these
workers would cost the mine-owners less because they would not have
to pay commission to the touts;
- they
would also be able to control the wages of these workers because
they would all be recruited by one organisation. This would end competition
amongst the mine-owners who had been forcing wages upwards.
- they
would be able to direct workers to the mines where they were most
needed;
- and,
most important of all, the recruiting system would stop migrants
from getting offers of higher pay from other employers outside the
gold industry.
THE
RECRUITING SYSTEM
Listen,
they are off to their kraals as they are afraid they be signed
on.
Chopi song about WNLA.
In
1901 the Chamber of Mines set up a recruiting organisation known as
the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (or WNLA). The WNLA sent
agents to villages all over Southern Africa, as far north as Zambia,
Tanzania and Malawi, along the east coast of Mozambique, and also to
Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana. (In’ 1912, the Chamber of Mines
also started the Native Recruiting Corporation. The NRC recruited blacks
from within South Africa.)
Each WNLA agent would move into a little hut near the largest villages and
send a ‘native runner’ to visit all the village men and try to
get them to join the mines. Many of these runners had worked for touts before,
so they were experienced in the ways of ‘smooth talking’.
WNLA agents offered to pay the taxes of farmers to the government and also
give them cash in advance. Then the farmers could work off the money they owed
to WNLA by working in the mines.
WNLA also used the help of the chiefs to recruit workers. It was well known
that WNLA spent some of their money on ‘presents’ for chiefs. The
chiefs would then order the young men to join the mines. The queen of Swaziland,
for example, was given thirty pounds a month as a regular ‘present’ for
sending men to the WNLA agents.
So
with the help of the government’s taxes, the ‘runners’ and
many of the chiefs, WNLA managed to set up a more efficient system of recruiting
labour for the mines.
A
Dubious Doctor
A
native Labour Commissioner reported this story in 1894 when he
was visiting the reserves:
‘The chief assured me that only a short time ago a gentleman put in an
appearance styling himself “doctor”, though having...no diploma
whatever. He stated that he was authorised by the Government to vaccinate the
tribe. As the bulk of the men had already been vaccinated, some (cheated) of
the fee as many as three times, they declined, at the same time saying: “We
suppose you only want the shilling”. They then proceeded to collect a number
of shillings, which satisfied the visitor, and he left without vaccinating a
single individual.'
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TRAVELLING
TO THE MINES
When
each WNLA office had collected enough men, they would all have to
walk to the nearest station, which might be hundreds of miles away.
WNLA officers would travel with the migrant workers, stopping at
rest camps each night. Then trains would carry hundreds of workers
to the WNLA centre in Germiston. The trains were often crowded and
without proper toilets. Most of the journeys took a long time in
those days. In 1905, for example, the train from the Mozambique border
carried 2 000 men. The journey took 26 hours.
Workers
from Tete, Malawi and Zambia walked to the nearest port from where
they travelled by boat to Lourenco Marques (now Maputo). Others walked
part of the way, passing round the borders of Zimbabwe, then travelling
by train through Botswana. From Mafeking they walked to Krugersdorp,
stopping at five rest camps on the way.
It was a long and tiring journey. When they reached Germiston, the mines’ own
doctors found that at least one out of every eight workers was in no condition
to start working. But WNLA were satisfied: they had managed to get labourers
to the mines. Policemen, white farmers and other employers could not stop them
so easily because WNLA agents were with them.
RESULTS
The
Chamber of Mines set up the recruiting system to try to stop the
labour shortage on the mines and to control the wages of labourers.
How far did the system succeed? The Chamber of Mines had good reason
to be satisfied:
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The
recruiting system did not stop the labour shortage completely,
but it did manage to bring to the mines thousands of men from
other countries. Recruited labour did a lot to lessen the mines’ labour
shortage.
-
The
Chamber of Mines also benefited another way from ‘foreign’ migrants.
They came from so far away that they were prepared to stay on
the mines for up to 12 months before they took the long journey
back home again. This pleased the mine-owners because they saved
on recruiting expenses if workers stayed on the mines for a long
time.
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The
recruiting system also stopped competition amongst the mines
for labourers. Most of of the mining companies joined WNLA and
all agreed to pay the same low wage to their labourers. So the
recruiting system kept the wages down.
On the other hand there was also criticism of the system.
-
Other
employers pointed out that the recruiting system prevented the
workers from choosing where they wanted to work. WNLA sent the
workers to the mines that needed them most. Usually it was the
most unpopular mines, where the workers were badly treated, that
needed workers most. Other employers resented the increasing
control of the labour supply by the mine-owners.
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The
wages of black South Africans were undercut by the influx of
labourers from outside the country. Blacks complained that the
system prevented mine-workers from bargaining for better wages. ‘We
say,’ said a Transvaal Native Congress leader Mr S. Msimang, ‘that
the natives in the Union (of South Africa) are not in a position
to ask for better pay, because the mines have an immense gang
of cheaper labour elsewhere outside the Union.’
The
recruiting system, therefore, united the mine-owners and gave them
more control over their workers. Black farmers were already weakened
by the loss of their land and the heavy burden of taxation. The recruiting
system of the Chamber of Mines made sure that many of these farmers
went to the mines. They sent agents to the villages and lent farmers
money to pay for their taxes and debts. Then they travelled with
them all the way to the Rand to make quite sure that they would work
for the mines, and not for other employers.
The
Role of the Chiefs in Recruiting
The
chiefs had to play a double role in industrial times
On the one hand, they were the traditional protector of their people. On
the other hand, they were subjects of the state and could not afford to ‘make
trouble’, otherwise they could be deposed. Many chiefs were also
in the pay of WNLA as recruiting officers.
The chief’s traditional influence over his people was very useful
to the mines. For example, if a chief ordered a whole age group to go to
the mines, it was very difficult for an individual to refuse.
On the other hand, some chiefs tried to protect the mine labourers. In
1930 one WNLA agent reported that: ‘the Angoni chiefs (in Mozambique)
say that they can readily send 35 000 men to work in the Transvaal only
if: food is more plentifully supplied; “brothers” are not separated;
they are under the supervision of someone they trust, who knows them, their
language and their ways.
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