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Students Expose Wage Slavery

"I fear these elements who are propagating communism in a disguised form. They advocate a reallocation of as which amounts to a form of socialism", These words were those of South African Prime Minister. John Vorster, complaining in Parliament in late April about widespread demands for improved wage scales for the nation's black workers. The shocking conditions in which the "non-whites" live and work recently came to light as the result of an intensive investigation by the Wages Commission of the Students Representative Council (SRC) of the University of Natal, Durban.

When the British daily, The Guardian, look up the cause, stressing the responsibility of British-owned firms whose workers — Bantu (African), Coloured, Asian — were forced to live below the Poverty Datum Line (PDL), the news shocked British public opinion. In some cases unskilled workers were being paid three pounds a week, although the PDL is 10 or 11 pounds for a family of four. Cases of severe malnutrition and even starvation were reported.

To the credit of at least one of the Companies, a spokesman admitted he was "horrified" to learn that conditions were so bad. Within weeks of the Guardian story, wages were raised 100% and a nine-point reform program was introduced at the Natal Tanning Extract plant near Pietermaritburg. Reforms included free milk to all workers' children, free working clothes, new housing, 12 new schools, new medical clinics on 39 farms, free monthly check-ups for children, and a series of workers' consultative committees to hear grievances and seek solutions.

The reaction of the Natal University students who had first pointed to the "subhuman" conditions that the black workers suffered was one of mingled astonishment and delight. Mark Dubois, the student who wrote the final version of the SRC Wages Commission report, called the raises and reforms "fantastic". The firm had given "a magnificent lead which other companies in this industry should now follow. Indeed, if British companies are doing this, so must South African". Students at Witwatersrand University took up the challenge and invaded the offices of a cement company where they insisted that their questionnaire on working conditions be filled out in detail. The demonstration received international press coverage, thus further upsetting the forces of apartheid.

But at least the most flagrant cases of below-subsistence wages may soon be corrected. The Government's forestry department announced wage increases of up to 60% for unskilled timber workers. The authorities have also promised a full-scale inquiry. Once again it was the Natal University students who must be credited with publicising the long-concealed squalor, poverty and disease. The SRC Wages Commission carried out a careful survey of five of the Government's timber estates, British-owned estates have also come under fire. Investigators noted that in one Education for blacks receives low priority from employers in South Africa. "We use Coloured people for semi-skilled and Bantu for semi-skilled and unskilled work", explained Lord Stokes, Executive Chairman of the auto manufacturers, British Leyland, in his appearance on May 15 before the Commons subcommittee looking into South African wages. In testimony before the subcommittee, a British manager described the vicious circle that has made social progress virtually impossible under the apartheid system. "The difficulty for the Bantu outside his (segregated) homelands", the witness said, "is that he is probably limited by educational standards in obtaining an apprenticeship, and also he is not allowed to join a trade union, and by definition, the skilled workers are members of trade unions".