Managing the 1987 mine workers' strike

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 45-64

  Moodie, T Dunbar ^a,b  

^a HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AUTHORITARIANISM; CRISIS MANAGEMENT; ECONOMIC HISTORY; HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE; INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK; LABOR PARTICIPATION; LABOR RELATIONS; TRADE UNION;

AFRICA; SOUTH AFRICA; SOUTHERN AFRICA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA;

EID: 67650351090     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: 14653893     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03057070802685544     Document Type: Article

References (74)

1. For accounts of township insurrectionary violence, see R.M. Price, The Apartheid State in Crisis (New York, Oxford University Press, 1991)
2. M.J. Murray, The Revolution Deferred (London, Verso, 1994).
3. Perhaps the best brief account of the strike is J. Baskin, Striking Back: A History of COSATU (Johannesburg, Ravan, 1991), pp. 224-39.
4. Our Precious Metal: African Labour in South Africa's Gold Industry, 1970-1990 (Cape Town, David Philip, 1992), pp. 110-24.
5. The best account of NUM's rebuilding process is V. Allen, The History of Black Mineworkers in South Africa: Volume III (Keighley, West Yorkshire, The Moor Press, 2003).
6. See, for example, J. Crush, A. Jeeves and D. Yudelman, South Africa's Labour Empire: A History of Black Migrancy to the Gold Mines (Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1991), pp. 186-94
7. Allen, History: Volume III, pp. 159-63.
8. For the induna system see T. Dunbar Moodie, Going for Gold (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1994), pp. 80-85.
9. Crush et al., South Africa's Labour Empire, provide a graphic illustration of this shift on p. 191. Note also the tightening of control at Anglovaal.
10. For the mine wages explosion, see V. Allen, The History of Black Mineworkers in South Africa: Volume II (Keighley, West Yorkshire, The Moor Press, 2003), pp. 309-34.
11. See Allen, History, Volume II, pp. 451-2.
12. According to Anglo Executive minutes for 4 August 1987 (CTH,R2,D2:105.1) immediately before the strike, it was agreed that Anglo 'would support the Chamber's approach not to talk to NUM about basic wages'. In 1990, I was given permission by Paul Benjamin and Marcel Golding to copy NUM documents in the archives of the law firm, Cheadle, Haysom and Thompson. I refer to these documents as CTH. Microfilm copies are available at the Africana collection at Yale University and at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
13. M. Abeldas and A. Fischer, A Question of Survival: Conversations with Key South Africans (Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball, 1987), pp. 336-45, contains a refreshing interview with Oppenheimer in 1986, soon after he had resigned his chairmanship of Anglo.
14. Disclosure is appropriate here. Godsell was a student of mine at Natal. (For a complementary view of Godsell, see references to him in the index to Anthony Butler, Cyril Ramaphosa (Johannesburg, Jacana 2007).) I approached other managers independently of Godsell, who gave me contact information for some of them. My initial list of interviewees came from the CTH documents. These contacts led me to others. Interviews convey textures of thought and feeling that, I believe, are important for understanding nuances in the different positions. For events I try to rely on documentary evidence. Where I use oral evidence for events I am cautious, always seeking alternative or confirmative points of view and stating uncertainties where they exist. Clearly, I am more sympathetic to Godsell, Van Gessell and Ramaphosa, but I hope Ken Dicks and Nap Mayer will feel I have been fair in using their words. Many whom I interviewed were outspoken in their criticism of Godsell. I certainly appreciated their open willingness to talk to me.
15. I formally interviewed Bobby Godsell in Johannesburg on 6 June 2001. Interviews in 2001 were made possible by a Faculty Research Grant from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
16. I interviewed Cyril Ramaphosa in Sandton on 4 June 2001.
17. I interviewed Nigel Unwin in Johannesburg on 3 July 1995. These 1995 interviews were made possible by a grant from the McArthur Foundation and were transcribed while I was an Annenberg Scholar at the Annenberg School in Philadelphia in 1995-96.
18. For the 1984 events, see Moodie, Going for Gold, pp. 269-72.
19. For an acute analysis along these lines written during the strike, see the op-ed piece by van Niekerk and Leger in the Weekly Mail, 21 August 1987.
20. For minutes of the negotiations in 1987, see CTH,R1,D1: 56-177.
21. Godsell's liberalism was profoundly Weberian. He saw himself as committed to what Weber would have called 'an ethic of responsibility'.
22. CTH,R5.5.
23. November 1986.
24. Rand Daily Mail, 4 August 1982.
25. South African Labour Bulletin, 10, 4 (1984).
26. Financial Mail, 24 June 1983.
27. I interviewed Ikaneng Director Matlala in Johannesburg on 26 July 1999. 1999 interviews were made possible by a grant from the United States Institute of Peace.
28. South African Labour Bulletin, 10, 4 (1984).
29. I interviewed Marcel Golding in the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town on 24 May 1995.
30. He was certainly capable of taking a socialist ideological line. See, for instance, his interview in Abeldas and Fischer, Question of Survival, pp. 284-302. Committed socialists in the trade union movement always viewed him with suspicion, however.
31. Butler's extensive interviews for his biography of Ramaphosa support this reading of the man.
32. SAIRR Topical Opinion, PD 3/83, 31/7/85; CTH, R2.D1.
33. For the piccanin system, see Moodie, Going for Gold, p. 69, footnote 14.
34. Vaal Reefs was the first such regional agglomeration. Freegold North and Freegold South (soon to become one Freegold region) and West Rand regions were formed in the 1980s.
35. Vaal Reefs was a huge mine - the largest in the world at the time, with ten shafts - with three separate divisions under a regional general manager, Bob Williams. In 1987, Vaal Reefs East included 1, 3 and 9 Shafts - and Afrikaner Leases. Vaal Reefs West included 4, 5, 6 and 7 shafts - all except 5 being poor grade - managed by Dick Fisher. Vaal Reefs South included 2 and 8 shafts - both extremely high grade - managed by Mike Smith. Each manager had a very different style. Bob Williams tolerated, indeed encouraged, their differences.
36. I interviewed John Carr in Klerksdorp on 5 November 1998. 1998 interviews were made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
37. I interviewed Ken Dicks in Klerksdorp on 17 October 1998 and again on 12 June 2001. Quotations in this article are taken from the 1998 interview.
38. CTH,R3,D11:28-30.
39. John Carr arranged for me to obtain industrial relations files from Vaal Reefs East gold mine. Microfilm copies are available at the Yale Africana Library. I refer to these documents as VRE.
40. VRE/NUMGen.
41. Several contemporaries testified that this was Viv du Plessis' position at the time. I interviewed de Beer in Johannesburg on 14 June 2001. He had moved to Gencor (which has now become Billiton) and his position has changed as the country has been transformed and he has matured.
42. While van Gessel's Dutch upbringing might have influenced his 'liberal' opinions, several other Anglo managers I interviewed shared them. None was as articulate as van Gessel. however. I interviewed Karel van Gessel in Johannesburg on 14 June 2001.
43. This would have been Nap Mayer, regional general manager at Freegold North at the time.
44. This became a time-honoured NUM strategy in hostels in the years ahead. Being shot at with rubber bullets had a remarkably 'conscientising' effect on bystanders.
45. CTH,R2,D1:56-177.
46. CTH,R2,D2:105.3-4.
47. The meeting was told there was 70 per cent support for a strike on the West Rand, but only 30 per cent at Vaal Reefs. In the Free State it was believed that 'strike action could be sporadic and varied'. In fact, on Anglo gold mines only two shafts at Free State Saaiplaas, Western Holdings No. 6 and Vaal Reefs No. 5 worked throughout the strike.
48. Allen, History, Volume III, pp. 308-9.
49. CTH,R2,D2:105.3.
50. These, I suspect, were Western Deep Levels North, Vaal Reefs, 8 shaft, and President Steyn, 4 shaft.
51. In his Ramaphosa biography, Anthony Butler asserts (p. 190) that Peter Gush 'was not one of Anglo's Oxford boys, but rather a mining engineer with a natural sympathy for the difficult tasks confronting mine management'. This is simply incorrect. Gush was a Rhodes Scholar at St. Edmund Hall at Oxford when I was there. He majored in Geography. I can understand Dicks' enthusiasm, however. Gush was an intensely competitive member of the Oxford rugby team. In a tight spot he knew how to lead.
52. According to Butler's biography of Ramaphosa (p. 196) the deputy minister of police, Roelf Meyer, liaised continuously with Godsell and representatives of the Chamber. If so, Godsell surely warned him off interference on Anglo mines. Privately, Anglo security officers regarded SAP methods as incompetent and provocative.
53. For minutes of meetings between Western Holdings management and the NUM branch committee during the strike, see CTH,R2,D5.
54. For minutes of meetings between Vaal Reefs West management and the NUM branch committee during the strike, see CTH,R2,D9.
55. Citizen, 25 August 25 1987.
56. CTH, R1,C1:44.
57. Minutes of this meeting are available at CTH,R2,D1:192.3-14.
58. For notes by NUM participants, see CTH, R1,C1:265-281. These do not differ in any essentials from the Chamber minutes.
59. P. Benjamin, J. Reagan and C. Albertyn, Strikes, Lockouts and Arbitration in South African Labour Law: Proceedings of the Labour Law Conference, 1988 (Cape Town, Juta, 1989), p. 99.
60. VRE/Strikes.
61. CTH,R1,C1:288-292.
62. CTH, R2,D1:193.
63. CTH,R2,D3:76.
64. Anglo wanted 're-employ'; NUM wanted 're-instate' so 're-engage' was a compromise. In fact, re-employment was the term used thereafter.
65. This was Godsell's language. The NUM minutes say 'subject to an objective scrutiny of job records'. The minutes added 'if the NUM was not satisfied with the objective criteria being used to deny certain workers their jobs, an independent third party with recommendatory powers would be allowed to scrutinise the cases as they arose. The workings and constitution of the "third party" is still to be determined'. Godsell's notes add 'excluding arbitration'.
66. CTH, R2,D1:195-201. These are Chamber minutes.
67. For NUM notes on the meeting, see CTH, R1, C1:295-311. There are no significant differences.
68. On 29 August 1987 (CTH, R1,C1:294ff), Kallie van der Colf received a disgusted telex from Ramaphosa saying that workers at Western Deep Levels No. 2 and Vaal Reefs, No. 3 had been bussed out before the deadline. Moreover, Vaal Reefs No. 1 and No. 4 were also bussed out after the Carlton Hotel meeting. Van der Colf responded on 2 September, saying that workers at Vaal Reefs who were bussed out reported to the stadium earlier than their deadline. At Western Deeps, workers had defied union leaders' advice not to leave. In fact, however, as we shall see, there was a mighty struggle going on between Vaal Reefs and 44 Main Street because the mine had ignored van der Colf's instructions.
69. Fanie Ernst, Personnel Manager at Vaal Reefs West, who was temporarily working in the regional office remembered a shouting match about taking union people back between Bob Williams and Peter Gush, but I very much doubt that. I think what he heard was Williams bellowing at Theo Pretorius on the phone. Pretorius was Anglo Managing Director for the Transvaal and in effect Peter Gush's boss. I suspect that Pretorius, in fact, had to sit quite hard on Gush as well. (I doubt Dicks is correct that Theo Pretorius was present at the Carlton Centre discussions, but he would have been the one enforcing the agreement in the Transvaal once van der Colf's request had been ignored.) Later in our interview, Ernst told me he had heard 'there was some serious trouble between Gush and Anglo's Head Office about this decision because Gush wanted to go out there fighting'. That sounds more likely to me. Except for an address to the German Chamber of Commerce (CTH, R5.5) in November 1987, taking very much the official Anglo line on the strike, Gush was remarkably quiet after the strike.
70. I interviewed Nap Mayer at Fourways on 2 August 2006. 2006 interviews were funded by a Faculty Research Grant from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
71. I interviewed Fanie Ernst in Rosebank, Johannesburg on 26 October 1998.
72. I interviewed Viv du Plessis in Roodepoort on 28 October 1998.
73. Allen, History: Volume III, pp. 446-52.
74. Star, 18 March 1988.