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Abstract
In South Africa's democracy, the dismantling of the apartheid low-wage migrant labour system has been a stated goal of the state and trade unions. Through an investigation of the recruitment regime on the Rustenburg platinum belt, this article demonstrates how mine managements have responded to the goal of guaranteeing a continued supply of cheap and plentiful labour, how it has manipulated the unionised labour market, how it has ensured labour's consent in its project and how this has impacted on workers. Using Michael Burawoy's (1983) conceptual distinction between ‘despotic’ and ‘hegemonic’ labour regimes which embraces the idea of the politics of production, the article demonstrates how migrant labour recruitment patterns contain continuities, but have also fractured under the impact of neoliberal flexible labour patterns, the state's transformational laws which particularly impact on non-South African labour, and the local labour market characterised by deep structural unemployment. Workers have in some measure benefited from changed recruitment patterns, but for many it has rendered their position increasingly precarious and has simultaneously segmented the solidarity of labour, resulting in some segments of mine labour belonging to the new democratic dispensation more than others.
[Le système de recrutement de la main d’oeuvre de Rustenburg : changements et significations nouvelles.] Au sein de la démocratie sud africaine, la suppression du système de main d’œuvre migrante à bas coût de l’apartheid a été un objectif affirmé de l’État et des syndicats. A travers un examen du système de recrutement de la ceinture de platine de Rustenburg, cet article montre comment la gestion des mines a répondu à l’objectif de garantie d’une offre continue de main d’œuvre à bas coût et abondante, comment ce système a manipulé le marché du travail où étaient présents les syndicats, comment ceci a garanti le consentement des travailleurs envers le projet du système, et comment il a influencé les travailleurs. Sur la base de la distinction conceptuelle de Michael Burawoy (1983) entre les régimes de travail « despotiques » et « hégémoniques », laquelle comprend l’idée d’une politique de la production, l’article montre comment les modèles de recrutement de la main d’œuvre migrante sont une continuité, mais se sont aussi disloqués sous l’impact de modèles de travail flexibles néolibéraux, des lois gouvernementales de transformation qui ont un impact en particulier sur la main d’œuvre étrangère, et du marché du travail local caractérisé par un chômage structurel profond. Les travailleurs ont dans une certaine mesure bénéficié de la modification des modèles de recrutement, mais pour beaucoup elle a rendu leur position de plus en plus précaire et a en même temps segmenté la solidarité entre les travailleurs, entrainant des disparités au sein des mineurs en termes d’adhésion aux nouveaux privilèges démocratiques.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Ray Bush and Gavin Capps for their careful reading of my original draft and for their valuable suggestions which strengthened the arguments in this article.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF), grant number 78662.
Note on contributor
Kally Forrest is a former trade unionist, editor of the South African Labour Bulletin and author of Metal that will not bend: National Union of Metalworkers 1980–1995. She holds a PhD in Labour History from the University of the Witwatersrand, is a research associate at the Society, Work and Development Institute and a former Ruth First Fellow. She is currently senior researcher at the Marikana Commission of Inquiry Phase 2.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 For an account of how mine mechanisation is impacting on the underground labour process in the platinum industry, see Paul Stewart's contribution to this issue.
2 Fieldwork was conducted under the auspices of a major research project on the platinum industry at the Society, Work and Development Institute at the University of Witswatersrand, funded by the National Research Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Through it, I interviewed mineworkers, recruitment agencies, mine employers and trade unions chiefly in Rustenburg. Some were interviewed individually, some in groups. Some 60 workers were interviewed using a local translator in different categories: contracted/permanent, young/old and local/migrant in living or work places (hostels, informal settlements, townships, residential areas, union offices). Employer interviews were conducted with human resource or general managers and union interviews with officials.
3 The Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, more usually known by its initials WNLA or more popularly as ‘Wenela’, was set up by the gold mines in South Africa as a recruiting agency for migrant workers.
4 On the repercussions of Impala's homeland location for union organisation, see the articles by Moodie and Chinguno in this issue.
5 A Labour Relations Amendment Act 6 came into operation in January 2015 which reduces the period of permissible temporary employment to three months, after which a worker must become permanent. It was too early to assess the response or impact of this amendment in the current article.
6 ‘Bakkie’ is a common slang term for a light pickup truck often used to ferry casual workers from the roadsides where they are recruited.
7 Lonmin's Natascha Viljoen argued that, ‘The Eastern Cape migrants can do RDO work. They are lean and mean, and grew up tough … It's in their DNA.’
8 Viljoen described how at the request of the Bapo ba Mogale community, Lonmin trained 600 locals in underground work but only half returned after the Christmas break.
9 At the time of going to press, the rand–dollar exchange rate was 1:0.078.
10 Wage rates are taken from pay slips provided by workers in the period 2012–2013. Thanks to Asanda Benya for providing certain Implats pay slips provided by mineworkers.
11 See also the contributions of Sinwell and Chinguno in this issue on the rise of the AMCU.
12 This became clear on a Society, Work and Development Institute research trip in May 2012 when we explored Rustenburg's informal settlements.
13 Uasa negotiates generous exit packages at two weeks’ pay for every year of service calculated from the point of employment. This could be 20–35 years of service at a salary of, say, R37,000 per month, and includes a lump sum of R30,000 plus one month's notice pay.