From fatalism to mass action to incorporation to neoliberal individualism: worker safety on South African mines, c.1955–2016

ABSTRACT

The article resurfaces ‘tacit knowledge’ to periodise developments in worker safety in South African mines. ‘Tacit knowledge’ evolved over time, is orally transmitted, learned on the job, and is central to worker safety; it lay behind acts of resistance and demands for a safer mining workplace which underpinned unionisation, and which won worker safety representation under apartheid. Under democracy, a modern consultative tripartite legislative safety regime was instituted. With worker representation institutionalised, health and safety legislation enacted and tripartite institutions established, procedural compliance eclipsed workers’ ‘tacit knowledge’. The right to refuse to do dangerous work, state-initiated safety work stoppages and the impact on safety of inter-union rivalry are currently in the spotlight and are noted below. With the state firmly in neoliberal mode post-Fordism, this article concludes by noting the emergence of the individualisation of safety – ironically motivated by a behaviourist construal of ‘tacit beliefs’ underpinning a major industry safety initiative.

RÉSUMÉ

L’article traite de la « connaissance tacite » pour périodiser les développements liés à la sécurité des travailleurs dans les mines sud-africaines. La « connaissance tacite » a évolué au cours du temps, est transmise oralement, est apprise sur le tas et est centrale à la question de la sécurité des travailleurs; elle arrive après des actions de résistance et des demandes pour un environnement de travail plus sécurisé dans les mines qui ont été à la base de la syndicalisation et qui ont valu la représentation en matière de sécurité des travailleurs sous l’apartheid. Sous la démocratie, un régime législatif tripartite consultatif moderne a été institué en matière de sécurité. Avec l’institutionnalisation de la représentation des travailleurs, une législation liée à la santé et à la sécurité a été promulguée, des institutions tripartites ont été établies, et la mise en conformité procédurale a éclipsé la « connaissance tacite » des travailleurs. Le droit de refuser à exercer un travail dangereux, les arrêts de travail initiés par l’État pour des raisons de sécurité, et l’impact de la rivalité intersyndicale sur la sécurité sont désormais mis en avant et sont constatés ci-dessous. Avec un État résolument en mode néolibéral d’après Ford, cet article conclut en constatant l’émergence de l’individualisation et de la responsabilisation de la sécurité – motivée de manière ironique par une interprétation comportementaliste du « réseau des croyances tacites » soutenant une initiative sectorielle majeure en matière de sécurité.

KEYWORDS:

• Mining
• worker safety
• ‘tacit knowledge’
• trade unions
• the state

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Exploitation minière
• sécurité des travailleurs
• « connaissance tacite »
• syndicats
• l’État

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Paul Stewart teaches Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand, has conducted research in and around the gold, coal and platinum mines over the past two decades, and has published both locally and internationally on mining in South Africa. In 2014 he edited (with Johan Zaaiman) a textbook, Sociology, a South African introduction.

Dhiraj Kumar Nite is a senior research associate at University of Johannesburg and assistant professor at Ambedkar University Delhi. He has been conducting researches on the history of labour relations and well-being in India and South Africa. He has published some of his findings in various journals and edited books, including ‘Refashioning women’s self and mining: homemakers and producers on the South African Mines, 1976–2011' in Moving the Social: Journal of Social History and Social Movements (Nite 2015).

Notes

1 The empirical basis of this study and the argument it makes is based on a volume of brief autobiographies of mineworkers on the goldfields around Carletonville and coalfields around Witbank in South Africa. Three rounds of interviews with 22 narrators and one round of interviews with another eight informants were undertaken between June 2011 and July 2012. Interviews took place at informants’ houses, neighbourhood shebeens (informal social and drinking locales) and NUM offices. All quotes not referenced in the article can be found in this volume.

2 While these autobiographical accounts cannot be representative of the views of the vast industrial army of South African mineworkers over the half century under review, they are strongly indicative of mineworkers’ underground working experience noted elsewhere (Ledwaba and Sadiki 2016; Stewart 2012; Phakathi 2011; Benya 2009; AIM 1986, 1984, 1976).

3 Biographical notes on 14 named mineworkers are included at the end of the article, after the references, in the section ‘Mineworker biographies’.

4 Available at http://www.chamberofmines.org.za/industry-news/publications/annual-reports.

5 Available at http://www.dmr.gov.za/publications/annual-report.html.