The 1971–72 Namibian contract workers general strike was a labour dispute in
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
between African contract workers (particularly miners)
and the
apartheid
Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
government. Workers sought to end the contract-labour system, which many described as close to slavery.
An underlying goal was the promotion of independence under
SWAPO
The South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO ; , SWAVO; , SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former independence movement in Namibia (formerly South West Africa). Founded in 1960, it has been ...
leadership.
The strike began on 13 December 1971 in
Windhoek
Windhoek (; ; ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek, which ...
and on the 14th in
Walvis Bay
Walvis Bay (; ; ) is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. It is the List of cities in Namibia, second largest city in Namibia and the largest coastal city in the country. The city covers an area of of land.
The bay is a ...
before spreading to the US-owned
Tsumeb
Tsumeb (; ) is a city of around 35,000 inhabitants and the largest town in the Oshikoto Region, Oshikoto region in northern Namibia.
Tsumeb, since its founding in 1905, has been primarily a mining town. The town is the site of a deep mine (the ...
Mine and beyond. Approximately 25,000 workers participated in the strike, primarily those from
Ovamboland in the country's densely-populated north.
The strike continued into the next year, ending in March 1972.
Background
Historical
During this period, Namibia existed under
apartheid
Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
as a subjugated colonial state of South Africa.
Apartheid began in 1948 under British control in the
Union of South Africa
The Union of South Africa (; , ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day South Africa, Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the British Cape Colony, Cape, Colony of Natal, Natal, Tra ...
. By the mid-1960s, about 45 to 50 percent of the Black labour force was contract migrant labour from the northern Namibia colonial
reserves.
The contract system was controlled by
SWANLA, a quasi-governmental agency. Any Black or Indigenous person who lived in the colonial reserves was not allowed outside the reserves unless they signed a 12-to-18-month labour contract with SWANLA, which offered set wages and conditions with no bargaining. Workers were required to carry passes, and their movement was strictly controlled and monitored. Women were barred from signing contracts, and were not allowed outside the reserves.
Contract workers would be leased out by SWANLA to other businesses. Any breach of the contract, such as quitting or labour organisation, brought criminal sanctions and severe punishment which could be exercised by the employer. Contract workers lived in compounds which were controlled by their employers through SWANLA.
With the system's typically-bad working conditions, it has been characterised by many as akin to slavery.
For contract work under SWANLA, workers were classified into one of four classes of physical fitness and (to some extent) job experience: Classes A, B, C, and
hild Wages were paid monthly, with the minimum ranging from
R3.75 (for a child) to R8.75 for Class A; this was equivalent to 5 to $10.
The decades of apartheid before the strike saw significant labour-organisation efforts and a number of strikes; this included the development of
OPO.
The Windhoek or
Old Location massacre occurred in 1959, which contributed to the evolution of
SWAPO
The South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO ; , SWAVO; , SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former independence movement in Namibia (formerly South West Africa). Founded in 1960, it has been ...
from OPO. This played a major role in the fight against apartheid in Namibia, and a limited role in this strike.
Immediate
In August 1971, pro-independence students (many of whom already had experience with contract work) were expelled from high schools throughout
Ovamboland by South African officials. Many former students then took contract work to promote a general strike.
They cooperated with local workers and SWAPO branches to establish contact with others and kick-start the campaign.
Previous organising had already established substantial autonomy in the big compounds. Tactics used to subvert
pass laws
In South Africa under apartheid, and South West Africa (now Namibia), pass laws served as an internal passport system designed to racially segregate the population, restrict movement of individuals, and allocate low-wage migrant labor. Also ...
also allowed significant mobilisation in the compounds.
Police
The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...
responded with mass raids, where all workers were searched systematically and many arrests were made.
In March and June,
Katutura, Windhoek was raided by police and a checkpoint was established at its only entrance; workers were forced to show valid passes, disrupting pass evasion. In June, the
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...
had ruled that South Africa's ongoing occupation of Namibia was illegal; this encouraged anti-colonial actions in the territory.
On the night of November 11, workers destroyed the checkpoint and offices. Police responded with another large raid four days later.
By early November, labour organisation became more overt. Organisers at
Walvis Bay
Walvis Bay (; ; ) is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. It is the List of cities in Namibia, second largest city in Namibia and the largest coastal city in the country. The city covers an area of of land.
The bay is a ...
called a mass meeting, which was attended by most of the compound's contract workers. A deadline was set for the start of the strike, with letters and information sent to other compounds. It was decided that mass meetings would be held on Sunday, December 12, at Walvis Bay and Windhoek, and the strike would begin the following week. The information reached Windhoek on December 5.
Under the pass system, workers planned to return to the
Ovamboland reserve for the duration of the strike. This was partially in response to earlier statements by
Jan de Wet, Commissioner General for Ovamboland, when the government became aware of a potential strike. According to de Wet, contract labour was not slavery since workers signed the contracts. In reality, economic conditions in the reserves and the pass system often forced workers to sign contracts as a means of survival.
Special taxation of those in the reserves by the South African government worsened this, some said by design.
In a November 28 letter, after the earlier mass meeting, workers at Windhoek responded:
After the earlier November meeting, police arrested 14 organisers at Walvis Bay. The meeting also revealed some of the leadership and the timing of the strike to the South African government, which probably played a role in the muted success of the strike in Walvis Bay compared to Windhoek.
On December 12,
during the planned mass meeting at Walvis Bay (which was also held at Windhoek) the South African government led an anti-strike meeting with pro-government speakers and Bantustan officials. This backfired due to militant worker response, with the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia (ELOK)'s Bishop
Leonard Auala
Leonard Nangolo Auala (25 September 1908, Iiyale, Oniipa, Ovamboland, German South West Africa – 4 December 1983, Onandjokwe, South West Africa) was a Namibian Lutheran Church leader.
Early life
Auala was born in Oniipa, Ovamboland, German Sout ...
persuaded to endorse the strike.
Strike
The strike began on December 13 in Windhoek and the following day in Walvis Bay, both large worker compounds.
In Windhoek, workers refused food prepared in the compound kitchens on the first day of the strike and left the compound to buy food at local shops. Police sealed off the compound on the following day, December 14, locking workers inside.
The Walvis Bay compound was also sealed off preemptively by police that day, the first day of its strike.
By December 20, 11,500 workers had struck. Eighteen thousand workers had returned to Ovamboland by mid-January, 13,500 of whom were transported by rail by the government, which wanted to avoid conflict at compounds in centers of production and near white residences.
A total of 25,000 workers were involved in the strike22,500 from towns, mines and camps, and over half of the 43,400 contract workers in the
Police Zone.
The Police Zone was an area in South West Africa (present-day Namibia) where Indigenous people were not allowed to enter unless they had a labour contract. The zone was established in 1905,
when South West Africa was a
German colony, as a result of the
1897 rinderpest epizootic.
Rinderpest
Rinderpest (also cattle plague or steppe murrain) was an infectious viral disease of cattle, domestic water buffalo, and many other species of even-toed ungulates, including gaurs, African Buffalo, buffaloes, large antelope, deer, giraffes, wilde ...
caused massive cattle die-offs, an estimated 95 percent of cattle in southern and central Namibia.
A veterinary
cordon, known as the
Red Line, was established during the epizootic.
The policing of borders became necessary to prevent disease from spreading to healthy cattle, exposing the fragility of a German colonial control defined by the Red Line.
A 1905 resolution to establish the Police Zone was passed in Berlin, saying that the new zone "should be restricted to the smallest possible area ...
ocusingwhere our economic interests tend to coalesce". The Police Zone boundary was broadly defined by the earlier veterinary cordon fence.
This became a significant policed boundary between white German colonizers and the Indigenous population in Namibia, laying the foundation for racial apartheid in the 1940s.
In addition to strikers in the Police Zone, over 70 percent of those employed outside the zone also joined the strike. The South African government inadvertently fueled the strike, criticizing on government-controlled radio workers who had left for the Ovamboland reserve; workers outside the compounds heard the news, and many joined a strike of which they had been unaware.
During the strike, an
ad hoc
''Ad hoc'' is a List of Latin phrases, Latin phrase meaning literally for this. In English language, English, it typically signifies a solution designed for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a Generalization, generalized solution ...
committee was formed by workers in Ovamboland with its members elected on a regional basis. The committee met on 3 January, and decided to reject any agreement not supported by the strikers; it also drew up lists of specific grievances and demands, and held a mass meeting a week later. At the meeting, a
delegation
Delegation is the process of distributing and entrusting work to another person.Schermerhorn, J., Davidson, P., Poole, D., Woods, P., Simon, A., & McBarron, E. (2017). ''Management'' (6th ed., pp. 282–286). Brisbane: John Wiley & Sons Australia. ...
was elected to represent the workers in negotiations with the government, major employers and the
Bantustan
A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu peoples, Bantu homeland, a Black people, black homeland, a Khoisan, black state or simply known as a homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party (South Africa), National Party administration of the ...
executive on January 19–20 in
Grootfontein.
While the strike continued, picket lines were maintained at the borders; this turned back potential
strikebreakers.
The strike goals broadened to include the grievances of workers and the Indigenous peoples in the reserves. A more-general resistance against apartheid and colonialism sparked more active confrontations. During this, the government briefly blocked roads north of
Ondangwa.
During the night of January 16, over 100 km of border fences were destroyed by those with grievances against the apartheid government; over the following weeks, a series of attacks were made on stock-control posts, inspectors, headmen and informants on both sides of the borders. The most radical resistance was in Ulwanyama, along the border.
An agreement was reached on January 20, 1972, which abolished the South West Africa Native Labour Association (SWANLA), required written employment contracts with details of entitlements and conditions, removed criminal sanctions (adding civil sanctions against workers deemed to have breached employment contracts) and established mechanisms to resolve disputes. In practical terms, however, little changed for contract workers.
Some workers returned after the agreement,
but many continued to strike.
Severe police repression and attacks also persisted against workers who attempted to meet.
Ondobe and Epinga massacres
On January 28, 1972, three men were killed by police in
Ondobe.
Two days later, five workers were shot and killed by police in the village of
Epinga.
A mass grave containing the five contract workers, buried miles away, became known to the broader public in 2008. Although, locals had been aware of it for years.
Four of the workers (Thomas Mueshihange, Benjamin Herman, Lukas Veiko and Mathias Ohainenga) died in Epinga. Three others were injured, and another (Ngesea Sinana) later died in the hospital.
End of the strike
By late February, the strike had been partially broken. Wide-scale opposition continued, however, eventually merging into a long-term guerilla campaign in the north as part of the
Namibian War of Independence.
Many workers continued to hold out, with some (but not all) returning months later;
some accounts cite March 1972,
and SWAPO member
John Ya-Otto cites May 1972.
Aftermath
According to a South African law journal, contract labour continued until it was banned with the General Law Amendment Proclamation, AG 5 of 1977.
This coincided with the escalation of the
South African Border War
The South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence, and sometimes denoted in South Africa as the Angolan Bush War, was a largely asymmetric conflict that occurred in Namibia (then South West Africa), Zambia, and Angol ...
by the new South African prime minister
P. W. Botha in 1979.
Contract labour reemerged during the 1990s in Namibia with the
labour hire system.
Attempts to re-abolish it included the 2007 Namibian Labour Act, which was reversed by the
Supreme Court
In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
in December 2009 before it could be implemented:
" 1For these reasons, the prohibition of the economic activity defined by s. 128(1) in its current form is so substantially overbroad that it does not constitute a reasonable restriction on the exercise of the fundamental freedom to carry on any trade or business protected in Article 21(1)(j) of the Constitution and, on that basis alone, the section must be struck down as unconstitutional."
The Supreme Court ruling was made only a few months after the act was scheduled to go into effect on March 1, 2009; the law was never implemented, however, since it was suspended on February 27 until the court decision was made. Labour hire has since been partially regulated through the Labour Amendment Act 2 of 2012
which provides some labour protections after the 2007 law was struck down.
See also
*
1973 South Africa Durban strikes
*
Labour hire in Namibia
*
South African Border War § Political unrest in Ovamboland
Further reading
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Namibian contract workers strike (1971-72)
Strike
Strike may refer to:
People
*Strike (surname)
* Hobart Huson, author of several drug related books
Physical confrontation or removal
*Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm
* Airstrike, ...
Strike
Strike may refer to:
People
*Strike (surname)
* Hobart Huson, author of several drug related books
Physical confrontation or removal
*Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm
* Airstrike, ...
1971-72 Skorpion
1971 labor disputes and strikes
1972 labor disputes and strikes
Miners' labor disputes in Africa
Mining in Namibia
General strikes in Africa