We learn a great deal about the attitudes of the state, politicians, employers and white people towards the strike action, a little about the conditions facing Indian women workers, but virtually nothing about African women.
, a leading trade unionist in the 1970s and a textile worker at the time of the 1973 strikes, even in accounts written by those very closely associated with her.Partly because press reports on the strikes paid little if any attention to gender in reporting on the strikes. Women are mentioned in passing, but do not occupy centre stage.
Although these accounts were all written after the 1973 strikes, they provide sufficient information to piece together a picture of the brutal conditions under which African women textile workers were labouring in Frame textile factories. The position of African women migrant workers, many of whom were employed in the textile mills at the time of the 1973 Durban strikes, was extremely precarious.A strong trade union movement in SA and internationally is essential in the quest for social justice and greater equalityThe restrictions on movement and settlement were combined with deeply patriarchal prejudices against women with regard to employment, child care and their role in the reproductive functions of capitalism.
Durban, and the Frame group of companies in particular, had become a key node for South African textile production by the 1970s. The requirement for cheap labour brought about changes in the profile of the labour force, with the employment of increasing numbers of Indian and African women. By the late 1970s, African women constituted about 70% of the workforce.Conditions of employment were appalling. Wages paid for African women were at least 20% lower than those paid to African men.
HISTORY means what it says: HIS STORY.
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