WORKING AGREEMENTS: Cooling of labour militancy in SA’s mines mirrors decline of migrant labour system

South Africa’s mines once employed almost 500,000 foreign workers, a number that now stands at 35,000. And it almost certainly employs fewer men now from other “labour-sending areas”, such as the former Transkei, than it did in the past.“Under the migrant labour system, the mineworkers were often supporting two households, an urban one near the mine and a rural household.

But there are no hard studies or recent surveys on the matter. On the one hand, if there are fewer mineworkers with two households to support, it simply makes sense that they would have less of a support burden. On the other, rising unemployment and poverty in South Africa’s disfigured and slow-growth economy have surely added to the numbers of people mineworkers — and many other wage earners for that matter — support. There is also an ongoing cost-of-living crisis in the face of high inflation, driven by food and fuel prices that take their greatest toll on lower-income households.

In 1993, the National Union of Mineworkers pressed the ANC — when it was on the cusp of power — “to adopt measures that will end the migrant labour system”, according to the late historian of the NUM, VL Allen. Grievances included the exploitation that migrants were subjected to and the hostel system designed to control this workforce.

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