South Africa 1867 – 1910: Treatment of Mine Workers

Black and white workers on a South African mine.

• The gold mine owners borrowed lessons from the Kimberly experience
• Workers were employed on a contract basis as they would be easier to regulate and discipline
• The labour force was divided discriminately into two:
• Africans who were lowly skilled to semiskilled and
• white settlers who were very skilled and experienced
• The wages were also divided with Africans getting very little whilst whites demanded high wages
• About 100 000 African men were contracted to do the hard labour
• The mining groups put a low ceiling on the wages of natives
• However there was no limit for the wages for whites as they had to compete with the wages of those in North America and Australia
• The compounds were the gold mine workers lived were characterized by poor living conditions such as over crowdedness and poor sanitation
• Men slept in male dormitories away from their families
• Mine workers also worked in very poor conditions such as poor ventilation in mines, poor lighting and no running water
• They were not given adequate protective gear and were exposed to many work related injuries and accidents
• They also were not compensated for any injuries incurred at work
• African workers were subjected to long waking hours of hard labour whilst Europeans had supervisory jobs
• The workers were also subjected to harsh treatment such as whipping and other forms of punishment
• African were burdened by heavy taxes and it forced them to seek employment in the gold mines so that they could pay taxes

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