An Overview of 1973-76 strikes in East London

• The SALHP Booklet and CD-Rom
• List of Striking Companies
• Causal factors
• Conclusions
• “Azikwelwa – We won’t ride”: The Mdantsane Bus Boycott of 1974
• The struggle continues
• Outcomes and lessons from the boycott

Please click here to e-mail us if you wish to make a further enquiry about the CDROM

The SALHP Booklet and CD-Rom
In order to fully understand the character and form of trade unions in South Africa today, we need to go back and look at how these organisations were forged in the melting pot of our history. To this end, the South African Labour History Project (SALHP) which is a project of the Labour Research Service (LRS) has researched the history of the struggles in East London during the 1970s. Through collecting oral histories and researching archival materials and newspaper clippings from the time, SALHP has compiled a booklet and a CD-Rom that can be used by trade unionists and activists in order to gain an historical insight into forms of organising and strategies for building and strengthening trade unions and other social formations.

The LRS sees this as an important activity because the significant role that the labour movement plays in the making of the history of South Africa is not always recorded in a manner that is accessible to working people. In addition, access to existing resources that are stored in libraries and archives is usually limited to academics and researchers. Working people do not generally have access to information and so are not able to learn lessons from past struggles in order to better equip themselves to deal with challenges they are confronted with today, such as globalisation and the increasing attacks on the working class.

The wave of strikes and boycotts in the 1970s 

“We must not look at this period of history in terms of separate struggles of workers, of students, of residents and whoever else... Because we got almost everybody involved the whole thing began to spread like wild-fire and people began to realize that they could do things for themselves.”
- Dr Msauli, an activist involved in East London during the 1970s.

Following the wave of strikes in Durban and on the Witwatersrand during 1973, the East London area also erupted in intensive strike action and community boycotts that began at the end of 1973 and went through into 1976. Such intense worker and community action had not been experienced before in this region of the country.

On a daily basis, the East London newspapers of the 1970s were full of reports about strike action and community resistance. The height of the strike action took place during a two-week period from the 22nd July to the 3rd of August in 1974. During this fortnight alone, the strikes involved over 5 000 workers and affected at least 21 companies in East London. Not far from East London, 3 500 workers in a company in King Williamstown also went on strike.

The overall pattern of the East London strikes was similar to the Durban strikes in that once the initial spark had been ignited at one factory, the strikes spread in waves around the industrial areas of East London and the Border region.

Here is a list of the main companies that went out on strike during the period from January 1973 to mid-1975:

From this list of strikes and boycotts we can see the high number of factories that went out on strike and the rapid spread of strike action in a localised geographic area during a concentrated period of time. In the month of July 1974 alone, there were at least nineteen factories that went out on strike, with a concentration of seven strikes starting on the 29th July, followed by five on the 30th July.

The factories included in this list produced goods from a range of industrial sectors including the textile, metal, construction, furniture, flooring, paper, chemical, transport, and food sectors. This strike wave reflected a period of heightened communication amongst workers and solidarity across a number of different sectors – and all this at a time of political repression when there were no trade unions, organisers, shopstewards, or the benefit of e-mail or cell phone technology!

Causal factors

While the close proximity of factories contributed to the rapid spread of strikes, it would be wrong to think that this spontaneous and rolling mass action was simply triggered by the existence of other strikes in the area or that it took place in a vacuum. This action took place in the context of a serious economic crisis that was taking place in the early 1970s and which resulted in attacks on the living and working conditions of workers and on their forms of organisational expression.

It is necessary to acknowledge the long history to this eruption of strikes and boycotts in the 1970s. This history had its roots in the organisations that had come before and in the changing political economy as a result of World War Two. Because of this war, the manufacturing sector in South Africa grew rapidly in response to increased demands for manufactured goods on the part of countries that were involved in the war and which could not manufacture as many products as they had done before the war. With the growth of the manufacturing sector came a number of other changes such as the increased use of machinery and a big increase in the number of black workers who were employed in the sector. Once the war was over, South African companies had to cope with increased competition from companies overseas. This meant that they tried to keep workers wages as low as possible so that they could still make a profit.

Other more specific factors that prompted workers to take action in East London included their growing anger about the Bantustan system and the accompanying forced removals; increased levels of confidence as a result of the black consciousness movement; the role of the underground movement; and the example set by the recent liberation of Mozambique and Angola from Portuguese domination in 1974 inspired workers to challenge their situation. In addition, their determination to act was strengthened by the growing dissatisfaction of school students about the Apartheid education system.

Outcomes of the strikes
Not all of the outcomes of the strike were about increased wages or working conditions. One of the effects of the courageous actions taken by workers at one factory was that their action inspired a number of strikes at other factories in the industrial areas of East London. These actions reflect the growing level of solidarity amongst workers.

Another outcome of the strike was that workers began to organise and mobilise and to react to the workplace structures which the bosses had put in place. Growing confidence and resistance to existing structures such as the liaison committees prompted new forms of worker representation and organisation.

Comrade Nomfundo Mgxala, a worker in East London at the time of the strikes had this to say about the liaison committees:
“All over East London, workers were rejecting the liaison committee. Through the liaison committee your reps would come to you with demands from the bosses and you were never given the chance to take back your demands from the work side, there was no chance of that. The representatives will always give you some reports and demands from the management. You were never given a chance as workers to give your own. Like in one company, when we asked the rep who was a supervisor, for safety things, clothing and shoes, he just said that if you want to stay and work in this company, stop asking for those things here.”

In the words of Comrade Sydney Nyengane:
“People were very negative about the liaison committees. We started asking questions because we saw that now the liaison committees were just useless, and we saw what might be possible if we had trade unions… There were no black trade unions at all. It was just the people who had the spirit to organise themselves who were agitating for their wages. Otherwise, there was no guidance, trade union or anything.”

Through the process of struggle and the rejection of the liaison committees, workers began to organise and trade unions began to emerge out of these increasing levels of mobilisation.

Comrade Mbatha, who now works at Daimler Chrysler, previously known as Car Distributor Assemblies (CDA), commented on workers struggled to create representative organisations and how unions began to emerge at factories such as CDA:
“Unions were crushed and they couldn’t operate. We had to go underground to mobilise. We spoke with other workers about the unions. You see, people talked when they were sitting around, saying, ‘Hey this place is on top of us and pushing us down, so something must be done.’ We were trying to mobilise people so that something could be done because we could not go on like that. We tried this and this and this; we asked other places and they said that they have done this and this. So we tried from there and then the strikes began to grow until they opened up a gap so that we could also join the union. So then we joined the union with the Coloureds. We joined that union and it started working. The bosses tried to suppress that but the more they suppressed it, that’s when the people knew that this thing was going to work, because if they had just left it as it was, it would not have grown the way it grew. Because of them suppressing this thing, it came out very, very strong... People felt proud when the union was finally recognised because they knew they were going to have protection now. In those days we were fighting for one common thing - we were oppressed and we were fighting to liberate ourselves.”

Fearing that the bosses and the state would fire or victimise workers who began to organise, or that they would be arrested by police, the majority of workers initially chose not to form representative bodies or to elect a visible leadership. In some companies, worker representatives had been members of the liaison or work’s committees, but in others, they were elected by workers during the actual strikes. Rather than focusing on setting up structures and representative bodies, much of the style of negotiation and worker action during this period was characterised by spontaneous action and sudden "wildcat" strikes; thereby limiting the ability of employers and police to take preventative measures or target worker leaders. Over time, an African union movement developed out of these strikes, but it did so on a factory-by-factory basis rather than through the establishment of a mass-based industrial movement as had been the case in the 1940s.

Conclusions

After years of repression and limited worker and community action following the banning of mass organisations in the early 1960s, and the subsequent banning of 160 officials of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) in 1966, the wave of strikes that erupted in Durban in 1973 and which then spread to major industrial centres including East London were a clear sign that the working class was beginning to stir once again. Having been thrust into a rapidly industrialising economy which had resulted in the proletarianisation and inclusion of a large number of black workers in the economy, the working class sought to find expression for emerging forms of organisation and representation.

The struggles of this growing black working class were strengthened because issues were not simply taken up as narrow “bread and butter” workplace issues but were linked to broader community struggles – the struggles of workers over wages were linked to the struggles of communities in their fight against bus fare increases. These in turn were linked to the struggles of students who were being forced to learn in Afrikaans. All these struggles coalesced around a broader struggle against Apartheid and the Bantustan system.

It was out of this atmosphere of rising confidence and the experiences and struggles of workers and communities that today’s trade unions emerged and grew. The labour movement and community organisations that grew out of these strikes and boycotts in the 1970s (combined with the earlier struggles that had been fought before this time) played a critical role in the struggle against apartheid capitalism and in making gains for working people.

 “Azikwelwa – We won’t ride”: The Mdantsane Bus Boycott of 1974

A key form of struggle in South Africa has been that of boycotts. The strategy of a bus boycott enhances and lends itself to solidarity action – bus boycotts generate their own solidarity because they are visible, and directly impact on the broader community. The SALHP researched the Mdantsane Bus Boycott of 1974 - 1975.

Even though the apartheid government wanted to keep black and white people separate, the South African economy depended on black people living near and working in  “white” areas. In order to supply cheap labour for the economy, the state had established the “bantustans” or “homelands” policy. This meant that blacks were required to live in the “homelands” and commute to the “white” areas to work. Those who were already living in “white” areas were forced to move to the “homelands”. As a result of this policy, people who had been living in Duncan Village in East London were forcibly removed in 1964 and resettled in the township called Mdantsane in the Ciskei.

Comrade Alfred Metele who was involved in the 1974 bus boycott had this to say about the forced removals:
“People did not want to move from Duncan Village to Mdantsane because people were thinking of the distance of travelling from Mdantsane. It was about 12 kilometres to East London where you cannot foot all the way. People used to foot the way from Duncan Village to work. Now, when we were moved to Mdantsane, it was so difficult. Even buses were so scarce. It was not easy.”

Poor bus service and high bus fares

People who worked in the industrial areas and city of East London were forced to get up very early to travel the 20 kilometres to and from Mdantsane every day. In order for them to travel all this way to the city to earn very little, they had to spend a large part of their low wages on bus fares that were paid to the Border Passenger Transport Company. The passengers complained that the buses were often not on time, that the schedules changed without notice, and that buses were overcrowded and usually dirty.

Increase in bus fares

Passengers who had to use bus transport grew increasingly angry about this state of affairs. To make matters worse, the Bus Company announced that from 2nd December 1974 there would be an increase in the bus fares and most passengers would have to pay an extra eight cents each day.

“Azikwelwa” – “We won’t ride”

In the last week of November 1975 after the increases had been announced, several community meetings were held in the twelve wards of Mdantsane Township in order to prepare for action.

Reverend A.S. Buso was interviewed by SALHP and had this to say: “It was during the regime of the Ciskeian government. They had their buses and those buses were directly involved with the government. They wanted to raise the fares without consulting the community. We reacted because we felt that the fee they wanted was too much for us. So we came together as a community and decided not to board any of those buses. We planned it. We had meetings. Even though they were illegal meetings as far as the Ciskeian government was concerned, we had secret meetings. It was a sort of underground movement because we could not just have an open meeting. We spread the gospel to everybody telling them that we are no more going to board these buses.”

Comrade Nonda Payi: “When we were travelling together we were talking about our problems. People decided not to board the buses and rather use the train, because of that common feeling.”

On the morning of 2nd December 1974, which was the first working day on which the increased fares were supposed to come into effect, the commuters from Mdantsane refused to board the buses and started walking to work, while others took pirate taxis or caught trains into East London.

At the very beginning of the campaign, a few commuters did not know about the boycott and had boarded buses before 5-45am but after shouts of, “Hit! Hit!” were heard and stones were thrown at buses, people no longer boarded the buses.

Very soon the boycott reached 100% effectiveness. For six weeks, over 200 000 residents of Mdantsane refused to board any of the buses which were virtually the only means of transport for commuters living in the township.

“Some people had some small cars. We used to squeeze into those cars. But we usually woke up at five o’ clock and footed down there because these cars were not able to convey us to our various places of work.” - Reverend Dias Buso

“People organised themselves into lift clubs to be able to get to work because they had nothing against the work itself at that stage but they were addressing a problem that seemed to be a cancer in their lives – that of their lives being regimented by a system, the homeland system, which was not acceptable to them.” - Dr Msauli

“The homeland government had never been acceptable to the majority of people in the Eastern Cape. When the homeland government then tried to muscle in regarding issues concerning communities, including transportation, the communities found a good excuse to let out their anger at government. They could not see why government was involved if it was a community problem, namely transportation to and from work. Their anger came up and they said that this is something that we should be addressing, which they did. That’s why they came and showed up - the communities were showing their distaste for the homeland government system which was never acceptable to them. That is why the boycott took the route it did.” - Dr Msauli

“We were beaten to board the buses whilst we didn’t want to. There were those business people that used to force us. I suppose they thought that was a way of resolving the boycott. We were sjambokked to board the buses.” - Cde Nonda Payi

Commuters did not heed Chief Minister Sebe’s appeals and the boycott did not come to an end. Buses were again stoned on New Year’s Day and the service was brought to a standstill. In the face of the united action of the Mdantsane residents, Sebe called on the Mdantsane Township Council to talk to the residents about what the company take-over would mean and when they should start using the buses again. Several meetings were then held in Mdantsane on the weekend of the 5th of January but only one zone believed that the boycott should end.

The struggle continues

On 8th January, the Mdantsane Township Council distributed a pamphlet saying that the boycott was now over and that the fares had been reduced to the amount that they had been before the increase was introduced. However, simply issuing a pamphlet was not going to get commuters back onto the buses. By 10th January the boycott showed no sign of ending and the appeals of the Ciskei Government fell on deaf ears. No one boarded the buses.

On 10th January the Border Passenger Transport Company announced that it was going to be shutting down its transport service as from the 13th of January because it had lost more than R750 000 since the boycott had begun.

Comrade Sicelo Ndevu: “The police and the Ciskei authorities brought in vigilantes and people from the rural areas to Mdantsane to crush the boycott. There were many grievances and many people were assaulted during 1974 – 1975. Because we were linking the question of transport with the wages that we were getting from the industries – that was the struggle and it was influenced by the conditions we faced.”

Finally, at 5:45am on 13th January, exactly six weeks since the boycott began, the first full bus left the terminus. Over the next few days, passengers slowly trickled back to use the buses.

On 30th January, Chief Minister Sebe and the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, Mr M. C. Botha, announced that the Xhosa Development Corporation had taken over the Border Passenger Transport Company.

Outcomes and lessons from the boycott

An obvious outcome of the boycott was that the fares were not increased and more buses were made available. However, a key outcome was the growing sense of solidarity and confidence amongst working people.

As Comrade Nonda Payi said: “I think that the bus boycott was one of the strikes that made us open and made us know that we are also doing well because those other strikes were mostly by the workers. The working people were affected by that bus boycott. The boycott had an impact on the people because it opened our eyes so that we can fight for our rights. Because our human rights were taken away from us - they were telling us what to do and what not to do, so we decided for ourselves. We learned lessons from doing that.”

Reverend Buso told the SALHP about how the community was united in their struggle: “In a way I will say that that the bus boycott itself made most of the people recognise that they can fight for their right. And if they are united nothing can stop them from getting what they need. I think that the bus boycott in a way, was a stepping-stone to unite the community. They were liberating themselves in all spheres of life. Ultimately, we won the battle because we did not board the buses up until such time that things were changed. I would say that it was almost parallel with the present struggle when the people were fighting for the liberation of this country because that was also another strategy for fighting for liberation.”

Comrade Metele: “People were so united in 1974. Hence, in the later 1983 bus boycott, the boycott started very well because people knew what had happened in 1974. They were so united. Most of the people at that time, even though the organisation was banned, they were singing freedom songs on the way to town.”

A key lesson from the Mdantsane Bus Boycott was that all sectors of the community - workers, youth, women, the elderly, students and all residents - came together in united action against the bus company, the state and its police and “homeland” leaders. The solidarity of the residents highlights how the designers of separate development were stung by their own tail – having forced people to move to live in an isolated township, they had increased the level of frustration in the community and had facilitated the coming together of people in one place over their commonly shared frustrations.

In conclusion, we can see that a number of factors prompted residents and commuters to take action. Many of these commuters had experienced the strength of united action because they had been involved in the industrial strikes of the previous year. Their anger about the Bantustan system and their recent forced removal to Mdantsane Township also remained close to the surface. The growing confidence that black South Africans were developing as a result of the black consciousness movement led by people like Steve Biko, as well as the news of the recent liberation of Mozambique and Angola from Portuguese domination in 1974 also inspired them to stand up for their rights. In addition, their determination to do something about their situation was strengthened by the growing dissatisfaction of school students about gutter education and being taught in Afrikaans.

Go to top