For years, scholars questioned the origins of the Durban mass strikes of 1973. What they missed was the crucial role of women before and during the pivotal labour movement, writes Eddie Cottle.

In the first three months of 1973, there were 160 strikes in Durban, South Africa that engulfed 146 establishments and united around 61,410 workers of all backgrounds. The sheer size of the strikes bewildered everyone. The strikes were not led by intellectuals or trade unions, they were grassroots movements. Descriptions of the strikes used the gender-neutral term ‘worker’, which hid the role of women and ignored the leadership of black women in the strikes.

The 1960s has previously been described as a ‘long period of acquiescence’. However, revised strike data shows that the average annual number of strikes increased from 66 to 74 from the 1950s to the 1960s. The textiles and clothing industries played a prominent role, industries that employed women.

Women prepare the upsurge

A study by Black Sash said up to 80 per cent of employees in the textile factories around the Pinetown industrial complex were women. The complex was the epicentre of the upsurge in strikes in 1973. The data also shows peaks in women’s strike action in women-dominated industries came before the upticks in male strike activity.

In 1963, the Garment Workers’ Union mobilised workers for an overtime strike in Natal. The outcome is unclear, but it is likely the Natal Clothing Manufacturers’ Association caved into the demands. There were two significant textile strikes in 1964: one at Consolidated Lancashire Cotton Corporation in New Germany, and another at a textiles factory in Benoni. Workers in Benoni were challenging wage levels and a new 11-hour shift.

Just two years before the Durban mass strikes the 1971 offensive female-led strike, ended with workers getting massive concessions from management. The sheer size of the regional garment strike was unparalleled since the African mineworkers’ strike of 1946. It functioned as a trigger that set off a wave of strikes. The level of mobilisation reached in 1971 continued into 1972 and 1973 when the Durban mass strikes took place.

Technological and labour process change

Sam Mhlongo has argued that the outbreak of worker resistance reflected the structural changes taking place in settler economies. By the mid-sixties investment in the manufacturing sector had overtaken mining. This increased the number of Black workers at lower wages than their white counterparts. It combined with inflationary pressure which gave rise to strike waves beginning in 1972 and continuing into early 1973. 

The economic growth of Durban was more rapid than the rest of the country and textiles were at the centre of this growth during the 1960s and early 1970s. By 1976 the Natal clothing and textile sector made up the largest proportion (33.7 per cent) of all employment in the manufacturing sector. By the mid-sixties, the textile industry was the leader in introducing radical cost-cutting measures that increased after 1964. This encouraged the continuum of resistance that explains the prominence of the textiles and clothing industry in the Durban strikes.

Women lead

After the ninth strike in January 1973, a trickle turned into a wave of strikes. This is when textile and clothing workers became the centre of the movement. Industrial action spread to 27 establishments; 22 iron, steel, engineering, and metallurgical industries, 10 transport establishments, six cement establishments and five construction establishments.

According to Black Review, stick-wielding women and men marched from factory to factory, growing in number. After four days, wage increases were granted. In February, a series of textile and clothing strikes broke out in Hammarsdale, with women at a clothing factory marching in the streets to converge with three other textile and clothing factories, triggering strikes in the industrial complex with five more companies. By the end of the day, three more textile and clothing factories joined in a general strike in the area. In February, African women packers went on strike at a food canning factory in Empangeni, Zululand, and they were joined by men a few hours later. As the men exited the factory gates, they were greeted by chanting women who welcomed their participation.

While the mass strikes were centred in Durban, they were also countrywide. In Johannesburg, 21 strikes happened in the female-dominated clothing industry at the end of March. Strikes occurred in East London in January, and again in April – with women successfully ending the strike action.

Across all industries, the issues causing the strikes between 1960 and 1971 included working conditions, wages, payments and dismissals. It was a combination of the economic upswing, the implementation of labour-saving technologies and changes to the labour process that had become generalised by 1971, that set off resistance on the shop floor. The combination of these factors helps to explain the magnitude of the Durban 1973 mass strikes. The leading role of women in the textile and clothing industry as initiators of a new cycle of class struggle was so profound that the reverberations paved the way for the apartheid state finally to give legal recognition in 1979 to the establishment of an independent black trade union movement in South Africa.

This article is based on extracts from: Eddie Cottle. Fifty years ago, women led the Durban mass strikes. Review of African Political Economy. This Article was