Another Victory for Trade Unionism: The 1918 Cape Town Musicians’ Strike

Nineteen-eighteen was a significant year for Cape Town (and South Africa generally). The influenza epidemic with many thousands of deaths and the end of the Great War which had claimed several thousands more lives, followed by the armistice celebrations throughout the Union were the highlights. Additionally further manifestations of the ongoing conflicts between labour and capital was witnessed: the masons' and the printers' strikes, the two police strikes and finally the musicians' strike. ¹It is the latter strike which will be examined here not because it was the most successful, but for other reasons which hopefully will become apparent as the story unfolds.

A. THE BACKGROUND OF THE STRIKE

Spanish influenza embarrassed not only the municipal and governmental authorities, uncovering as it did the appalling living conditions of the Cape Town black population²and the working class strata of European population in general but also "entertainment" and other capitalists. The death toll rising day by day ³had forced eight bioscopes in District Six to close down by the 8th October 1918. ⁴

By that day the most popular Cape Town theatres and bioscopes (Opera House, Tivoli, Alharmbra, Wolfram's and the Grand) had closed down ⁵leaving only the Majestic and the Regal open until the next day. ⁶These theatres were kept closed until the 30th October, their reopening being a financial disaster for the sole owner (African Theatres Trust) mainly for two reasons: poor audiences and the absence of musicians presenting "live" music. These employees of the African Theatre Trust reacting to the policy of "no play, no pay" set by the Trust management, refused to return to work, their demands being clear and significant:

(a) Payment of their three weeks' wages and salaries;

(b) A twenty per cent increase of their wages; and

(c) Employment of Union men only in the bioscopes. ⁷

The African Theatres Trust turned down their demands and the strike of the musicians had started.

B. THE AFRICAN THEATRES TRUST

The story of show business in Cape Town and South Africa generally is a fascinating one.

Economically speaking many individuals and companies involved in the "entertainment industry" and running bioscopes or theatres suddenly found themselves bankrupt, due to the competition and high maintenance costs. ⁸Even the monopolistic "Empire Theatres Company" found itself in the position of provisional liquidation due to National Bank claims of approximately 15 768 pounds and sundry creditors' claims of approximately 10 629 pounds ⁹. People with a long history of economic interests in the theatrical enterprise were also hit. The Wheelers who were the best established impresarios in South Africa, sold their interests to the Australian firm of J.C. Williamson Ltd, during the same year, 1913. ¹⁰However, the market was opened up for future investors who, having sound financial backing, would be able to exploit the potential of the entertainment industry and turn it into a money-making machine. Isidore William Schlesinger, one time small grocer-shop owner, peddlar and insurance salesman, ¹¹who had become a financial colossus in 1910, sixteen years after his arrival in South Africa, was the man to take up the task of turning the entertainment business into a major capitalist enterprise.

In April, 1913 he bought controlling interest in the Empire Theatre Company which had at the time a paid-up share capital of 58 000 pounds and a debenture issue of 50 000 pounds. ¹²At the time it was reported ¹³that Shlesinger planned to bring about an amalgamation of the Empire Theatres and the Africa's Amalgamated Theatres. This would put him in a monopolistic position and cause a financial setback, if not obscurity, for the independent enterprises, by having to compete with a financial colossus controlling not only the theatres, but also the distributing agencies. And this was the case. Schlesinger laid the foundation stone of the "Africa Theatres Trust Limited" (hereafter referred to as a A T T or the Trust), which was destined in the following decades to play the leading role in the economic and entertainment life of Cape Town and South Africa generally. He bought all the assets of the Empire Theatres Company including all its subsidiary theatres and he absorbed Africa's Amalgamated Theatres into A T T. He also bought the liquidated Palladium Company ¹⁴which meant that A T T now had under its control every important bioscope in Johannesburg and many other major centres of the union. But this was not Schlesinger's final move towards total domination of the South African entertainment enterprise. He convinced the two major film-distributing agencies (one of them headed by Harry Stodel) ¹⁵to merge with him, thus gaining control not only of the whole music hall business, ¹⁶fifty cinemas in South Africa, but also the distribution enterprise through the newly founded "African Films Trust" of which he was chairman.

As Gutsche ¹⁷points out, this was a turning point leading to a new era in the South African entertainment circuit. A "Cooperative" monopolistic and monopolistic corporation controlled an assured market, full of opportunities and potential for accumulation. The independent organisations and individual entrepreneurs were put in a desperate position due to the problems arising from the monopolisation of distribution by the African Films Trust, heavy taxation, high costs of maintenance, and the high wages of musicians and performers generally. Their very daily existence was highly questionable.

Thus with one simple move (ie putting into practice a new "corporation" policy) Schlesinger furthered his financial interests and became capable of monopolising the economic ideological and political functions of the entertainment industry. The war conditions had made "bioscope" the most popular form of entertainment and the most dynamic machine of open war propaganda and psychosis. Topical war documentaries brought out by the British War Office were amongst the most popular features, ¹⁸serving not only as propaganda, ¹⁹but as a good opportunity for American and English film companies to make huge and easy profits by selling cheap patriotism to eager jingoist audiences, of which Cape Town was no exception.

The propaganda significance of films such as "Lest we Forget" (an American patriotic melodrama), "The martyrdom of Nurse Cavell" and "Cardinal Mercier" is demonstrated by Gutsche ²⁰with sufficient details, as well as the role of the American Propaganda Bureau's connection with independent corporations and producers of war propaganda movies which eventually terminated after a happy cooperation, to the great annoyance of South African audiences. ²¹

By 1917 the few remaining independent enterprises had been absorbed by the Trust and the isolated efforts of independent companies to survive were doomed to failure. The entertainment industry proved to be a very good investment for Schlesinger, whose next financial adventure the opening of the Colonial Bank provided new paths for financial capital in South Africa.

The State's dissatisfaction with Schlesinger and the A T T regarding their refusal to show two English war propaganda movies in their cinemas in 1917, ²²and the bitter sentiments of the public against the Trust and Schlesinger personally, ²³were neither a big blow nor a threat for the entrepreneur. He accused the State of showing these movies to packed audiences at cheap prices all over the Union²⁴in an effort to capitalise against the economic interests of the Trust. It can be seen thus that Schlesinger was a keen patriot and propagator of the "Allied" cause provided this did not clash with his own financial interests.

C. THE STRIKE

I THE AT T'S MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

During the first stage of the strike the musicians and their representatives were faced by the management of the A T T with a straight hardline "refusal" to their demands. ²⁵The Trust's management during that first stage was crystal clear that its policy of "no play, no pay" which was the common policy of all entertainment enterprises in Europe and America, would be the basis for any future negotiation and that they would never deviate from this principle. Their other base for future negotiations would be that the union and strikers' representatives would never deviate from this principle. Their other basis for future negotiations would be that the union and the strikers' representatives should recognise the fact that as musicians and doorkeepers were not permanent full-time staff, hence their strike was illegal. ²⁶The A T T manager was Harry Stodel, a leading member of the City's Jewish community ²⁷formerly a controller of a movie distribution agency covering the whole of the African continent ²⁸and noted for his passionate and intensive recruiting campaign during the war. ²⁹Although wholeheartedly advocating this hard-line attitude of "refusal", he had to compromise after a while in order to put a brake on the escalation of the union's activities. He started a policy of bargaining with the union and the Federation of Trade after consulting Schlesinger and the attorneys of the Trust. ³⁰

Stodel and McCallum, the A T T's attorney, had a meeting with representatives of the Unions and the Federation of Trades in Opera House, under the chairmanship of the Deputy Mayor. ³¹Stodel offered a four-point plan for the settlement of the dispute but this was turned down by the Federation and the Unions involved. ³²At the same time Stodel and his associates started spreading rumours around Cape Town that the musicians' strike was to end ³³in a desperate effort to raise doubts among the musicians living in the outskirts of town and not participating actively in the Union activities. These efforts were to prove fruitless because of the careful counteraction and determination of the strikers and their representatives. The reopening of several popular Cape Town bioscopes and theatres after the termination of the 'flu' epidemic created a new problem for the management, who at that time had to face several difficulties besides the strike, viz the tremendous financial setback and the problem of the non-attendance of the public because of the lack of "live" performance and sympathy for the strikers.

The economic problem, and consequences of the lack of popular public support, high rents and expensive maintenance proved to be the most crucial of all: Stodel revealed that as result of the 'flu' epidemic A T T had lost 28 000 pounds in the Cape Province alone. ³⁴He maintained that the Tivoli (already re-opened) was losing 73 pounds per night and that the Opera House, whose rental was 600 pounds per week was suffering even more severely. ³⁵The economic stagnation facing the Trust can be better understood from the fact that the new independent Cape Town bioscopes were fully supported by the public and were packed every night because they had agreed to the demands of the Musicians' Unions and the musicians were consequently performing there. ³⁶Stodel endeavoured to attract musicians back to the reopened bioscopes but was not successful. A letter written by Stuart to the major Cape Town newspapers exposed Stodel's recruiting methods, ³⁷maintaining the determination of the Union and the Federation to withdraw all their member from the A T T's enterprise. ³⁸

Public support for the reopened Trust's bioscopes was minimal as the public's sympathy lay with the strike. Stodel tried unsuccessfully to put the blame for this lack of support on the illness of the people resulting from the epidemic. ³⁹Although in the same interview he made the prophecy that the public would again support A T T's bioscopes in a "few months' time", he reopened and ran all of them at a great loss. He challenged the musicians to work, hoping thereby to prove that it was the epidemic and not the public sympathy for the strike which kept the audiences away. This statement was not only a manifestation of his weakness in bargaining with them, especially the needy ones. It did not work.

Now it was Schlesinger's turn for bargaining. Following an appeal to him by the Labour Party-inclined Cape journal. The South African Review, requesting him to come to Cape Town to settle the differences, (an appeal clearly insinuating the failure of Stodel's bargaining strategy), Schlesinger himself made a proposal through the columns of the journal for a settlement. ⁴⁰He mentioned (though not specifically) that the Trust would welcome a change in the principle of "no play, no pay" and offered the striking musicians half-pay for the period during which the "theatres were closed by the public authority". ⁴¹This offer for settlement was totally different however, from the previously mentioned four-point plan drawn up by Stodel, or the suggestions made in Johannesburg by H D Hill, the general manager of the Trust, who was categorical that the Trust had no intentions of paying any salaries to the striking musicians "with the exception of some old and needy ones". ⁴²

Although the statement made by Stodel ⁴³that "individual cases would be gladly considered" and that of the general manager are similar, how can one explain Schlesinger's plan? Are they contradictory in nature and if so, why? It seems that it was a part of the Trust management's overall strategy to make contradictory statements in order to keep some sort of flexibility against the demands of the musicians; but Schlesinger's appeal quoted above signifies manifestation of the difficult position he had found himself in but also it showed clearly some fear of a political nature. Schlesinger had understood that if settlement was not to be reached, the majority of the musicians would probably turn their backs on the trade unions and their Federation representatives at some future stage, rejecting their bargaining reformism, and would be led to more radical alternatives.

Anyway Schlessinger's statement did not do any good because he left out the payment issue, not only of the three weeks demanded by the strikers but also the payment of wages and salaries owed for the days of the strike. In addition the other demand of the strikers (i.e. the twenty per cent increase) was left out of the whole question of settlement. ⁴⁴The management's main reason for not even touching on this issue was that most of the operators were not only overpaid - according to them - (bearing in mind that they were only part-time employees) but that most of the operators after a while had the opportunity of becoming A T T's officers and managers! ⁴⁵

The Trust's management acted not only on the bargaining level. A careful use of the columns of Cape Town's biggest newspapers (and thus the manipulation of public opinion) was another tool wisely used by the A T T's local lieutenants. Letters supposedly sympathetic towards the musicians' cause were in actual fact a covered A T agitation against them ⁴⁶and newspaper reports and editorials supposedly supporting the strikers' demands were openly advocating a settlement in favour of the trust. ⁴⁷The "South African Review", the controversial Labour-backed journal, not only covered the strike inadequately, but the small columns devoted to it were openly sympathetic towards the policy of the Trust, ⁴⁸not to mention, of course, the popular "Stage, Cinema and South African Pictorial", published by the "Argus" group of companies, which not only turned out to be A T T's biggest supporter and official mouthpiece, but even venomously attacked and accused the Cape Town "yellow press" of more or less pro-Communist sympathises (for being almost "neutral" during the period of the dispute). ⁴⁹

Another aspect of the policy of the A T T management was the recruiting and collaboration of certain members of musicians' circles who did not advocate the strike. Thus, in a letter to the Cape Argus, certain musicians and operators of the Alhambra and Wolfram's Theatres (members of the permanent staff), ⁵⁰accused their fellow musicians of being totally ungrateful. The anti-strike lobby / musicians should stand by those who supported them in their time of need. Their position as members of the permanent staff can be assumed to be the reason of not participating in the strike, but as can be gauged their number was insignificant indeed.

Last but not least, the A T T management did not try to stop certain acts of violence of their paid lieutenants against innocent strikers. ⁵¹These acts obviously did not solve the problem; rather they aggravated the tensions.

II THE MUSICIANS' COUNTER-STRATEGY

The financial difficulties facing the A.T.T. musicians after the influenza epidemic was the main cause of the strike. These "part-time employees" as the Trust management called them, although constituting one of the relatively well-paid sections of the middle class, found themselves in a position where the only way of fighting for their legitimate demands was by striking. The cost of living in the Peninsula, following the economic crisis of the war years, has risen considerably, making the financial position of most sections of the working population very difficult. The price of even the most basic means of subsistence had increased dramatically (i.e. the sugar price increased by 100 percent during the period 1916 - 1918, meat had increased by 60 percent, eggs by 50 percent, and cheese and butter by 80 percent), ⁵²and the monthly expenditure of a family had risen generally by 43,73 percent during the same years. ⁵³The hard line position taken by Stodel in the first stage of the strike was another point strengthening the determination of the musicians to take further action against the Trust.

In the first stage the strike faced problems of absolute isolation and sectionalism due to the fact that the Johannesburg and Natal entertainment industries had not been as severely struck by the influenza, and the entertainment centres had kept open during the whole epidemic; thus the musicians and their unions operating in these areas were not very sympathetic towards the idea of a strike. ⁵⁴This included the Trust employees. ⁵⁵Although there were some moves by certain members of the Transvaal's union for a nationwide strike in solidarity with the Cape Town musicians ⁵⁶(the same thing occurred in Natal too), ⁵⁷it seems that the 100-strong Transvaal musicians' and Cinematograph Operators' Union and its instructors (namely the Transvaal Federation of Trades of the South African Industrial Federation) did not attach much importance to the Cape Town strike. The only indication of solidarity with the Cape strikers was their instructions to their players travelling around to give moral support to the Capetonians. ⁵⁸

The Natal musicians and their union totally ignored the strike, demonstrating once more how middle class, "closed" trade unions forget the struggle after securing their own position and the manifestation of the total failure of sectional, exclusive and purely economic trade unionism. Lack of capable leadership was the second major problem facing the musicians, and this fact drove the union directly into the arms of the "masters of bargaining" (the Cape Federation of Trades), a move celebrated enthusiastically in Johannesburg by the Secretary of the South African Industrial Federation, Archie Crawford, a champion of "revolutionary reformism". ⁵⁹The determination of the union's rank and file members became obvious through the whole process of the strike, but the fact that the Federation had taken over the negotiation procedures proved to be the biggest mistake made by the Union leadership.

In the first stage the Federation felt obliged to advertise the strike through the local press in a pessimistic and defeatist tone. ⁶⁰Then it appeared to several unions, such as the National Union of Railway and Harbour Services ⁶¹and the Cabinet Workers' Union ⁶²to prevent their members, their families and friends from attending certain places of amusement (those controlled by the Trust) while the strike was in progress. The workers of Cape Town did show their solidarity with the striking musicians by massive participation in all their agitation activities such as the mass demonstration in Adderly Street⁶³and the "action-packed" music demonstration conducted by Mr. Riegelhuth in the City Hall. ⁶⁴Parading in Adderly Street playing popular songs, thus gaining the support and sympathy of the public, seemed to be one of the prime considerations and agitation techniques planned by the Federation. But in the long run it was surely a move to silence the rising opposition amongst certain radical elements of the rank and file members, by keeping them always occupied in performances, outside the agitation process, while the negotiations were continuing. The solidarity of the Cape Town "aristocracy of labour" with the striking musicians was demonstrated too, even from the beginning of the dispute, when labour leaders such as A. F Batty of the Labour Union, Freestone of the Federation of Trades and E H Jones of the Society of Railway and Harbour Servants addressed a mass crowd outside the Alhambra bioscope in the first day of the strike, stating that their organisations were "with all their heart and soul with them". ⁶⁵

Economically, most of the musicians (mainly the part-time ones, the family men and the older and needy ones) were subsidised by the daily street collections, the biggest one being that of the 1st of November. ⁶⁶The regular movie shows "in defence of the strike" in the City Hall were used not only as agitation meetings but also as fund-raising events. ⁶⁷The Federation took the fullest advantage of the feelings engendered in the public by the armistice celebrations. The victory mood had been extensively used as an agitation channel, sometimes ridiculing the whole task of the strike (especially when most of the time the musicians parading in Adderley Street holding the banner "Musicians Strike - Support the Musicians' Fight for Right", were playing monotonously only two tunes -"Tipperary" and "Britons never shall be Slaves") ⁶⁸and wearing colourful clothes, thus "celebrating victory together with the Mayor and the street prostitutes". ⁶⁹

The process of the strike and the procedures following it were concentrated around a purely economistic agitation manifested through an ongoing relationship (bargaining) between two parties external to the strike, one of them (A.T.T.) trying to push a quick settlement and the other trying desperately to preserve a stable bargaining relationship and the "rules of the game" which is presupposes. Crawford correctly stated that a twenty percent increase in .the musicians' wages was a "must", because their wages were on a pre-war scale, during the first stages of the strike. ⁷⁰At the same time, he forgot to mention that bioscope managers and other officials had not been deprived, but had been paid by the Trust immediately, ⁷¹an increased salary, in fact. ⁷²Crawford's empty words were not a real threat to the Trust because they were separated from action, alienating at the same time the rank and file members from more militant activities, by letting them believe that their case was put in the right hands. The expertise, competence and efficiently of Crawford and his associates and the significance of their role in the negotiation process, together with the agitation channels chosen carefully by the Federation in order not to disturb the existing "law and order" was one more manifestation of the theory that trade unions very rarely "challenge the existing of a society based on a division of classes, they merely express it". ⁷³

The spontaneous action of the rank and file striking musicians which should naturally have led to two things, i.e. a set of immediate demands and institutional, modes of behaviour designed to achieve them, led to the former only, because the fate of the strike was left in the hands of the protagonists of the idea of an "orderly, moderate, and responsible organisational process".

The Federation, through the negotiation process, became not the leader of the strike, but the disciplining agent of the rank and file members, working hand in hand with the natural enemies of the strikers, i.e. the Company, trying all the time to discipline the discontented elements amongst the unionised and other employees, to keep the aspirations of the strikers to purely economic and "unionist" levels, to control every political movement of the more militant strikers and mainly to show the public the "orderly and civilised" nature of the strike. On the other side, by posing as the sole representatives of the workers, not only by acting as their mediators in their negotiations with the Trust, but by asking the Company to employ union members only in the fature, ⁷⁴"trade unionist consciousness" was created amongst the musicians, a consciousness quite compatible with the de fecto acceptance of the existing social system under which workers lived.

The lack of a clear plan of long-term and short-term demands on the part of the Federation and its inability to bargain on equal terms with the Company, alienated the leadership from its base and led to an easy surrender of the aspirations of the musicians, on the 27 the November, 1918. ⁷⁵

D. THE FEDERATION SURRENDERS: SETTLEMENT IS REACHED

The negotiation process had obviously tired Schlesinger and the Trust management who, judging from the workers' solidarity with the strike, started having fears of more militant action. Thus the only solution was to accelerate the bargaining process and that is why they sent Wilfred Cotton to Cape Town as their chief negotiator, ⁷⁶a person who, according to people who knew the entertainment industry well, was the only one capable of coming to a satisfactory agreement with the strikers. ⁷⁷At a meeting in the City Hall on the 15th of November 1918, with Mr. Gardener (deputy mayor) in the chair, Stuart, Batty (the Musicians' Union representative), and Cotton, the Federation demands were discussed. They were:

(a) Full payment of wages and salaries to musicians, ushers, doorkeepers and other employees concerned, for the whole period that the bioscopes were closed owing to the epidemic;

(b) Immediate return of the people involved in the strike to their jobs and no victimisation of them or any other persons sympathetic to the cause of the strike;

(c) Immediate dismissal of all those who worked in the bioscope against the best interests of the Association and the Unions during the dispute;

(d) The assurance that the agreement would last for two years without any prejudice to any demands for increases in wages and salaries of any other matter referred to in the above clauses; and

(e) That no employee should be engaged in any capacity unless he or she had become a member of the Association or Union.

In other words there was no mention of the twenty percent increase, nor of the salaries and wages due to be paid during the absence from work of the musicians because of the strike. The one step forward could not compensate for the two steps back, and this was only the beginning of the backward movement of the musicians' representatives. The Trust's mouthpiece (Cotton), in his first tactical move, abandoned clauses (c) and (e), the latter being replaced by the statement that when a performer was required the Trust would apply first to the Union, but in case of inability of the Secretary to supply a "suitable" one, the Company could make other arrangements. Cotton further indicated that the Trust was ready to pay wages for one-and-a-half weeks only and asked the Federation to accept this in order to come to a "full settlement of all claims". ⁷⁸Following a letter from Schlesinger to Cotton accepting the latter's proposals as expressed above (except clause (e), which was totally unacceptable), a meeting was called again under the chairmanship of Gardener. ⁷⁹The main problem of the two parties at that time was only the cloud hanging around clause (e); other points such as the twenty percent increase and the payment for the days of the strike or the date of expiry of the settlement were forgotten. The main task of the musicians' negotiators seemed to be the protection of the Union members by the retention of clause (e) of the agreement. The dispute between Stuart and Cotton over clause (e) went on to six days, in which the two men, one trying to retain and the other trying to exclude it from the agreement ⁸⁰exchanged letters.

The final three meetings under the chairmanship of the deputy Mayor took place during the morning and evening of the 21st and on the morning of the 22nd November. The new "faces" in the negotiations were H. Say (the new chairman of the Strike Committee, replacing Batty) and Grey, representing the Musicians' Union. A mass meeting of the strikers followed this on the 23rd when they accepted all changes suggested by the Trust. The meeting accepted only one-and- a-half weeks' payment, was silent about the twenty percent increase demand, and voted that the agreement would remain in practice for one year only.

Clause (e) was abandoned completely because, according to the Trust, "it would restrict the freedom in conducting their business". ⁸¹

That night the music-lovers could go to sleep in peace. The Union's blockheads had worked out the perfect solution for them at the expense of the musicians, of course.

E. CONCLUSION

The 1918 Cape Town musicians' strike started as a direct challenge of a section of the city's working population against a monopolistic company which controlled the entire entertainment industry at the time. It became evident in the process that the management planned to destroy the union and the unity of the strikers; especially through a sophisticated media campaign and it used contradictory tactics and strategies in order to achieve its aims. The union's determination was shown by its alternative efforts to popularise the strike and solidify continuous support for it. From the time the coordinating body of the S. A. Labour Federation led by Archie Crawford took charge of the negotiations the battle was lost. The workers' negotiators operated as disciplining agents of the workers and the compromising solutions and decisions to end the strike were a sound defeat of the strikers and those who had supported them so resolutely.

* It first appeared in "Studies in the History of Cape Town", Vol 2, 1980.