In 1928 the clothing industry presented a picture of primitive capitalism. There were about fifty factories on the Rand, roughly forty in Johannesburg and the rest in Germiston; of these only four employed a hundred or more workers and could be considered modern by South African industrial standards of that period. The rest were nearly all sweatshops, some large, some small. The making of garments requires little capital: a few willing hands, needles, scissors and the power of self-exploitation are all that is necessary. The majority of the manufacturers obtained their sewing machines on the hire-purchase system and their materials on credit, when they could get it. They did not sell their products to customers directly, but worked for wholesale merchants or retailers on a cut-make-and-trim basis. Having little or no capital of their own, they were forced to lead a hand-to-mouth existence. Even the well-established wholesale houses took full and mean advantage of these penniless employers and paid as little as three shillings for cutting, making and trimming a dozen pairs of trousers and less for shirts. The Industrial Conciliation Act made provision for minimum wages to employees, but at that time the fixing of contract rates by agreement was not included in the Act. Only in 1937, when the Act was amended, was provision made for the inclusion in industrial agreements of work given out on contract to any person by a principal or contractor and for the contract rates to be paid.
The struggle for existence forced the indigent manufacturers to engage in ruthless competition and reduced cut-make-and-trim prices to a fantastically low level.
Very few could afford patent machines for the sewing on of buttons, making buttonholes and other operations, and the handsaw was a luxury which was beyond their means. Scissors did the cutting, buttons were often sewn on by hand and buttonÂholes were hand-made. Steam pressing was unknown and, indeed, in at least one factory workers sitting on bundles of these garments did the pressing of cheap khaki trousers. Afrikaner workers are not of slender build and this primitive method served its purpose.
Most of these "manufacturers" maintained a miserable existence by pilfering. A merchant would supply a roll of cloth to cut-make-and-trim, say, a hundred garments, and the manufacÂturer would, by devious methods, squeeze out a hundred and five garments and keep the difference for himself. Wholesale pilfering of workers' wages was also common.
In spite of the existence of an industrial agreement which fixed minimum wages by law, scores of workers received no pay at all. They were told that they were " apprentices " learning a trade and had to be content with the hope of one day earning some wages. Hundreds were paid a few shillings a week and only the big factories made any attempt at observing the agreement, but even there underpayments were common. In some factories every worker was underpaid, in others only a small percentage received the legal minimum. The organisation and methods of production in many factories were badly out of date. Hardly any of the cut-make-and-trim manufacturers had regular supplies of work. For a few days they would be very busy and then a long period would follow when they had to look desperately for work. Frequently factories were forced to cease operations because the employer ran out of cotton. The cut-make-and-trim manufacturer had to supply cotton and trimmings which he usually had to buy for cash-and cash was always short.
During the first six months of my secretaryship I spent a good deal of my time examining and checking wages and wage registers. I usually called at the factories during the lunch hour and often found the employer and some workers sharing their lunch of sandÂwiches or fish and chips. I introduced myself and asked the employer to produce his register. Some employers had registers, others looked at me with amazement and said: "Register? What's that?" In several factories employers pulled out from their pockets bits and pieces of paper on which they had recorded the wages paid and informed me that these were their "registers". In those factories where registers were well kept and workers signed receipts over an affixed stamp, the records were not infrequently faked and the workers did not receive the full amount for which they had signed.
I took statements from the workers individually and thus ascertained the wages to which they were entitled under the agreement. When I checked the employer's register I usually found that many workers were being underpaid. I then informed the employer that he had underpaid his workers and would have to pay back-pay, not forgetting to emphasise that underpayments constituted criminal offences which carried penalties of six months' imprisonment and a £100 fine. It would take me some time and effort to explain the legal position to the employer, and on at least one occasion, when I presented a statement of underpayment, the bewildered employer looked at me and said:
"Look, Sachs, I don't know anything about the law and I'm not a criminal. I pay the workers as much as I can. When Friday comes and I have to find wages, I have to chase after those bloody merchants who give me work to get an advance from them for the following week. This week I haven't got a penny yet with which to pay wages. I know the workers are poor and they have to live, but what can I do? Where can I turn"?
On several occasions employers after telling me their tale of woe ended with the request: "Sachs, can you lend me a fiver to pay the wages? I'll pay you back next week with interest".
In this welter of misery, hours of work had neither beginning nor end. Often the employers would stay in the factory after the workers had left and continue working until midnight or later. Others made their employees take work away with them to finish and so turn their- tiny, overcrowded homes into workshops.
Conditions were terrible enough for the workers when there was a full week's work, but this was rare, and hundreds of them collected only a few shillings at the end of the week. The employers, not wanting to lose their workers, would beg them to come in every day, hoping to get work from merchants. Often the workers would spend the last few pence they had on tram fares to come to the factory, only to find that the employer had been unsuccessful in securing work or had been told by a merchant that Mr. X, another cut-make-and-trim man, was making garments Is. or 2s. a dozen cheaper and had got the work. Most of the garments produced were of the cheapest quality.
What the employers lacked in efficiency and organisation they tried to make up by driving the workers inhumanely, cursing and shouting at them. The majority of the factories were situated in slum premises, totally unsuitable for human beings. Lighting and sanitation were of the worst and the premises were usually extremely untidy. The inside of the workshops presented a most depressing picture. The "capitalist" employer, without a penny to his name, seemed harassed, tired and miserable. The air was foul; there was no sign of any organisation or order. Bundles of garments, finished and half-finished, were strewn all over the place, together with pieces of cut or uncut cloth. There was constant shouting-the foreman or the boss shouting at the workers, the workers shouting for cotton or for parts of garments. Only the bright faces of the young women, patiently toiling away, humming or singing "Sarie Marais" and other folk songs, relieved the utter sordidness of these sweating dens.
As far as the workers were concerned, their life was one endless struggle and worry bereft of all pleasure. Many literally starved. They did not understand the mechanics of capitalist production and felt no particular animosity towards their individual employers. Indeed, many of them were on quite friendly terms with their bosses.
In the four larger factories, where nearly half of the total number of workers was employed, things were very much better than in the rest of the industry. But there, too, the foreman relied on getting production, not by efficient organisation, but by slave-driving the workers, shouting at them and abusing them.
There were a few Coloured women workers in two or three factories, whose average wage was about 7s. 6d. a week, but as they were not members of the union and afraid to join or give information for fear of losing their jobs, it was very difficult to enforce the provisions of the agreement on their behalf.
There were also several hundred African workers-all males- employed almost exclusively as pressers and on other heavy work. Their conditions of work were very poor, but in a way they were better off than the Europeans. Under their contract of employment, pass laws, they had to be paid a full week's pay and off when times were slack. In addition, they were used to such very low standards of living that even the miserable if the clothing industry were an improvement for them.
At the beginning of 1929, the prospect of obtaining higher standards for the workers in the clothing industry seemed hopeless. It is always difficult to get employers to agree to improvements, even when they have abundant capital resources and make substantial profits to demand higher wages and better working conditions from employers who themselves were penniless and struggling to make ends meet seemed futile.
The various committees of the union were riot very helpful in formulating policies and tactics with which to combat sweating. Nearly all the committee members belonged to the group of higher-paid workers. They had received with their training in class the small workshop and were far too preoccupied with problems to find the time and energy to study and analyse complex problem of South Africa and its industrial revolution.
I knew little of the practical side of the clothing industry, but had knowledge of the economic and social problems of South Africa and the struggles which the workers in Britain and other had faced when the factory system was first introduced. I did not lack energy, and the terrible conditions of the workers with a strong desire for action and left me no time for despair hopelessness. I prepared lengthy memoranda for the committees, analysing the position and stressing that the problem was emotional one and not only common to the clothing industry,
The choice before the union was either to succumb to the surrounding misery and patiently wait for better times, or to fight with zeal and determination against every evil. The plan of campaign which the general membership finally adopted was briefly as follows: -
1. First of all, the masses of Afrikaner women workers must persuaded to join and play an active part in the trade union. Since they were complete strangers to trade unionism, we would undertake systematic educational work amongst them. The struggle could not be confined to purely trade union matters. The demand for improved working conditions must play a major role, but the problem of their poverty transcended the narrow field of trade unionism and was national in character.
2. The industrial agreements, which provided minimum wages and other conditions of employment for workers, were to be rigorously enforced by criminal prosecution, against employers who violated them and, where this proved ineffective, by strike and other action. Employers who could conduct clothing factories only by exploiting themselves and pilfering the workers' wages, and who could not provide reasonable standards for their workers, had either to change their methods or to get out. They were of no use to anyone, not to the country, not to the workers, not even to themselves. The Wage Act and the Factories Act, and all other laws dealing with questions of hygiene and sanitation, were to be enforced. In addition, the workers were to be taught the provisions of the industrial agreements and told to keep a check on their own wages and conditions of work and on those of other workers, to make sure whether all the provisions of the agreement were strictly observed. The workers were also to be invited to bring their wages to the union office to be checked and to lodge complaints. The union would undertake to protect every worker who might be victimised as a result of giving information, about contraventions of the agreement, to officials of the union or to the industrial councils.
3. Several of the leading employers, both in the tailoring and clothing industries, were ready to co-operate with the union in eliminating sweating. Naturally, the employers who paid higher wages and observed the provisions of the agreement were anxious to eliminate unfair competition from the small "rat" employers and the union was to co-operate with the better type of employers. We were to start a national campaign, by means of demonstrations, publications and newspaper articles, to expose the appalling conditions of the women workers in industry. Their abysmal poverty was not to be hidden, but must be flaunted in the faces of the public so as to arouse the conscience and sympathy of the mass of the people and thus force the government to take action.
In one respect, the union had been fortunate in its earlier strugg l es. Violent racial conflicts, which were later provoked by the propagandists of the Nationalist Party and dissipated so much of the energy of the union, were then unknown. At that time, there were two main racial groups in the union-several hundred Jewish workers and the rest nearly all Afrikaner women-and there was complete racial harmony. I recall an incident at a big general meeting in 1930 which illustrates this. The overwhelming majority of the members were Afrikaans-speaking and the union decided to introduce bilingualism in all spheres of its work. An Afrikaner woman, Mrs. Booysen, got up at the meeting and said: "It's all very well having English and Afrikaans, but what about the Jewish workers? Why shouldn't their language be recognised by the union?" But trilingualism had to be abandoned because nobody could be found who could speak and write Yiddish fluently and the task of translating terms of the industrial agreements into Yiddish proved quite hopeless.