The Colonial State and Wage Labor in Postwar Sierra Leone, 1945–1960: Attempts at Remaking the Working Class

Abstract

The elaborate “remaking” of the African working class that took off in earnest in the period after 1945 has only recently begun to receive the attention of scholars working on African labor and working-class history. This process of remaking, as in nineteenth-century England, essentially involved the incorporation of the African working class into a system of industrial relations which would guarantee it a stake in society with regard to jobs, wages, housing, and general working conditions.