Consenting to Labour Appropriation? The Mineworker on South African Gold and Coalmines, 1951 to 2011

Abstract

The argument of the moral economy of mines claims to illuminate the consent and associational power of mineworkers, and thereby the real foundation of social exchanges between management and black mineworkers. Our collection of life histories shows how the moral economy was fragile and its codes not widely accepted. As a tool of analysis it does not include certain facets of the workers’ experience, feeling and human essence. The moral–economic relationship was conducive to surplus extraction by eliminating the non-conformist but industrious or sick workers in the labour system. It contributed to morbid sexual and emotional ways of life. The life histories further reveal how the rank-and-file generally endorsed and participated in what Moodie depicts as a positive class compromise struck between management and the workers’ union from the 1980s to the 1990s. It brought to them conditions for a regular family life and ‘advancing humanity’. This notwithstanding, our narrators found that the norm of apartheid gave way to that of discrimination and differentiation between black workers. Management replaced white ‘boss-ism’ by economism and a corporatist model of labour–management relationship. It engendered the spirit of new ways to secure opportunity.