Making apartheid work: African trade unions and the 1953 native labour (settlement of disputes) act in South Africa

Most analyses of apartheid labor policy focus on the regulation of the labor market rather than the industrial workplace. Instead, this article investigates the administration of South Africa's 195 3 Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act to examine shop-floor control rather than influx control. The article argues that in response to the threat of African trade unionism, apartheid policymakers in the Department of Labour addressed the problem of low African wages and expanded the use of 'works committees'. By shifting the debate about capitalism and apartheid away from influx control and migrant labor, and towards industrial legislation and shop-floor conflict, the article places working-class struggle at the center of an analysis of apartheid.