Economic History of South Africa - Migrant Labour

Migrant Labour

The indigenous people had little taste for the mining economy and this led to a shortage of labour on the mines. In a measure to force labour to the mines, Rhodes, who had turned from forming the De Beers Company to politics, secured the passing of the Glen Grey Act in 1894. The Act obliged the payment of tax with the specific aim of forcing peasant farmers, who were not part of the money economy, to find work that paid money in order to pay the taxes. The Act was a deliberate move by Rhodes to force labour to the mines.

This was the start of a migratory labour system in which black men travelled to the mines to work leaving their families in the tribal areas.

The supply of labour became more than sufficient and the mining companies formed a buying cartel through their association, the Chamber of Mines. This enabled them to create a monopsony (market conditions where there is only one buyer) that suppressed wages. The mines also attracted labour from neighbouring countries such as Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe), Nyasaland (now Malawi) and Mozambique (that was then a Portuguese colony) that kept wages down.