The decade of
rebellion – the
writing was
on the wall
The 1980s
T
he 1980s were a decade of rising unrest – and the beginning of the end
of apartheid.
The government responded to township unrest and violence, boycotts
and burnings, with one state of emergency after another. Media censorship was
tightened.
At the same time, it sought to bolster the economy by funding ambitious
infrastructure development and import replacement projects and through high
tariffs and generous export incentives. Many of these projects helped sustain the
industry during a stagnant global economy. In the early Eighties the production
of the industry was more than R10 billion, or about a third of the country’s
manufacturing output.
On the industrial relations front, in 1980 two registered black trade unions
became fully-fledged members of the industrial council. The next year they were
joined by two more. This gave the unions equal rights with the other 10 unions
in negotiations with SEIFSA, even though they were not yet fully committed
to the industrial council system and saw centralised bargaining as diluting their
power base.
The Federation kept scoring small victories over the apartheid system by
continuously re-evaluating and re-defining jobs and the skills components
these required. Member companies did manage to recruit a few hundred black
apprentices, but this was nowhere near enough.
SEIFSA warned that barriers such as inadequate maths and science teaching
and inequalities in training facilities had to be overcome. It also pressed the
government to expand and expedite housing for black people.
Unemployment remained a serious problem, particularly among blacks in
metropolitan areas. Inflation, though lower than in some of South Africa’s trading
partners, was still eroding living standards and raising the costs of corporate
finance.
By 1983 the recession in the metal industry internationally was being called
the worst since the Great Depression half a century earlier. Even South Africa’s
distant and isolated industries were caught in the contagion.
SEIFSA AT 75 - SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE MAGAZINE
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