South Africa Miners Strike (1946)

Mon Aug 12, 1946

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Image: The front cover of a booklet about the strike, titled “Workers at War - CNETU and the 1946 African Mineworkers’ Strike” [https://www.saha.org.za/]

On this day in 1946, nearly 100,000 black South African mine workers of the Witwatersrand went on strike in support of a demand for higher wages - 10 shillings a day. They continued the strike for a week in the face of the most savage police terror, in which officially 1,248 workers were wounded and a large number - officially only 9 - were killed.

Lawless police and army violence broke the strike. The resources of the racist state were mobilized in war-like fashion against unarmed workers. A profound result of the strike was the effect it had on the thinking of the national liberation movement - almost immediately it shifted significantly from a policy of concession to more dynamic and militant forms of struggle.