Labour and industry: jobreservation in the Eastern Cape motor industry in the 1960's

Abstract

By the late 1950s the motor car industry has established itself as a major branch of secondary industry and as a significant employer of labour, especially in the Eastern Cape. Throughout the 1960s, while the industry was subjected to Phases 1 and 2 of the local content programme, the government and some trade unionists sought to promote the interests of white employees in the industry through the implementation of job reservation and the Physical Planning Act of 1968. The attitudes underlying labour relations in the Eastern Cape motor car industry were gradually underminded during the 1970s, as external pressure was brought to bear on foreign firms operating in South Africa.