AnarWiki/markdown/Zambian_Copperbelt_Strike_(1935).md

The '''Zambian Copperbelt Strike of
[1935](Timeline_of_Libertarian_Socialism_in_Southern_Africa "wikilink")
'''was a [strike](List_of_Strikes "wikilink") by copperminers over high
[taxes](Taxation "wikilink") and safety concerns in copper miners.

## Background

Nor

By 1924, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) was administered and occupied by
the British government as an official British protectorate. While the
Colonial Office headed administration, a group of interconnected
companies financed by Britain, South Africa, and the United States came
to control what became the ‘Copperbelt’ in Northern Rhodesia. Copper was
becoming more valuable due to increased demand for electrical components
and motors and regional deposits were easy to extract and profitably
attracted investors.

During the decade leading up to the strike, the Northern Rhodesian
Copperbelt was booming, especially the mines of Rhokana (Nkana),
Mufulira, Roan Antelope (Luanshya), and Nchanga. By 1930, up to 32,000
workers were employed in mining operations in Northern Rhodesia. White
artisans and middle level management had been recruited from South
Africa and Britain, while black African laborers and miners came from
all over Central Africa.

Work conditions were very poor for all miners and there were deep wage
inequalities between white and black mineworkers. Black mineworkers were
practically barred from working skilled and many semi-skilled jobs due
to the privileging of such roles for whites. Conditions in the mines
themselves were deplorable, with high rates of silica-based diseases.
African workers lived in company compounds, which were very cramped,
basic, and uncomfortable. There was a permanent group of urban
unemployed, and, finally, physical abuse often took place in the
workplace and mine compounds.

In May 1935, black African mineworkers experienced a reduction of
industrial wages following a sudden ‘native tax’ increase for those
living in urban areas. The tax increase came at a time when demand for
labor was falling and black worker mobility was becoming more difficult
as white farmers were taking opportunities for agricultural production.

## Events

On May 20, notices were posted at the Roan Antelope mine alerting
mineworkers of the tax increase. At Rhokana, no public notice was given;
only when miners went to government offices to pay taxes were they
informed of the increase. However, in Mufulira, mine police shouted the
news around the compound to inform the miners. It was the Mufulira mine
where mineworkers struck first. The following days were filled with
organizing activity, general work stoppages, and mass meetings of
protest. By May 23, mine management claimed to have the ‘situation under
control.’ The provincial administration had acted immediately, detaining
those it considered to be strike leaders. However, some lead organizers
escaped to Rhokana, where the next stoppage occurred.

On May 25, workers at Rhokana gave notice of intent to strike. Two days
later the strike began, even after at least 75 men were arrested and
imprisoned between the announcement and the strike. The day of the
strike, troops were flown from Lusaka to patrol the mine compound.
Feeling their act of protest was made sufficiently during the day, night
shift mineworkers showed up to work as normal.

The next day, May 28, a worker from Rhokana was caught distributing
leaflets to fellow mineworkers at Roan Antelope. It was soon discovered
that miners were planning to strike there the following morning. In
response, management requested more troops be sent to the mine. The next
day eighty askari (local soldiers serving in European armies) arrived
from Rhokana and immediately began attacking strikers with batons.
Striking miners responded by throwing stones and sticks, at times
advancing toward compound managers, assistants, and askari. Ultimately,
the police opened fire on the strikers, killing six men and wounding
twenty-two, shocking both sides.

In contrast to the scene at Roan Antelope, strikers in Mufulira were in
lighter spirits. There, strikers protested in groups, congregated around
compound offices, and shared occasional laughter. When the District
Officer tried to address the strikers from atop his car he was shouted
down by the strikers. He read the riot act aloud, ordering the strikers
to disperse. When nearby askari were called to march into the strikers,
the strikers scattered. A compound assistant present at the scene
recalls, “everyone just ran, cleared the square in no time. It wasn't
unpleasant at all, a lot of laughter from the strikers, a lot of
jeering” (Perrings 1977, p. 47).

Back at Roan, the askari were withdrawn and replaced by a contingent of
military police. The strikers continued to demonstrate on the 30th, but
on that night forty-four of the supposed lead organizers were seized and
sent to Ndola. The following day, most of the strikers returned to work.

## Background

Even though renewed calls for work stoppage and written protests against
the tax were made at Rhokana and Mufulira in late July, it was the end
of the 1935 strike. Several sources indicate that the Bemba people (who
made up the largest percentage of workers) provided much of the
leadership in the strikes of 1935 (Henderson; Perrings 1977, 1979;
Steele). A Bemba dance association, the Mbeni, was the main organizing
hub for disseminating news, rumors, and instructions among strikers.
Other forms of worker associations and regional groupings formed to help
miners cope with life on the compounds. Many held regular collections
for funds for self-help and general community support, including death
and burial practices. Groups such as these among mineworkers may have
contributed similarly to organization of the strike.

The conclusion of the strikes in Northern Rhodesia was followed by a
commission of enquiry under the colonial administration. Obscuring the
fundamental causes of the strike, the commission concluded the tax
increase was ‘fair and reasonable’ and therefore inadequate grounds for
strike action. The commission did acknowledge the existence of corporal
punishment at Mufulira as a ‘cause’ of the strike, formed some oversight
committees, and even dismissed an unpopular compound manager, but no
fundamental change was made in the working conditions or status of black
African mineworkers.

After another wave of strikes in 1940, no comparable demonstration of
mineworker resistance was seen until the 1950s. The independent direct
action by the labor force had a considerable influence on British
colonial attitudes and policies. Even though the 1935 strikes didn’t win
mineworkers immediate gains, they set the stage for further struggles in
the coming decades, including later significant success by the African
Mineworkers’ Union.