introducing
improvements in African housing, leave and working conditions
generally. This, however, is not enough. The African has learned to use
simple European tools and to perform tasks that until a generation ago
he would have regarded, if he thought of them at all, as far beyond his
ability. The African must be allowed to develop these skills and he
must be helped to develop them through European teaching.
It
is the whole basis of policy in the new Federation that the African
should play a fuller part in the industrial economy of the country of
which he is a citizen. Without such development there can be no real
future in Central Africa.
This
part of the African's development creates certain difficulties, for it
is at this point that he begins to impinge on what have hitherto been
regarded as the prerogatives and entrenched positions of the European.
It is not only a matter of custom and tradition; it is also, as in
every industry in every civilized country, a matter of formal agreement
between the employers and the employed. It is not essentially or
necessarily a question of colour or race
Our
agreement with the European Mine Workers' Union—we have another with
our Staff Association—lays down a wage scale for various scheduled
occupations and provides that we shall not employ non-members of the
union in those occupations. This is a normal 'closed shop' agreement.
The
rates of wages laid down in this agreement take account of the acquired
skills and inherited experience of European artisans and operatives,
and they were enhanced originally because those artisans and operatives
had had to emigrate from their homes in Europe or South Africa to an
undeveloped part of Central Africa.
These
high rates of pay would not be justified for workmen of inferior skill
and limited experience working in their own homeland.
When
we ask the European union, as we have done, to consider jointly with us
whether it is possible to define certain categories of jobs now carried
out by their members as ones that could be allocated at lower rates of
pay to Africans who qualify for such responsibilities, we realize that
we are asking them to do a very difficult thing. The companies also
realize that this study and allocation cannot be done unilaterally. We
need the help and the agreement of the European union.
