December 13 - The Beginning of the End of Apartheid

On this day in labor history, the year was 1971.

That was the day Namibian workers began a general strike to protest the contract labor system.

As a colony of South Africa until 1990, Namibia faced many of the same apartheid-like measures that blacks faced in South Africa. 

Black migrant workers in Namibia comprised the majority of workers in the diamond mines, fisheries and commercial farms. 

They were forced to live in the northern third of the country and were subjected to the pass system. 

It determined where they could live and work and when they could travel. 

Restrictions on their rights as workers were directly tied to restrictions they experienced as colonial subjects.

Because there were no trade unions at the time, this strike is considered to be an important first step in the twenty-year fight for independence. 

More than 13,500 black contract workers participated, effectively shutting down 23 key workplaces and 11 mines. 

The indigenous Ovambo and Kavongo workers demanded the right to choose jobs, end contracts, to bring their families to distant work locations, a new pass system, and increased wages based on work type, not skin color. 

In her book, Labor and Democracy in Namibia, Gretchen Bauer says that while workers did win wage increases, the pass system remained largely intact.

Employers were angry that workers now had the right to bid on jobs, quit at will and receive holiday bonuses and leave pay.

Workers were upset that they were still subjected to restriction of movement and arbitrary arrest and detention.

But the strike began the long process of eroding the pass system, contract labor and second-class citizenship for indigenous workers Namibia.