The Durban Moment on the Shop Floor

<p>This paper constitutes one chapter in a larger work, The Durban Moment: An Historical Investigation. The book in which this piece iwll appear is a short study of what is customarily called "The Durban Moment". Centred on a series of rolling mass strikes in Durban and beyond during the first three months of 1973, "The Durban Moment" brought together a series of social forces that, collectively, made it possible to build new trade unions representing African workers and, eventually, to mount a particular working-class form of resistance against apartheid. Most histories of the internal opposition to apartheid focus on the Soweto Revolt of 1976; this study seeks to shift the focus to the 1973 strikes, and the urban-industrial African working-class in the making. "The Durban Moment on the Shop Floor" considers the experience of ordinary African factory workers under industrial apartheid, and their eventual decision to take collective action under unpromising circumstances.</p>