On the African Waterfront: Urban Disorder and the Transformation of Work in Colonial Mombasa PDF
Preview On the African Waterfront: Urban Disorder and the Transformation of Work in Colonial Mombasa
SUB Gdttingen ee ON THE AFRICAN WwATERFRONT On the African Waterfront Urban Disorder and the Transformation of Work in Colonial Mombasa FREDERICK COOPER Yale University Press New Haven and London 3&— 00», 4 G ToJane Copyright © 1987 by Yale University. All rights reserved. Thisbook may notbe reproduced,in whole orin part, inany form (beyond that copyingpermitted bySections 107 and 108 ofthe U.S. Copyright Lawand exceptby reviewers forthe public press), without written permission from thepublishers. DesignedbyJamesJ.Johnson andsetin Baskervilletypes. Printed inthe UnitedStatesofAmericaby Thomson-Shore,Inc., Dexter, Michigan. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Cooper, Frederick, 1947— OntheAfrican waterfront. Bibliography:p. Includesindex. 1. Strikesandlockouts—Stevedores—Kenya—Mombasa— History—zoth century. 2. Tradeunions—Stevedores— Kenya—Mombasa—History—2zothcentury. 3. Mombasa (Kenya)—Economic conditions. I. Title. HD5440.5.L8C66 1987 331.89'281387164'0967623 86-13171 ISBN 0-300-03618-3 Thepaperinthisbookmeets theguidelinesfor permanenceanddurabilityoftheCommitteeon Production GuidelinesforBookLongevityofthe Councilon LibraryResources. IGN OSG Gee aianneeey NIEDERSACHS. S TAATS.U.UNIV .- BIBLIOTHERK GOTTINGEN Contents List ofTables, Figures, and Maps ix Preface xi List ofAbbreviations XV 1 Introduction 2 Casual LaborandIts Critics 13 Capitalist Work Discipline and East African Society 13 Mombasa beforethe Strikes 26 3 Dockwork and Disorder, 1934-1947 42 The Early Strikes 42 The WarYears 57 The GeneralStrike of 1947 78 Aftermath: Reform and Repression 88 4 The Reorganization ofDockwork 114 The Labor Problemin the Postwar Era 115 The Remaking ofTime 142 The Remaking ofAuthority 163 The Remaking ofSpace 175 r Toward Trade Unionism 194 o Dockworkers/African Workers 195 The Transition: The Strike of 1955 203 Work, Wages, and the Union, 1955-1963 219 6 Work, Disorder, and the Crisis ofColonialism in Africa 247 Strikes and the Labor Question 250 Imperial Perspectives: Production andPolitics 263 The Contradictions ofLabor Control 273 Note on Sources 279 Index 283 > i Tables, Figures, and Maps TABLES 3.1 Registered Adult Male Africans Reported in Employment 3.2 The Lucie-Smith Award, October 1942 63 4.1 Rates of Pay at Mombasa, 1946-1955 140 4.2 WorkingPatterns ofCasual Workers, 1946-1947 146 4-3 WorkingPatterns ofPort Workers in September 1954 149 4-4 Ethnic Origins ofRegistered Casual Laborers, Port Pool, 1954 150 Numberof Dockworkers, as of31 December 154 Outflow and Intake in Casual Labor Pools, 1958 154 The Port Labor Force, 1959 155 Attendance and Utilization of Port Workers, 1954—1959 156 WorkingPatterns ofCasual Port Labor, by Percentage 156 Regional Origins ofWorkers, 1958, by Percentage 157 Comparison of Lowest Wage Rates(Shillings) 159 The Wage Hierarchy, 1954-1957 161 Strikes in Kenya, 1948-1955 202 The Dockworkers’ Budget, 1955 208 ManhoursLost in the MombasaStrike of 1955 216 FIGURES Imports and Exports at Mombasa, Monthly Averages (Long Tons) 137 Average Cash WagesPaid to Adult Africans in Kenya, 1954—1960 243 Maps Maps of Kenya and Mombasa XVIli ix Preface This book emerged from a vain attempt to escape an obsession with the coast of East Africa that has lasted nearly fifteen years. When I started researchonlaborhistoryincoastal Kenya, I hadnointentionofwritinga trilogy on the subject; when I returned to Kenyain 1978 I aimed, almost literally, to move up the railway from the coast. My project was to be a history ofrailway workers that focusedon the changing nature ofwork and the laborforce since the beginning ofthis century. WhatI foundinthearchivesoftheRailwaysand HarboursAdministra- tion not only madesucha task difficult but suggested a different way of thinking about African labor history. The railway administration knew virtually nothing aboutits workers until nearly 1940. Then, suddenly,it becameobsessed with its need to understandandto use its knowledge to transform the nature of work. The discovery of workers as something more than a quantity oflabor power—associal beings—wasthrust upon officials by a series ofstrikes in Mombasa between 1934 and 1947. The critical transitionin Kenyadidnotoccurinaparticularindustryorlineof work but in the complex social field of a city; movements of African workersspread throughthecityand twiceshutitdowningeneralstrikes. Thestrikes in turn provokedacrisisofideasamongcolonial officialsand businessmenthatencompassedtheiroverallperceptionsofAfricanlabor, and indeed ofAfrican society. The sharpness of the break and the fact that the events of Mombasa were echoed at the same time in several other African cities—among workersin a great variety ofoccupations—forced meto rethink concep- tionsoflabor history which I shared with mostAfricanists. The paceand directionofchange did notappearlinear, aswas implied bythefrequent use ofwordslikeproletarianisationorby attempts—as in myoriginal pro- ject—tosee workers’consciousness growingalongwith experienceinthe workplace. These thoughts called for new plans. The railwaymen of Kenyastill have their history, and it is an interesting one; but my notes on them remain forthemomentinafilecabinet.Thechangesinrailwayworkand in workers’ organization thatbecame morerapid in the 1950s, it seemed to me, could not be understood withoutfirst deciphering the turning pointofthe 1940s. AndthatbreaktookplaceinMombasa.Thevanguard xi ——————————_— f a i PREFACE PREFACE xiii xil ee oinfittihaotsieveswoceiraelmnoovtermaeinltwsayamnedntbhuetfdoocucskoefrst.hHeoswteavtee’rs,eftfhoertkteoyrqeugeasitniotnhse itsrwanhsefroermmatainoynsdoofctkehres1o9r4i0gsinaantded1a9n5d0swhhaeverseimnacneyrewthuorneedx.peLroiceantciendgtehxe- concerned relationships: to colonial officials, the oS . teal dockers scattered in rural Kenya would be time-consuming, but might leacrolnyodmaynagnerdoupsartboecfauasematshseyofwheurmeasniimtuyltmaonveionusglyintvoitaandaoutt:OF-caosuea ygiaenlgdsindtuerriesntgintgheme1m9o5r0ise.soMufcthhebe1t94t7esrtwroiukledorbethteoreexsptrluocrteurtihnegpolfawceorokf labor, idleness, criminality, and other economic activities about which dockworkin the lives ofpeople who attimesdid other things, and in the officials knew nothing. The cure to the crisis ofthe 1940s, they came to wider context of family, village, and regional life. To do urban labor think, was to break up the mass into adifferentiated, stable labor force. history, in other words,is also to do ruralhistory. This is not a history of labor policy or of trade unions; norisit an Thatlikely takes more than one investigator. One may well learn the attempttoreconstructtheworldoftheMombasadockworker,althoughit mostaboutthehistoryofdockwork—orrailwaylabor, orfactory work— touches onall those themes. It is a history of what might be called a not by setting out to study that subject, but by incorporating questions conjuncture,aturningpoint,abreak,arupture. Itisaboutconnections— about urban workinto a series oflocal studies. The academic world,the betweenthewaysin whichcapitalorganized workand the waysin which world ofhistorians aboveall, is not very well organized for such efforts. workers organized themselves, between specific struggles in a city and Thisbookisanindividual’scontributiontoataskwhich I hopeotherswill perceptions ofsociety in an empire. join or take up in their own ways. Theconjunctureof1935-50cannotbedescribedequally well from all points ofview. Theofficial sources are rich. The evidence about dock- Myresearch in Kenya was made possible by a fellowship from the workersisnecessarilyuneven,butisinasenserich—byitsabsenceas well National Endowmentfor the Humanities, and a subsequenttrip to En- as byits availability—in the most important respect, in permitting the gland to look moreclosely into London’s view ofthe labor question was reconstructionofwhataspectsofworkers’liveswereaccessibletoofficials madepossible by a grant from theJoint Africa Committee ofthe Social and managers, should they have chosen to interpret them. The tran- Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned So- scripts of hearings at which tribunals heard African witnesses and the cieties. My time in Kenyawasmade morestimulatingby mycolleaguesat reportsofseveralsociologicalinvestigationsreveal muchofwhatofficials the History Department of the University of Nairobi. I am especially wantedto ask workers, and what workers choseto tell them. grateful for the openness, generosity, and insightofmy fellow Mombasa Myobjective in this context was not to evoke the daily lives of dock- specialist Karim Janmohamed, who has now madetwostays in Kenya workers.Ididnotsetouttodoanoralhistory. Such a project would be a morepleasantandenlightening.I havebenefitedaswell from participat- naturalcomplementtothisoneand wouldcertainlyadd to, and perhaps ing in the lively community of Africanists in the Boston area and more modify, some of the points developed here. Since my year in Kenya, recently from theintellectualstimulation ofmycolleaguesin the History duringthegestationperiodofthisbook,Ihavebeenworkingontheother Departmentand the Residential Collegeofthe University ofMichigan.I sideofthenexusdiscussedhere—thelaborquestionaspartofanideolog- would like to thankJohn Lonsdale, Luise White, and GeoffEley for the ical crisis of imperialism in the 1940s and early 1950s, an investigation very detailed and insightful readings they gaveto an earlierdraft. And a that also adds to and modifies research focused ona single city. Yet the final word of appreciation goes to Jane Burbank, whose own book experienceofworkinginMombasa—includinganumberofinterviews— emerged from the same personal computer on which this oneis being suggests some considerations for anyone doing the kind of oral labor writtenalmostexactlyaweekago,andwhosharedthemachineryandthe historythatwouldbethenextstepinstudyingthistopic, orindeed many anxieties ofauthorship with generosityand thoughtfulness. In the midst other related ones. ofwriting a bookthatlargelyconcernsconflicts overhow resourceswere Thebasicproblemisthis: “dockworkers,”likemanyothercategoriesof allocated and time employed,I was able to observe every day that such workers,arealogicalunitofanalysis,butnotnecessarilyareasonableunit conflictsare notauniversalcharacteristicofhumannature. Explanations for research. To study dockworkers through fieldwork in Mombasa for them mustlie elsewhere. wouldbetouseabiasedsample.OnlysomehavestayedinMombasa, and notnecessarilyarandomselection. Tounderstandthediverse meanings that dockwork had, one must do research notjust in Mombasa, but in westernKenya,inKwale,in Kilifi,inTaita,andincentral Kenya,forthat Abbreviations ACJ Arthur CreechJones Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford Ag Acting AR Annual Report AWF African Workers Federation CME Chief Mechanical Engineer, Railway CO Colonial Office files, Public Record Office, London CP Coast Province records, Kenya National Archives cS ChiefSecretary, Kenya Government DC District Commissioner DO District Officer DWU Dockworkers Union EAR&H East African Railways and Harbours Administration EAS The EastAfrican Standard EST Establishmentfiles, Railway Archives FCB Fabian Colonial Bureau Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford GM General Manager, Railway HBR Harbourfiles, Railway IRO Industrial Relations Officer KFRTU Kenya Federation of Registered Trade Unions KL&S Co. Kenya Landing and Shipping Company KUR&H Kenya and UgandaRailway and Harbours LAB Labour Departmentfiles, Kenya National Archives L&S Co. Landing and Shipping CompanyofEast Africa LC Labour Commissioner LD Labour Department, Kenya LO Labour Officer MT The Mombasa Times PC Provincial Commissioner, Coast Province PC’s Archive Provincial Commissioner’s Archive, Coast Province,Files LAB (Labour), L&O (Law and Order), PUB (Public Relations): PEA Port Employers Association PLO Principal Labour Officer PLUB Port Labour Utilisation Board PM Port Manager, Railway XV xvi ABBREVIATIONS RASU Railway African Staff Union SPG Railway Archives, Nairobi,files from 1930s : Note: Thanks to interterritorial amalgamation within British East Af. ON THE AFRICAN WATERFRONT rica, the Kenya and UgandaRailways and Harbours Administrationbe- came the East African Railways and Harbours Administration in 1948, and the Kenya Landing and Shipping Co. became the Mombasa branch ofthe Landingand ShippingCo.ofEastAfrica in 1951. To avoid confu- sion, I have referred to “the Railway” and the “KL&S Co.” throughout thetext,butinthenotesrefertosourcesastheyappearonthedocuments.
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