The Role of the Labour Department in the Birth of African Trade Unionism in Northern Rhodesia

Abstract

Where possible, European minorities in Africa during this century have sought to insure their favored position, especially their economic position, through political action. The trend of labor legislation in Southern Rhodesia after it became a “self-governing Colony” in 1923 is a case in point. But this was not always possible. In Northern Rhodesia, for instance, the color bar was far more difficult to introduce, especially after Lord Passfield's 1929 revival of the native paramountcy doctrine for east and central Africa. The history of the white miners' trade union is apposite.