Black people during apartheid by law could not perform any skilled labor (The Labour Department of South Africa). Domestic workers in South Africa were Black women forced into working for whites due to apartheid’s brutal restrictions on jobs they could perform. The relationships between the domestic servants and their employers symbolised racial relations between Black and White South Africans during this time period. The domestic workers in South Africa at first struggled to unionise, but once they did, they were able to influence legislation and gain benefits that helped them better their lives, but domestic workers still experience difficulties in the modern day due to racial relations and tensions between employers and employees.
Those two problems caused the domestic workers great pain and suffering in their journey for a better life, but their perseverance eventually paid off and they achieved their goal of unionising. The intense racial tensions during apartheid paired with the struggles of organising a spread out and disorganised work force were two big problems the domestic workers had to solve in order to improve their lives. The workers had an incredibly difficult time changing their relations with employers for a multitude of reasons. The workers and their employers had a parasitic relationship the employers underpaid and undervalued the servants due to their race and position in society. They had to endure extreme racial prejudice and demeaning social norms that degraded their existence as people. Domestic workers in South Africa during apartheid lived oppressed and difficult lives. Nobengazi Mary Kota is a South African domestic worker for a wealthy family in Cape Town when asked in 2004 about the world that the domestic workers lived in during apartheid she said: ‘ A look at gender, domesticity, mobility and citizenship in indicates that the world of domestic workers is one of uncertainties, insecurities, and dehumanisation, even in the midst of abundance and rhetoric of rights and entitlements’ (Cock 181). Overcoming Adversity from All Angles: The Struggle of the Domestic Worker during Apartheid This article was written by Bennett Gwynn and forms part of the SAHO and Southern Methodist University partnership project
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