Sabotage, Strikes and Nationalisation of the VFTPC, 1939–45

Abstract

During the Second World War two entirely different groups attacked the operations of the VFTPC, one group by sabotage and the other by organising a strike of the company’s black workers. Immediately after the war a third group called a strike among black gold-miners. In a sense the VFTPC was ‘only the power-station of a big mine having many shafts’,¹ and any strike in the gold-mines would directly affect the fortunes of the VFTPC. All three groups were unsuccessful in their aims, but the black gold-miners’ strike jolted the mine-owners into an awareness of the need for further mining mechanisation. In time this mechanisation demanded expanded electricity-generating capacity at the power-stations of the VFTPC’s successor, Escom.