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Wage Policy and the Colonial Legacy–a Comparative Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

John F. Weeks
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Extract

Countries live in the shadow of their past: responses to current circumstances are conditioned by what has gone before. In developing countries plans for economic growth are conditioned by previous policy – or the lack of it – and by what was done or what was not done in previous decades. In Africa south of the Sahara, with the exception of Liberia and Ethiopia, it is the past history of colonial domination which conditions the present.

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Articles
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The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , October 1971 , pp. 361 - 387
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

Page 362 note 1 Walker, D., ‘Problems of Economic Development of East Africa,’ in Robinson, E. A. G. (ed.), Economic Development of Africa South of the Sahara (London, 1965), p. 92.Google Scholar

Page 362 note 2 Van Arkadie, B. and Ghai, D., ‘The East African Economies,’ in Robson, P. and Lury, D. (eds.), The Economies of Africa (London, 1969), pp. 317ff.Google Scholar

Page 362 note 3 In 1900, Nigeria exported 599 tons of groundnuts; in 1913, 19,288 tons; and in 1916, 50,368 tons. After 1924, exports fell below 100,000 tons in only one year. Helleiner, G. K., Peasant Agriculture, Government and Economic Growth in Nigeria (Homewood, Ill., 1966) pp. 506–7.Google Scholar

Page 363 note 1 Cotton exports: 1905, 241 bales; 1910, 13,000 bales; and 1925, 200,000 bales. Walker, loc. cit. p. 97.

Page 363 note 2 The only significant early effort to encourage cash-crop production occurred in Nyanza province, but failed.

Page 363 note 3 Lugard, Lord, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (London, 1922), p. 397.Google Scholar

Page 363 note 4 ‘One of the reasons why Kenya and, to a lesser extent, Tanganyika European farmers tended to oppose the introduction of coffee into African farming was because they feared the effects of a lucrative cash crop on the supply of labour to non-African farms.’ Walker, loc. cit. p. 123.

Page 364 note 1 ‘Peasant cash farming having got established early on there was an unwillingness [by Africans] to work on the plantations’; ibid. p. 99. Settler agriculture did develop early in the century in Uganda, but collapsed when the metropolitan country failed to provide sufficient trade concessions, in contrast to the colonial policy in Kenya.

Page 364 note 2 Berg, Elliot J., ‘Backward Sloping Labor Supply Functions in Dual Economies- the African case,’ in Tue Quarterly Journal of Economics (Cambridge, Mass.), LXXV, 1961Google Scholar; and Vatter, H. G., ‘On the Folklore of the Backward-Sloping Supply Curve,’ in Industrial and Labor Relations Review (Ithaca), XIV, 1961.Google Scholar Also see Dean's, Edwin excellent empirical study, The Supply Responses of African Farmers (Amsterdam, 1966).Google Scholar

Page 364 note 3 Hopkins, A. G., ‘The Lagos Strike of 1897: an exploration in Nigerian labour history,’ in Past and Present (Oxford), XXXV, 1966Google Scholar; this includes an excellent discussion of colonial wage policy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Page 364 note 4 Lugard, F. D., Revision of Instructions to Political Officers, 1913–18 (London, 1919), pp. 224 and 226.Google Scholar Elsewhere Lugard seems to contradict himself, writing that, for African workers, ‘the higher thewagesinsuch a case the less the work’; The Dual Mandate, p. 405. This latter view must be placed in the context of Lugard's generally favourable comments on Nigerian labour.

Page 365 note 1 ‘Unpaid compulsory labour is entirely forbidden, whether by Government and Native Administration, or private persons, and the only task which the law sanctions without remuneration is the annual clearing of the roads. Political Officers will never comply with demands for ‘enlisted” labour, or bring pressure to bear on Chiefs, unless the case is one of serious political emergency.’ Lugard, , Instructions to Political Officers, pp. 242–3.Google Scholar

Page 365 note 2 Colonial Office: Annual Report on the Social and Economic Progress of the People of Nigeria (London), particularly the years 1930–6 inclusive.

Page 365 note 3 ‘During 1941 an increased demand for military undertakings greatly reduced unemployment among unskilled labour. The only area experiencing a labour shortage… was Colony Province [Lagos] where commercial firms reported short supply’; Annual Report of the Department of Labour (Lagos), 1942, p. 3.Google Scholar Unskilled labour was also short in the tin-mining area, where a policy of forced labour was adopted. 16,000 of the 75,669 workers in tin mines in 5943 worked under duress. Bower, P. A. et al. , Mining, Commerce and Finance in Nigeria (London, 1947), p. 25,Google Scholar and Annual Report of the Department of Labour, 1943, pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

Page 365 note 4 Between 1945 and 1948 over 115,000 Nigerian troops were demobilised, of whom 90,000 registered for wage employment. Annual Report of the Department of Labour, 1948, p. 55.Google Scholar

Page 365 note 5 Brown, George St J. Orde, Report on Labour Conditions in West Africa (Lagos, 1938), p. 10.Google Scholar

Page 365 note 6 Quoted in: Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, , Report of the Rural Wages Committee (Nairobi, 1955), p. 5.Google Scholar

Page 366 note 1 Lugard, The Dual Mandate, op. cit. pp. 396 ff.

Page 366 note 2 Kenya, , Report of the Rural Wages Committee, pp. 4, 6, and 16Google Scholar; Uganda, , Department Labour, Annual Report (Entebbe), 1955, pp. 9 and 42.Google Scholar In Uganda in 1949 a labour shortage of 30,000, or 20% of the wage labour force, was reported; Report on the Enumeration of African Labour, 03 1949 (East African Statistical Department, Nairobi, 1949), p. 23.Google Scholar

Page 366 note 3 For an excellent discussion, see Hopkins, loc. cit.

Page 366 note 4 Lugard, , The Dual Mandate, p. 429.Google Scholar

Page 367 note 1 In Uganda advisory boards for assisting and advising on minimum wage orders were established in 1935. The Minimum Wage Ordinance 1932 (No. 22 of 1932) established similar machinery in Kenya.

Page 367 note 2 Kenya, Minimum Wage Ordinance of 1946; Uganda, Minimum Wage Order of 1949. During the war in Kenya a minimum wage was set for Asians only; Defence (Limitation of Labour) Regulations, 1944.

Page 367 note 3 Report of the Rural Wages Committee, p. 4. ‘Artificial circumstances’ refers to the concentration camps for several tens of thousands of Kenyans suspected of Mau Mau sympathies.

Page 368 note 1 ibid. pp. 51–2.

Page 368 note 2 ibid. pp. 17 and 18.

Page 368 note 3 ibid. pp. 19 and 21.

Page 368 note 4 ‘We feel the majority… have no right to impose this document upon citizens from whom they did not take evidence… It is discriminating without justification.’ ibid. pp. 35 and 37.

Page 369 note 1 ibid. p. 14.

Page 369 note 2 ibid. pp. 22 and 23.

Page 369 note 3 According to the committee's own survey, it was only in ranching and mixed farming that wages fell below the recommended minimum of ip cents, and that the working week equalled or exceeded 40 hours; there was no rural industry at all which required a 48-hour week or more. ibid. pp. 10 and 24–5.

Page 369 note 4 It was suggested that such workers were largely those ‘unable through mental or physical limitations to reach the standard of the more advanced tribes’. ibid. p. 24.

Page 369 note 5 ibid. p. 26.

Page 370 note 1 Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, , Report of the Committee on African Wages (Nairobi, 1955), p. 4.Google Scholar

Page 370 note 2 ibid. pp. 9–10.

Page 370 note 3 ibid. p. 12.

Page 370 note 4 ibid. pp. 11 and 142.

Page 370 note 5 ibid. pp. 148–9.

Page 371 note 1 In the report on rural wages we read, ‘it is the policy of Government to encourage all members of the community to work’. In the urban report there is the same sentiment: ‘we are in no doubt that the African can be made to play an effective part in a modern industrial economy’.

Page 371 note 2 See, for example, Myint, Hla, The Economws of the Developing Countries (London, 1964), pp. 54–7.Google Scholar

Page 371 note 3 See Pfefferman, Guy, Industrial Labor in the Republic of Senegal (New York, 1968), ch. 4Google Scholar, for evidence that high wages for supervisory and skilled positions (filled primarily by French expatriates) was a major barrier to the expansion of manufacturing firms.

Page 372 note 1 Elkan, Walter, Migrants and Proletarians (London, 1960), pp. 82–3.Google Scholar Also see Knight, J. B., ‘The Determination of Wages and Salaries in Uganda,’ in Bulletin of the Oxford Institute of Economics and Statistics (Oxford), XIX, 08 1967, pp. 243–5.Google Scholar

Page 372 note 2 Protectorate, Uganda, Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council appointed on 1st May, 1957 to consider the Minimum Wages Advisory Boards and Wages Council Bill, 1957 (Kampala, 1957).Google Scholar

Page 372 note 3 Protectorate, Uganda, Report of the Committee on Wages and Conditions of Service of Government Unestablished Employees (Kampala, 1961), p. I.Google Scholar

Page 372 note 4 ibid. p. 3. This Uganda report echoed the Kenya urban report: ‘Where wages are little more than pocket money a casual attitude to paid employment is encouraged, and in the long run this is bad for workers, employers, and for the country as a whole.’

Page 372 note 5 ibid. pp. 6–7.

Page 372 note 6 ibid. p. 11.

Page 373 note 1 Uganda Government, Report of the Minimum Wages Advisory Board (Entebbe, 1962), pp. 11 and 18.Google Scholar

Page 373 note 2 ‘Minimum Wages in Uganda: comments by P. Clark, A. Baryaruha, E. Rado, and B. Van Arkadie for the Minimum Wages Advisory Board’; Economic Development Research Project, Paper 49, November 1964.

Page 373 note 3 ‘We feel that any individual employer or organization which is not capable of paying a regular wage is not entitled to hire the services of another.’ Uganda Government, Report of the Minimum Wages Advisory Board (Entebbe, 1964), p. 14.Google Scholar

Page 373 note 4 Uganda Government, Statement by the Government on the Report of the Minimum Wages Advisory Board (Entebbe, 1965).Google Scholar

Page 373 note 5 Uganda Government, Board of Inquiry into a Wages Increase Claim in Respect of Group Employees in the Uganda Public Service (Entebbe, 1966), p. 6.Google Scholar

Page 374 note 1 Republic of Kenya, Report of the Salaries Review Commission, 1967 (Nairobi, 1967), pp. 15–23.Google Scholar

Page 374 note 2 ibid. p. 27.

Page 374 note 3 Republic of Kenya, Proposals by the Government of Kenya for the Implementation of the Recommendations Contained in the Report of the Public Service Salaries Review Commission, 1967 (Nairobi, 1967), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

Page 374 note 4 For example, R. H. Green estimates that unemployment (not underemployment) ‘may well be 25%’ in Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Mombasa, Jinja, and Kisumu, and 10–15% in ‘other large towns’; ‘Wage Levels, Employment, Productivity, and Consumption,’, in Sheffield, James (ed.), Education, Employment, and Rural Development (Nairobi, 1967), pp. 215–16.Google Scholar In the same volume, see Harbison, Frederick, ‘The Generation of Employment in Newly Developing Countries’, p. 181.Google Scholar

Page 374 note 5 Turnham, D. and Jaeger, I., ‘The Employment Problems in Less Developed Countries,’; O.E.C.D., Paris, 1969, especially p. 65.Google Scholar For a review of the literature and data, see Frank, Charles R., ‘The Problem of Urban Unemployment in Africa’; N.E.S.A. employment conference, Kathmandu, 07 1970.Google Scholar

Page 374 note 6 Mboya, T. J., ‘Incomes Policies for Developing Countries?,’ in Bulletin of the International Institute for Labour Studies (Geneva), 11 1967, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

Page 375 note 1 Memorandum on ‘Rates of Pay of Labourers and Employees in the Southern Provinces’; Acting Chief Secretary's Office, Lagos, 3 September 1935.

Page 375 note 2 ‘Rates of Pay for Employees and Labour in Lagos and District’, Circular 24 of 5 July 1937.

Page 375 note 3 Report of the Cost of Living Committee, Lagos, Nigeria (London, p. 5.Google Scholar

Page 375 note 4 ‘Cost of Living Bonus for Government Labour in Lagos’, Circular 27 of 8 Desember 1941; and ‘Interim Cost of Living Bonus’, Circular 26 of 28 May 1942.

Page 375 note 5 ‘Payment of Cost of Living in Lagos Township’, Circular 35 of 25 July 1942.

Page 376 note 1 Colonial Office, Inquiry into the Cost of Living and the Control of the Cost of Living in the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria (London, 1946), p. 6.Google Scholar

Page 376 note 2 ibid. p. 16.

Page 376 note 3 Nigeria, , Report on Unestablished and Daily Rated Government Servants, 1947 (Lagos, 1947), p. 3.Google Scholar

Page 376 note 4 Roberts, B. C. and de Bellecombe, L. Greyflé, Collective Bargaining in African Countries (New York, 1967), pp. 38–9 and 60–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 377 note 1 Government Notice No. 2552, ‘Arbitration Award, Professor H. G. Hanbury, arbitrator, in the Trades Disputes between the Official and Staff sides of the Federal Industrial Whitley Council’, in Official Gazette (Lagos), 8 12 1955.Google Scholar

Page 377 note 2 Federation of Nigeria, Review of Salaries and Wages, Report by the Commission Appointed by the Governments of the Federation, the Northern Region, the Eastern Region, and the Southern Cameroons (Lagos, 1959).Google Scholar

Page 377 note 3 Western Region of Nigeria, Report of the Commission for the Review of Wages and Salaries in the Public Service of the Western Region, 1960 (Ibadan, 1960), p. 6.Google Scholar

Page 378 note 1 Nigeria, , Report of the [Morgan] Commission on the Review of Wages, Salary, and Conditions of Service of the Junior Employees of the Governments of the Federation and in Private Establishments, 1963–64 (Lagos, 1964), p. 11.Google Scholar

Page 378 note 2 Nigeria, , Conclusions of the Federal Government on the Report of the Morgan Commission (Lagos, 1964), pp. 1–3.Google Scholar

Page 379 note 1 Report of the Committee on African Wages, pp. 16 and 147–8.

Page 379 note 2 Sources: Kenya Statistical Abstract (Nairobi), 1955–1956, 1965, 1968, and 1969.Google Scholar Figures for 1963–6 inclusive are revised estimates. The data for 1964–7 are not comparable to the previous series.

Page 380 note 1 Sources: as for Table 1. Figures for 1962–3 and 1964–5 are revised estimates; none are available for 1963–4 because of a break in the series.

Page 380 note 2 For an attempt to measure statistically the relationship between wages and employment, see Harris, John R. and Todaro, Michael P., ‘Wages, Industrial Employment and Labour Productivity: the Kenya experience,’ in Eastern African Economic Review (Nairobi), 1, 1, 06 1969.Google Scholar

Page 381 note 1 Sources: as for Table I; also Kenya, , Report of the Committee on African Wages (Nairobi, 1955), pp. 176–8.Google Scholar

Page 381 note 2 Report of the Committee on African Wages, p. 4.

Page 382 note 1 For a detailed discussion, see Baryruha, Azarias, Factors Affecting Industrial Employment: a study of Uganda experience, 1954 to 1964 (Nairobi, 1967), ch. 1.Google Scholar

Page 382 note 2 Sources: Uganda: Statistical Abstract (Entebbe), 1961, 1964, 1967, and 1968Google Scholar; also Knight, op. cit. p. 241.

Page 383 note 1 Sources: as for Table 4.

Page 383 note 2 Van Arkadie and Ghai (loc. cit. p. 358) have suggested that in East Africa ‘employment must grow at well over 3% per year if a critical social situation is to be avoided’. Kenya and Uganda have surpassed this goal in recent years. It could be argued that the recent increase for Kenya is a consequence of ‘artificial’ factors – that is, the Tripartite Agreement of 1963, between Government, private employers, and trade unions. Analysis of this agreement lies outside the scope of this study.

Page 384 note 1 Weeks, John F., ‘Wage Behavior, Rural–Urban Income Trends, and Wage Policy in Nigeria;’ Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, 1969, ch. IV.Google Scholar

Page 384 note 2 Sources: as for Tables I, and 4; Weeks, op. cit. appendix to ch. IV; and Elkan, op. cit. p. 81. The wage index for Kenya is based on the statutory minimum wage, and those for Uganda and Nigeria on the minimum wage actually paid to government unskilled workers. Figures in parenthesis for Nigeria indicate more than one rate change during year.

Page 384 note 3 See Warren, W. M., ‘Urban Real Wages and the Nigerian Trade Union Movement, 1939–60,’ in Economic Development and Cultural Change (Chicago), XV, 10 1966Google Scholar; Elliot J. Berg's critique of this, and Warren's rejoinder, ibid. July 1969; Kilby, Peter, ‘Industrial Relations and Wage Determination: failure of the Anglo-Saxon model,’ in Journal of Developing Areas (Macomb, Ill.), 1, 07 1967Google Scholar; John F. Weeks, ‘A Comment on Peter Kilby: industrial relations and wage determination’, ibid. 3, Octuber 1968, and Kilby's reply; and a further exchange, ibid. 5, January 1971, pp. 155–76.

Page 386 note 1 Cf. Turner, H. A., Wage Trends, Wage Policies and Collective Bargaining: the problemsfor underdeveloped countries (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 15–19.Google Scholar

Page 386 note 2 Report of the Minimum Wages Advisory Board, p. 6.

Page 386 note 3 Proposals by the Government of Kenya for the Implementation of the… Report of the Public Service Salaries Review Commission, 1967.

Page 386 note 4 Board of Inquiry into a Wages Increase Claim… in the Uganda Public Service, p. 5.

Page 386 note 5 Dunlop, John T., ‘The Task of Contemporary Wage Theory,’ in Dunlop, (ed.), The Theory of Wage Determination (London, 1964), pp. 22–6.Google Scholar

Page 387 note 1 Nigeria, , Report of the Grading Team on the Grading of Posts in the Public Services of the Federation of Nigeria, April 1966 (Lagos, 1966).Google Scholar See the discussion of staff demands for ‘market-determined salaries’, pp. 8ff.