Students were not the only group beginning to protest in South Africa.

Early in the morning of 9 January 1973, before the sun rose, workers at the Coronation Brick and Tile works in Durban moved through the company's hostel. They knocked on the dormitory walls, and told their colleagues that they were about to embark upon a spontaneous strike. That morning, instead of going to their workplace, between 1,500 and 2,000 black workers marched from their hostels to a nearby football field. They demanded that their weekly wage of R8.97 be increased to R20.00. When faced by the demands of the company’s management, they refused to elect representatives to negotiate on their behalf, and insisted instead that all communication between management and workers take place on the field, in the sight and presence of all.

The provincial Department of Labour sent a spokesman to the field in an attempt to mediate between the company and its workers. He was, however, notably unsuccessful in engaging the workers. The day ended in a stalemate, with neither the workers nor the company’s managers any closer to reaching an agreement. The next morning, the Paramount Chief of the Zulu nation, Goodwill Zwelithini, arrived at the field promising to negotiate on behalf of the workers. After a representative had announced his imminent arrival, he then kept the workers waiting for several hours while he consulted with the company’s management; after this wait, the workers were at first reluctant to allow the monarch to take on their cause. Indeed, their scepticism was highly visible: one worker was heard to call out, during Zwelithini’s speech, ‘We’ve heard this all before!’

It was only after they were told – by one of his representatives – that in refusing to accept Zwelithini's authority they were impugning the honour of the Royal House that the workers finally agreed to cede responsibility for the negotiations. A farcical sequence of events then followed, as Zwelithini was taken to task by Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the KwaZulu Authority's Prime Minister. He insisted that the Paramount Chief had no authority to embark upon negotiations; he also suggested that such an endeavour might negatively impact upon the prestige of the monarch.