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The Colonial State and Wage Labor in Postwar Sierra Leone, 1945–1960: Attempts at Remaking the Working Class

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Ibrahim Abdullah
Ibrahim Abdullah
Affiliation:
Illinois State University
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Extract

The elaborate “remaking” of the African working class that took off in earnest in the period after 1945 has only recently begun to receive the attention of scholars working on African labor and working-class history. This process of remaking, as in nineteenth-century England, essentially involved the incorporation of the African working class into a system of industrial relations which would guarantee it a stake in society with regard to jobs, wages, housing, and general working conditions.

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Articles
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 52 , Fall 1997 , pp. 87 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1997

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References

NOTES

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the American Historical Association annual meeting (Chicago, 1995). My thanks to Aisha Ibrahim and Mike West for comments and suggestions.

1. See Cooper, Frederick, “From Free Labor to Family Allowances: Labor and African Society in Colonial Discourse,” American Ethnologist 16 (1989):745–64;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCooper, , “The Senegalese General Strike of 1946 and the Labor Question in Post-War French West Africa,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 24 (1990):165–215;Google ScholarSikainga, Ahmad, “Post-World War II Labor Unrest and the Remaking of the Sudanese Working Class,” paper presented at the American Historical Association annual meeting, (Chicago, 1995).Google Scholar

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37. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Railway Workers' Union, 1955, 3, Sierra Leone Collection.Google Scholar

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39. Abdullah, Ibrahim, “Rethinking the Freetown Crowd: The Moral Economy of the 1919 Strikes and Riot in Sierra Leone,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 28 (1994):197–218.Google Scholar

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42. Leone, Sierra Department of Labour, Labour Report, 1955 (Freetown, 1956), 35.Google Scholar

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44. Minutes. Transport JIC, November 22, 1954, Sierra Leone Archives. A cost-of-living survey conducted after the 1955 strike also found gross inadequacies in the official cost-of- living estimates.Google Scholar See Reddaway, W. B., Recommendations About the Cost-of-Living Index in Sierra Leone (Freetown, 1955), 13;Google ScholarReddaway, W. B., Note on the Movement of Retail Prices, 1951–1954 (Freetown, 1955).Google Scholar

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46. Ibid.

47. Ministry of Labour, “Chronological Summary,” 5.Google Scholar

48. Ibid.

49. Leone, Sierra Department of Labour, Labour Report, 1955 (Freetown, 1956), 7; interviews with workers who participated in the strike and procession, May–June 1987, December 1990, January 1991.Google Scholar

50. The strike involved all daily wage workers in the following departments: Public Works, Electricity, Railway, Road Transport, Posts and Telegraphs, Engineering, Sanitary and Waterworks, and civil employees of the Admiralty and War Department. See Ministry of Labour, “Chronological Summary”; “Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry.”Google Scholar

51. Commission of Inquiry; “Freetown Sabotage Report,” Sierra Leone Archives.Google Scholar

52. Ministry of Labour, “Chronological Summary,” 10.Google Scholar

53. Luke, , Labour and Parastatal Politics, 46.Google Scholar

54. Grant, Marcus, testimony, Commission of Inquiry, 47.Google Scholar

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56. Grant, , Testimony, Commission of Inquiry, 46.Google Scholar

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58. Ibid., 48.

59. Sierra Leone Labour Department, Labour Report, 1955, 9.Google Scholar

60. Leone, Sierra, Statement of the Sierra Leone Government on the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Strike and Riots in Freetown, 1955, Sessional paper 1 of 1955 (Freetown, 1955), 4.Google Scholar

61. Sierra Leone Labour Department, Labour Report, 1955, 6.Google Scholar

62. Sierra Leone Labour Department, Labour Report, 1957 (Freetown, 1957), 8.Google Scholar

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64. Governor Maurice Dorman to J.S. Bennet, December 7, 1956; “Resolution by Daily Wage Workers held at the Wilberforce Memorial Hall,” July 31, 1956; “Minutes of a Meeting Held in the Colonial Office, Tuesday, January 1956, Between Representatives of the Overseas Employers Federation, the Trade Union Congress and the Colonial Office,” all CO 859/857.Google Scholar

65. Governor Maurice Dorman to J.S. Bennet, December 7, 1956, CO 859/857.Google Scholar