Abstract:
An earlier paper discussed the social origins of white women workers at
Zebediela. These women were young, Afrikaans-speaking, and came largely
from small farms in the Northern Transvaal (1). Their social characteristics
- age, gender, 'culture' - profoundly shaped the experience of work at
Zebediela. It is on this experience that this paper focuses. The paper
decribes the labour process in the Zebediela packhouse, concentrating
specifically on control and stabilisation of labour. It examines changes
in the nature of work as production increased and the availability of
young white women workers declined. These two processes intensified
labour in the packhouse, and transformed management's strategies of control.
