job reservation, noun phrase

In historical contexts. The setting aside by law of certain (skilled) grades of employment for certain ethnic groups, particularly White people. Also attributive. See also civilized labour policy (civilized labour sense 2). Cf. colour bar.
Note:
The first Acts to promulgate this policy were the Mines and Works Act of 1911, and the Mines and Works Amendment Act of 1926. Other Acts in the 1950s further extended the policy, which was finally removed from the statute books in 1986.
1960 A. Hepple in H. Spottiswoode S. Afr.: Rd Ahead 84We are now complicating these [labour] laws further by writing into them devices such as job reservation to limit the avenues of employment for non-Whites.
1964 H.H.W. De Villiers Rivonia 45Work reservation (job reservation) laws are necessary to see that labour opportunities are equably and justly distributed amongst the various sections of the inhabitants of South Africa.
1964 O.D. Schreiner Nettle 36No Non-White person should be given or retained in a job that any white person would like to have. That is what job reservation amounts to.
1968 Cole & Flaherty House of Bondage 86In part the color bar is a legal tactic enforced through ‘job reservation’ laws.
1970 Survey of Race Rel. (S.A.I.R.R.) 89The only new official job reservation determination published in 1969..related to the work of driving motor vehicles of an unladed weight or more than, 8,000 lb. by persons in the employ of the Divisional Council of Port Elizabeth. This work was reserved for whites.
1973 Time 15 Oct. 26In perhaps the most significant modification of apartheid since it became national policy in 1948, Prime Minister John Vorster last week virtually abandoned the Job Reservation Act, under which the best jobs in the country have long been reserved for whites.
1978 T.R.H. Davenport S. Afr.: Mod. Hist. 362The Mines and Works Amendment (or ‘Colour Bar’) Act of 1926 was Hertzog’s way of securing the interests of the white skilled worker...Job reservation appeared to favour the Coloured man, but in practice did not do so.
1978 T.R.H. Davenport S. Afr.: Mod. Hist. 363To reassure the white electorate..the appearance of job reservation was preserved...The amendments to the Industrial Conciliation Act in 1956 and 1959 had those objects in view.
1980 M. Lipton in Optima Vol.29 No.2, 184The failure of a strike by the Mine Workers’ Union in March 1979 over the relaxation of job reservation at a mine in the north-western Cape suggests that the job bar will not remain intact, even in mining. With job reservation — their major concern — crumbling, how will White workers react to Black stabilisation?
1985 C. Ramaphosa in Learn & Teach No.5, 4We demanded an end to the laws that stop black workers from doing certain jobs. These are the Job Reservation laws and we are sick and tired of them.
1989 Reader’s Digest Illust. Hist. of S. Afr. 316The Mines and Works Act [of 1911]..became the cornerstone of job reservation..by putting a wide range of skilled jobs beyond the ‘competency’ of blacks on the mines and the railways.
1991 D. Carte in Sunday Times 3 Mar. 7The skilled labour shortage obliged the scrapping of job reservation, enabling blacks to do more skilled work.
1991 E. Van Zyl in Race Rel. News (S.A.I.R.R.) Vol.53 No.1, 22Numerous aspects of the apartheid system..adversely affected the socio-economic development of the country as a whole and the black population in particular. The most important of these were neglect of education and training.., job reservation, [etc.].
The setting aside by law of certain (skilled) grades of employment for certain ethnic groups, particularly White people. Also attributive.
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