SWOP: Society, Work and Development Institute

Society, Work and Development Institute
SWOP at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg strives to conduct high quality research on the world of work. We are primarily academic in orientation, with an emphasis on disseminating research through teaching, publications and conferences. We attempt to maintain communication and interaction with a broad range of actors within the world of work, such as organised labour, business, government and other research organisations.
Notices:
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  • Unions and parties in South Africa: Cosatu and the ANC in the wake of Polokwane
    Added: 26/01/2010 - 13:55
    Year: 
    2010
    Author(s): 
    Southall R & Webster E

    What can trade unions do to enhance their influence within successful liberation movements while simultaneously protecting their autonomy? The chapter reviews COSATU’s relationship to the ANC and asks the question: How successful has the South African labour movement been in enhancing its autonomy when it has been, and still is, closely allied to the ANC and the SACP? Furthermore, are there alternative ways of influencing post-apartheid policy emerging?

  • Contesting the New Politics of Space: Labour and Capital in the White Goods Industry in Southern Africa
    Added: 22/01/2010 - 18:33
    Year: 
    2010
    Author(s): 
    Bezuidenhout A & Webster E

    This chapter explores the southern African household appliance manufacturing industry in order to understand how space and scale configure struggles over the geography of production. In contrast to structuralist conceptualisations of the way capital produces economic landscapes, this chapter explores how labour, too, draws on its sources of power to challenge boundaries, capital’s spatial fixes and scales of organisation.

More publications:
  • A survey of the ANC
    Added: 22/01/2010 - 15:14

    During the course of 2008, SWOP formulated a project proposal entitled Towards an Understanding of the ‘Zuma Tsunami’: COSATU and the ANC, 2002 -2009. This was originally conceived as a linked, parallel study to the 2008-09 round of the Cosatu Worker Survey, undertaking a survey of the membership of the African National Congress.

  • The developmental state, the dysfunctional state
    Added: 22/01/2010 - 15:03

    Research has been conducted into the dysfunctionality and service delivery failures of public hospitals, and from 2009 it has been expanded into other sectors of the state in a joint project with the Presidency. The intention is to run a series of seminars bringing together front-line workers, technical workers and policy experts to explore service delivery blockages in different sectors of the national, provincial and local state, and produce an edited volume comprising these case studies. A paper was presented at the HSRC Conference on the Developmental State, and wil

More projects:
  • Hard labour: Sociology and the transformation of working life
    Start Date Time: 
    27/06/2009 - 11:00
    Venue: 
    Dorothy Susskind Auditorium, John Moffat Building, East Campus, University of the Witwatersrand
    Presenters: 
    Eddie Webster, Blade Nzimande, Michael Burawoy, Gwede Mantashe, Dunbar Moodie, Rob Lambert, Jay Naidoo, Ronaldo Munck, Gay Seidman, Ari Sitas, Robert O'Brien and others

More seminars: