Post-Colonial Workplace Regimes In Southern Africa

National Research Foundation has awarded SWOP funding to continue with its research in Southern Africa. Dr Bezuidenhout will work towards publishing his PhD thesis as a monograph, and will coordinate a project that will expand the focus to include more countries and industries than those already covered in the projects mentioned above. Three sectors in a number of Southern African countries will be selected (mining, manufacturing and retail) and the process of restructuring examined and its impact on the workplace explored. These sectors are selected because of the historical dominance of mining on the region, the fragility of manufacturing (specifically following structural adjustment programmes), as well as the rapid expansion of South African retail capital in the region.

The study will examine the extent to which the rhetoric on Corporate Social Responsibility is being practised in the sectors identified in this component of the study. Corporate restructuring in the Southern African context is subject to a number of contradictory forces, including the need to become more competitive in the context of increased global trade, the need to adhere to global labour, social and environmental standards, and local pressure from the state and society to address the legacies of the past.