Publications

This article provides an overview of the structure and organisation of thecontemporary trade union movement in South Africa. It identifies seven broadtrends in the labour market and their impact on the labour movement. It thenexamines the variety of initiatives by unions to tackle the problems generatedby these trends. The article suggests that these initiatives are largely ad hocand uncoordinated.

Globally there has been a growing concern about an increase in ‘atypical’ forms of employment. Often, these changes in employment practices are related to changing patterns of work organisation. In the context of what has been described as ‘informational capitalism’, some argue that bureaucratic forms of work organisation have been transcended by network organisations. Flexibility in employment is thus seen as a natural process that is part of a general reliance on less rigid organisational forms.

 

South Africa's triple transition-toward political democracy, economic liberalization, and racial equity-has generated a variety of responses at workplace level. Rather than a uniform response, a hybrid mix of managerial strategies is emerging that reveals both continuities and discontinuities with past practices. We argue that the challenge facing the South African work­place is to balance the contradictory demands of efficiency, employee rights, and equity arising out of the triple transition.

Work and Organisations is a textbook written for undergraduate students as part of a series of introductory texts. It considers historical shifts in work organisation, how these have impacted on forms of organisation and bureaucracy, as well as the implications of these shifts for trade unions as a form of worker organisation. It primarily draws on the work of Karl Marx, Max Weber and Robert Michels.

This discussion paper addresses an important but often neglected theme in debates on globalisation - the consequences for workers of engagement in global markets, particularly for those workers who are retrenched in the process. Using the South African textiles industry as a case study, the paper investigates the impact on workers' household livelihoods of industrial restructuring following trade liberalisation in the 1990s.

This book takes an innovative approach by exploring the transition from apartheid from below at a micro-institutional level. It analyses the militant struggle of black workers against the despotism and racism of white power in the workplace, and of their participation in the broader political struggle against apartheid; the triumphant democratic breakthrough which culminated in the election of an ANC government in 1994; and the workers' strategy for reconstruction in the workplace and in local politics.

Chapter published in Debrah, Y. & Smith, I. (eds). Globalization, Employment and the Workplace. London: Routledge. This chapter draws on examples of trade union responses to globalisation in the South African context to argue that, contrary to claims that trade unions are a force of the past, a class basis for global solidarity is still feasible. It considers various forms of global solidarity in the struggle against apartheid, as well as post-apartheid campaigns.

Chapter published in Coetzee, J.K., Graaff, J., Hendricks, F. & Wood, G. (eds.). Development: Theory, Policy and Practice. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. The chapter provides an overview of various theoretical perspectives that have informed industrial policy in South Africa, especially since the end of apartheid.

The strategic choices unions make are shaped by rank and file perceptions and the extent of commitment to a broad trade union-based project for social redress. This article explores the extent of internal unity and the nature and underpinnings of organizational participation by members of South Africa's largest trade union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, based on a nationwide survey of trade union members conducted in the private sector in 1998.