Beyond the Apartheid Workplace. Studies in Transition
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
Informal settlements are visible material manifestations of internal and cross border migration and spatial segregation in South African cities. New arrivals, drawn to urban centres seeking economic opportunities, find a residence in one of the high-density informal settlements dotted around the Gauteng province in South Africa. However, instead of better conditions, internal and cross-border migrants experience a lack of service delivery on health, education, security, electricity, road infrastructure, water and sanitation. These challenges often result in service delivery protests and scapegoating attacks against immigrants. Mixed method research was applied in one of the oldest informal settlements north of Johannesburg, Zandspruit, to understand the reality facing informal settlement dwellers concerning the demographic and psychographic profile of the community, their housing and infrastructural needs. Key findings indicate Zandspruit is a cultural and ethnic melting pot, rife with poverty, unemployment and crime. The residents’ disillusionment emanates from service delivery failures and non-fulfilment of the government’s housing policy. Despite lack of tangible progress, residents display resilience through self-organising, setting up community leadership structures and spaces for problem solving and engagement with residents and formal institutions. Residents participate in an informal economy to survive.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
Due to the conditions of apartheid and social engineering, internal labour migration played an important role in shaping the roles and relationships of South African families. In a recent study on internal labour migration in South Africa, Mokoene (2017) found that even though men remain the main migrants in households, young women are becoming prominent migrants as well. This finding echoes other existing findings on national and international migration which illustrate that women continue to migrate in large numbers within and across borders in search of employment (Xulu-Gama, 2017; Kihato, 2013; Walker, 1990). Studies also show that labour migration presents both benefits and costs for migrant sending families (Mokoene & Khunou, 2019; see also Yao & Treiman, 2011). In this chapter we take a closer look at experiences of the families of young women who migrate from the rural parts of Madibeng in the North West Province of South Africa, to neighboring cities in search of employment. This is from a study by Mokoene (2017) which found that the migration of these young women come with a cost including, non-remittance, parental absence, and poverty to the families left behind.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
Scholars who write about migrant women, whether rural-urban or international migrants, have tended to always link women’s migration processes to men’s, thereby reducing women’s agency and will power. It is in this regard that women’s positionalities have continued to remain on the peripheries in literature (see Phillips & James, 2014), even if in reality they have become the main players in their own right. Kihato’s (2013) work reiterates the importance of the role of migrant women in shaping the way the city’s life is played out. Jayaram et al. (2019) posited that women are very mobile, frequently moving locally and internationally between their areas of origin and different urban work destinations. Xulu-Gama (2017), Kihato (2013) and Zulu (1993) prove that women do migrate on their own.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
South-to-South migration instead of South to the Global North will dominate global migration trends in the future. This calls for redefining how we view and theorise about migration to the Global South, who is migrating, to which countries, the reasons for migration, whether this is a renewed form of circular migration, our understanding of transnationalism, the role of remittances and how migrants are received in the countries of the South and. In particular, I argue that migration research to and from Africa is not given the prominence it deserves in the global migration literature. I further argue that that the similarities and differences of migration to the Global South is under-theorised. The increase in South-to-South migration is creating a shift in economies resulting in the creation of new ‘geographies of growth’ and thus a Sociology of Migration understanding of patterns of migration and development in the Global South is needed. A case study of South Asian migrants to South Africa is illustrative of these geographies of growth and shows how migrants develop instrumental and contingent solidarities to integrate.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
Informal settlements are perceptible material expressions of internal and cross-border migration in South Africa. New arrivals, drawn to urban centres in search of economic opportunities, find a residence in one of the high-density informal settlements dotted around the economic hub of South Africa, the Gauteng province. It is projected that an estimated 1.6 million migrants, including 48% of all immigrants in South Africa, will make Gauteng province their home by 2021 (Stats SA, 2018a). However, instead of better conditions, rural-urban and urban-urban migrants as well as undocumented and documented immigrants experience a lack of service delivery in health, education, road infrastructure, security, electricity, water and sanitation (Marutlulle, 2017). The lack of provision of basic services and resources from the government at such sites often results in community protests and translates into attacks against immigrants residing in those communities.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
Zimbabwe has been haemorrhaging via international migration, especially since the 1990s and 2000s. While there could be as many different reasons for this exodus of Zimbabweans as there are people emigrating, it is indisputable that the introduction of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) in 1991 at the behest of the Bretton Woods Institutions forms the major causes. Zimbabwe used to be a migrant-sending as well as a migrant-receiving country, but after ESAP, the trends were outwards with barely any inward movements. Zimbabwe became not only a net exporter of labour, especially human capital, but it depleted its human resources capacity, perhaps beyond levels of easy recovery in the foreseeable future. The political economic factors resulting from ESAP-induced poverty drove a significant section of the population to the indignity and insecurity of migrant labour. Drawing from that experience, it could be claimed confidently that “migration and labour questions are two sides of the same coin” (Delgado, 2015: 26) driven by neoliberal capitalism.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
This book has provided a sociology of migration in southern Africa. It is widely acknowledged that Africa is historically differently positioned from other continents and that the relations within the continent are more complex in their specific, geographic and historical ways. The specific focus on southern Africa is indicative of and acknowledges the different dynamics in the various parts of Africa. This book moves away from the traditional approach in the literature, which views the African continent as homogenous with only shared characteristics. The continent has vast religious, linguistic, racial, national, ethnic, historical, economic, and geopolitical differences. While the focus of the book is on southern Africa, far-reaching empirical and theoretical conclusions can still be drawn because some of the migratory experiences discussed in this book are shared across countries in the context of a broader Global South. These commonalities are often characterised by unequal distribution of resources that shape the socio-economic and political dynamics of migration in the Global South.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
This chapter engages the policy practices of the South African state in handling refugees and asylum seekers. The primary focus is on the articulation of migration policy concerning refugees and asylum seekers into physical infrastructure and the lived experiences of refugees in the urban context of Johannesburg. The research considers the decisionmaking timeline involved in developing the policy landscape and resulting migration infrastructure (or lack thereof) for refugees and asylum seekers. We explore policy as hard and soft infrastructure and note that, the refugee and asylum seeker policies in South Africa have at times been shaped to align to migration patterns retrospectively but in recent years - have taken a more restrictive position towards mobility more generally. In engaging these issues, the research draws on the existing literature and insights from key informant interviews with representatives of refugee protection NGOs, the City of Johannesburg migration unit and academic researchers.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
Broadening the conceptual scope beyond the Global North and ‘Asian biases’, this chapter takes cognisance of the challenges of universalistic approaches to migration realities, which undermine the fact that both experience and knowledge are contextual. Emphasis is on re-theorising migration to account for contextual specificities that shape the realities of moving within the Global South, particularly in Africa where migration – subsequent to involuntary push factors such as civil war, political violence, economic challenges, extreme poverty and social realities specific to the continent – is often a forced experience compared to the Global North where it is a choice and lifestyle. Contextual theories of migration in this chapter avoid rendering the specific universal by exploring how the state polices the migratory process; the social meanings society attaches to ‘that which is foreign’; and the ultimate meaning of being a black African migrant in Africa. These contextual realities call for conceptual renegotiation of the meaning of Africanness or African identities, especially for black Africans located in spaces of violent and brutal prejudice against those perceived as foreign. The main conceptual contribution is built around experiences that hardly find their way into mainstream discourses and theorisations where Global North and Asian biases have dominated what has become to be known as literature and theories of migration.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
Migration research emanating from the west and the global south about immigrant children has often concentrated on “migrant or refugee children.” Little attention is being paid to second generation immigrant children, who in most cases, have different migration trajectory. This chapter observes the gap in literature and presents a conceptualisation of second-generation from a South African perspective. Drawing on evidence from a qualitative study of 10 Nigerian second generation immigrant children in Johannesburg, South Africa, the chapter presents an understanding of a South African second generation immigrants. Place of birth, age at migration and parent’s immigration status at the time of birth are found to be factors that separate 1 s generation from another.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
International human rights instruments do not explicitly include protection of undocumented migrants, but arguments for their inclusion are made on both normative and pragmatic basis. These denizens are often prevented from accessing rights de facto due to social practices, even when they are accorded de jure rights through legislation. As a result, the overwhelming majority of migrants are faced with limited options, have little voice, and have to make a living among and as part of the precariat. After 1994, South Africa was increasingly seen as a favourable destination for migrants seeking asylum and/or economic opportunities. Migrants are perceived as serving as a reserve of labour that is highly flexible, easily exploited, and unlikely to seek legal recourse for violations of labour law or to join a trade union. This labour market effect is particularly apparent and problematic in host countries with pre-existing high unemployment rates. As official workers representatives trade unions have a major role to play in recognising and mitigating the dangers inherent in dividing workers into citizens and denizens. Trade unions themselves though are in decline, with union density rates falling largely as a result of increasing use of non-standard employment arrangements by employers. Trade unions find it extremely difficult to access and organise these atypical workers, many of whom are migrants. The research for this chapter considered official union publications as well as interviews with trade union officials in the construction sector in Cape Town to assess trade unions responsiveness to migrant rights claims. Migrants are generally located in the periphery due to their more vulnerable status, and this position in the labour market renders their claims to rights and the role of trade unions in supporting these claims more difficult but equally necessary.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants “beyond the apartheid workplace” (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005; Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018; Von Holdt, 2002; Webster, 1985; Friedman, 1987). Worker education always took into consideration the history of the South African workplace, which made it relevant, comprehensive, critical and progressive (Hamilton, 2014).
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
Developing progressive migration policy and legislation in South Africa is significantly hampered by anti-immigrant sentiment amongst the general public. Despite the recommendations of experts, the country has not adopted a clear and coherent immigration integration policy. Moreover, xenophobic violence presents a clear threat to the current South African migration regime. Why has this young democracy struggled to develop meaningful policy solutions to deal with migration? The paper explores this important question through the unique lens of mass opinion. Data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey for the period 2003–2018 will be used for this study. The outcomes of this analysis offer new insights into the obstacles facing attempts to implement both progressive immigration policy as well as anti-xenophobia strategies in South Africa. The paper concludes by outlining the implications of this work for academic attempts to understand address anti-immigrantism in the country. Recommendations for future research are also presented for discussion.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
Ethiopians come from a fractured country, with a heightened sense of ethnic identification. Ethnicity is central to their self-identification, accompanied by deeply entrenched ethnic cleavages at home and here in South Africa. Past and recent ethnic-based dynamics and cleavages are actively playing a part here. Such dynamics gained salience with the modern Ethiopian state’s practices and through their political history (Vaughan, 2003). These are part of the pervasively African concern: tension between the ethnic and the national, and the impulse to reconfigure and reconcile them. It is crucial to ask how these tensions evolve and transform in movements and moments in transnational spaces, and the interactions and encounters of these tensions and impulses in these spaces. Similarly, South African society too is very much divided, with its own tensions and contradictions. These coalesce with the tensions and dynamics that Ethiopians bring with them.
... The importance of worker education around the presence of foreign national migrants "beyond the apartheid workplace" (Webster & von Holdt, 2005: 4) is undisputed. Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. ...
... Our intention is to establish the extent to which worker education programmes benefit foreign-national migrants and also to establish the possible challenges in the implementation of the related legislation and policies. The current context of neoliberal capitalism and growing informalisation of work (Webster & von Holdt, 2005;Muller & Esselaar, 2004) is particularly important, as it tends to challenge the existence and effectiveness of worker education while promoting divisions among the workers. During the apartheid era, worker education was a resource used by the trade union movement to address struggles in the workplace and those percolating to the communities (see Xulu-Gama, 2018;Von Holdt, 2002;Webster, 1985;Friedman, 1987). ...
... Employers sourced their labour from all countries in Southern Africa. Foreign-national migrants and worker education played prominent roles in the workplace during the colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa, and continue to forge a presence in the post-apartheid workplace (Webster & von Holdt, 2005) and thereby in labour scholarship (Bezuidenhout & Buhlungu, 2011), despite a myriad of evolving challenges for both. The attempt to look at these concepts together -foreign-national migrants and worker education -is complex as they are, and further complicated by the fact that both can be quite controversial and contested regarding how they are defined, accessed and worked with conceptually and practically (see Koen, 2019;Hamilton, 2014;Motala & Valley, 2014). ...
This chapter highlights the growth of voluntary movement of labour force through globalisations and resultant pressure on economies to compete with one another. In this global economic environment, demand to acquire access to those individuals with critical professional skills has grown, thus opening up opportunities for individuals to move to recruiting countries and employer organisations across the globe. This has been evidenced by the exponential rise of degreed migrants in comparison to low-skilled migrants. These voluntary economic migrants, are individuals with some university education, with special professional skills who choose to move to a destination country for professional opportunities. Adapting to a new social context or setting involves overcoming social representation barriers arising from acculturation schismogenesis and the discussion highlights the similarities of such individuals to other migrants. The challenge for individual migrants is in working to reconstruct their identities in their transnational context to build themselves a new social reality through stabilising schism arising from their transnational social representations meeting. Eleven voluntary economic migrants’ interpersonal online and offline communication was analysed using three sets of data and arranged into themes related to their process of re-identity. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the implications of such skilled individuals being unable to reconstruct and stabilise their identity in their new context on recruiting countries, namely financial cost and loss of critical skills.
... The advent of majority democracy heralded an economic and social transition that in the country. Webster and Von Holdt (2005) call this the 'triple transition' to describe the multifaceted reorganization of the order of work by a range of complex and often contradictory political, economic and social pressures to transform South African society from an authoritarian to a democratic state. The transition from a society based on a racial division of resources towards a post-colonial order has had a limited impact on the redistribution of economic power in South Africa. ...
... Workplaces in South Africa, as in many industrial countries, are increasingly redesigned along 'flexible' lines. Opportunities to enter the permanent employment seem to be declining, pushing new labour market entrants (as well as old ones) towards peripheral work (Webster and Von Holdt 2005;Barchiesi 2007;Mosoetsa 2011). Labour statistics for the period 2014 -2015, for example, suggest the number of workers with contracts of a permanent nature is declining and those with unspecified and limited nature are growing. ...
... A number of researchers have commented on these campaigns see Seekings (2004); Buhlungu (2010) and Dibben, Wood, and Mellahi (2012). 7. See Webster and von Holdt (2005) and Barchiesi (2011) for a discussion of the apartheid workplace. 8. ...
The South African organized labour movement is one of the most powerful on the African continent. A central actor in the democratic struggle, the movement continues to play a crucial role in the post-apartheid period. However, public opinion data collected by the South African Social Attitudes Survey for the period 2011–2013 suggest that only a minority of the public currently trust the organized labour movement. No cleavage in individual trust in trade unions was noted between age cohorts and labour market status. Distrust among the lower and working class has expanded significantly between 2011 and 2013. Findings suggest that trade unions in the country are increasingly associated with the unpopular political establishment. More research on public attitudes towards unions is required. There is a need for trade unions to intensify their engagement with working-class communities in order to build greater levels of individual trust.
... The non-core zone Casualisation Durban docks. The problems of organising casual workers are well illustrated through the case of trade union organisation in the port of Durban (Webster, 2005). Historically stevedores in South Africa, as elsewhere in the world, were casual workers employed on a daily basis. ...
... Since the early 1990s innovative activists have been responding "on the ground" to the changing nature of work in Durban. Based on the model of the Self-Employed Workers Association (SEWA) in India, the Self-employed Women's Union (SEWU) was formed in 1994 with the aim of representing the interests of self-employed and "survivalist" women engaged in the informal economy in both rural and urban areas (Bennett, 2003;Devenish and Skinner, 2006;Webster, 2005). ...
... These traders range from selling merchandise through to "bovine head cookers," mainly women who occupy a stretch of pavement on the busy Warwick Avenue (Sitas, 2001, p. 19). Through an effective campaign, in 1995 street traders were able to win from the City Council their demands for shelter, access to water, and clean toilets (Webster, 2005). They were also able to negotiate for child-care facilities for street traders (a concession that is seldom made in the formal sector) and for a special market for traditional medicines. ...
... De este modo es posible plantear que este mecanismo impulsó la reestructuración productiva en el agro, lo cual trajo como consecuencia la reestructuración de la fuerza de trabajo en este sector (Webster y Von Holdt, 2005), así como el aumento de la inestabilidad en el empleo (Mora, 2005). En este sentido, la transformación en el modo de producción llevó a la adopción de nuevos patrones tecnológicos así como de formas de organización del trabajo y control que han implicado la configuración de una nueva "morfología del trabajo" (Antunes, 2011: 103). ...
... Es así como por medio de la descolectivización y del aseguramiento de la propiedad privada se produjo el establecimiento y funcionamiento de un mercado de tierras y agua inexistente hasta el momento (Bellisario, 2007a;Murray, 2011;Arteaga, 2000). Asimismo, a través de diversas políticas económicas se favoreció la instauración de un nuevo modelo centrado en la exportación de recursos naturales, lo cual significó la reestructuración productiva en el agro, trayendo como consecuencia la reestructuración de la fuerza de trabajo en este sector (Webster y Von Holdt, 2005), así como el aumento de la inestabilidad en el empleo (Mora, 2005). Del mismo modo, por medio de reformas estructurales se favoreció el establecimiento de una nueva institucionalidad caracterizada por la flexibilización y desregulación laboral, que llevó a la recomodificación del trabajo en el agro (Standing, 2011;Dörre, 2012b). ...
El siguiente artículo utiliza el concepto de Landnahme para analizar el desarrollo del sector agroexportador durante la Dictadura Militar (1973-1990). Es así como se plantea que éste se trata de un proceso eminentemente político que implicó la expansión capitalista a través de la comodificación de la tierra, agua y seguridad social así como la desregulación del mercado del trabajo. Al respecto se propone que estos ámbitos se constituyeron como un “otro no capitalista“ que fueron comodificados o recomodificados e incorporados a la producción capitalista, lo que llevó a la precarización tanto del trabajo como de las condiciones de vida de los asalariados del agro.
... A number of case studies provide evidence of widespread restructuring across a range of sectors and changes in work arrangements, including outsourcing to contractors and further subcontracting (homework), use of temporary labour (ranging from agency hire to work gangs or 'bakkie brigades'), and the increased use of temporary and part-time contracts (for a range of case studies, see Bezuidenhout and Kenny, 1998;Pons-Vignon and Anseeuw, 2009;Crush et al., 2010;Webster and von Holdt, 2005). This restructuring and reorganization of work has drawn new lines of exclusion between those at the core -earning regular wages, and now enjoying representational rights and labour protection -and non-core workers, subject to job and income insecurity, or surviving on the periphery of unemployment and informal subsistence activities (Webster, 2013). ...
... It appears to be very difficult to 're-engineer' workplace relations by legislating new institutions for consultation and cooperation. Case studies of work restructuring across the mining, manufacturing and service sectors show that labour-management relations in the workplace continue to be characterized by authoritarian management practices and high degrees of adversarialism (Webster and Omar, 2003;von Holdt, 2003;Webster and von Holdt, 2005;Hunter, 2000). In the 'co-operation in labour-employer relations' index of the Global Competitiveness Report (World Economic Forum, 2014, South Africa ranks (for the third year in a row) 144th out of 144 countries. ...
... Barrientos (2013) postulates that casual labour is, in a way, a form of informalisation, which is predominately influenced by corporates' desire to be flexible, and yet, at the same time, be able to compete in the world market. Von Holdt and Webster (2005) argue that companies the world over are more interested in reducing costs of labour and liabilities involved with hiring permanent employees. In fact, the influence of transnational firms and increasing pressures on existing global trends forced states to liberalise to conform to global market changes by adopting fixedterm employment contracts (Godfrey, Maree, & Theron, 2006b). ...
Globalisation led to the reduction of barriers between countries and intensified international interdependency such that developments unfolding in a faraway country now affect the rest of the world in economic, political and social aspects (Giddens, 1990). The Zimbabwean labour market and its national labour legislation has not been spared from the impact of globalisation. Zimbabwean labour legislation had had several amendments from its inception in 1985 to date. The amendments done at each epoch had caused serious outcry from both labour and business with the main accusations arising from unions who claimed that the effects of globalisation and government’s desire to lure foreign direct investment (FDI) led to serious bias towards employers. It is against this background that this article’s objective is to interrogate the impact of globalisation on labour legislation for employers. The article adopted a qualitative paradigm and made use of interviews and participants' memoirs to understand this phenomenon. Results were analysed thematically by use of both Nvivo 10 and manual coding. Results showed that globalisation has impact on labour legislation for employers. Foreign direct investment and special economic zones were identified as drivers of globalisation responsible for positive impact on labour legislation for employers by influencing deregulation of unfriendly employment laws, instituting flexible contract of employment, easy termination of contracts of employment and giving immunity from dictates of the labour laws for employers operating in special economic zones. The positives of globalisation for employers resulted in direct negatives for employees. The article recommends that employers need to put into context both globalisation dynamics and dictates of the labour legislation to ensure employee dignity and fair globalisation
... Historically, South Africa's welfare state was structured around a racialized social wage, which facilitated the social mobility of white workers. The de-racialization of these systems after the end of apartheid coincided with a growing crisis of unemployment, workplace restructuring, and the rise of temporary, insecure, and outsourced employment relations (Webster and Von Holdt 2005). Social protections like the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), a contributory policy requiring employers to register workers, has failed to cover a growing sector of the workforce employed on a casual or temporary basis and in the informal sector -45 percent of South African workers are not eligible for the UIF (Bassier et al. 2020). ...
In response to widescale job losses produced by the COVID‑19 pandemic, states have drastically expanded social protections, primarily through cash transfer programs. Drawing from James Ferguson’s notion of distributional politics, this reflection analyzes the meaning of this rapid global expansion of the welfare state and the political opportunities it provides. Based on two seemingly disparate cases, South Africa and Canada, I suggest that these expansions provide valuable opportunities for rethinking existing approaches to livelihoods, labour and social protection. These interventions also provide political possibilities through which a more radically redistributive politics can be articulated. In both contexts, state responses have provoked new challenges, dialogues, and experiments in distribution at multiple scales, from the neighbourhood to the nation state. This reflection calls for deeper inquiry into the multiple meanings of cash transfers and the political openings they provide. Finally, it provides guiding questions for future anthropological inquiry into livelihoods and social protection.
... This growing informalisation of employment in the formal economy through subcontracting and casualisation has fragmented the labour market dividing it into three zones of work: the core, the non-core and the periphery, as presented in Figure 1 ( Webster and Von Holdt 2005). In spite of this fragmentation of the workforce, there is regular and sometimes robust collective bargaining in post-apartheid South Africa, led by the trade union movement. ...
... Despite election promises of jobs by the African National Congress (Barcgiesi, 2011) to reduce racial and class inequality, the majority of jobs created from 1995-2003 were in the informal economy and therefore precarious. In 2005 writers concluded that the labour market has become increasingly polarised and structured into three distorted zones (Von Holdt & Webster, 2005): (i) formal employment with security of employment (with echoes of the racial division of labour and hierarchical power); (ii) a substantial core of negligibly protected or represented, subcontracted, untrained, parttime and domestic employees (with marginal or little security of employment); and (iii) the periphery of unemployed and informal subsistence activities or non-paid labour. The core zone comprises around a third of the working population. ...
South African welfare policy is influenced by global economic trends and has some indicators of neoliberal policy implementation. This paper discusses the indicators of neoliberalism before exploring the implications for child and family welfare services in post-apartheid South Africa, in relation to three key themes: the financing of welfare, structures and organisations, and the managing of clients. It is argued that the influence of neoliberalism has changed the way that child and welfare services are managed and services delivered, and that these influences should be debated within the profession and with civil society.
... Despite election promises of jobs by the African National Congress (Barcgiesi, 2011) to reduce racial and class inequality, the majority of jobs created from 1995-2003 were in the informal economy and therefore precarious. In 2005 writers concluded that the labour market has become increasingly polarised and structured into three distorted zones (Von Holdt & Webster, 2005): (i) formal employment with security of employment (with echoes of the racial division of labour and hierarchical power); (ii) a substantial core of negligibly protected or represented, subcontracted, untrained, parttime and domestic employees (with marginal or little security of employment); and (iii) the periphery of unemployed and informal subsistence activities or non-paid labour. The core zone comprises around a third of the working population. ...
South African welfare policies, like those of many other countries in the world, are influenced by global economic trends directing neoliberal policy implementation. The adoption of neoliberalism in South African government policies has elicited criticism (Holscher & Sewpaul, 2006; Mindry, 2008). Although the literature (Abramovitz, 2012; Spolander, 2014; Stark, 2008) has explored the changes and the challenges brought about by neoliberalism in social work, less detailed attention has been paid to its specific impact on child and family welfare services. The influence of neoliberal policies on child and family welfare organisations and their social workers in South Africa has also received scant attention. The purpose of this article is therefore to explore and promote debate in the profession and in civil society on the possible influence of neoliberalism in the management of child and welfare organisations, on service delivery as well as on social workers. This paper will discuss indicators of neoliberalism before exploring the implications for child and family welfare services in post-apartheid South Africa in relation to three key themes: the financing of welfare; structures and organisations; and the managing of clients. This discussion we believe is crucial toward developing an understanding of how these themes are linked, and to facilitate the critical debate necessary in civil society on child and family welfare in South Africa.
... Nuestra referencia para abordar el tema de la crisis de reproducción social, a partir de la emergencia y extensión de estos núcleos de trabajadores en la estructura social, está sentada en los estudios de VonHoldt & Webster (2005) en el caso de Sudáfrica, y porAntúnez & Pochmann (2008) en el caso de Brasil. El año 2013 la Encuesta CASEN incorpora una nueva metodología alternativa, que incluye una nueva línea de la pobreza, que estaría en 136911 (U$D223,67) para dicho año. ...
Recibido: 15.02.16 Recibido con modificaciones: 18.07.16 Aprobado: 05.05.17 RESUMEN: La precariedad laboral es un concepto central para comprender las relaciones económicas en Chile y otros países de América Latina. Su marca está asociada directamente a la introducción del neoliberalismo y la desregulación laboral. En este artículo se propone que la precariedad, y el rol que ella juega en los procesos económicos de creación de valor, cuestionan enfoques de interpretación de la realidad latinoamericana como el enfoque propuesto por CEPAL de " heterogeneidad estructural ". Para ello empleamos un análisis de fuentes secundarias dando cuenta de los llamados " trabajadores pobres " en Chile, quienes son cada vez más numerosos como parte de una tendencia a la precarización laboral y social. Así, este análisis complementa, críticamente, la propuesta de CEPAL para comprender la estructura social chilena. Palabras Clave: Precariedad laboral; trabajadores pobres; Neoliberalismo; heterogeneidad estructural. 1 Los autores agradecen la colaboración de Felipe Marchant y Cristian Alister para la realización de este artículo. También, manifestamos nuestra gratitud a los/as evaluadores/as de este artículo, ya que generaron aportes importantes al trabajo final por medio de sus comentarios y sugerencias.
... In this context, the improvements in working conditions gained since the 1980s began to reverse. Since the 1990s, the mining sector saw the emergence of companies adopting new organisational models and outsourcing the workforce (Webster & Von Holdt 2005). In a sectoral analysis that included mining, Nicolas Pons-Vignon & Ward Anseeuw (2009) argue that the post-apartheid period had witnessed a marked increase in the precariousness of workers' status. ...
This article investigates how labour migrations of rural households from Leonzoane in Southern Mozambique have changed since the colonial period to a post-war (1992) and post-apartheid (1994) context and their links with livelihoods restructuring. It draws on a qualitative analysis of the features of labour migrations, through a sample of households on five generations. Results reveal the evolution of men’s forms of mobility from longstanding circular and formal migrations to South Africa’s mines, toward multi-sited, informal, and more flexible migrations into mining and other sectors. These renewed forms of mobility are a core element of households’ livelihoods restructuring, as part of strategies to adapt the changing political-economic constraints of the broader globalising environment in terms of increasing informal and volatile labour conditions. The article concludes with a call for further analysis and integration of migration features in development policies.
... The company has sought to construct positive relations with unions, including them in efforts to improve efficiency by cost reduction; union cooperation in health and safety has brought major benefits to the rate of return on capital -Aeberhard, 1998). The union has a broad political conception of its representative functions and has successfully negotiated protection for contract workers (von Holdt and Webster, 2005). The NUM has conducted personnel exchanges with many African mining unions and has had a long-term relationship with the Ghana Mineworkers Union (GMWU) based on personal contacts developed through the ICEM Regional Committee. ...
This case study illustrates the relationship between a Global Union Federation, the ICEM, and a Multinational company, Anglo American plc (AA), analysing how the GUF, national unions in South Africa, Ghana and Colombia and the company interacted with positive results for all concerned.
Domestic Work in Postcolonial Tanzaniaexamines the dynamics of learning domestic and care work within affluent expatriate households, characterized by significant economic privilege and, at times, diplomatic immunity.Paula Mählck employs contemporary narratives from privileged female expatriate employers and Tanzanian domestic workers, colonial documents, analysis of the built space of expatriate households, as well as literary works and analytic autoethnography to investigate the continuities and changes in contemporary employment relations as compared to those during the British colonial era from the 1920s to the 1960s. While the relationship between women employers and domestic workers serves as the entrance of the investigation, the study delves deeper into postcolonial dynamics of learning and their interconnections with gender, race, and class. It emphasizes learning to cope as a dynamic process involving negotiation and movement, offering a nuanced perspective that transcends the victim/survivor dichotomy.
Moreover, the book highlights the subtlety of unlearning oppressive practices and relations, distinguishing them from formal affirmative actions. It underscores unlearning as a means for individuals and collectives to challenge established knowledge, perceptions, and practices, aiming to demonstrate the possibility of change. Through its multifaceted approach, which includes the historicization of alternative narratives, sociological analysis, theoretical discussions on social reproduction, and critical examinations of research methods for Western scholars researching non-Western contexts, this book provides valuable insights into the complexities of domestic work taking place in expatriate households in postcolonial Tanzania. It offers a thought-provoking examination of learning, learning to cope, and unlearning within the context of privilege and power.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Stockholm University.
In a speech on 7 August 2009, the Gauteng MEC for Economic Development, Firoz Cachalia, laid out the policy response of the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) to the global financial crisis. He made clear that Gauteng’s employment creation programmes will have to be guided by the concept of decent work. This concept, he said, had its origins in a 1999 report of an International Labour Organisation (ILO) conference where a discussion paper by Dharam Ghai explained the concept as follows:
The notion of decent work, as elaborated in the above report, emphasises four elements: employment, social security, worker’s rights and social dialogue. Employment refers to work of all kinds and has both quantitative and qualitative dimensions. Thus the notion of decent work is applicable not just to workers in the formal economy but also to ‘unregulated wage workers, the self-employed, and the home workers’. Further, it refers to both adequate opportunities and remuneration for work (in cash or kind). Decent work also embraces safety at work and healthy working conditions. The social security component of decent work is intended to protect against the risk of losing income (Cachalia, 2009).
“This explanation”, the MEC continued, “raises a number of questions which assist us in thinking through the application of the concept in GPG programmes.” He listed the following:
● Are all the elements of decent work of a similar nature and status?
● Is the concept of decent work one of universal validity?
● Is it uniformly applicable to all countries and situations?
● How should the concept be applied to the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP)?
● Would it include payment in kind to community volunteers?
In order to take forward this commitment to decent work, the MEC commissioned the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP), with the assistance of the Gauteng Department of Economic Development and Planning, to provide a background analysis for the development of a Decent Work Policy Framework for Gauteng.
This paper examines the variety of agrarian classes of labour and the challenges they face in organizing and pursuing their interests. By taking the cotton sector in Burkina Faso as a case study, it analyses how various ‘classes of labour’ organize and mobilize for collective action to raise their claims: poor cotton farmers and workers in the cotton factories. Poor and middle farmers recently came to the fore when they boycotted cotton production in large numbers. The study focusses on the boycott campaign, and more broadly on class struggle and collective action by farmers and workers, on interclass alliances, and on capital's attempts to play the classes of labour against one another. The boycott campaign provides an outstanding case to analyse the interests of the various classes of labour and of opportunities for rural–urban mobilization and alliances across classes of labour. I argue that poor farmers and factory workers along the chain of cotton production can be considered as various classes of labour that are not necessarily antagonistic to one another but, first and foremost, to capital. In order to achieve radical transformation in the agrarian context, what is needed are networks and organizations to establish interclass solidarity and alliances.
La precariedad es un conjunto de prácticas sociales que asumen una extensión recursiva y contradictoria, desde las condiciones de materialidad, a la conformación interpretativa y simbólica de “la sociedad”, y que por lo tanto no escapa a las distintas lógicas imaginarias que dan forma a “verdades”, “saberes” y “certezas” con respecto a la realidad. A partir de lo anterior es que en este artículo proponemos un debate con respecto al carácter estructurante de las relaciones precarias en el trabajo y el no-trabajo, por medio de la categoría de habitus de Pierre Bourdieu, y la conformación de un “habitus precario” en la clase trabajadora en América Latina.
This editorial introduces and frames the six papers of this special section. It begins by proposing that youth unemployment needs to be understood in relation to a range of patterns of “getting by” in the global south. We suggest that the many practices of work, including informal ones, discussed in the collection do not attest to a society in “need of development” but rather point towards the future of work, here and elsewhere. While taking transformations in capitalism seriously, we argue that renewed pressures on secure wage work may not lead to a precarity in quite the same way that it has been theorised in the global north. Instead, especially through a focus on youth and generation, we point to multiple experiential circumstances in which work and its futures are enacted. These pertain to time and value and to the importance of space in positioning actors in enabling or foreclosing opportunities for earning income.
The overall aim of this research was to investigate how South Africa's Mine Health and Safety
Act (MHSA, 1996) came about and to assess whether it succeeded or failed in its objectives to improve mine health and safety in South African mines. The main hypothesis is that the MHSA’s impact has been mixed. The effect of the MHSA was assessed in terms of:
• The nature of health and safety problems encountered in the South African mining sector,
• The context in which the MHSA was introduced, and which changed over time (does the MHSA ‘fit the context?), and
• The readiness of the stakeholders for tripartism and risk management (could the tripartite stakeholders engage effectively and put a risk management approach into place for health and safety?).
It was envisaged that the outcomes of this research would have relevance for not only South Africa but also for other developing countries which have, or which are contemplating, similar legislation.
In the light of the shift in the policy-making processes post-Polokwane, the global economic crisis that began in 2008 and the growing wave of unrest, both workplace and around service delivery over the last five years, this report revisits the 2006 External Review of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC). Indeed, some commentators have attributed the growing unrest to a failure of social dialogue. NEDLAC constituencies, in particular government and business, are increasingly concerned about whether the costs of NEDLAC outweigh its benefits as a peak-level social dialogue institution.
Based on in-depth interviews with key NEDLAC informants, we have identified the main challenges facing NEDLAC. We presented the first draft of this ILO-funded report and recommendations to each of the four NEDLAC constituencies separately and incorporated their feedback into the report. We conclude that NEDLAC is an institution that could help to overcome the current policy stalemate. To move forward, all social partners need to recognise this impasse. Until this happens, the kinds of shifts that are necessary by all constituencies will not take place.
We propose, as a way forward, that NEDLAC reposition its role, not only as a bargaining forum, but as a space for the social partners to participate in the process of decision-making. NEDLAC should provide support and knowledge on key socioeconomic policy issues and be a space where information is shared and common solutions to socio-economic challenges are explored.
This article is focused on the political economy of two of Africa's “labour reserve” regions, northern Ghana and the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The majority of residents in these regions are taken as paradigmatic examples of “surplus populations.” They exemplify a main feature that has been used to theorize the concept of surplus populations today, namely, that their labour is surplus to the needs of capital accumulation. We follow the method of Arrighi and Piselli, tracing the political economic transformations of these regions from the turn of the 20th century until the present in order to ground the concept of surplus population in a specific historical context. We argue that it is limiting to think about these populations' utility or uselessness only in relation to capital. To understand the political implications of “surplus populations,” we must think about the interrelation between the political and economic roles that they play and how these developed within specific historical contexts.
This chapter identifies the approaches and interventions, which may have the greatest potential to increase the engagement levels of employees in a unionised environment. The synthesis of the results shows that engaging unionised employees presents different challenges to engaging non-unionised employees. The systematic review of the literature identified strategic narrative, trust and integrity, pluralist tendencies, environmental factors, collaborative partnership, union involvement, the employment relationship, employee voice, employee participation, human resource management practices, leadership and line manager behaviour as additional antecedents that may have the greatest potential to create and embed high levels of engagement in a unionised environment. These antecedents together with the already identified antecedents informed the framework in addressing the low levels of engagement in a unionised environment.
Management studies both globally and in South Africa is a young academic discipline. Despite this, it is a vibrant and multi-disciplinary field of scholarship. Management studies in South Africa mirrors the country’s political trajectory, and its development echoes apartheid segregationist policies. The discipline is complicit in supporting the apartheid workplace regimes. Post-apartheid South Africa allows for democratic access to university education for all South Africans. The democratic state advocates increased participation of public sector employees in management programmes. Student demographics are reflective of South African demographics. However, faculty demographics are less representative. Into the second decade of democracy, management studies remains vibrant despite some concerns.
In this paper, the author examines the different uses and meanings of the usual expression “post-apartheid.” It has been used extensively in the social sciences, political discourse and the media since the mid-1980s. But what does it refer to, and has it always meant the same thing over the last 20 years? To answer that question, the author reviews the different ways she has used the notion in her research into workers’ forms of thinking and political subjectivities in South Africa since 1996. She distinguishes between its use as a chronological marker, an academic concept open to various problematics and epistemological decisions and a notion used by interviewees under various acceptations. She concentrates more specifically on the sequential implications of the adverb “post” in her work and argues that there have been political sequences in what she (with others) has named “post-apartheid.” She concludes that she intends to stop using this term in order to concentrate on identifying the current political sequence in South Africa.
Die Abschaffung des Apartheid-Regimes brachte große Erwartungen bezüglich einer Veränderung des Arbeitsmarktes mit sich (Pons-Vignon und Anseeuw 2009). Dies war bedingt durch die Schlüsselrolle der Gewerkschaften beim Umsturz der Minderheitsherrschaft – sowohl als politische Macht, als auch durch die erfolgreiche Unterdrückung des rassistischen Arbeitsplatz-Systems (Von Holdt 2003).
Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, warum die vergleichsweise progressive Fiskal- und Sozialpolitik im Post-Apartheid-Südafrika nicht zu einem deutlichen Rückgang von Einkommensungleichheiten führte: Den Berechnungen des Statistik-Amtes zu Folge, vergrößerte sich der Gini-Koeffizient von 0,56 im Jahr 1995 über 0,57 im Jahr 2000 bis auf 0,72 im Zeitraum 2005/2006. Auch innerhalb der verschiedenen „Rassen“ vergrößerte sich – gemäß dieser Berechnungen – die Einkommensungleichheit.
The aim of the study was twofold. Firstly it investigated the relationship between worker participation and job satisfaction amongst academic staff and administrative staff at a South African university. Secondly it investigated if there is a statistically significant difference between worker participation levels of academic and non-academic staff. Most empirical work on worker participation has focused on workers in the industrial and manufacturing sectors of the economy, with limited focus on worker participation in the services sector. This study aims to address this gap through this exploratory study of the impact of worker participation on job satisfaction at a South African University.
South Africa is not typically mentioned in studies of recent global protest. But popular resistance surged in South Africa from 2009, reaching a peak of more than one protest per day in 2012. We examine the 2009+ South African protest wave, highlighting its sources, antecedents, primary features, and key consequences. Marked by an explosion of popular resistance in both communities and workplaces, we argue that the protest wave shares key features with recent protests elsewhere. Most importantly, they are propelled by forces of marketization and critique the failures of democracy. The protest wave had a major impact on South African politics, instigating the emergence of new challenges to the dominance of the Alliance between the African National Congress (ANC)—the ruling party—the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). But the current political trajectory is far from stable, and the future is remarkably uncertain.
Examining South African retail workers, the article explores some of the complexities and limitations of rights-based demands for national inclusion. The article describes black workers’ historical exclusion from workplace participation and employment rights under the apartheid regime, and the particular ways they sought to be incorporated into workplace decision-making processes and labour law. South African retail workers’ struggles for ‘inclusion’ were successful at one level: black workers were finally incorporated as ‘employees’ into national labour legislation and as citizens. Yet, not all black workers were equally incorporated, particularly, those employed in casual or contract jobs. Drawing on Wendy Brown’s work on the relationship between freedom and equality, the article argues that the way in which claims for inclusion were made contributed to the reproduction of new divisions – new exclusions in the workplace – and has continued to shape workers’ actions.
In some respects, the history of the South African labor movement has a complexity and longevity that makes it quite unique on the African continent. The key feature here is, of course, the relative historic length and depth of industrialization as an economic process in South Africa. However, it also contains features that are essential to understanding the way labor movements have developed elsewhere in Africa and that enable comparisons to be usefully made. There are also obvious areas of comparison between the labor movement in South Africa and those in colonial contexts where settlers from the colonizing country and elsewhere have formed leading sectors in the working class. The particularities of South African political development—notably the form that its colonization took—has meant that the labor force has been deeply divided. The politics of trade unionism and the consciousness of workers have always been linked closely to struggles over the class and ethnic form post-colonial power would take. Thus, the goal of an all-inclusive movement representing labor has been very elusive. South Africa is a virtual laboratory for the study of the relationship between fragmented sections of the working class, divided by race, ethnicity, and gender. Labor historian Jon Lewis has shown in detail how these historic divisions always need to be understood in terms of the typical trade union issues of skill and craft, faced with the protean nature of industrial capitalism, in order to explain the organizational and structural history of South African labor (1984).
This chapter compares two very different experiences with tripartism in Africa in the last two decades: a weak advisory model in Zimbabwe and a strong negotiating model that emerges out of the struggle for democracy in South Africa. The latter is actually a case of ‘tripartism plus’ in that participation in policy consultations and negotiations involves not only representatives of government, trade unions and employer associations but also a fourth partner made up of community organizations representing the poor.
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