What has happened to organized labor in Southern Africa?

International Labor and Working-Class History

Volumn 72, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 134-160

  Anne Pitcher, M ^a  

^a Center for Language and Brain   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 36448974587     PISSN: 01475479     EISSN: 14716445     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0147547907000579     Document Type: Article

References (108)

1. I would like to thank Ron Aminzade, participants at the Oxford University Africa Seminar, the editors of this special issue, and anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. The article has benefited greatly from their suggestions; any remaining errors are my own responsibility.
2. Zambia Congress of Trade Unions, "Zambia: Socio-economic issues and unionization," Global Policy Network, April 16, 2001: http://www. globalpolicynetwork.org.
3. Michael Storpor, "Lived Effects of the Contemporary Economy: Globalization, Inequality, and Consumer Society," in Jean and John L. Comaroff, Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism (Durham, 2001), 88-124.
4. Even the dynamic textile and clothing sector in Mauritius has experienced challenges recently, see Gilles Joomun, "The Textile and Clothing Industry in Mauritius" in Herbert Jauch and Rudolf Traub-Merz, eds., The Future of the Textile and Clothing Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bonn, 2006), 193-211.
5. See for example, J. Samuel Valenzuela, "Labor Movements in Transitions to Democracy: A framework for analysis," Comparative Politics 21:4 (1989): 445-472;
6. Paul Drake, Labor Movements and Dictatorships: The Southern Cone in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore, 1996);
7. and Sakhela Buhlungu, ed., Trade Unions and Democracy (Cape Town, 2006).
8. Lise Rakner, Political and Economic Liberalisation in Zambia 1991-2001 (Stockholm, 2003), 131.
9. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York, 2005), 175-182.
10. "Luta dos Operários Moçambicanos," Tempo, 395, April 30, 1978, 23-29;
11. Allen and Barbara Isaacman, Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution, 1900-1982 (Boulder, CO, 1983), 161-167.
12. Organização dos Trabalhadores Moçambicanos, "Estatutos." Parts 1-3 and Conclusion, reprinted in Notícias, December 22-24 and December 27, 1983.
13. The figure on the total numbers of salaried labor in OTM is from Edward Webster, Geoffrey Wood, Beata Mtyingizana, and Michael Brookes, "Residual Unionism and Renewal: Organized Labour in Mozambique," Journal of Industrial Relations 48 (2006), 262.
14. The size of the total workforce in 1980 was 5.5 million of which approximately 4.3 million were nonsalaried labor in agriculture, see Mozambique, Recenseamento 1980, 11.
15. James Sidaway and Marcus Power, "Sociospatial transformations in the 'postsocialist' periphery: the case of Maputo, Mozambique." Environment and Planning A 27:4 (1995), 1475.
16. M. Anne Pitcher, Transforming Mozambique: The Politics of Privatization, 1975-2000 (New York, 2002), 81-85.
17. Kathie Sheldon, Pounders of Grain: A History of Women, Work and Politics in Mozambique (Portsmouth, 2002), 154-169.
18. Mozambique, Recenseamento 1980, 14;
19. and Carlos Castel-Branco, ed., Moçambique Perspectivas Económicas (Maputo, 1994), 95.
20. Pitcher, Transforming Mozambique, 102-124.
21. Jens Erik Torp, Industrial Planning and Development in Mozambique: Some Preliminary Considerations (Uppsala, 1979), 36.
22. Robert Bates, Unions, Parties, and Political Development: A Study of Mineworkers in Zambia (New Haven, 1971), 166-200.
23. Ibid.
24. Miles Larmer, "Resisting the State: The Trade Union Movement and Working-class Politics in Zambia, 1964-91" in Leo Zeilig, ed., Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa (Cheltenham, 2002), 102.
25. John M. Mwanakatwe, End of Kaunda Era (Lusaka, 1994), 109.
26. Munyonzwe Hamalengwa, Class Struggles in Zambia, 1889-1989 (Lanham, MD, 1992), 52.
27. James Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt (Berkeley, 1999), 2;
28. and Robert Bates and Paul Collier, "The Politics and Economics of Policy Reform in Zambia" in Robert Bates and Anne Krueger, eds., Political and Economic Interactions in Economic Policy Reform (Cambridge, MA, 1993), 397.
29. Hamalengwa, Class Struggles in Zambia, 72-73.
30. Mwanakatwe, End of Kaunda Era, 127.
31. Ibid., 186-187.
32. Martin Murray, The Revolution Deferred: The Painful Birth of Post-Apartheid South Africa (New York, 1994), 142-143.
33. Ibid., 143-153.
34. Hein Marais, South Africa: Limits to Change: The Political Economy of Transition (New York, 1998), 199-202.
35. Derek de Villiers and Mark Anstey, "Trade Unions in Transitions to Democracy in South Africa, Spain and Brazil" in Glenn Adler and Eddie Webster, eds., Trade Unions and Democratization in South Africa, 1985-1997 (New York, 2000), 26.
36. Graeme Götz, "Shoot Anything that Flies, Claim Anything that Falls: Labour and the Changing Definition of the Reconstruction and Development Programme," in Adler and Webster, eds., Trade Unions and Democratization, 159-189.
37. U.S. Commercial Service, Mozambique Country Commercial Guide, "Labor." http:// maputo.usembassy.gov/ trade_regulations_customs_and_standards.html. Figures are unreliable owing to the lack of an updated census. Webster, et al., "Residual Unionism," 262, for example, give a figure of 90,000 unionized workers.
38. Zambia Congress of Trade Unions, "Zambia."
39. Grace-Edward Galabuzi, "Re-locating Mineral-Dependant Communities in the Era of Globalization, 1979-1999: A Comparative Study of the Zambian Copperbelt and Timmins, Ontario." Project Report funded by IDRC Canadian Window on Development Program, mimeo., nd., 12.
40. Karl von Holdt and Edward Webster, "Work Restructuring and the Crisis of Social Reproduction: A. Southern Perspective" in Edward Webster and Karl von Holdt, eds., Beyond the Apartheid Workplace: Studies in Transition (Scottsville, South Africa, 2005), 28.
41. Beatrice Hibou, "The Political Economy of the World Bank's Discourse: from Economic Catechism to Missionary Deeds (and Misdeeds)," Les Études du CERI 39 (January 2000), trans Janet Roitman;
42. Joe Hanlon, Peace without Profit: How the IMF Blocks Rebuilding in Mozambique (Portsmouth, 1996).
43. Nicolas van de Walle, African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979-1999 (New York, 2001).
44. David Lewis, Kabelo Reed and Ethel Teljeur, "South Africa: Economic Policy-Making and Implementation in Africa: A Study of Strategic Trade and Selective Industrial Policies" in Charles Soludo, Osita Ogbu, and Ha-Joon Chang, eds., The Politics of Trade and Industrial Policy in Africa: Forced Consensus? (Trenton, NJ, 2004), 160-164.
45. Lourenço Sambo, Head of Research Division, Centro de Promoção de Investimento, Maputo, Mozambique, personal communication, August 1, 2003.
46. Stuart Cruikshank, Zambia Privatisation Agency, Interview, June 14, 2005, Lusaka, Zambia and Zambia, Zambia Privatisation Agency, "Status Report as at 30th April, 2005," mimeo, 1.
47. World Bank, "Zambia Privatization Review: Facts, Assessment and Lessons." Report prepared at the request of the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Zambia, December 5, 2002, 23.
48. Miles Larmer, "Reaction and Resistance to Neo-liberalism in Zambia," Review of African Political Economy, 103 (2005), 34-38.
49. BusinessMap Foundation, Restructuring 2004: A Change of Pace (Johannesburg, 2004), 1-19, http://www.businessmap.org.za.
50. Monhla Hlahla, "The Municipal Infrastructure Investment Unit: the government's PPP-enabling strategy," Development Southern Africa 16:4 (Summer 1999): 567.
51. For more detailed information on the impact of MSPs, see David McDonald and John Pape, eds., Cost Recovery and the Crisis of Service Delivery in South Africa (London: 2002);
52. and Patrick Bond, with George Dor, Becky Himlin, and Greg Ruiters, "Eco-social injustice for working-class communities: the making and unmaking of neoliberal infrastructure policy" in P. Bond, et al. Unsustainable South Africa: Environment, Development, and Social Protest (London, 2002), 185-254.
53. Webster, et al., "Residual Unionism," 263.
54. Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, "Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Zambia," CSOs/2005/Parallel Report, March 2005, 11-13.
55. Paul Benjamin, "Beyond 'Lean' Social Democracy: Labour Law and the Challenge of Social Protection," Transformation 60 (2006), 32-56.
56. Miriam Altman and Imraan Valodia, "Introduction: Whereto for the South African Labour Market? Some 'big Issues,'" Transformation 60 (2006), 4.
57. Raúl. Madrid, "Labouring against Neoliberalism: Unions and Patterns of Reform in Latin America," Journal of Latin American Studies 35 (2003), 53-88.
58. For strikes among railway workers and skilled workers in the aluminum industry in Mozambique, see M. Anne Pitcher, "Forgetting from Above and Memory from Below: Strategies of Legitimation and Struggle in Postsocialist Mozambique," Africa 76:1 (2006): 88-112;
59. and with regard to cashew workers, see Transforming Mozambique, 168-171, 225-235. For strikes by public-sector workers including a very rare general strike in Zambia,
60. see Larmer, "Reaction and Resistance"; for South Africa,
61. see Macdonald and Pape, Cost Recovery and the Crisis of Service Delivery
62. and Bond, et al., Unsustainable South Africa.
63. On the global aspects of this process, see Gary Gereffi and Miguel Korzeniewicz, Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism (Westport, CT, 1994).
64. For a more regional perspective, see Roberto Korzeniewicz and William Smith, eds., Latin America in the World Economy (Westport, CT, 1996).
65. Gary Gereffi, David Spener, and Jennifer Bair, "Introduction: The Apparel Industry and North American Economic Integration" in Gary Gereffi, David Spener, and Jennifer Bair, eds., Free Trade and Uneven Development: The North American Apparel Industry after NAFTA (Philadelphia, 2002), 4.
66. Simon Roberts and John. Thoburn, "Globalization and the South African Textiles Industry: Impacts on Firms and Workers," Journal of International Development 16 (2004): 126.
67. Peter Gibbon, and Stefano Ponte, Africa, Value Chains, and The Global Economy (Philadelphia, 2005), 42.
68. Karen Tranberg Hansen, Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia (Chicago, 2000), 251.
69. See for example, Gary Gereffi and Stephanie Fonda, "Regional Paths of Development," Annual Review of Sociology 18 (1992): 435-438.
70. Hansen, Salaula, 83-87.
71. Economic Justice Network of the Fellowship of Christian Councils in South Africa (FOCCISA), "The socio-economic impact of trade liberalization and employment loss on women in the South African clothing industry: A Cape Town case study," mimeo, nd., 6.
72. Marais, South Africa Limits to Change 103;
73. Lewis, et al., "South Africa," 153.
74. Roberts and Thoburn, "Globalization and the South African," 129.
75. Marais, South Africa Limits to Change, 101.
76. Alfredo Tembe, "Vestuário: A candonga 'legal,'" Tempo 758 (April 21, 1985), 2-29;
77. and Author's Fieldwork, Nampula Province, 1994 and 1995.
78. Mwango Kasengele, "Differentiation among Small-Scale Enterprises: The Zambian Clothing Industry in Lusaka" in Anita Spring and Barbara McDade, African Entrepreneurship: Theory and Reality (Gainesville, FL, 1998), 101-103;
79. and Karen Hansen, Salaula, 89-91.
80. For a thorough analysis of Mozambique's industrial sector, see Carlos Castel-Branco, "Indústria e Industrialização em Moçambique: Análise da Situação Actual e Linhas Estratégicas de Desenvolvimento," Country poverty analysis, Southern African Regional Poverty Network, August 2003, http://www.sarpn.org.za/ documents.
81. Group Interview, Abdul Azziz, Administrator; Américo Magaia, administrator and Frank Roomer, manager, Sabrina (garment factory), Maputo, June 10, 1999 and Mozambique, Instituto para a Promocão de Exportações, Subregional Trade Expansion in Southern Africa, Mozambique, Supply Survey on Textiles and Clothing, Prepared for the International Trade Centre Unctad/WTO, November 2001, http://www.intracen.org.
82. Grayson Koyi, '"The Textiles and Clothing Sector in Zambia" in Herbert Jauch and Rudolf Traub-Merz, eds., The Future of the Textile and Clothing Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bonn, 2006), 260-263.
83. "Country information: Zambia," http://www.agoa.info.
84. Lewis et al., "South Africa," 156. On the parallels with Chile, see Peter Winn, "'No Miracle for Us': The Textile Industry in the Pinochet Era," in Peter Winn, ed., Victims of the Chilean Miracle: Workers and Neoliberalism in the Pinochet Era, 1973-2002 (Durham, 2004), 125-163.
85. FOCCISA, "The socio-economic impact," 6-8.
86. On the union's increasing marginalization from negotiations in the 1990s, see Philip Hirschsohn, Shane Godfrey and Johann Maree, "Industrial Policy-Making in the Auto, Textile and Clothing Sectors: labour's strategic ambivalence," Transformation, 41 (2000): 55-88.
87. Etienne Vlok, "South Africa" in Jauch and Traub-Merz, 229-230 and 241.
88. FOCCISA, "The socio-economic impact," 11. In comparison with other countries, the informal sector is still quite small in South Africa although this assessment may change as more research is done. For an analysis, see Imraan Valodia, Likani Lebani, Caroline Skinner, and Richard Devey, "Low-waged and informal employment in South Africa," Transformation 60 (2006), 90-126.
89. Etienne Vlok, "South Africa," 232-233 and "Country information: South Africa," http://www.agoa.info.
90. See Bates and Krueger, Political and Economic Interactions, 444-471;
91. and Victoria Murillo, Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America, (New York, 2001).
92. See Sakhela Buhlungu, ed., Trade Unions and Democracy: Cosatu Workers' Political Attitudes in South Africa (Cape Town, 2006), especially chapters 4 and 6.
93. On new organizations, see http://www.streetnet.org.za.
94. On the possibilities and challenges of trade-union collaboration with other groups, see Dave Spooner, "Trade Unions and NGOs: The Need for Cooperation," Development in Practice 14:1-2 (February 2004): 19-33;
95. and Richard Ballard, Adam Habib, Imraan Valodia, and Elke Zuern, "Globalization, Marginalization and Contemporary Social Movements in South Africa," African Affairs 104:417 (October 2005): 615-634.
96. See Benjamin, "Beyond 'lean' social democracy," 34 on this point.
97. Pitcher, "Forgetting from Above."
98. E. Salela, "Era uma vez o 1° de Maio," Letter, Notícias, May 2, 1997.
99. Harvey, A Brief History, 175-182.
100. Roger Southall, Edward Webster, and Sakhela Buhlungu, "ANC-Cosatu Relations and the Battle for the Presidency," in Buhlungu, ed., Trade Unions and Democracy, 219-226.
101. Rakner, Political and Economic Liberalisation, 178.
102. Devon Pillay, "Cosatu, Alliances and Working-class Politics" in Buhlungu, ed., Trade Unions and Democracy, 167-198.
103. This is demonstrated, clearly in the case of Mozambique where trade unions have negotiated 275 "collective" agreements with individual firms, see http://www.otm.org.mz/ desempenho.html.
104. Sheldon, Pounders of Grain, 240-247;
105. see also José Sixpence and Jorge Rungo, "A greve continua," Domingo, August 19, 2002.
106. Edward Webster, Geoffrey Wood, and Michael. Brookes, "International Homogenization or the Persistence of National Practices? The Remaking of Industrial Relations in Mozambique," Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations 61:2 (2006): 247-270.
107. Karl von Holdt, Transition from Below: Forging Trade Unionism and Workplace Change in South Africa (Scottsville, SA, 2003), 265.
108. On new strategies and alliances in Latin America, for example, see Viviana Patroni and Manuel Poitras, "Labour in Neoliberal Latin America: An Introduction," 207-220 and subsequent articles in Labour, Capital and Society 35:2 (November 2002).