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The writings in this volume see the South African labour movement as an actor capable of shaping democratization. Through the strategic use of power, labour has reconfigured democratization through negotiated compromises, attempting to ensure that the costs of adjustment are not borne by workers alone. The book examines these strategies and practices and assesses labour's capacity to exert influence in the future. The findings suggest that labour's marginalization would put at risk the consolidation of democracy.
List of contents
List of Tables Preface List of Acronyms Notes on the Contributors Maps Introduction: Consolidating Democracy in a Liberalising World: Trade Union and Transition in South Africa; E.Webster & G.Adler Trade Unions in Transition to Democracy in South Africa, Spain and Brazil; D.de Villiers & M.Anstey Labour in South Africa's Transition to Democracy: Concertation in a Third World Setting; J.Baskin Growth, Structure, and Power in the South African Union Movement; I.Macun Trade Union Organization and Capacity in the 1990s: Continuities, Changes, and Challenges for PPWAWU; S.Buhlungu From the Politics of Resistance to the Politics of Reconstrucution? The Union and 'Ungovernability' in the Workplace; K.von Holdt The Tripartite on the Eve on a New Millennium: COSATU, the ANC and the SACP; P.G.Eidelberg Shoot Anything That Flies, Claim Anything That Falls: Labour and the Changing Definition of the Reconstruction and Development Programme; G.A.Götz Power in Partnership? Trade Unions, Forums and the Transition; S.Friedman & M.Shaw Bibliography Index
About the author
GLENN ADLER Service Employees International Union, Washington DC, USA. He is also a part-time senior researcher at the National Labour and Economic Development Institute. He has published widely on trade unions and politics in South Africa, and his current research interests focus on the impact of social movements on economic and political liberalization in Africa.
EDDIE WEBSTER is Professor of Sociology and Director of SWOP at the University of Witwatersrand. He is author of Cast in a Radical Mould: Labour Process and Trade Unionism in the Foundries, and has published and lectured widely on labour issues in South Africa. In 1995 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Summary
The writings in this volume see the South African labour movement as an actor capable of shaping democratization. Through the strategic use of power, labour has reconfigured democratization through negotiated compromises, attempting to ensure that the costs of adjustment are not borne by workers alone.
