Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vsgnj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-20T19:25:51.903Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What Has Happened to Organized Labor in Southern Africa?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2007

M. Anne Pitcher
M. Anne Pitcher
Affiliation:
Colgate University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why have labor movements in Mozambique, Zambia, and South Africa increasingly been marginalized from the economic debates that are taking place in their countries, even though they have supported ruling parties? Policy reforms such as trade liberalization, privatization, and revisions to labor legislation in all three countries partially account for the loss of power by organized labor as many scholars have claimed. Yet, these policy “adjustments” have also interacted with long-run, structural changes in production, distribution, and trade of goods as well as with processes of democratization to undermine the position of trade unions across much of southern Africa. The article explores this puzzle by first examining the different historical trajectories of organized labor in Mozambique, Zambia, and South Africa. It then analyzes how policy reforms, global restructuring, and democracy had similar consequences across all three cases; collectively, they produced declines in trade-union membership and weakened the influence of organized labor. Although trade unions face a number of daunting challenges, the conclusion traces emerging opportunities for labor to recover from its current malaise.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , Fall 2007 , pp. 134 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The International Labor and Working-Class History Society 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

2. Zambia Congress of Trade Unions, “Zambia: Socio-economic issues and unionization,” Global Policy Network, April 16, 2001: http://www.globalpolicynetwork.org.

3. Storpor, Michael, “Lived Effects of the Contemporary Economy: Globalization, Inequality, and Consumer Society,” in Jean, and Comaroff, John L., Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism (Durham, 2001), 88–124CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. Even the dynamic textile and clothing sector in Mauritius has experienced challenges recently, see Joomun, Gilles, “The Textile and Clothing Industry in Mauritius” in Jauch, Herbert and Traub-Merz, Rudolf, eds., The Future of the Textile and Clothing Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bonn, 2006), 193–211Google Scholar.

5. See for example, Valenzuela, J. Samuel, “Labor Movements in Transitions to Democracy: A framework for analysis,” Comparative Politics 21:4 (1989): 445–472CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Drake, Paul, Labor Movements and Dictatorships: The Southern Cone in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore, 1996)Google Scholar; and Buhlungu, Sakhela, ed., Trade Unions and Democracy (Cape Town, 2006)Google Scholar.

6. Rakner, Lise, Political and Economic Liberalisation in Zambia 1991–2001 (Stockholm, 2003), 131Google Scholar.

7. Harvey, David, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York, 2005), 175–182Google Scholar.

8. “Luta dos Operários Moçambicanos,” Tempo, 395, April 30, 1978, 23–29; Allen, and Isaacman, Barbara, Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution, 1900–1982 (Boulder, CO, 1983), 161–167Google Scholar.

9. Organização dos Trabalhadores Moçambicanos, “Estatutos.” Parts 1–3 and Conclusion, reprinted in Notícias, December 22–24 and December 27, 1983. The figure on the total numbers of salaried labor in OTM is from Webster, Edward, Wood, Geoffrey, Mtyingizana, Beata, and Brookes, Michael, “Residual Unionism and Renewal: Organized Labour in Mozambique,” Journal of Industrial Relations 48 (2006), 262CrossRefGoogle Scholar. 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.

10. Sidaway, James and Power, Marcus, “Sociospatial transformations in the ‘postsocialist’ periphery: the case of Maputo, Mozambique.” Environment and Planning A 27:4 (1995), 1475CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. Pitcher, M. Anne, Transforming Mozambique: The Politics of Privatization, 1975–2000 (New York, 2002), 81–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Sheldon, Kathie, Pounders of Grain: A History of Women, Work and Politics in Mozambique (Portsmouth, 2002), 154–169Google Scholar.

13. Mozambique, Recenseamento 1980, 14; and Castel-Branco, Carlos, ed., Moçambique Perspectivas Económicas (Maputo, 1994), 95Google Scholar.

14. Pitcher, Transforming Mozambique, 102–124.

15. Torp, Jens Erik, Industrial Planning and Development in Mozambique: Some Preliminary Considerations (Uppsala, 1979), 36Google Scholar.

16. Bates, Robert, Unions, Parties, and Political Development: A Study of Mineworkers in Zambia (New Haven, 1971), 166–200Google Scholar.

17. Ibid.

18. Larmer, Miles, “Resisting the State: The Trade Union Movement and Working-class Politics in Zambia, 1964–91” in Zeilig, Leo, ed., Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa (Cheltenham, 2002), 102Google Scholar.

19. Mwanakatwe, John M., End of Kaunda Era (Lusaka, 1994), 109Google Scholar.

20. Hamalengwa, Munyonzwe, Class Struggles in Zambia, 1889–1989 (Lanham, MD, 1992), 52Google Scholar.

21. Ferguson, James, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt (Berkeley, 1999), 2Google Scholar; and Bates, Robert and Collier, Paul, “The Politics and Economics of Policy Reform in Zambia” in Bates, Robert and Krueger, Anne, eds., Political and Economic Interactions in Economic Policy Reform (Cambridge, MA, 1993), 397Google Scholar.

22. Hamalengwa, Class Struggles in Zambia, 72–73.

23. Mwanakatwe, End of Kaunda Era, 127.

24. Ibid., 186–187.

25. Murray, Martin, The Revolution Deferred: The Painful Birth of Post-Apartheid South Africa (New York, 1994), 142–143Google Scholar.

26. Ibid., 143–153.

27. Marais, Hein, South Africa: Limits to Change: The Political Economy of Transition (New York, 1998), 199–202Google Scholar.

28. de Villiers, Derek and Anstey, Mark, “Trade Unions in Transitions to Democracy in South Africa, Spain and Brazil” in Adler, Glenn and Webster, Eddie, eds., Trade Unions and Democratization in South Africa, 1985–1997 (New York, 2000), 26Google Scholar.

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. Zambia Congress of Trade Unions, “Zambia.”

32. 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.

33. von Holdt, Karl and Webster, Edward, “Work Restructuring and the Crisis of Social Reproduction: A Southern Perspective” in Webster, Edward and von Holdt, Karl, eds., Beyond the Apartheid Workplace: Studies in Transition (Scottsville, South Africa, 2005), 28Google Scholar.

34. 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; Hanlon, Joe, Peace without Profit: How the IMF Blocks Rebuilding in Mozambique (Portsmouth, 1996)Google Scholar.

35. van de Walle, Nicolas, African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979–1999 (New York, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. Lewis, David, Reed, Kabelo and Teljeur, Ethel, “South Africa: Economic Policy-Making and Implementation in Africa: A Study of Strategic Trade and Selective Industrial Policies” in Soludo, Charles, Ogbu, Osita, and Chang, Ha-Joon, eds., The Politics of Trade and Industrial Policy in Africa: Forced Consensus? (Trenton, NJ, 2004), 160–164Google Scholar.

37. Lourenço Sambo, Head of Research Division, Centro de Promoção de Investimento, Maputo, Mozambique, personal communication, August 1, 2003.

38. 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.

39. 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.

40. Larmer, Miles, “Reaction and Resistance to Neo-liberalism in Zambia,” Review of African Political Economy, 103 (2005), 34–38Google Scholar.

41. BusinessMap Foundation, Restructuring 2004: A Change of Pace (Johannesburg, 2004), 1–19Google Scholar, http://www.businessmap.org.za.

42. Hlahla, Monhla, “The Municipal Infrastructure Investment Unit: the government's PPP-enabling strategy,” Development Southern Africa 16:4 (Summer 1999): 567CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43. For more detailed information on the impact of MSPs, see McDonald, David and Pape, John, eds., Cost Recovery and the Crisis of Service Delivery in South Africa (London: 2002)Google Scholar; and Bond, Patrick, with Dor, George, Himlin, Becky, and Ruiters, Greg, “Eco-social injustice for working-class communities: the making and unmaking of neoliberal infrastructure policy” in Bond, P., et al. Unsustainable South Africa: Environment, Development, and Social Protest (London, 2002), 185–254Google Scholar.

44. Webster, et al., “Residual Unionism,” 263.

45. Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, “Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Zambia,” CSOs/2005/Parallel Report, March 2005, 11–13.

46. Benjamin, Paul, “Beyond ‘Lean’ Social Democracy: Labour Law and the Challenge of Social Protection,” Transformation 60 (2006), 32–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47. Altman, Miriam and Valodia, Imraan, “Introduction: Whereto for the South African Labour Market? Some ‘big Issues,’” Transformation 60 (2006), 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48. Madrid, Raúl, “Labouring against Neoliberalism: Unions and Patterns of Reform in Latin America,” Journal of Latin American Studies 35 (2003), 53–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49. For strikes among railway workers and skilled workers in the aluminum industry in Mozambique, see Pitcher, M. Anne, “Forgetting from Above and Memory from Below: Strategies of Legitimation and Struggle in Postsocialist Mozambique,” Africa 76:1 (2006): 88–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 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, see Larmer, “Reaction and Resistance”; for South Africa, see Macdonald and Pape, Cost Recovery and the Crisis of Service Delivery and Bond, et al., Unsustainable South Africa.

50. On the global aspects of this process, see Gereffi, Gary and Korzeniewicz, Miguel, Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism (Westport, CT, 1994)Google Scholar. For a more regional perspective, see Korzeniewicz, Roberto and Smith, William, eds., Latin America in the World Economy (Westport, CT, 1996)Google Scholar.

51. Gereffi, Gary, Spener, David, and Bair, Jennifer, “Introduction: The Apparel Industry and North American Economic Integration” in Gereffi, Gary, Spener, David, and Bair, Jennifer, eds., Free Trade and Uneven Development: The North American Apparel Industry after NAFTA (Philadelphia, 2002), 4Google Scholar.

52. Roberts, Simon and Thoburn, John, “Globalization and the South African Textiles Industry: Impacts on Firms and Workers,” Journal of International Development 16 (2004): 126CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53. Gibbon, Peter and Ponte, Stefano, Africa, Value Chains, and The Global Economy (Philadelphia, 2005), 42Google Scholar.

54. Hansen, Karen Tranberg, Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia (Chicago, 2000), 251Google Scholar.

55. See for example, Gereffi, Gary and Fonda, Stephanie, “Regional Paths of Development,” Annual Review of Sociology 18 (1992): 435–438CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56. Hansen, Salaula, 83–87.

57. 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.

58. Marais, South Africa Limits to Change 103; Lewis, et al., “South Africa,” 153.

59. Roberts and Thoburn, “Globalization and the South African,” 129.

60. Marais, South Africa Limits to Change, 101.

61. Tembe, Alfredo, “Vestuário: A candonga ‘legal,’” Tempo 758 (April 21, 1985), 2–29Google Scholar; and Author's Fieldwork, Nampula Province, 1994 and 1995.

62. Kasengele, Mwango, “Differentiation among Small-Scale Enterprises: The Zambian Clothing Industry in Lusaka” in Spring, Anita and McDade, Barbara, African Entrepreneurship: Theory and Reality (Gainesville, FL, 1998), 101–103Google Scholar; and Karen Hansen, Salaula, 89–91.

63. 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.

64. 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.

65. Koyi, Grayson, “The Textiles and Clothing Sector in Zambia” in Jauch, Herbert and Traub-Merz, Rudolf, eds., The Future of the Textile and Clothing Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bonn, 2006), 260–263Google Scholar.

66. “Country information: Zambia,” http://www.agoa.info.

67. Lewis et al., “South Africa,” 156. On the parallels with Chile, see Winn, Peter, “‘No Miracle for Us’: The Textile Industry in the Pinochet Era,” in Winn, Peter, ed., Victims of the Chilean Miracle: Workers and Neoliberalism in the Pinochet Era, 1973–2002 (Durham, 2004), 125–163CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68. FOCCISA, “The socio-economic impact,” 6–8.

69. On the union's increasing marginalization from negotiations in the 1990s, see Hirschsohn, Philip, Godfrey, Shane and Maree, Johann, “Industrial Policy-Making in the Auto, Textile and Clothing Sectors: labour's strategic ambivalence,” Transformation, 41 (2000): 55–88Google Scholar.

70. Etienne Vlok, “South Africa” in Jauch and Traub-Merz, 229–230 and 241.

71. 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 Valodia, Imraan, Lebani, Likani, Skinner, Caroline, and Devey, Richard, “Low-waged and informal employment in South Africa,” Transformation 60 (2006), 90–126CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72. Etienne Vlok, “South Africa,” 232–233 and “Country information: South Africa,” http://www.agoa.info.

73. See Bates and Krueger, Political and Economic Interactions, 444–471; and Murillo, Victoria, Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America, (New York, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74. See Buhlungu, Sakhela, ed., Trade Unions and Democracy: Cosatu Workers' Political Attitudes in South Africa (Cape Town, 2006)Google Scholar, especially chapters 4 and 6.

75. On new organizations, see http://www.streetnet.org.za.

76. On the possibilities and challenges of trade-union collaboration with other groups, see Spooner, Dave, “Trade Unions and NGOs: The Need for Cooperation,” Development in Practice 14:1–2 (February 2004): 19–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ballard, Richard, Habib, Adam, Valodia, Imraan, and Zuern, Elke, “Globalization, Marginalization and Contemporary Social Movements in South Africa,” African Affairs 104:417 (October 2005): 615–634CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77. See Benjamin, “Beyond ‘lean’ social democracy,” 34 on this point.

78. Pitcher, “Forgetting from Above.”

79. E. Salela, “Era uma vez o 1° de Maio,” Letter, Notícias, May 2, 1997.

80. Harvey, A Brief History, 175–182.

81. 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.

82. Rakner, Political and Economic Liberalisation, 178.

83. Devon Pillay, “Cosatu, Alliances and Working-class Politics” in Buhlungu, ed., Trade Unions and Democracy, 167–198.

84. 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.

85. Sheldon, Pounders of Grain, 240–247; see also José Sixpence and Jorge Rungo, “A greve continua,” Domingo, August 19, 2002.

86. Webster, Edward, Wood, Geoffrey, and Brookes, Michael, “International Homogenization or the Persistence of National Practices? The Remaking of Industrial Relations in Mozambique,” Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations 61:2 (2006): 247–270CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87. von Holdt, Karl, Transition from Below: Forging Trade Unionism and Workplace Change in South Africa (Scottsville, SA, 2003), 265Google Scholar.

88. 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).