Trade Unions and Democracy
COSATU Workers Political Attitudes in South Africa
Sakhela Buhlungu (ed)
210mm x 148mm
262pp
R 190.00
ISBN: 0-7969-2127-X
May 2006
Description
This title analyses the results of a survey of the political attitudes of members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) undertaken in the run up to South Africas third democratic general election in 2004. The survey was the third in a series, two previous ones having been conducted by some of the authors writing in the present collection before the elections of 1994 and 1999. The results of all three surveys are presented in an appendix, and taken together constitute a unique data base whose interpretation makes a major contribution to our understanding of contemporary South African history, notably with regard to how and why COSATU has become a major political actor within the tripartite alliance which links it to the ruling African National Congress and the South African Communist Party.
Carefully analysing both the changes and (remarkable) continuities which characterise workers political orientations, the book highlights not only the complexity (and contradictions) of COSATUs stand on the ANCs politics and policies, but the quite extraordinary extent to which the federations leadership reflects the opinions and attitudes of its base.
Reflecting upon these attitudes with regard to such issues as the growing informalisation of work, internal union and parliamentary democracy, black empowerment and the marginalisation of women within the trade union movement, the collection concludes with considerations of COSATUs relation to working class politics and the democratic transformation of South Africa more generally.
Written by leading scholars of the South African labour movement, this book constitutes a major challenge to competing views which present COSATU as representing, on the one hand, a labour aristocracy within a context of massive unemployment, and on the other, the core of an emergent political party to the left of the ANC. It is a resource which no serious student of South African politics can do without.
Reviews
"Based on a uniquely original data base, this is a major contribution to knowledge in the field of labour studies but will also be read carefully by analysts of South African politics.
Professor Dunbar Moodie, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
About the Author/s
Dr Sakhela Buhlungu is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Deputy Director of the Sociology of Work Unit (SWOP). Prior to joining SWOP as a research Office in 1994 he worked in the unions and in Labour-supporting organisations. He has done research and written widely on the changing nature of trade unionism in South Africa, union movements' political engagement, industrial relations and the 'new' social movements. He was on the editorial board of the South African Labour Bulletin for eight years (until 2001) and currently serves on the editorial boards of academic journals, Labour History and Society in Transition, as well as the governing board of NALEDI. He completed his doctoral thesis in Sociology in 2001 on the leadership and modernisation of the post-1973 unions in South Africa. Since 2002 he has served on the board of the Research Committee on Labour Movements of the International Social Association and edits its regular Newsletter. He has supervised many post-graduate students and has been a mentor in the SWOP internship programme since its inception.
