scholarly journals Confronting White Labourism: Socialism, Syndicalism, and the Role of the Scottish Radical Left in South Africa before 1914

2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Kenefick
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Working Class ◽  
South African ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Early Labour ◽  
History Of ◽  
White Workers ◽  
Radical Left

SummaryDominated by the ideas of the “communist school”, the early history of the socialist and revolutionary syndicalist movement in South Africa has (until relatively recently) been largely overlooked by labour historians. From this approach emerged the view that the dominant voice of white workers in South Africa was British, and to a lesser extent Australian, and that their blend of class and racial consciousness resulted in the widespread support for the common ideology of white labourism. Indeed, support for this system of industrial and racial segregation was prevalent across the British Empire, was widely supported by the imperial working class, and in South Africa was never seriously challenged or confronted before 1914. Over recent years, however, South African labour historians have made efforts to rethink their national labour history by examining the early labour movement and the ideology of white labourism in a global context. This article adopts a similar approach and argues that the politics of white labourism was not uniformly embraced by the imperial working class, and that in South Africa there was a vocal and active non-racialist movement which sought to confront racism and segregation, dispute the operation of the “colour bar”, and challenge the white protectionist policies of the labour and trade-union movement. In conclusion, it will be argued that the campaign to confront white labourism was disproportionately influenced by radical left Scottish migrants who adhered firmly to the colour-blind principles of international socialism and revolutionary syndicalism.

scholarly journals "COMPANY OF MUTUAL AID OF PRIVATE CUSTOMERS" OF GALICIA: ANALYSIS OF THE STATUTE AND ACTIVITY

2017 ◽  
pp. 72-77
Author(s):  
Ihor Berest
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Present State ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Mutual Assistance ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Significance

On the basis of trade union periodicals, the principle of historicism, scientific and objective approach, the article analyzes and shows the statute and activities of the trade union of private servants of Eastern Galicia. The present state and development of the historiography of the problems, the history of the trade union movement was investigated, it was proved that the main event in the trade union movement of the middle of the ХІХ century became social processes in Eastern Galicia, which created a new working-class movement on the material and moral protection of workers. The study of this problem has an important scientific significance, since it enables to show the work of the first professional union of private employees, to analyze their program document and to show the evolution of trade union movement until the adoption of the Constitution of 1867. Among the works devoted to this topic, unfortunately, there are no monographs or scientific researches by Ukrainian scholars, therefore, in the article we rely on the study of Polish scholars: Bali Stanislav, Kishchinsky Lucian, and trade union periodicals, where there is an attempt to present the history of trade union movement in a new course of events. Thus, we can conclude that the Society for the Mutual Assistance of Private Servants was formed, the founding of which was sought or projected by employees from 1846. And, despite for political blockages, or attacks by employers and many other reasons, the suspension of the creation of a basic document, however, achieved the goal of 1867 - the Society began its activities.

scholarly journals Book Review: The Spirit of Marikana: The Rise of Insurgent Trade Unionism in South Africa by Luke Sinwell with Siphiwe Mbatha

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Broster
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Working Class ◽  
South African ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Economic Freedom ◽  
The Past ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
History Of ◽  
South African Police

Despite its title, this book does not look exclusively at the massacre that occurred at Marikana on 16 August 2012, when South African police officers shot and killed 34 striking mineworkers and wounded 78 others. Rather, it places that event in the context of a longer, larger struggle for dignity and economic freedom by the working class in South Africa. The authors did not do this to trivialise this significant event but to implore the reader to recognise that it was one moment, one particular incident in a long history of struggle and conflict, one that is not necessarily more important than another. As such, it pursues what George Lipsitz has called the ‘long fetch’, looking into the past and identifying the forces that slowly shaped what may otherwise appear to have been sudden and inexplicable.1 The book does this by attempting to describe the tensions between the various ‘ordinary’ individuals – the striking employees of Lonmin’s platinum mine at Marikana – and their relationships to the labour collectives they started, helped lead, or held to account. It attempts to show how understanding these tensions is crucial to understanding the events that occurred at Marikana, and understanding South Africa as an economic project.

The Rise and Decline of the Democratic Organizational Culture in the South African Labor Movement, 1973 to 2000

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sakhela Buhlungu
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Culture ◽  
South African ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
The South ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
The Past ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Union Democracy ◽  
History Of

From 1973 to 2000, the emerging black union movement in South Africa made efforts to construct a collectivist and democratic organizational culture. The development and decline of this culture correspond with three phases in the history of the black trade union movement. Political and economic changes in the past fifteen years have affected this culture, specifically the unions' political engagement and new pressures arising out of globalization. However, although it is true that union democracy in the South African labor movement is under stress, it is premature to conclude that this labor movement has become oligarchic.

scholarly journals Temporary Employment Services (Labour Brokers) in South Africa and Namibia

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Stefan Van Eck
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Temporary Employment ◽  
International Labour Organisation ◽  
Employment Services ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Court Of Appeal

South Africa currently allows labour broking although this area of commerce is problematic. The trade union movement, government and organised business are presently debating the future regulation of this industry. Namibia has experimented with, and failed, to place a legislative ban on labour broking. The Supreme Court of Appeal of Namibia considered International Labour Organisation conventions and provisions of their Constitution before concluding that labour broking should be regulated but not prohibited. In this article it is argued that South African policy makers can gain valuable insights from the Namibian experience. It is submitted that it would be appropriate for Parliament to take cognisance of international and foreign principles and to accept amendments that would provide for stricter regulation for labour broking, rather than placing an outright ban on this economic activity.

South Africa: from apartheid to xenophobia

Race & Class ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Pervaiz Khan
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Working Class ◽  
South African ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
Global Economic Crisis ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

How to explain the violent xenophobic attacks in South Africa in recent years? Two militant South African activists, Leonard Gentle and Noor Nieftagodien, interviewed here, analyse the race/class bases for the anti-foreigner violence in terms of the echoes/reverberations of apartheid and the rise of neoliberalism. They argue that remnants of apartheid have endured through the reproduction of racial and tribal categories, which has contributed to the entrenchment of exclusionary nationalist politics and the fragmentation of black unity. South Africa’s specific history of capitalist development, the African National Congress’s embraces of neoliberalism, on the one hand, and rainbowism, on the other, have produced the underlying conditions of precarity and desperation that resulted in the normalisation of xenophobia. The unions, too, have failed to recognise the new shape of the ‘working class’. Gentle and Nieftagodien outline the need to contend with the broader social conditions, the global economic crisis, neoliberalism and the deep inequalities it engenders in order to counteract the rising tide of xenophobia and build working-class unity.

‘Limping, Yet Made to Climb a Mountain!’ Re-Reading the Vashti Character in the Hiv And Aids South African Context

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madipoane Masenya (Ngwan’A Mphahlele)
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
External Factor ◽  
Hiv And Aids ◽  
African Women ◽  
South African Context ◽  
Land Grabbing ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
African Context

The history of the Christian Bible’s reception in South Africa was part of a package that included among others, the importation of European patriarchy, land grabbing and its impoverishment of Africans and challenged masculinities of African men. The preceding factors, together with the history of the marginalization of African women in bible and theology, and how the Bible was and continues to be used in our HIV and AIDS contexts, have only made the proverbial limping animal to climb a mountain. Wa re o e bona a e hlotša, wa e nametša thaba (while limping, you still let it climb a mountain) simply means that a certain situation is being aggravated (by an external factor). In this chapter the preceding Northern Sotho proverb is used as a hermeneutical lens to present an HIV and AIDS gender sensitive re-reading of the Vashti character in the Hebrew Bible within the South African context.

Implications for the age of South African Devonian rocks in which Tropidoleptus (Brachiopoda) has been found

1983 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. Boucot ◽  
C. H. C. Brunton ◽  
J. N. Theron
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
North America ◽  
South African ◽  
Early Carboniferous ◽  
Fossil Plants ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Marine Sedimentation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Near Shore ◽  
First Time

SummaryThe Devonian brachiopod Tropidoleptus is recognized for the first time in South Africa. It is present in the lower part of the Witteberg Group at four widely separated localities. Data regarding the stratigraphical range of the genus elsewhere, combined with information on recently described fossil plants and vertebrates from underlying strata of the upper Bokkeveld Group, suggest that a Frasnian or even Givetian age is reasonable for the lower part of the Witteberg Group. The recognition of Tropidoleptus in a shallow water, near-shore, molluscan association, at the top of the South African marine Devonian sequence, is similar to its occurrence in Bolivia, and suggests a common Malvinokaffric Realm history of shallowing, prior to later Devonian or early Carboniferous non-marine sedimentation. It is noteworthy that Tropidoleptus is now known to occur in ecologically suitable environments around the Atlantic, but is absent from these same environments in Asia and Australia. Tropidoleptus is an excellent example of dispersal in geological time — first appearing in northern Europe and Nova Scotia, then elsewhere in eastern North America and North Africa, followed by South America and South Africa, while continuing in North America.

South African Black Trade Unions as an Emerging Working-Class Movement

1989 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony W. Marx
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
South African ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Manufacturing Sector ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Labour Unions ◽  
Industrial Manufacturing ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
African Black ◽  
New Phase

The Recent resumption of popular protest signals a new phase in South Africa's internal opposition, characterised notably by the rising political engagement of black labour unions and their federations. Membership in these unions has reached over a million workers, reflecting the dramatic expansion of South Africa's industrial manufacturing sector in the last 20 years. With severe restrictions placed on the leading national and local political organisations since 1985, the unions have developed beyond their initially narrow concerns for their members into the forefront of opposition to established economic and political order. As a result, class consciousness and working-class organisation have increasingly been combined with, and taken precedence over, previous conceptions of opposition based on racial and national identity. This development has exacerbated both remaining ideological divisions and pressures for united action within the union movement.

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