What Has Happened to Organized Labor in Southern Africa?

2007 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Anne Pitcher
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Labor Legislation ◽  
Policy Adjustments

AbstractWhy 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.

The Politics of Structural Change

1993 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
GEOFFREY GARRETT
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Radical Reform ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Capitalist Democracies

The 1930s and the 1980s were decades of significant political economic change in the capitalist democracies. Depression and the rise of the industrial working class created opportunities for the establishment of social democracy in the 1930s. Stagflation and the decline of the working class made possible waves of radical rightist reform. However, this article suggests that only governments that do not have to concentrate myopically on the exigencies of winning the next election have the political space to undertake structural changes, the benefits of which may only be manifest in the medium term. In turn, successful reforms are likely to entail changes in underlying social structural conditions—such as the strengthening or weakening of organized labor movements—that both expand the electoral constituencies of the government's partisanpreferred policies and improve their macroeconomic efficacy. These propositions are examined with respect to the construction social democracy in Sweden in the 1930s and the construction of neoliberalism in Thatcher's Britain. Although the consequences of these two instances were diametrically opposed, the conditions that created the possibility for radical reform, and the strategies pursued by the governments to precipitate structural change were very similar.

Running the Gauntlet: British Trade Unions under Thatcher, 1979–1988

ILR Review ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Towers
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Manufacturing Sector ◽  
British Economy ◽  
British Trade ◽  
Labor Legislation ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Part Time

This article describes and appraises the difficulties experienced by British unions since 1979. During that period, union membership has declined over 20 percent and three successive Conservative governments have enacted labor legislation opposed by unions. The author views the government's strongly unfavorable treatment of unions as a powerful force, but argues that economic and structural changes, such as the growth of temporary and part-time workers and the decline of the manufacturing sector, are likely to have more lasting adverse effects. Unions are adopting various strategies to try to counteract the decline of their membership, including innovative organizing methods and expanded services for members. The fate of the unions will depend, the author concludes, on the success of those strategies, changes in the British economy, and the Labour Party's fortunes in future general elections.

scholarly journals On the studies of the regular character, factors, effects and perspectives of the working time dynamics in modern economy

POPULATION ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-168
Author(s):  
Aleksandr V. Zolotov
Keyword(s):  
Labor Productivity ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Substitution Effect ◽  
Working Time ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Time Dynamics ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Labor Legislation ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Time Reduction

The article examines a significant array of the scientific works devoted to different aspects of the working time dynamics. The conclusion is made that the main measure of this dynamics is the average number of hours worked per worker. This indicator can be used for analysis of all periods of labor activity including seniority. It is stated that the research on the problem shows a long-run trend of working time reduction. The works devoted to the topic also consider other factors affecting length of work: increase of labor productivity, influence of income effect and substitution effect on individual labor supply, motivation of employers, role of trade unions and collective bargaining, labor legislation. There are presented approaches to explanation of differences in the dynamics of working time in the USA and in West Europe. It is taken into account that the working time reduction during the past decades is characterized as one of the preconditions of pension reforms. There are considered works that contain analysis of the effects caused by the changes in working time length, including their impact on workers' health, work-life balance, gender inequality, unemployment rate, labor productivity, environment, perception the life as happy. The article shows a significant interest of researchers to perspectives of the working time dynamics in the context of analysis of J. M. Keynes's prediction about switch to 3-hour shifts by 2030. It is stated that the problem of perspectives of the working time dynamics is becoming one of the key issues in discussing the concept of Universal Basic Income. The article notes the attention of researchers to experiments on the working day reduction to 6 hours.

Labor Politics in Latin America

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul W. Posner ◽  
Viviana Patroni ◽  
Jean François Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Labor Politics ◽  
Labor Legislation ◽  
Democratic Transformation ◽  
Time Frames

Labor Politics in Latin America assesses the capacity of working-class organizations to represent and advance working people’s demands in the era of globalization and neoliberalism, in which capital has reasserted its power on a global scale. The book’s premise is that the longer-term sustainability of development strategies for the region is largely connected to the capacity of working-class organizations to secure a fairer distribution of the gains from growth through labor legislation reform. Its analysis suggests the need to take into consideration the wider structural changes that reconfigured the political maps of the countries examined (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Venezuela), for example, globalization and its impact on democratic transformation in the region, operating within longer time frames. It is precisely this wider structural analysis and historical narrative that allows the book’s case studies to show that, even in the uncovering of substantial variation, what becomes evident in the study of Latin America over the last three decades is the overwhelming reality that for most workers in the region, labor reform—or the lack thereof —in essence increased precarity and informality and weakened labor movements.

scholarly journals Households savings and inflation expectations: Cointegrated evidence from South Africa

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 572-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahlomola Khumalo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Unit Root Test ◽  
Inflation Expectations ◽  
Impulse Response Functions ◽  
Household Savings ◽  
Explanatory Variables ◽  
Expected Inflation ◽  
Long Run

The main aim of this paper is to find out if expected inflation by different sectors has a long-run effect on household savings in South Africa for the period 2002Q1 to 2013Q4. This is established using cointegration and innovation accounting techniques (variance decomposition and impulse response functions). Prior to the establishment of such relationship, the time series properties of data are performed and this include, the unit root test (Zivot-Andrews) in order to establish the stationarity within the series. The cointegration test reveals the existence of the long-run relationship between household savings and expected inflation in South Africa. Innovation accounting techniques indicated a significant contribution of the explanatory variables to household savings. VD shows that inflation expectations from analysis (A), business (B), finance (F) as well as trade unions (TU) bring some innovations into HHS and that variations in HHS are largely due to changes in expected inflation from TU. This is also supported by the GIRFs, which indicate that HHS reacts to shocks in expected inflation

Region of Birth and Child Mortality among Black Migrants to South Africa: Is there a foreign-born advantage?

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany L Green ◽  
Amos C Peters
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Child Mortality ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Black Immigrants ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Region Of Origin ◽  
Child Deaths

Much of the existing evidence for the healthy immigrant advantage comes from developed countries. We investigate whether an immigrant health advantage exists in South Africa, an important emerging economy.  Using the 2001 South African Census, this study examines differences in child mortality between native-born South African and immigrant blacks.  We find that accounting for region of origin is critical: immigrants from southern Africa are more likely to experience higher lifetime child mortality compared to the native-born population.  Further, immigrants from outside of southern Africa are less likely than both groups to experience child deaths.  Finally, in contrast to patterns observed in developed countries, we detect a strong relationship between schooling and child mortality among black immigrants.

Reverend Doctor Sox Leleki and His Role in the Black Methodist Consultation

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonwabile Mancotywa
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Individual Member ◽  
Methodist Church ◽  
Role Players

The Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA) is one of the mainline Christian denominations with a very good history. However, it was not immune from the larger political influence of South Africa that was polarised by apartheid. This article is intended to look at the formation known as the Black Methodist Consultation (BMC), which at that time had an individual member who played an important role in its development and activities. Sox Leleki was one of the key role players of this movement inside the Methodist Church

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document