Trade Unions and Politics

Southern Africa . Vol.ll ~ ~~d]Y@lli~ April 1996 ,....... i' ., I .... ·r ~• A- I 0 -1 price$ 4.50 ~(QJl!dl101ffi®~lli ~if~fl©@], April1996 REPORT Vol. 11 No.3 Contents Editorial: Whose Globalization? . 1 COSATU: Old Alliances, New Strategies .... 3 COSATU and Corporatism: A Response to Eddie Webster . 6 "Globali zing" from Below: Southern Africa The Trade Union Connection . 9 REPORT Trade Unions and Politics: is produced 4 times a year by a volunteer collective of TCLSAC, What Next in Namibia 13 the Toronto Committee for Links between Southern Africa & Canada The World, Society and the Individual 17 603-1/2 Parliament St. Toronto, M4X 1P9 Democratizing Heritage: Tel. (416) 967-5562 The South African Challenge 22 Email [email protected] Submissions, suggestions and help in production are welcome and invited. Zambia and the Media - a letter 25 ISSN 0820-5582 SAR is a member of the Canadian Failure in the Townships? Magazine Publishers Association. The Development Bottleneck 26 All rights reversed. "In Search of Hope": Subscriptions Zimbabwe's Farmworkers 31 Annual TCLSAC membership and Southern Africa Report subscription rates are as follows: SUBSCRIPTION: SAR Collective Individual (1 year) . ... $18 .00 Institution . $40. 00 Margie Adam, Carolyn Bassett, Christine Beckermann, Lois Browne, Marlea Clarke, MEMBERSHIP: (includes subscription) David Cooke, Kourosh Farrokhzad, David Galbraith, David Hartman, Regular . $35.00 David Pattie, John S. Saul, Marit Stiles, Lauren Swenarchuk, Unemployed Joe Vise, Mary Vise Student $18 .00 Senior Sustainer over $100.00 Overseas add $10.00 Cover de~ign by Art W ork Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreemen t No. 569607 c: "'E -e I"' ·"0:;; 0"' A laid-off worker walks through his recently closed steel plant - 1992 Whose Globalization? In our last issue, under the gen the context of the stern global eco cussion. After all, South Africa eral heading "Southern Africa's nomic environment in which they possesses a much stronger economy Tragedy," we sought to locate the find themselves. We did not, on than any of the countries we did fo troubled circumstances of a number that occasion, include South Africa cus upon and is, at least for the of southern African countries - An within the frame of such a dis- moment, much less "tragically" sit gola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe - in uated than most of its neighbours. Southern Africa REPORT april 1996 1 And yet South Africa cannot eas Africa only in passing, we have of governments increasingly com ily escape the contradictions created found it - alongside other of Leys' promised in their dealings with by its insertion into the process of recent writings referred to in the that economy elsewhere in south "globalization" that it is now so dif editorial of our last issue - a useful ern Africa. For this reason we are ficult , everywhere, to ignore. Con point of reference in our work and, pleased to include here Gretchen sider, for example, the exchange we on that basis, recommend it as a · Bauer's careful and sympathetic feature in this issue between Eddie brilliant "backgrounder" to current analysis of the current status of the Webster and Leo Panitch - labour policy debates throughout southern trade unions in Namibia- while also linked activists both, but also South Africa ... and also here at home. noting with interest just how impor Africa's leading industrial sociolo Throughout southern Africa ... tant she feels a vibrant labour move gist and Canada's preeminent politi and in Canada as well. Here Leys' ment to be in safe-guarding politi cal scientist, respectively - regarding article also provides a useful bridge cal and economic democracy in that the strengths and weaknesses of the to another of the articles that form country. South African trade unions' present the core of this, our "labour issue": Moreover, Bauer's attempt to politico-economic strategies. At the Judith Marshall's careful and illu give voice to labour and its "pro core of their disagreement in this minating account, drawn from her gressive" allies in civil society seems debate is , precisely, a difference of own first-hand experience, of some particularly important in a regional opinion reg.arding the presumed im of the novel links that are cur context where, too often, popular as peratives of globalization and what, rently being forged between Cana sertions have now begun to be dis if anything, trade unions might do dian trade unions and their South credited - in the name of "realism," to resist them. African counterparts. For Marshall "responsible planning," and, no sur Thus, where Webster sees new emphasizes, quite specifically, the prise, "global imperatives." Such opportunities for working class self way in which this labour solidar discrediting is occurring in debates assertion in the apparent compro ity is increasingly being grounded about South African urban devel mises with corporate power and are in a shared understanding, at both opment, for example: in attacks formist state that the South African ends of the exchange, of the vulner often launched upon the "unrea labour movement seems compelled ability of workers to capital's world sonable expectations" that are said to adopt, Panitch fears a "corpo wide dictate. And such solidarity to exist, negatively, in the town ratist" outcome that will be increas can contribute, in turn, to creating ships. And yet, as Greg Ruiters ingly detrimental to the hopes of the kind of active global "civil soci and Patrick Bond document in these ordinary South Africans for a bet ety" whose political assertions might pages, the new South African regime ter life. And where Webster seems eventually democratize and social is still very far from discovering ef to envision little alternative to the ize a globalization process that cur fective means for realizing even the labour movement's seeking merely rently seems beyond workers' con most "reasonable" of expectations to "modify" (rather than transform) trol. that are held by township dwellers the capitalist structures that cur * * * in that country. rently drive South Africa's economy, In this issue, too, you will find Panitch smells disaster in the logic Of course, workers face the chal lenges of the global economy and South African writer and cultural of "competitiveness" and "business activist Luli Callinicos worrying as usual" that underpins such com aloud (during a recent Toronto promises. visit, reported on below) about We will leave our readers to the dangers of depoliticizing, in arbitrate this debate for themselves. the name of "reconciliation ," the However, they may wish to do so II people's own history of oppression in light of the more general article ARTCRAFT I ACTION PRINT and resistance. This is a history by Colin Leys on the nature of Specialists in Multicolour and that, Callinicos reports, is struggling the globalization process that we Black & White pre-press, to find its voice, with important, include in the present issue. His printing and finishing potentially positive, implications, key themes: "The assumptions on Newsletters * magazines * brochures within the culture of a new South .,.. which the globalization process rests Envelopes of all sizes are our forte Africa. Fortunately, she can also . are literally absurd" and that Business and Personal Stationery report that on this terrain - the "any society that is not in a position terrain of "heritage" - real progress to resubordinate. the market will Desktop output *& *camerawork· * services is being made despite countervailing be destroyed by it." While the 2370 Midland Ave., Unit C-10, Scarborough, pressures. So, in a phrase: cast of this article is, precisely, Ont MIS 5C6 (416) 412-<>412/Fax 412-<>414 "Historians of the world, unite." "global" and therefore deals with Call today for estimate and advice! Workers, too. 2 april 1996 Southern Africa REPORT 0 --------------------~Tilln©Till~------------------- COSATU: Old Alliances, New Strategies BY EDDIE WEBSTER It has signed GATT which is likely from 15.32% in 1979 to 57.98% Eddie Webster is professor of Industrial to send a. wave of anti-protectionism in 1993. Unions provided black Sociology at the University of the and deregulation rippling through workers with a voice, not only an Witwatersrand. one industry after another; abol economic voice in the workplace, ished the old financial rand; and but also a political voice dtrring the There is a great irony for COSATU sharply cutting real wages in the apartheid period. in the present political moment. public sector. More recently, the The existence of powerful 'polit After decades of opposition to GNU announced its intention to ne ical traditions' of resistance among apartheid, culminating in their gotiate "the restructuring of state black workers forced the labour strong electoral support for the assets" (or, if you prefer, privatisa movement to confront its relation African National Congress (ANC) in tion). ship with the national liberation the April 1994 elections, the unions Liberal commentators have wel movement. At the centre of this find their allies participating in a comed "this realism" as evidence "hidden world" was the national Government of National Unity (the that· "normal politics has at last be democratic tradition led by the ANC GNU) in which their main enemies gun" in South Africa, but find it and the SACP. Shortly after its are now their partners. They also odd that COSATU is willing to ac formation in late 1985, COSATU's face a global economy

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