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Labour Studies: Working Class Education Series No STRATEGY: DEBATING POLITICS WITHIN AND AT A DISTANCE FROM THE STATE LABOUR STUDIES: WORKING CLASS EDUCATION SERIES NO. 1/2019 EDITORS: John Reynolds & Lucien van der Walt CONTRIBUTORS: Laura Alfers, Colm Allan, David Fryer, Mazibuko Jara, Gilton Klerck, Ayanda Kota, Warren Mcgregor, Lalitha Naidoo, Kanyiso Ntikinca, John Reynolds, Nicole Ulrich & Lucien van der Walt. Labour Studies: Working Class Education Series | No. 1/2019 Strategy: Debating Politics Within and at a Distance from the State Publisher: Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU), Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa Contributors: Laura Alfers, Colm Allan, David Fryer, Mazibuko Jara, Gilton Klerck, Ayanda Kota, Warren McGregor, Lalitha Naidoo, Kanyiso Ntikinca, John Reynolds, Nicole Ulrich and Lucien van der Walt. Editors: Edited by John Reynolds and Lucien van der Walt. © NALSU and the contributors This material may be used for non-profit organisations. We do request that such users acknowledge NALSU as well as individual authors of any section cited. No part of the booklet may be reproduced by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise for the purposes of profit without the prior written consent of the copyright holder. Every effort has been made to contact and acknowledge any other copyright holders. However, should any infringements have occurred, NALSU would like to be notified. We take this opportunity to offer our apologies. In the event of a reprint, these will be corrected. First edition: December 2019 ISBN: 978-0-620-86598-2 (print) ISBN: 978-0-620-86599-9 (e-book) NALSU contact details: Physical address: Neil Aggett House, 6 Prince Alfred Street, Grahamstown Postal address: PO Box 94, Grahamstown, 6140, South Africa Contact: Mr Valance Wessels (046) 603 8939 [email protected] Online: https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/ Cover photo: Autoplastic workers on strike, South Africa. Held in Taffy Adler Papers, AH 2065/J142, Historical Papers, University of the Witwatersrand. Labour Studies: Working Class Education Series | No. 1/2019 Contents About NALSU’s Eastern Cape Worker Education project ................................................................................. i What is NALSU? ................................................................................................................................................. i Eastern Cape Worker Education Project............................................................................................................ i Vuyisile Mini Winter Schools ............................................................................................................................. i Short course programme: Policy, Theory and Research for Labour Movements .............................................. ii Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................ 1 Section 1: The state and state power ............................................................................................................. 11 1.1 Overview of theories of the state ........................................................................................................... 12 1.2 Understanding the South African state .................................................................................................. 23 1.3 The state and labour law ........................................................................................................................ 28 Section 2: Engaging state power .................................................................................................................... 34 2.1 Engaging power within the state ............................................................................................................ 35 2.2 Engaging state power from the outside: Informal workers organising for social protection ................. 39 2.3 Modes of politics at a distance from the state ....................................................................................... 43 Section 3: South Africa and the global economy ............................................................................................ 51 3.1 The South African economy in global context ........................................................................................ 52 3.2 Global value chains and labour organisation ......................................................................................... 58 3.3 The state, accumulation and class formation after apartheid ............................................................... 62 Section 4: Economic policy in South Africa ..................................................................................................... 69 4.1 Disciplining the state: ratings and other global agencies ....................................................................... 70 4.2 Economists, economic theory and ideology ............................................................................................ 73 4.3 Economic policy from below: COSATU unions’ “radical reform” project ............................................. 78 Section 5: Giving content to democracy: struggles and strategies .................................................................. 84 5.1 Holding the local state to account: Participation, accountability and oversight in municipalities ......... 85 5.2 Organising to secure municipal service delivery ..................................................................................... 89 5.3 Organising rural communities to assert labour and other rights ........................................................... 93 5.4 The political party system and the working class ................................................................................... 99 Section 6: Stories of struggle: democratic practice for societal change ........................................................ 105 6.1 The long path to the solidarity economy alternative: critical reflections on Ntinga Ntaba kaNdoda’s work in Keiskammahoek....................................................................................................................... 106 6.2 Cooperatives co-producing social services: A case study from India .................................................... 111 6.3 Trade union democracy and prefigurative politics in South Africa ....................................................... 114 Labour Studies: Working Class Education Series | No. 1/2019 About NALSU’s Eastern Cape Worker Education project The Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) has been committed to labour education in the Eastern Cape since its inception. We view worker education as something to be undertaken in partnership with worker organisations, including engagement with such organisations about content and the approach that would be most advantageous to workers and would contribute to the strengthening of the working class movement. What is NALSU? NALSU, founded in 2012 and publicly launched in 2014, emerged from a partnership between Rhodes University and the Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEDEAT) of the Eastern Cape Provincial Government, guided by a Steering Committee that included representatives of COSATU and NUMSA, the Eastern Cape Socio-Economic Consultative Council (ECSECC), and others. Although NALSU is formally located in the Department of Sociology and Industrial Sociology at Rhodes University, the members of the NALSU team come from the following three academic departments: (i) Sociology and Industrial Sociology, (ii) History, and (iii) Economics and Economic History. NALSU is committed to labour studies, the development of a new generation of labour studies specialists, and supporting worker education as part of a commitment to working with unions and other working class movements. It runs a large seminar programme, which draws in activists, unionists, students and academics from Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown), and is research-active, including on policy issues. For more information on NALSU and its work, please see http://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/. Eastern Cape Worker Education Project Our Eastern Cape Worker Education Project has evolved from a broad commitment made at the launch of NALSU to an established winter school series and an approved short course for trade unions. Our approach to worker education is progressive and pro-labour in orientation; non- sectarian and non-aligned; university-based (and not in competition with other components of worker education in unions, LSOs and workplaces) offering a mixture of content, debate / critical reasoning, and hard skills in writing, analysis and basic research; academically rigorous; and located in structured partnerships with working class movements in building customised content. Vuyisile Mini Winter Schools NALSU has been central to the organisation and delivery of the Vuyisile Mini Winter Schools since their launch in 2015. Funded by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), each winter school brings together approximately 50 participants from a range of unions – mainly from East London, Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage – for four days of discussions and debates. The participants are fully-funded, and reside at Rhodes University residences for the duration. The fourth Vuyisile Mini Winter School was held in mid-2019. The winter school series is named after Vuyisile Mini, a well-known Eastern Cape trade unionist who was particularly active in Port
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