MA, Faculty of Humanities, Univesrity of the Witwatersrand, 2001

There is general consensus that the reorganisation of production and labour processes and shift in union ideological focus and growth of bureaucratic structures have resulted in the diminishing of a collective voice at most workplaces. This study explores the challenges facing shop stewards at the shop floor in their day to day activities in the aftermath of these changes and examines ways through which they get around them. The day to day activities of shop stewards is not a new phenomenon. However shop stewards have not been targeted as subject for study since democratisation. Where they were mentioned, it was mostly due to their involvement at the shop floor where they are required to carry the workers grievances to the management as well as explaining union standpoint to constituent. The study affirms arguments by previous researchers that shop stewards play a contradictory role, trying to satisfy the aspirations of the constituents who elected the stewards as well as management, the stewards’ pay master who expect the steward to be a social partner, though the relationship is highly unequal. The study noted that though they are social partners, management is insincere when it comes to work environment where it’s not meeting the minimum safety requirements. Moreover, union bureaucratic structures though they are meant to increase efficiency have wiped shop floor democracy since decisions are mostly handed down from the top, confirming the argument that as organisations grows bigger, they tend towards oligarchy. In-depth interviews were conducted at one plant in Wadeville and another on in Nigel local of NUMSA’s Ekurhuleni region. The interviews were complemented with documentary analysis as well as observation during shop steward council meetings.

There is an ongoing discourse among theorists on the real effect that globalisation has had on trade unions in different countries. Some trade unions in other parts of the world have experienced a massive decline in their membership through job losses and casualisation of labour. It is been believed that the freeing up of capital flows and the mobility of capital to name a few have all contributed significantly to this shift. In return, trade unions are left impotent because off their inability to protect the interests of their membership. This research explores the strategies that trade unions are using for survival in the context of a changing work environment. The changes in the workplace have been to a large extent attributed to globalisation pressures, which require fims or organisations to be competitive in order to compete on the global arena. This requirement to become competitive has translated in many implications for trade unions and most of these implications have affected labour drastically. This research in particular looks at the trade unions in the manufacturing sector in an attempt to establish whether or not the trends that have impacted on other parts of the world have also affected the local territory. Hullett Aluminium, Pietermaritzburg branch was researched as a primary source of data. This research makes use of qualitative data to study the phenomenon in-depth. Interviews were held with both the management and trade unions in the Hullett Aluminium plant in Pietermaritzburg. The research revealed that one of the most critical strategies at the heart of the union's survival is the training of its membership. This is due to the fact that there has been a shift from the demand of unskilled labour, and that those who were previously employed as such are becoming redundant. Thus, with the acquisition of skills, employees are able to be employable and not prone to job losses which affect the trade union's membership. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal,Durban, 2002.

University of the Witwatersrand Discipline of Psychology MASTERS RESEARCH REPORT / This study conducted a thematic content analysis qualitative methods approach to explore the perceptions of the “Impact of the 2012 Marikana labour unrest on labour and industrial relations in South Africa”. Perceptions of industrial relations stakeholder role efficacy; causes and consequences of labour-management conflict, intra-union conflict and inter-union conflict are discussed. Economic, political, sociological factors as well as the influence of group dynamics are discussed to frame the impact of the 2012 Marikana incident on labour and industrial relations in South Africa.

Student Number : 0376246 - PhD thesis - School of Humanities - Faculty of Arts / This thesis examines the building of power and how workers’ control and union independence augmented or detracted from this process in the National Union of Metalworkers and its predecessors from the 1980s to the mid 1990s. These unions aimed to accrue power to improve both their members’ working conditions and to effect political and economic transformation. In this process the building of non-racial national industrial unions that cut across the ethnically constituted state, the promotion of workers’ control, and political independence from formal political organisations were central. This thesis demonstrates how Numsa and its predecessors overcame obstacles to the accrual of power and scrutinizes reasons for failures in achieving pivotal ideological goals. In the early 1980s Numsa’s predecessors constructed greater degrees of democratic organizational and bureaucratic power. The formation of Numsa in 1987 allowed for the further construction of an efficient bureaucracy to support organizational and bargaining activities. It successfully forged national bargaining forums and built hegemony across the industry. In 1993 Numsa adopted a programme through which it hoped to restructure its industries in the transitional period leading up to a new democracy. It failed however to successfully implement the programme in its entirety. Tensions emerged in union goals as membership remained focused on increased wages whilst leadership was attempting to restructure industry, enhance worker skills and augment workers’ control in the workplace. In the political sphere Numsa was largely unable to effect a deeper infusion of its socialist leanings. Though Numsa and other Cosatu unions made an important contribution to the birth of a non-racial democracy, the capitalist state succeeded in demobilizing the trade unions in their pursuit of more fundamental systemic change. By the time Numsa produced the concept of a Reconstruction Accord, later developed into the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), the space to popularise a socialist perspective had been considerably reduced. Although Numsa forewent its early `party autonomous` position when Cosatu entered the ANC/SACP alliance, this was clearly far from a `state ancillary` stance. Though labour had won the right to be consulted in Nedlac and the right to strike, the possibility of dissent being diverted into bureaucratic chambers existed with a consequent loss of militant, strategic and ideological focus. Key words: trade union power, workers control, trade union independence, National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), National Automobile & Allied Workers Union (Naawu), Metal & Allied Workers Union (Mawu), Motor Industry Combined Workers Union (Micwu), post 1980 metal unions, metal union politics, metal union bargaining, metal union organisation, trade union alliances, trade unions and violence