This report is concerned with unpacking the influential yet misunderstood “workerist”
phenomenon that dominated the major independent (mostly black) trade unions born in the
wake of the 1973 Durban strikes. “Workerism” is widely recognized as being concentrated in
the Federation of South African Trade Unions (Fosatu). Workerism remains a source of much
controversy in labour and left circles; this is due to the massive influence it commanded within
the with black working class in its brief heyday, and the formidable challenge it presents to the
legitimacy of nationalist movements and narratives attempting (then and now) to stake claims
on the leadership of the liberation struggle. This controversy has yet to be resolved: both
popular and scholarly attempts to theorise its politics are marked by demonstrable
inconsistencies and inaccuracies, often reproducing existing polemical narratives that conceal
more than they reveal. This paper contributes to that debate by deepening our understanding of
the core politics of the important workerist phenomenon – through an examination of primary
documents and interviews with key workerist leaders.
I argue that workerism was a distinctive, mass-based and coherent multiracial current,
hegemonic in the black trade unions but spilling into the broader anti-apartheid movement in
the 1970s and 1980s. It stressed class struggle, non-racialism, anti-capitalism, worker selfactivity
and union democracy, and was fundamentally concerned with the national liberation
of the oppressed black majority. However, it distanced itself from the established traditions of
mainstream Marxism and Congress nationalism – coming to a quasi-syndicalist1 position on
many crucial questions, although this ran alongside a far more cautious “stream”, akin to
social democracy. It fashioned a radical approach to national liberation that combined anticapitalism
with anti-nationalism on a programme that placed trade unions (not parties) centrestage
– a notable characteristic that made it the object of much suspicion and hostility.
In the longer term, workerists developed a two-pronged strategy. This centred on,
first, “building up a huge, strong movement in the factories” – strategically positioned at key
loci of power in the economy (key sectors, plants and regions), with a view to “pushing back
the frontiers of control”; second, it incorporated an extensive programme of popular education
to ignite the growth of a “counter-hegemonic” working class politics, consciousness, identity
and culture, thereby “ring-fencing workers from the broader nationalist history of our country”
and continent. Right at the epicentre of this radical project was the creation of a conscious,
accountable and active (in workplaces and communities) layer of worker leaders or “organic
intellectuals”.
I contend that a simple conflation of workerism with a form of Marxism, although
prevalent in the literature, is misleading and inaccurate. Rather, workerism cannot be
understood unless in relation to the far more eclectic and varied international New Left –
through which it drew influence (direct and indirect) from a variety of sources, including
revolutionary libertarian currents like anarchism, syndicalism and council communism, as well
as others such as social democracy, and dissident forms of Marxism.
But the unhappy co-existence of these contradictory tendencies (quasi-syndicalism
and social democracy) interacted with a New Left-inspired, at times anti-theoretical,
pragmatism to leave workerism weakened - hampered by inconsistencies and
contradictions, expressed in ambivalent actions that were at once libertarian and more
statist, revolutionary and reformist, spontaneous and premeditated, “boycottist” and
“engagist”. This left a vacuum in the liberation struggle, paving a way for the
resurgence of nationalism under ANC leadership.
1 Here I refer to the historical tradition of anarcho- and revolutionary syndicalism, not the so-called
“Leninist critique”.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/13903 |
| Date | 20 February 2014 |
| Creators | Byrne, Sian Deborah |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
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