Labour rights indicators: a new resource for better understanding of labour rights in the world

by Mark Anner, David Kucera, Dora Sari

Is compliance with international labour standards good for economic development, or does non-compliance give countries a competitive advantage? Are we faced with a ‘race to the bottom’ with respect to labour standards? And how might the answers depend on a country’s level of development as well as on the particular industries and labour standards in question? In the absence of clear-cut answers, debates about the impact of labour standards on economic development have only intensified with the rapid expansion of preferential trade agreements including labour provisions as well as debates over such contested mega-regional trade agreements as the now defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which have generated heated discussions in a number of high-level policy forums.

As old as these questions are, we still lack anything like definitive answers to them. Knowing the answers should not call into question the objective of improving compliance with international labour standards, but rather inform the strategy by which this is pursued. In spite of there being a fair amount of research, a key bottleneck in moving forward is adequate measures for many international labour standards, particularly for freedom of association and collective bargaining (FACB) rights which are intrinsically difficult to measure. To address this gap, new labour rights indicators and an accompanying dataset, both focusing on FACB rights, have been launched by the Center for Global Workers’ Rights at Penn State University together with the Global Labour University.

From the ashes: the formation of a new trade union federation gathers pace in South Africa

Stephen Faulkner

There has been great interest in recent trade union developments in South Africa. The trade union movement in South Africa played a pivotal role in the struggle against apartheid, and the main federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), was widely regarded as a new chapter in mass-based, democratic and worker-controlled trade unionism. Indeed, for a time it seemed that the entire organised working class in Africa and beyond was looking forward to radical change by one of the most militant and determined workers’ movements to have emerged, especially given the ruination caused by so-called structural adjustment programmes across Africa and the South.

Sadly, millions of people both inside and outside South Africa are still coming to terms with the disappointment at what was promised in the democratic dispensation. This was dramatically reflected in the 2016 local government elections: in the wake of a series of corruption scandals and worsening unemployment, poverty and inequality, the ANC lost three metropolitan centers to the conservative Democratic Alliance (DA), and the number of votes for the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) rose significantly.

A harsh reality check revealed that the existing trade union federations were increasingly incapable, and even unwilling, to represent the growing needs of workers. Despite its revolutionary rhetoric and despite the wishes of those who sacrificed everything for it, the ANC in government has signally failed to radically transform South Africa. South African capitalism is safe to continue to exploit workers and preside over the most unequal country on the planet. 

Regression of workers’ unity in South Africa: Divisions postpone greater progress and ultimate victory

Alex Mashilo

In their classical work on the incessant class struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed, Marx and Engels (1848) discuss the necessity of workers’ organisation and their political unity as a class. This unity, they found, was sometimes upset by competition between workers. While there has been much attention on the recent fracturing in South Africa’s labour movement, I argue in this column that divisions have a long history in the country’s trade unions. Trade unions were introduced exclusively for white workers. This racial divide and rule became part of capital’s profit maximisation strategy, making black workers a cheap labour reserve for super-exploitation. They united and fought for the right to unionise. Recent divisions reflect the fragmentation of that unity because of competition.

The old fault lines
Workers’ unity is fragmented not only in South Africa but in many parts of the world. Trade union divisions in South Africa date back to the colonial establishment of capitalism in the country, to start with, as stated above, on the grounds of race. There is a massive literature about the problem. But studies examining its impact on the workplace in the context of South Africa’s transition to democracy, particularly those employing the useful concept of the ‘apartheid workplace regime’, emerged only recently. The concept is useful in locating old labour divisions in production relations and distinguishing between old and new grounds of divisions. New divisions are occurring in a terrain of democratic workplace and national transformation. 

COSATU still at the frontlines and championing workers’ rights

Bheki Ntshalintshali

COSATU (the Congress of South African Trade Unions) was born in 1985 at the height of the struggle against apartheid. It inherited the legacy of the 1973 Durban strikes, which generated new traditions of effective worker control, coupled with militancy on the ground. This signalled a renewed form of worker movement, driven by workers’ deep desire to own and control their organisations democratically. This type of worker movement effectively raised workers’ issues at the workplace and in communities, to unite different strands and movements of the working class into a broad struggle against apartheid.

The traditions and organisation of the various unions that merged into COSATU were differently shaped by history. Some were products of FOSATU (Federation of South African Trade Unions), which revived unionism in the belly of the beast, inside the country against racist employers and their racist state; others of SACTU (South African Congress of Trade Unions) from the Congress movement, which primarily aimed at the apartheid state and all its racist institutions. These were the primary orientations of the different unions that formed COSATU.

COSATU was formed to bring all workers together under one umbrella. A protracted negotiations process, lasting no less than four years, resulted in 500 000 workers coming together under the new giant’s umbrella in December 1985. However unity has often been elusive. Some unions, for political or organisational reasons, chose to remain outside the new umbrella.