Mondli Hlatshwayo | University of Johannesburg, South Africa (original) (raw)
Papers by Mondli Hlatshwayo
South African Review of Sociology
Education as Change
After the announcement of a national lockdown by the South African state in March 2020, universit... more After the announcement of a national lockdown by the South African state in March 2020, university students and lecturers had to conduct learning activities online. In countries where reliable information and communications technologies exist, this transition was relatively smooth. Students were able to learn using internet-based online learning systems. This is not the case in South Africa. Based on in-depth interviews with some students and lecturers and the use of internet resources, this article demonstrates that the participation of students from poor and working-class households evinced many deficiencies. This is because South Africa’s information and communications technology infrastructure disadvantages poor and working-class households. The poor access to online learning that students from working-class and poor households experienced demonstrates that in South Africa the argument about the promise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which must supposedly be embraced by ev...
Studies in Social Justice
Post-apartheid South Africa is ravaged by crises of extreme unemployment, poverty, and inequality... more Post-apartheid South Africa is ravaged by crises of extreme unemployment, poverty, and inequality. While the majority who were politically excluded by apartheid can now choose their government through democratic elections, social and economic justice continues to elude them. Neoliberal policies which seek to reduce state expenditure on social services and promote state policies that protect the interests of big businesses at the expense of working-class and poor communities, along with corruption and abuse of power, are the primary causes of poverty and unemployment. However, what is missing in the assessments of social justice since the pre-1994 democratic era is the recognition that social justice organisations have not simply disappeared, but have actually remained involved in social justice struggles. Based on information from in-depth interviews and internet sources, this article records some of the partial victories scored through these struggles, albeit in the context of gene...
The Routledge Handbook of the Gig Economy, Sep 19, 2022
Abstract: Comparative studies on African trade unions are rare. However, as will be shown in this... more Abstract: Comparative studies on African trade unions are rare. However, as will be shown in this article, unions on the continent, specifically in Nigeria and South Africa, face similar obstacles and challenges. Although in different contexts, trade unions in Nigeria and South Africa both had to contend with the expression of colonialism and neo-colonial oppression in the workplaces. Post-independence, Nigerian unions had to mobilise against neoliberal policies, leading to confrontation with the dictatorship of the state. Similarly, in South Africa unions had to contend with workplace restructuring imposed by employees and the state in post-apartheid South Africa. Neoliberal attacks on workers and working conditions have also led to changes in the social composition of workers and the rise of precarious forms of work in both countries. Beyond that, union federations are also faced with fragmentation and division, weakening their position to challenge attacks on workers
The black South African trade unions were known globally for challenging apartheid in the workpla... more The black South African trade unions were known globally for challenging apartheid in the workplace and low wages. In fact, they played a significant role in the broad liberation movement which ushered in democracy in 1994. However, little is known about the unions’ ability to respond to production issues such as technological changes at the ‘point of production’. Using a case study of the Vanderbijlpark Plant currently owned by the global steel corporation ArcelorMittal International, this article shows that the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) - the biggest trade union in South Africa - adopted a bargaining strategy which consistently ignored production issues at the plant while focusing on wages and working conditions. This article suggests that this unidimensional strategy meant that building the union’s capacity was neglected, reducing its ability to respond proactively to technological innovation and work reorganisation. While it does not present union c...
The Thinker
Debates on the Fourth Industrial Revolution have tended not to focus on the direct relationship b... more Debates on the Fourth Industrial Revolution have tended not to focus on the direct relationship between all four technological revolutions and transportation – a crucial element of all technological surges. At the same time, scholarship on transportation has generally ignored the significance of transportation in all the revolutions. This article therefore seeks to strike a balance between these two extremes by showing that all the technological revolutions were also about transportation. In other words, the debates on the technological advances provide scholars, researchers, engineers, and working-class organisations with the space to foreground transport as an issue requiring special attention, especially in South Africa where the public transport system faces many challenges. Critically applying the prism of the four industrial revolutions, the article demonstrates that South Africa lags behind from a transport perspective, and still relies on the transportation of the Second Ind...
New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy, Dec 1, 2020
The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2019
The increase in precarious forms of work has been extensively investigated by scholars. However, ... more The increase in precarious forms of work has been extensively investigated by scholars. However, the implications of precarity for workers’ education have not been adequately explored. There is a great need for an approach to workers’ education that will advance the social and economic interests of precarious workers and other marginalised communities who are becoming a major segment of the workforce. Based on in-depth interviews, this article identifies education regarding wages, women and work, working conditions, labour laws and practical skills like public speaking, reading and writing as core elements of a curriculum for the education of precarious workers. Given that precarious workers tend not to be organised in formal structures, non-governmental organisations and trade unions will have to reach out to them to make sure that they provide alternative structures able to craft educational programmes that can build the confidence of precarious workers so that they can challenge ...
The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 2017
Scholarship on the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in South Africa tends to focus on quant... more Scholarship on the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in South Africa tends to focus on quantitative evaluation to measure the progress made in the implementation of EPWP projects. The number of employment opportunities created by EPWP, demographic profiling, skills acquired by beneficiaries and training opportunities related to the Programme form the basis of typical statistical evaluations of it, but exclude comment by the workers who participate in its projects. Based on primary sources, including in-depth interviews, newspaper reports and internet sources, this article seeks to provide a qualitative review of the EPWP from the perspective of the beneficiaries of municipal EPWP projects. Various South African government sectors hire EPWP workers to provide local services such as cleaning and maintaining infrastructure, but the employment of these workers can still be regarded as precarious, in the sense that they have no job security, earn low wages and have no benefits such ...
Education as Change, 2018
In South Africa, with few exceptions, scholarship on the modern labour movement which emerged aft... more In South Africa, with few exceptions, scholarship on the modern labour movement which emerged after the Durban strikes of 1973 tends to focus on trade unions that constituted the labour movement, strikes, collective bargaining, and workplace changes. While all these topics covered by labour scholars are of great importance, there is less emphasis on the role played by labour support organisations (LSOs) which, in some cases, predate the formation of the major trade unions. Based on an analysis of historical writings, some archival and internet sources, this article critically discusses the contribution of LSOs and their use of workers’ education to build and strengthen trade unions, which became one of the critical forces in the struggles against racial capitalism in the 1980s. In particular, it critically examines the work of the Urban Training Project (UTP) and the South African Committee for Higher Education (SACHED) workers’ education programmes as a contribution to building the...
Social Dynamics , 2021
Consistent with the large-scale re-emergence of precarious forms of work, in recent years literat... more Consistent with the large-scale re-emergence of precarious forms of
work, in recent years literature on precarious workers and their working
conditions has become one of the main strands in labour studies.
However, the literature on the nexus between precarious workers
and workers’ education is almost non-existent; and yet precarious
work is probably the future of labour at least under global capitalism.
In an attempt to fill the gap and make a contribution to the emerging
literature on precarious workers and workers’ education, the article
argues that the emerging workers’ education that has tended to be
ignored by the literature on precarious work is beginning to respond
to the fact that the workforce within South African borders has been
fundamentally restructured by the current phase of capitalism. The
decline of the trade union movement in South Africa in the 2000s
meant that precarious workers have limited resources to advance
their workers’ education agenda, but interestingly non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) and advice centres are gradually fling the gap
by engaging with precarious workers in education that is dialogical
and emancipatory. There is a similar trend in other countries, where
precarious workers are also defining their educational programmes
to improve their working conditions.
Review of African Political Economy , 2022
ABSTRACT Social movements often become spaces for learning, although this type of learning has be... more ABSTRACT
Social movements often become spaces for learning, although this
type of learning has been overlooked by activists and scholars alike.
Analysing the case of the collapsed Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF),
the article submits that the APF was not only an organisation that
challenged privatisation, but also a learning space for activists
from middle-class and working-class backgrounds. Non-formal
educational platforms, such as political education workshops,
organisational and practical skill training sessions and campaigns
organised by the APF and its partner organisations, were
instrumental in transferring skills to community-based activists.
After the demise of the APF, its activists applied the skills and
competences they had acquired to continue advancing social and
economic justice in other organisations. Furthermore,
community-based activists educated middle-class activists about
the conditions of working-class communities and the challenges
of building working-class movements in post-apartheid South
Africa.
Global Labour Journal, 2017
Technological innovation has had far-reaching implications for labour and for the world of work g... more Technological innovation has had far-reaching implications for labour and for the world of work generally. It has led to job losses, the creation of new jobs, the loss of some skilled positions and the creation of new ones, and an increase in the quality of products like steel. Literature that addresses union responses to technological innovation in production has tended to classify them as either reactive or proactive, with reactive responses predominating. This article examines how South African trade unions in the steel, automotive and chemical industries have responded to technological changes. Based on interviews and documentary analysis, it argues that the unions have adopted a rearguard approach, responding to technological changes only after management has already implemented them. Unions have tended to prioritise “politics from above” and traditional union issues such as wage negotiations. In addition, the current division within unions has contributed to their inability to...
Review of African Political Economy, 2018
South African Review of Sociology
Education as Change
After the announcement of a national lockdown by the South African state in March 2020, universit... more After the announcement of a national lockdown by the South African state in March 2020, university students and lecturers had to conduct learning activities online. In countries where reliable information and communications technologies exist, this transition was relatively smooth. Students were able to learn using internet-based online learning systems. This is not the case in South Africa. Based on in-depth interviews with some students and lecturers and the use of internet resources, this article demonstrates that the participation of students from poor and working-class households evinced many deficiencies. This is because South Africa’s information and communications technology infrastructure disadvantages poor and working-class households. The poor access to online learning that students from working-class and poor households experienced demonstrates that in South Africa the argument about the promise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which must supposedly be embraced by ev...
Studies in Social Justice
Post-apartheid South Africa is ravaged by crises of extreme unemployment, poverty, and inequality... more Post-apartheid South Africa is ravaged by crises of extreme unemployment, poverty, and inequality. While the majority who were politically excluded by apartheid can now choose their government through democratic elections, social and economic justice continues to elude them. Neoliberal policies which seek to reduce state expenditure on social services and promote state policies that protect the interests of big businesses at the expense of working-class and poor communities, along with corruption and abuse of power, are the primary causes of poverty and unemployment. However, what is missing in the assessments of social justice since the pre-1994 democratic era is the recognition that social justice organisations have not simply disappeared, but have actually remained involved in social justice struggles. Based on information from in-depth interviews and internet sources, this article records some of the partial victories scored through these struggles, albeit in the context of gene...
The Routledge Handbook of the Gig Economy, Sep 19, 2022
Abstract: Comparative studies on African trade unions are rare. However, as will be shown in this... more Abstract: Comparative studies on African trade unions are rare. However, as will be shown in this article, unions on the continent, specifically in Nigeria and South Africa, face similar obstacles and challenges. Although in different contexts, trade unions in Nigeria and South Africa both had to contend with the expression of colonialism and neo-colonial oppression in the workplaces. Post-independence, Nigerian unions had to mobilise against neoliberal policies, leading to confrontation with the dictatorship of the state. Similarly, in South Africa unions had to contend with workplace restructuring imposed by employees and the state in post-apartheid South Africa. Neoliberal attacks on workers and working conditions have also led to changes in the social composition of workers and the rise of precarious forms of work in both countries. Beyond that, union federations are also faced with fragmentation and division, weakening their position to challenge attacks on workers
The black South African trade unions were known globally for challenging apartheid in the workpla... more The black South African trade unions were known globally for challenging apartheid in the workplace and low wages. In fact, they played a significant role in the broad liberation movement which ushered in democracy in 1994. However, little is known about the unions’ ability to respond to production issues such as technological changes at the ‘point of production’. Using a case study of the Vanderbijlpark Plant currently owned by the global steel corporation ArcelorMittal International, this article shows that the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) - the biggest trade union in South Africa - adopted a bargaining strategy which consistently ignored production issues at the plant while focusing on wages and working conditions. This article suggests that this unidimensional strategy meant that building the union’s capacity was neglected, reducing its ability to respond proactively to technological innovation and work reorganisation. While it does not present union c...
The Thinker
Debates on the Fourth Industrial Revolution have tended not to focus on the direct relationship b... more Debates on the Fourth Industrial Revolution have tended not to focus on the direct relationship between all four technological revolutions and transportation – a crucial element of all technological surges. At the same time, scholarship on transportation has generally ignored the significance of transportation in all the revolutions. This article therefore seeks to strike a balance between these two extremes by showing that all the technological revolutions were also about transportation. In other words, the debates on the technological advances provide scholars, researchers, engineers, and working-class organisations with the space to foreground transport as an issue requiring special attention, especially in South Africa where the public transport system faces many challenges. Critically applying the prism of the four industrial revolutions, the article demonstrates that South Africa lags behind from a transport perspective, and still relies on the transportation of the Second Ind...
New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy, Dec 1, 2020
The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2019
The increase in precarious forms of work has been extensively investigated by scholars. However, ... more The increase in precarious forms of work has been extensively investigated by scholars. However, the implications of precarity for workers’ education have not been adequately explored. There is a great need for an approach to workers’ education that will advance the social and economic interests of precarious workers and other marginalised communities who are becoming a major segment of the workforce. Based on in-depth interviews, this article identifies education regarding wages, women and work, working conditions, labour laws and practical skills like public speaking, reading and writing as core elements of a curriculum for the education of precarious workers. Given that precarious workers tend not to be organised in formal structures, non-governmental organisations and trade unions will have to reach out to them to make sure that they provide alternative structures able to craft educational programmes that can build the confidence of precarious workers so that they can challenge ...
The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 2017
Scholarship on the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in South Africa tends to focus on quant... more Scholarship on the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in South Africa tends to focus on quantitative evaluation to measure the progress made in the implementation of EPWP projects. The number of employment opportunities created by EPWP, demographic profiling, skills acquired by beneficiaries and training opportunities related to the Programme form the basis of typical statistical evaluations of it, but exclude comment by the workers who participate in its projects. Based on primary sources, including in-depth interviews, newspaper reports and internet sources, this article seeks to provide a qualitative review of the EPWP from the perspective of the beneficiaries of municipal EPWP projects. Various South African government sectors hire EPWP workers to provide local services such as cleaning and maintaining infrastructure, but the employment of these workers can still be regarded as precarious, in the sense that they have no job security, earn low wages and have no benefits such ...
Education as Change, 2018
In South Africa, with few exceptions, scholarship on the modern labour movement which emerged aft... more In South Africa, with few exceptions, scholarship on the modern labour movement which emerged after the Durban strikes of 1973 tends to focus on trade unions that constituted the labour movement, strikes, collective bargaining, and workplace changes. While all these topics covered by labour scholars are of great importance, there is less emphasis on the role played by labour support organisations (LSOs) which, in some cases, predate the formation of the major trade unions. Based on an analysis of historical writings, some archival and internet sources, this article critically discusses the contribution of LSOs and their use of workers’ education to build and strengthen trade unions, which became one of the critical forces in the struggles against racial capitalism in the 1980s. In particular, it critically examines the work of the Urban Training Project (UTP) and the South African Committee for Higher Education (SACHED) workers’ education programmes as a contribution to building the...
Social Dynamics , 2021
Consistent with the large-scale re-emergence of precarious forms of work, in recent years literat... more Consistent with the large-scale re-emergence of precarious forms of
work, in recent years literature on precarious workers and their working
conditions has become one of the main strands in labour studies.
However, the literature on the nexus between precarious workers
and workers’ education is almost non-existent; and yet precarious
work is probably the future of labour at least under global capitalism.
In an attempt to fill the gap and make a contribution to the emerging
literature on precarious workers and workers’ education, the article
argues that the emerging workers’ education that has tended to be
ignored by the literature on precarious work is beginning to respond
to the fact that the workforce within South African borders has been
fundamentally restructured by the current phase of capitalism. The
decline of the trade union movement in South Africa in the 2000s
meant that precarious workers have limited resources to advance
their workers’ education agenda, but interestingly non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) and advice centres are gradually fling the gap
by engaging with precarious workers in education that is dialogical
and emancipatory. There is a similar trend in other countries, where
precarious workers are also defining their educational programmes
to improve their working conditions.
Review of African Political Economy , 2022
ABSTRACT Social movements often become spaces for learning, although this type of learning has be... more ABSTRACT
Social movements often become spaces for learning, although this
type of learning has been overlooked by activists and scholars alike.
Analysing the case of the collapsed Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF),
the article submits that the APF was not only an organisation that
challenged privatisation, but also a learning space for activists
from middle-class and working-class backgrounds. Non-formal
educational platforms, such as political education workshops,
organisational and practical skill training sessions and campaigns
organised by the APF and its partner organisations, were
instrumental in transferring skills to community-based activists.
After the demise of the APF, its activists applied the skills and
competences they had acquired to continue advancing social and
economic justice in other organisations. Furthermore,
community-based activists educated middle-class activists about
the conditions of working-class communities and the challenges
of building working-class movements in post-apartheid South
Africa.
Global Labour Journal, 2017
Technological innovation has had far-reaching implications for labour and for the world of work g... more Technological innovation has had far-reaching implications for labour and for the world of work generally. It has led to job losses, the creation of new jobs, the loss of some skilled positions and the creation of new ones, and an increase in the quality of products like steel. Literature that addresses union responses to technological innovation in production has tended to classify them as either reactive or proactive, with reactive responses predominating. This article examines how South African trade unions in the steel, automotive and chemical industries have responded to technological changes. Based on interviews and documentary analysis, it argues that the unions have adopted a rearguard approach, responding to technological changes only after management has already implemented them. Unions have tended to prioritise “politics from above” and traditional union issues such as wage negotiations. In addition, the current division within unions has contributed to their inability to...
Review of African Political Economy, 2018
As the struggle against neoliberalism becomes ever more global, Just Work will be the definitive ... more As the struggle against neoliberalism becomes ever more global, Just Work will be the definitive book on the growing social and political power of one its major forces: migrant labor. From trade unions in South Africa to resistance in oppressive Gulf states, migrating forest workers in the Czech Republic, and illegal workers’ organizations in Hong Kong, Just Work brings together a wealth of lived experiences and frontline struggles for the first time. Highlighting developments in the wake of austerity and attacks on traditional forms of labor organizing, the contributors show how workers are finding new and innovative ways of resisting. The result is both a rich analysis of where the movement stands today and a reminder of the potentially explosive power of migrant workers in the years to come.
Hlatshwayo, M. 2014. ‘Debating the nexus of education, skills and technology in the age of lean production: A case Study of the ArcelorMittal Vanderbijlpark Plant’, in Enver Motala and Salim Vally (Editors), Education, the economy and society in South Africa. Pretoria: UNISA Press.
Choudry, A. and Hlatshwayo, M. (2016) Just Work? Migrant Workers’ Struggles Today. In Aziz Choudry and Hlatshwayo, Mondli (eds) Just Work? Migrant workers, globalization and resistance". Pluto Publishers: London, pp 1 -17., 2016
Hlatshwayo, M. 2014. “Neo-Liberal Restructuring and the Fate of South Africa’s Labour Unions: A Case Study”. In Peter Vale and Estelle Prinsloo (Editors). The New South Africa at Twenty: Critical Perspectives. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu Natal Press.
Hlatshwayo, M. (2016) Xenophobia, Resilience, and Resistance of Immigrant Workers in South Africa: Collective and 6 Individual Responses. In Aziz Choudry and Mondli Hlatshwayo, Mondli (eds) Just Work? Migrant workers, globalization and resistance". Pluto Publishers: London, pp 21 -43., 2016
This research report is about the politics of production and forms of worker responses at the Isc... more This research report is about the politics of production and forms of worker responses at the Iscor Vanderbijlpark works in the period 1965 to 1973. Using the notion of politics of production, the research examines a factory regime and the responses of African workers in a context where trade unions of African workers were not operating overtly, political movements that attempted to articulate the political interests of African workers were banned, and activists from these movements were either arrested, working underground or operating in exile. This is the context after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, which is often characterised as the “dark” period or the period of “labour quiescence”.
Using Iscor as a case study, the research disputes the notion of labour quiescence. The research admits that management at Iscor controlled the labour process and that such control was derived from the apartheid state. Iscor is defined as an apartheid company state because it was an industrial project of the apartheid state, it used cheap black labour recruited through a racial, hierarchical and despotic factor regime, it engineered separate development in the town of Vanderbijlpark, and crafted and used institutions of total control such as compounds. Contrary to the thesis of labour quiescence, the research argues that workers were not merely passive recipients of managerial control and the apartheid company state. These workers crafted their own politics and approach as a response to the apartheid company state. They identified their oppressor and developed mechanisms for circumventing the oppressor and the apartheid company state.
In this thesis I am examining the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) and Soli... more In this thesis I am examining the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) and Solidarity’s responses to technological changes at the ArcelorMittal (formerly known as Iron and Steel Corporation of South Africa (Iscor)) Vanderbijlpark Plant in the south of the Gauteng province between 1989 and 2012. As part of the restructuring plans of the Apartheid government, Iscor South Africa was privatised in 1989. At that time the plant was also in a process of restructuring, which included technological changes and work reorganisation, the objective of which was to prepare Iscor South Africa and the plant for competing in a global steel market.
Therefore the subsequent technological changes in the plant were also part of the plant’s positioning in the global competition of the steel market. The ownership of the plant by ArcelorMittal International after 2006 meant that the plant was fully integrated into the global steel market because it became part of the other global plants of the ArcelorMittal International Group in other parts of the world.
Technological changes and work reorganisation led to a massive displacement of workers at Iscor South Africa. For example, in 1988, Iscor had about 59 000 employees and this number was reduced to about 9 300 employees in 2010.
The key objective of the thesis is to conduct a sociological analysis of trade union responses to the technological changes at ArcelorMittal Vanderbijlpark Plant. One of the discoveries of this thesis is that both trade unions – Solidarity and NUMSA- were not proactive in responding to technological changes at the plant. They argued for more consultation on technological changes, training, and deployment of workers who had been displaced by machines, work reorganisation, and retrenchment packages for retrenched workers. Solidarity, a predominantly white workers’ union, with its skilled workforce did not use its membership’s strategic location at the point of production to help it proactively to respond to technological changes.
On the other hand, NUMSA, a predominantly black union which was part of a vibrant anti-apartheid movement with traditions of grooming worker intellectuals, did not respond proactively to technological changes at the plant.
Even after the wave of restructuring and technological changes of the 1990s to early 2000s, both unions did not move away from a reactive approach towards a proactive approach to production technology. The two unions did not combine reproduction and production issues in their bargaining strategies. The unions were still focusing on wages or reproduction as a strategy of engaging factory owners. Production in the form of technological changes and work reorganisation was not being addressed by the union and yet changes in production processes play a major role in determining the number of workers in a plant and the profile of the workforce as shown in this thesis.
The reactive responses of both trade unions and a focus on wages is theorised as reproduction reductionism. This means that unions tend to focus on wages and other spheres of income such as politics of ‘upward mobility’ which play a central role in reproducing workers and their leaders. The focus on these issues means that the unions are prioritising reproduction over production. This then leads to management of the plant having free reign in the sphere of production and technological changes.